5 July 2009

Fun with family


We saw many relatives up in Wyoming. Here is Grandma and Grandpa Skinner.

With the family.
Just those boys.
With some more cousins.
Just being Grandpa.
Cousins at play.
Family at play.

So what do you do for a week in Wyoming? Watch the clouds go by.
Burn things.
But hey that is what everyone does on vacation, right?

29 June 2009

A view into our time in Wyoming. We made it there during the Spring. At least there wasn't any snow in the fields.




There was a beautiful rainbow too.


The boys loved playing outside. There was snow on the mountains.




We also played inside a lot too.




Richard graduated from High School, so we decided to get him a car for his graduation present. It didn't even taste too bad.


Next up, more cousins.

A little more on our trip

We left St. Louis for Nauvoo. We didn't do too much there. We took the kids to the bakery to get a Gingerbread cookie. They they visited the cultural hall. After that it was down for a wagon ride with the oxen. So, they told me what an ox was. An ox is any bull that has been castrated.

They were kind enough to take a family snapshot of us.

We made it up to Sarah's in Iowa. We were able to visit for the evening and stayed the night. No pictures, sorry. We got up early the next morning and started driving for Rock Springs to visit Laura and Robert. Laura is pregnant. We made it from Iowa City to Rock Springs in one day. That was plenty of driving for us. All of the kids sure did have fun playing together there.

They liked to send things down the stairs. I fear our kids were the initiator of this. We don't have steps in our apartment. This is when I thought a slinky would have been good for them.Then again, they played anywhere they wanted to including under Aspen's new bed.

Mommy even had company while doing her evening stretches.

We left after spending a full day and 2 nights with them for a visit with my Grandfather in Utah. It was great to see him. Although my father was not there, my grandfather is the third child, so is my father, myself, and Levi. It was good to visit with them. Michael got really lethargic and tired while we were there and had a high fever. We gave him a blessing and some medicine. We cut our visit really short and got back into the car to drive for 4 more hours.This gives you an idea of the beautiful end of the drive we had.

My wife kind of misses the mountains, I miss the clouds.


Next up, what we did on vacation


p.s. I made a little lawn cart today with some scrap wood and parts I had lying around. Alex thought I should post the pictures so here they are.

Michael is pulling me on this one. He didn't have any difficulty at all - except when he lifted it too high, and it fell back. He was able to push it back down just fine though. I guess I wasn't exactly centered on the load.

So I moved back the axle so it would balance better. Here is the finished project. Isaac could even walk with it. We were impressed.

Trip log. This should be a good way to let people know how our trip went. We will not post all of our pictures at once. We may even wait to see if we can get some comments on this before posting again, but here it goes.

This is the illusive double yoked egg. I haven't seen one of these for years. I was probably still living in St. Louis when I saw this egg last time. That is pretty significant since I would probably crack 2 dozed eggs twice a week when I worked at Mary's Pastries. This came out of a carton of large eggs. For a while, my wife humored me in trying to get the biggest eggs we could purchase just so I could see this again. It never happened. But I got one that morning when making eggs. They ended up scrambled anyway. But with this happening right before our trip, you know it had to start off on a good note.


Well, on that, we went to visit with Papa in Atlanta because Nana was gallivanting around New Jersey waiting for a baby to be born. We enjoyed our visit. We even made it to church on Sunday. We finally got a picture of the Michael and Isaac all dressed up.
We went to St. Louis. After nearly 6 years of marriage and countless other zoos, my wife finally got to go to the St. Louis Zoo. May I just add that it was FREE! We even got there early enough to find a parking spot on the street for free. We stayed with the Livingstons and had a nice visit, but we didn't get any pictures of them. We did get there in time for the feeding time with the Sea Lions though. After 2 hours of walking and only seeing 1/3 of the Zoo, we ended our visit with the this feeding time.
I am just so glad that they have fences around these exhibits. The boys really liked it.


Here is a great picture of Levi captivated by the sight. At least he wasn't paying any attention to the camera.
After we finished at the Zoo, we walked the quarter mile back to the car where it was diaper changing time. There are many reasons to appreciate having a minivan. This is just one of them.
After the Zoo, we were off for the next great adventure. Here they are after walking through the Zoo for so long.
Don't worry, Levi rode in his car seat. A little stretching before he got in it was good though.Next post: North of St. Louis

States we have been in the last 2 weeks:
Florida
Alabama
Mississippi
Louisiana
Texas
Georgia
Tennessee
Kentucky
Illinois
Missouri
Iowa
Nebraska
Wyoming
Utah
Idaho
Confusion
Hopelessness
Exhaustion
Pain
Happiness
Sleep
Excitement
Restlessness
Sickness
Health
Elation

Also, we have driven over 3900 miles.
Only around 2000 left to go.

Our lives in photos:

Rockin' on the piano in pj's


Always smiley!


Sometimes asleep.
And getting curious.

Big brothers sharing blankets.
Using glasses and playing.



Note: It is a bee in the hole in the wood. We tried spraying the wood four different times! Once, there was a bee in it! This bee was trying to get the dead one out, I assume to continue its boring. We finally had to fill it in with liquid nails (the complex did it for us).

My growing garden:
Here we have black berries (bottom) and a bell pepper plant (top).

You can see the pumpkin, squash, cucumber, spinach, lettuce, tomatoes, peas, and potatoes.
More peas, cantaloupe (the small, scrawny thing behind the pumpkin), the carrots (not doing very well, you can still just barely see them), and the pequin pepper plants (in the pots).
In other exciting news:
Lightening struck a tree just behind our apartment. This is the clean up process after they felled it. You can't see the guy scaling the other trees to cut the broken branches.
We got to keep a part of the tree! It has between 86 and 90 rings! And a crack that goes all the way to the center. A gift from the lightening! The lightening also left a large hole in the ground next to the base of the tree, but I didn't get a photo of that.
On another note, I have to say I am grateful for my children. They try me and help me at the same time. Isaac, for example, saw me cleaning one of the bathrooms, and wanted to help, so he got out the toilet bowel scrubber from behind the toilet in the other bathroom and proceeded to clean it! I had no idea until he came into me because he had gotten some on his hand. Trying and helping at the same time. Of course, there are those moments of pure trying, like the time he dumped and entire box of tapioca (uncooked thankfully) on the floor in the hall. And those moments of pure helping, like making Levi smile, or taking me to Levi when he cries. Boys, ya gotta love um!