Trips to the lake...

We have managed to squeeze in a few trips out to the lake this year. We are so lucky to live in such a beautiful part of the country. Lake Couer d'Alene is one of my favorite places. Despite the fact that I've been exhausted much of the summer, I can always drag myself out to the lake! :)
One night, while we were waiting for Eric to meet us out there, Ben took Carter, Tucker and Olivia on a little canoe ride. My friend, Sharlene and I were able to just relax on the beach in the warm evening weather and chat.

Carter & Tucker ready for the ride...

Ben out with the kids. He had them so entertained. He was telling them stories and they were singing and they ended up being out there for quite a while! The kids were loving it.

After that they all got in the tub. Tucker was quite impressed with this waterfall in the bathtub. Our tub at home isn't quite so cool!

Taking advantage of the beautiful scenery. I obviously wasn't planning on having my picture taken that day... :)

Chi-town...

While I was in Alabama, my parents and brother went to Chicago for a wedding. These pictures were on her camera when I was getting the other pictures of Tucker off her camera. I just had to share pictures of another one of my most favorite places! I heart Chicago!
The Chicago river. The river they dye green every St. Patrick's day...

The north side. My old stomping grounds...



Buckingham Fountain...

And the view of the skyline and Lake Michigan...

Oh how I love Chicago. Seeing these pictures brought back a lot of memories! :)

O Jerusalem...

10 years ago today, I was headed here...

to experience wonderful things at places like this...

and have the time of my life with them...

Oh, how I will never forget that time!

I can not believe how fast time has flown by!

meanwhile at home...

While I was at girls camp, my mom came up and watched Tucker during the days while Ben was at work. I don't think that this child missed me one lick! He had so much fun with his grandma. Apparently, they did a lot of this:



And when daddy came home, they did some major bug catching. Tuckers new obsession. Well, he has always loved bugs, but now he has a little bug catcher.

These two are BFF's...





And they did a little of this:





I just had to share some of the cute pictures of my boys! It was nice to know that he was in good hands while I was gone! :)

Girls camp...

Girls camp was so much fun. I always love going and getting to know the girls better. Here is my experience with girls camp as a leader so far: 3 years ago I was a primary teacher. I was 7 months pregnant with Tucker and I was asked to go to girls camp. I, of course, was excited; pregnant and all. Immediately after girls camp that year I was called into the Young Women presidency and had Tucker. The next two years I was in YW and not pregnant and I didn't go to girls camp. At the end of last year, Ben and I were called as the nursery leaders in our ward and I was released from Young Women's. And again, I am asked to go to girls camp and again, I am pregnant!!! So, apparently I have to be pregnant and NOT in Young Women's to be asked to go to girls camp! :)
Anyway, I fell in love with our 1st year campers and YCL's!
There is, of course, a lot of braiding going on all week:

Our Bowdish ward campers:

Getting hosed off during a dance party at the fire pit:

Me & Kimmie:

Me and my fellow leaders, Debbie & Jenny. We had so much fun!

And of course, my new friends, Molly & Kate...

and Chelsea...

And some old friends, too. I'm so glad Katie was there. Love this girl!

And the Call girls, Lani & Sarah...LOVE them!!

And my other fellow leader (if that is what you can call us!) :) friends,Celeste & Laura...these girls crack me up! I'm SO SO SO glad they were there!

After all, girls camp is all about making new friends and having fun with your old ones! That was certainly accomplished this year! :)

13 weeks and counting...

OK...for those of you who live in Spokane and have been wondering why I have been a hermit these past few weeks.

Here it is...

Many of you have guessed it... but YES! I am pregnant!!! We are so excited. We have been waiting for an ultrasound to be done to make sure everything was going as planned, and we just had one on Thursday! Sure enough we saw the little bean bouncing around! I am 13 weeks along TODAY! And that means that I am DONE with my first trimester already! YEAH! My due date is Feb. 21st. I am feeling good. Exhausted all the time, but good! No sicknesses. I am one of those lucky few who has really good pregnancies (knock on wood!). I'm hoping for another boy so Tucker has a play mate and friend. And we have lots of boy stuff already. Ben wants another boy just because he wants all boys and girls scare him. :) And NO, we don't have any names picked out what-so-ever!

So, please don't be mad at me if you have noticed that I have been anti-social lately. Having a two and a half year old to chase after sure does make a pregnancy more tiring! :) But we are SO SO SO happy! :)

Nashville, Lexington and the trip home...

