Boating

Uncle Chris was true to his promise, and held on tightly to Caden the entire time. Notice we aren't even going fast enough to have a wake. This backfired when we went too slow and the front of the tube went under, taking all of us with it.


Helping Grandpa drive the boat.


While we had a great time, the day ended crazy when a lightning storm suddenly came and we had to hurry to the dock. We stopped to help a stranded boat. It was too windy and not going well, so Chris volunteered to jump in the water and pull the boat to the dock using a rope (you can do that in Utah lake--it's only 3 feet deep!) Luckily the park rangers showed up, but Chris still stayed on the stranded boat helping them get to shore.

Rolly Polly Juice

At the beginning of the summer, I did a lot of walking. I was trying to get baby ready to come so every day Caden and I would go for a few walks. Caden started looking for potato bugs, or Rolly Pollies. He would take an old container on our walks and would make me stop the stroller for him to catch them. We had to start putting a cap on the number of bugs he could catch, because I was tired of stopping so much.

When we got home from these walks, Caden would sit at his table and watch the bugs. It kind of grossed me out, but it also bought me 30-40 minutes every morning of quiet time, making it worth it.

The love for Rolly Pollies got serious. His grandma bought him a bug book from Target, and he studied and studied the page on potato bugs. If I tried to turn it to another page, he'd promptly turn it back claiming, "I was just on this page."

When we were in Utah, he continued his daily quest to catch the bugs. There is a special cupboard where my mom keeps containers and old cups for him to use to house them.

One night, my mom was taking some vitamin pills, washing them down with a glass of water. I heard her suddenly exclaim, "What is in my cup?!?" We turned on the lights to discover a dead rolly polly, floating in the bottom bit of water. Apparently, my mom had started storing her cup in the "special cupboard" so that she didn't have to dirty more than one dish a day. She just hadn't realized it was THE special cupboard and Caden must have figured anything in there was fair game.

What can I say--life can be adventurous with this little boy.

During Chad's 12 hours in Utah, the top thing on our to-do list was Bryce's blessing. Chad's brother in Oregon bought a plane ticket the night before to surprise the family, making all of our brothers present (minus one missionary).


It was a great way to spend the night. After the blessing both our families hung out at the church eating ice cream, playing basketball, visiting, and loving on our little boy.


Such a lucky boy to have all of his grandparents! Neither Chad or I had that. We are grateful to be able to see all of them so often.



Bryce is named after Chad's first and favorite mission companion (Elder Bryce) and his middle name is Alvin, after Chad's grandpa who sealed Chad and I.

Summer Time

This is the life:

Mutual Dale

Jason and Bryce


Chris and Grace
I loved being up American Fork canyon where I almost got my fill of smores.

Lindon Pool


While we were at another water park, 7-Peaks, Caden kept going down a small 3 foot slide head first. He would get to the bottom then just start swimming away, never coming up for air. So many times, strangers would reach out to grab him, pulling him from the water. They didn't know my three-year-old is a fish like that. They thought he was drowning and couldn't get up. Sometimes they'd look at me like, "Aren't you going to do anything about that?" and I'd just smile as my little swimmer kicked away.

Growing Up

Bryce:



We love our Bryce Boy! He is such a sweet little boy. Other than the normal 2 month old baby activities, he spends his time looking around for mom, dad, or Caden to talk to.


Caden:


Bringing home Bryce, Caden suddenly looked huge to me. Like a little man. And in a lot of ways he is.

He learned his alphabet by memorizing ABC Star Wars book. Never mind that neither he nor I have ever seen the movies, he is fluent in the lingo. Every where we go he points out "A for Anakin, B for Bobo Fett, D for Darth Vadar, K for kamionians."

He laments to me almost daily, "I'm the only one without a dog in my life."

If he sees something unfamiliar he'll say, "What the heck of this?" And I hear the question, "Cause why?" at least a thousand times a day.

He calls me several names: Lady, Princess, Wonder Woman...mostly I'm just happy to be called his mom.

Chad:

On his first day of his third year. He's halfway done with vet school. It's definitely bitter sweet as we can't wait to move on to "real life" but have LOVED the last two years of life.