September 2011

Ever since we went to Adirondack Extreme back in June/July, Kalvin has been very excited to someday be able to use a zipline for himself, so Duane got Kalvin a harness for his birthday (it can fit Tristen too though). We hooked them up to our clothesline in our backyard and the boys loved the feeling of being dangerous without the risk of falling all the way to the ground.

 Kalvin was a little more nervous than Tristen (Tristen is still at the invincible stage where he doesn't know the dangers of some things).

 To give some perspective at its height. It was probably a little over 8 feet high.

 Vaccuum fun.

 Call us crazy; we got a kitten.

 He is a cute little guy. Duane named him Loki (after the god of mischief). I'm not sure why we chose to set ourselves up for having a mischievous cat, but it was better than the name they had for him at the vet; Damon.

 Tristen loves all things soft, so a kitten is very tempting to squeeze.

It was cute to see Tristen go into my room, grab a pillow and put it next to Loki's bed so he could lay next to him for a few moments.

 Then Kalvin took over the bed next to Loki's...

 And Tristen got mad and attacked him.

Kalvin used to just take a beating from Tristen and walk away crying, but now Kalvin has found his less tender side and I have to break up brawls, daily. I still can't complain. I don't think they are either quite old enough to go at it all the time so they do have a lot of fun together still. I do not look forward to the day when they bicker and fight as much as I did with my siblings growing up.



 Each year our branch makes a trip out to Seneca Lake (about a 3.5 hour drive from Albany and just a half an hour past Palmyra). I was so excited to go this year since I didn't have any real babies and being pregnant I'm making sure to get all my "lasts" in before the next little guy comes! I went up on Friday morning with a friend (since Duane had to work that day) and then Duane met us up there that night at almost 10PM. The sad part was that we left by early afternoon the next day, so Duane didn't get much of an outdoor experience, but I still think the trip was worth it (plus we stopped and got a shower door off CL on the way home, though doing so made the trip home almost 5 hours). I just keep thinking, at least we didn't have a little baby that we had to stop every other hour for. We are very excited for this baby boy we'll have very soon though despite what it may sound like... lol.

So, on Friday at Seneca Lake we went out on the lake with the paddle boat, row boat and canoe. The kids had a blast and I really enjoyed the cool water as well.

One of Kalvin's best buddies, Logan and his dad and another sister in the branch.

Logan's sister, Lucy was nice to hold on to Tristen's hand, just in case he had any bright ideas about abandoning ship.

Lots of kids to tug around. The one in the blue, is the girl I drove up with. Her hubby drove up with Duane later that night.

Great buds!

And... the boat! The kids LOVED the boat so much and Brother Jessee was so nice to be very generous with ride times for each group of kids. Having the Jessee's in the branch the last couple months has been so wonderful. They teach our kidstitute class for now, till the next older missionary couple comes in November. Kidstitute is an institute class for mom's to bring their kids to during the day. It is the greatest idea! So, Brother Jessee gives us the lesson while Sister Jessee stays in the back of the room with the children. She is so great at coming up with activities for them. A couple things she's done is to have them frost sugar cookies (which made them wild! lol), they decorated paper pumpkins, picked colorful leaves outside and glued them to paper, coloring, paper airplanes). Anyway, Kalvin has grown very fond of Brother Jessee and literally EVERY time we see's him, Kalvin tries to tell him why he needs to come to our house. A couple weeks ago it was that Kalvin wanted him to come play basketball (though we don't have a hoop) and a frequent phrase from Kalvin is, "You can come in our car if you want." This week, Kalvin was telling Brother Jessee that he was welcome to come see his train set and brother Jessee kindly declined saying that he would come when we could plan it out a little better (next Sunday). Brother Jessee did suggest that he could drive them home from Kidstitute though so we got the kids car seats out and they were able to ride in Brother Jessee's BIG truck back to our house after kidstitute. The boys thoroughly enjoyed the ride!

Well, back to Seneca Lake...

It was so great riding with the boys in the boat. I love being out on the lake in a boat and the boys seemed to love it just as much as I did.

 Then the Jessee's got out the tubes and Kalvin could hardly wait for his ride. He went with a great bud, Logan.

About half way through (after I told Brother Jessee to speed things up), Logan decided he didn't like it much anymore and hid his face.

I thought it'd be fun to jump in with Tristen to go for a ride...

It really was not the best idea... being about 18 weeks pregnant, I decided not to go belly down and because of that, the first half of the ride Tristen was crying because we were getting splashed so much. The water was very cold... Once they got going a little faster, the water did not splash near as much and our ride was much more pleasant.

You can see how Tristen and I were just dragging... lol.

After I went, I decided to let Tristen try it on his own. He LOVED it! Of course Kalvin enjoyed it very much too. :-)

They just took things a little slower with the little guy on there, since I wasn't sure if Tristen would just decide to abandon ship.

All was good. Nearing the end of their ride I had looked away from them for a moment and when I turned back around, Tristen was gone. I didn't want to panick, but I asked around the boat if they saw if Tristen fell out. No one else knew either. Soon enough Tristen popped his head back up. He thought it was funny to pop up and down. Here you can see even after they stopped the ride Tristen was hiding on the bottom of the tube.

That night we had a fun campfire (that I was in charge of putting together). It was a lot of fun. We had a short spiritual thought by Brother Jessee and then played some games as the children roasted marshmallows for smores. I brought up a lot of hangers for roasting, but everyone seemed to have brought their own roasters. Tristen found use of all the other hangers that were not used...

The branch had a catered breakfast the next morning. It was yummy!

Then, we went out on the boat again. Here Tristen went with one of his buds, Lucas.

Duane got up to Seneca Lake late Friday night (about 10PM) then we were the last to leave camp at about 2:00 in the afternoon on Saturday, so his vacation was a bit short, but it was so worth the long drive.

Kalvin is not the most confident swimmer (AZ will fix him of that in a couple years), but his two buds had fun pulling him around in the kayak.

Duane went out for some fun on the tubs, he tried doing some tricks, but couldn't manage it with the odd triangle shape of the tube.

The boys went out again (Tristen is hiding).

Duane had a better idea to sit the other way with Tristen.

Our family in a canoe.

There is a tall 8ft. brick wall next to the lake that the boys couldn't stay away from... Here, Tristen is attempting to climb down to Duane.

 

Phew! September. Done.

October is even longer... but I've got to get it done before we leave for AZ in just 11 days! Wahoo! So excited for the trip and the boys are counting down with their paper chain. :-)