This trip...I don't even know where to begin! It started out like any other trip. My plane left Wednesday afternoon out of Nashville, TN. But, my sister in law, Terra was having surgery on Tuesday and my Mother in law and other sister in law, Lynlee were going up to help her after her surgery in Lexington, KY. Lexington is closer to Nashville than Montgomery, and I wanted to help too, and I wanted to see their place up there since we had never been. So we loaded up on Monday morning to ALL head to Lexington then on Wednesday afternoon, my Mother in law would just drop Tucker and I off in Nashville on her way back down to Montgomery. It all sounded great, in theory! I now like to refer to this trip as vomitfest 2009. We start out the trip heading north, we were going to drop Ben's other sister, Meribeth, off at her place in Birmingham on our way up. Well, we stop at Krispy Kreme in Birmingham to meet Meribeths husband and to get a little treat. What happens? I get car sick...again! I left Krispy Kreme a little surprise in their parking lot next to their building. I really couldn't hold it any longer! The boys had no idea and after a little detox and clean up, we were off again. 3 hours to Nashville. We determined at Krispy Kreme that maybe it was my mother in law's car that was making me car sick. She has a little Mazda 3 sportster and you can really feel every bump and curve of the road and it is really low to the ground. It was also the car I was driving in while getting car sick on our way down to the beach. So I got int he minivan with Lynlee and we were off to Nashville.

The way to Nashville was pretty un eventful. A few stops for food and potty breaks. This picture right here is pretty signifigant because little did we know, but at the time, this was Everett's 3rd Krispy Kreme doughnut. Everett is a pretty big eater, and between me and Ben's two sisters we all gave him a Krispy Kreme doughnut within a few hour time period, not knowing that he had already had one. Well, we were just getting outside of Nashville and Everett starts vomiting. Like everywhere, in the car while we were driving down a busy freeway! We had to pull over and do a major cleaning of the van! Needless to say, the rest of the drive didn't smell so great!

Finally we get to Lexington. It is a really pretty city and I wish we could have spent more time there. We take the boys swimming and Uncle Preston has some fireworks for them. We had a great time there. The Relief Society brought us meals, because of the surgery. The surgery goes great. On Wed. morning we decide that my mother in law should stay a little longer to help out more, so my brother in law offers to drive us the three hours south to Nashville. The trip was going better than planned when they didn't even weigh our bags!!! We got so lucky and the guy checking us in just kind of lifted them up and said they felt OK. Phew... I was afraid I was going to have to do some re-packing! I thought that this ride home would be a breeze. It was like 4:30ish and our flight left at 5; so once we got to the terminal we were both hungry but I didn't want to get too far away from our gate, so I just stopped at a little mexican resteraunt right outside of our gate. We ate and were off.

A little photo shoot before we left...

Tucker seemed a little bit more anxious at take off than he usually is. I mean, he has flown plenty and I had never seen him act the way he was acting. After take off he immediatley fell asleep in my lap. Which also rarely happens. We both fall asleep for a while. We had a two hour flight to Denver, CO. About half way through the flight he wakes up and I asked him if he wanted to watch a movie. So, I put in 'Cars' for him and even before the movie starts, he starts vomiting EVERYWHERE! It was awful. I don't know if it was the Mexican food or what. The only thing he had differently than me at that place was his chocolate milk. That is the only thing I can think of. Luckily I had packed him an extra pair of clothes and I was able to clean up as much as I could and change his clothes. The smell didn't go away the rest of the flight and I felt so bad for Tucker and for everyone around us. Tucker fell asleep in my arms for the rest of the flight. A really nice lady sitting in front of us gave me her blanket to use and before I could refuse it, she was wrapping Tucker in it. And then she said, 'and you can just keep it' I'm sure she didn't want a vomity blanket back.

