Lake Havasu and the London Bridge

(Yes, I took this picture, thank you very much)

In case you didn't know, the world famous London Bridge is in Arizona. Of course, there is a bridge in London where this one used to be, but this one was originally built in the 1830s and was THE bridge that Queen Victoria rode over for her coronation, as well as her successors, including the reigning Queen Elizabeth. In the late 1960s, British officials realized that the bridge, which had been built for carriage and foot traffic was sinking several inches each year on one side. They decided to rebuild and put the bridge up to the highest bidder. An American man (oil tycoon, I think) with interest in Lake Havasu bought it for something like $2 million dollars and moved it out here. This year was actually it's 40th anniversary, having been dedicated in 1971 after being shipped over, brick by brick and taking about 10 years to rebuild. The day we arrived in Lake Havasu, coincidentally, was the anniversary of it's dedication, October 10th. They even numbered the bricks, pillars, and posts so that every piece went back into its original position.

That's your history lesson for the day. We've been here in Arizona for 2 1/2 years and we'll be leaving in February and I just HAD to see Lake Havasu with its bridge before we leave. So, we packed up and went for two days. The weather was great, the kids had fun, and so did we. Here's a little of what we did while we were there.


There's an "English Village" down by the bridge and the entrance to it has this big fountain and big iron gates. There's supposed to be a double-decker bus, too, but we didn't see it.

The best thing we did while we were there (and the best way to see Lake Havasu) was rent a boat for a couple of hours. I was a little nervous to do it, but when we found this one with everything totally enclosed and all gates locked tight, I relaxed and agreed to it. It was honestly the most fun thing we've done on any little family vacation. Boats are so soothing and therapeutic. It was awesome. Robert really wants a boat someday and is always talking about it. He got to live his dream for a couple short hours.

Everyone under 13 had to wear a life jacket, of course. Including Grant. :) He loved the ride, actually. Once I got him swaddled and cozy, I slipped the life jacket back on him and he was very calm and comfortable the whole way almost. I did have to take it off him for a few minutes to nurse him towards the end, but otherwise he hung out in his life jacket and didn't seem to mind it at all.

You're looking at the happiest man in the world at this moment. :)

I must admit, I could get used to this. (Notice we all had on matching Lake Havasu London Bridge shirts--I was surprised Robert went for it since he normally hates to stand out and look like a tourist. :))

We saw these coyotes running along the ridge above the lake. Not something you'd see from the London Bridge in its original location.

People in Lake Havasu drive these really huge trucks! Just kidding. All around the lake they have these 1/3 scale replicas of some lighthouses from around the country. They don't have the BEST one, of course, but they did have Hatteras, which at least is in North Carolina.

Ethan didn't last the whole time. It was hard for him to get comfortable to sleep since that head piece on the life jacket stuck out so far in the back, but he was so tired that he managed to get comfortable enough to sleep. That little bundle of blankets on my lap is Grant, by the way. He fell asleep, too.

I finally had to move to put Grant back in his life jacket so I had to lay Ethan down. We tried to lay him on his side, but he ended up face down. He laid just like this for a good twenty minutes. :) By the time he got up, he had practically drowned himself in drool. Silly boy. It makes me laugh now just thinking about it. Of course, it wasn't so funny later when we got back to the hotel and he wouldn't take a nap and kept waking Craig up. And then when he feel asleep in the car on the way to dinner at 5:30 and was cranky the rest of the night. The things we do for memories.

One of the other benefits of renting a boat is being able to go under the bridge. I couldn't help but imagine the different 19th century fishermen and water-goers who had passed under there and looked at those same stones. I bet Charles Dickens had walked across, passed under, and stood to think on this very bridge many times in his life. In its day, it was the busiest point in London.

Later that night we went back to walk the bridge at sunset. It was beautiful and, once again, nostalgic for me. This might be the closest I get to England in my life and I wanted to really remember it well.

This was an awesome trip and I am so glad we were able to make it work. I would have really regretted not getting to see this place and walk this bridge before we moved another 900 miles away again. One of the upsides to moving so much is that we get to see so much of the country and its amazing sites. Now we just need to be sure and get to the Tetons while in Rexburg. And General Conference. I haven't done that one yet, either.

New bed!

About six months ago, I was all gungho about building Craig a new bed. He's been in a toddler bed for about a year and Grant will be needing Ethan's crib soon and with Craig constantly growing, we had to get a twin bed for Craig, move Ethan into the toddler bed, and then have the crib available for Grant. I had come across a website by this stay-at-home mom who began building her own furniture and now makes very simple, basic patterns for people like me to follow. I've used power tools before, so I felt like I could tackle this. Well, time flew by and before I knew it I was too far along in my pregnancy to do much of anything after getting dressed in the mornings and even that was a challenge. Robert decided he would be okay with doing it...actually he was ecstatic that I was giving the green light for him to buy power tools and wood and letting him jump into this project with both feet. He LOVES this kind of stuff. He's a very creative, detail-oriented, artistic person.

The simple bed I was planning on making wasn't enough for him, naturally. He sat down one day and drew out a plan from off the top of his head. It was for a bed with drawers underneath, a bookshelf headboard, and a toy box on the end. Then he was off to Home Depot. I admit, I was amazed at how this thing started coming together. It only took him about a week to get the main part of it done, too.


