Two Chompers

I may stop nursing.

Isn't this the best little chair?

A Walk in Bryce

Last weekend we were here. There are many beautiful places in the world, but I don't know that anything quite measures up to Southern Utah. I may be a little biased;-)
We had a great time, despite missing the memo about who can visit Bryce. Apparently to visit, you need to fit one of three categories: slightly older couple (no children), young REI yuppie person (no children), or person from another country (no children). We stood out with our group.All the children did really well hiking although Katie spent a lot of time doing this:

"Pick me up Dad!"

Fortunately for her, Paul is a sucker for those big blue eyes and carried her most of the way. BTW, she has been eating licorice and is not bleeding terribly.
At one point we came across a mini Bryce Canyon where people had built all these little cairns. We added our own to the collection.
I particularly loved these trees growing out of the canyon. I also love the colors of the rocks. I told Adrie "These are perfect rocks for you because they are your favorite color!" She said "Mom, pink is not my favorite color anymore. I like blue. And periwinkle. But I still like these rocks."

Nathan was quite worn out from all the walking he did.

A Bubble

Little Miss A loves gum. A pack of gum is not safe in our house. I completely understand the dangers of children chewing gum (gum in hair, gum in carpet, gum in sister's hair, gum in stomach for seven years;-). However, for my children to stop chewing gum, I would need to stop chewing gum first. It is a habit I picked up in Jr High and have never stopped. I try to keep my chewing within socially acceptable bounds (I understand that many people argue that any gum chewing is not socially acceptable). I do find it funny that my children will copy many of my less desirable behaviors and not pick up on the nice ones- like washing dishes- I do it all the time, but none of my children feel a great need to copy this behavior. I think I will call it: Selective Mimicry.

I love to watch my children's obsessions with learning certain things like whistling, cartwheels, handstands, stacking dominoes, etc. They are persistent in attaining these important skills. In their eyes, the ability to blow bubbles ranks among the top desirable talents. They ask me countless questions about how to do it, they practice whenever they get their little mouths on gum, and until recently, none of them had achieved the feat.

In our family "first to blow a bubble race," Adrie has blown away the competition.

Amazon Women

Last night I was able to get together with my best friends from AZ. We grew up together and have some fantastic memories. One of our YW advisors always called us the three Amazon Women because of our love of all things adventurous. I don't have any pictures of us hiking or rappelling, but I do have a picture of us on the first day of our senior year.One memory we discussed was a conversation we had about 15 years ago while walking home from church. We were dreaming and planning as teenage girls do, and decided to predict what our futures held. It was fun to look back over the last few years and see how those predictions played out. We didn't predict the next 10 years, but hopefully we will be able to get together to discuss them anyway!

I love you girls!