We finally land in Denver and I get Tucker off the plane, but the poor child had to walk. I had two carry-on's to lug around the airport and just couldn't hold him. I figured that when we got to our new gate, I would hold him then. And of course, our new gate was across the entire Denver Airport. We had barely made it into the hallway when Tucker started vomiting again! This time, all over himself AND me! I rushed to the nearest bathroom and added this set of clothes to the dirty vomit bag with his other clothes. I washed myself off as best I could and wrapped Tucker in the blanket again and made the long and slow journey across the airport while holding a toddler in one hand and two big carry-on bags in the other! As soon as we came to a convient store, I bought Tucker a new shirt, and some womens socks so at least he would have something to put on his legs because they had no pants or anything. As soon as I had gotten the shirt on him, he started throwing up again. Back into the bathroom for another clean off. This time, a SUPER nice American Airlines employee stopped to help and she was a life saver. She took the new Denver shirt and washed it for me and dried it in one of those hand dryers. Then she stayed with Tucker while I really quickly ran back to the convient store (like 5 steps away) and bought another blanket and myself a shirt. I wrapped Tucker in this new blanket and we were off again to our gate. This lady told me that she could just take my bags to my gate for me if I wanted. I made sure that was legal and she said she didn't care if it was legal or not, that she was taking these for me. So, she went ahead to our gate to drop off our stuff and I grap by baby boy, wrapped in a hot pink fleece blanket and blue wool womens socks up to his thighs and we headed to our gate. I can't tell you how many stares I got! Our plane left Denver at 9pm and by the time I got to our gate, Tucker was out. As soon as I got there I see our luggage behind the counter and the lady working there says, 'You know, if they know you have a sick child, they might not let you board the plane.' I just burst into tears, and of course, at that moment, Tucker wakes up and starts throwing up again. I rush him to the bathroom and get him all cleaned up and by the time I get back to the gate there is a guy there waiting to talk to me. First he made it sound like it was my decision. He said they could put me up for the night and give me food vouchers, etc. ect. etc.. I was still in tears at this point and I called Ben. I decided that I just wanted to get Tucker home. He was already asleep in my arms. I asked if we could somehow just sit in the last row or the first row, away from everyone, but that I just wanted to get him home so we could be home. I told him that all I have are vomit covered clothes that I didn't want to put on again the next day. And then at this point they said, 'Well, you see, we can't let you board. The captain knows you have a sick child and his word is the final word.' And then I think that the lady felt sorry for me so she said, 'But we can offer you two round trip tickets to compesate you for the bump.' And then I didn't feel so bad!!! :) I mean, I was still in tears, and tired, and smelly, but atleast I was getting something out of it! We were shuttled to a hotel in Denver and that, in and of itself took another hour and a half. We didn't get to the hotel until midnight, and luckily my prayers were answered and they had a washer and dryer available to their guests. So, I get Tucker in the bath and put him to bed in just a diaper. He was out immediatley. And while I don't condone leaving your child alone in a hotel room, I really had no other choice. From 12:30- 3 am I was running up and down from our room to the laundry room doing a load of laundry so we would have clean clothes the next day.

One of the times that I had come back to the room to wait for either the washer or the dryer, I thought that this was funny because Tucker looked like a little king in his very own king sized bed!

I was SO relieved the next morning when he woke up jumping on his bed telling me he was hungry! And luckily, we were home by that afternoon. It was the longest trip of my life and I told Ben that I was NEVER going to travel across the country without him again!!! :)

When we got home and were unpacking, Tucker saw these socks and wanted to wear them because they were his. Yes, these were the socks that I bought for him and that he wore in the airport, but I'm pretty sure he won't be wearing them again! :)

It wasn't a very good ending to our trip, but luckily we had a great time while we were there to make up for it! I have to admit that it was SO nice sleeping in my own bed with my hubby next to me!!! :)

Tucker & Jonah...

Jonah and Tucker became fast friends. Jonah is exactly one year older than Tucker. Most of you know that Tucker isn't much of a bully. (most of the time) He is usually the one who takes it from others rather than dishes it out. Sometimes it's not so, but for the most part, that's how he is. Well, we witnessed a new side of Tucker while we were in Alabama. They were best buddies the first week we were there and got along so well! And then their relationship turned. Tucker started, for some reason, just absolutely bullying Jonah around. You would think it was the other way around. He would taunt him and try and boss him around and the thing is, is that Jonah took it, so it made Tucker just act out more! I had never seen him like that and I couldn't believe it! It was like they were still best friends and loved each other, always wanted to be together, but it always ended in Jonah crying about something Tucker did or said to him! But then the next minute they wanted to be together and were playing and then Tucker would taunt and Jonah would cry. The cycle continued the rest of our time there! When they were buddies, they were so cute together! And of course, Tucker still talks about him and wants to see him all the time!?

They played together in the garden...

They always had to eat next to each other...

They watched movies together...

They swam together...

They played at the park together...

They held hands at the zoo...

While we were at the zoo, we looked back to see this...

yeah, not sure what they're doing here?!

They wanted to sleep together and we tried a few nights, but Tucker would always want to come and sleep with me.

These were the two that found the 'yummy purple medicine' that they ate all up! That would be Grape children's Claritin chewable tablets. Poison control was called and Jonah got sick that night. Poor guy! I just fell in love with Jonah though, he is such a sweet boy!

These two together though, I tell ya! :)