Part one done and stained. He has this great idea to build two rectangles rather than one big base. That way it's lighter and easier to move. The two pieces just slide together. The headboard sits at the top and the toy box will fit across the end. Four easy to manage pieces.


Working on the drawers and box number two. I was so amazed how everything fit together so well without a pattern to go by. He really did a stellar job on this bed. It's beautiful, sturdy, and great at what it's meant for.


Here's the main part. He worked on this thing everyday for a week, almost, and sort of neglected his homework, so now he's playing catch up. The headboard is done and just needs to be stained. The toy box is still needing to be done, but that will be a one day project. In the meantime, we moved the bed into Craig's room, put his mattress on top, and Craig just LOVES it. The first night he was in it we couldn't get him to settle and go to sleep until after 10:00pm. He normally goes to bed at 8:30.

We even bought him new Cars bedding for his "big, big boy bed," as he calls it. Now we just need to convince Ethan to move into Craig's room. We tried it one night but by 3:00am and four times of me being woken up by Craig bringing an unsettled Ethan into our room, I put Ethan back in his crib. We have about another month or so before I will really be needing Grant to have his own room. Craig keeps asking Ethan to sleep in his room with him. He is REALLY excited about sharing a room with Ethan, but Ethan is less enthusiastic. We'll keep working on him.

Brown-eyed girl

Craig figured out how to get Robert's music downloads to play on his Xoom tablet and decided that his favorite is "Brown-eyed Girl." Robert told him once that it was a song about me so now whenever Craig starts to play it he comes and tells me excitedly, "Mommy, it's a song about you!" He loves to dance to it and will dance and sing with it over and over again. He's learned most of the words, too. I finally had to take a video of him doing it since it's just so funny.

Weirdo

The other night we were sitting on the couch watching T.V. and I looked over at Ethan. He was just sucking on his toes. Robert took a picture and when Ethan realized we were laughing at him, he got kind of embarrassed and stopped. He's such a cute little weirdo.

Brothers

We've been trying to go for walks every morning. It's been hard getting all five of us dressed and out the door before it gets too hot, but we've managed it two out of four days so far. Craig and Ethan are so cute. They love to hold hands. If one of them is sitting in the front of the stroller, the other one will sometimes hold his hand and walk along the side of the stroller. I wanted to capture this to use as ammo in about ten years. Maybe I should take a picture of them hugging and kissing good night, too.... :)

Come one, Come all!

We had a Shriner's circus come to town last weekend, so on a whim Robert and I decided to take the boys. I know they've never been and I really can't remember going before in my life. (My mom would probably tell me that yes, they took me and my siblings to the circus as a child, but I have no memory of it and she doesn't read the blog anyway.) Craig paid attention, for the most part, Ethan watched a little, but we mostly had fun eating cotton candy and watching the animals. They also blew up some bounce houses during intermission so the had fun jumping in one of them. It was a little chaotic and crazy with them and the baby, but we had a friend come and bring his two daughters (ages 7 and 8) who helped occupy Craig and Ethan. Plus, I just love doing stuff like this, despite the crowds and craziness of it. There's just something about building memories. Anyway, here are some highlights.


A guy sitting on a chair on a high wire. I've seen this stuff on T.V., but it's truly amazing to see it in person. The circus was held inside an outdoor horse arena, so it was kind of hard to see somethings and take pictures with the sun shining in all around. They didn't use nets at all, except of the trapeze people. These people were all so talented. It makes me wonder what a Ringling Bros. circus would be like. At one point they were jumping rope on the high wire and one guy fell off! He caught himself at the last minute on the wire, but it was close.

They had about five trained tigers doing some pretty neat tricks. There were two white tigers, too. I thought the jumping through a flaming hoop thing was awesome.

These people amaze me. These girls were probably thirty feet in the air. It's crazy how they are just holding onto and wrapping themselves up in a long scarf, basically. It must take incredible strength. Just watching them climb up by wrapping the fabric around their feet and inching their way up to the top was pretty cool. I didn't get pictures of everything. There was a contortionist (I'll never understand that one) and a quick-change couple. I think they were my favorite since I cannot figure that out for the life of me. There was lots more, but I was a little distracted sometimes and missed some parts. Here are my distractions:

Craig was playing with the camera. Silly boy. :)

Ethan was actually watching the circus in this rare moment.

I wore Grant inside my sling most of the time. Towards to end he got really cranky because he HATES being covered up to eat when we're outside and not sitting in front of an air conditioner. He's spoiled. We had to head back to car about 10 minutes early so I could feed him. But we wanted to beat the crowds anyway. Otherwise, he did really well.

And here's Craig again--with cotton candy on his face and the funny little hat on that he insisted on wearing until he took it off and asked me to hold it. I remember doing that with coats. We'd wear them somewhere and then ask my mom to hold them when we got too hot. I remember her telling me no, she wasn't going to hold it, and I should tie it around my waist. I also remember thinking how unfair that was. She WAS the mom after all. What else was she there for?

Anyway, it was fun, a little warm, but worth it--especially since the kids were "free". They made up that cost when they charged us for the bounce house. But, hey, who's counting?

(Almost) all-girls camp out

Our ward does a father-son camp out every year, a ward camp out, and an all-girls camp out. Robert took Craig and Ethan to the father-son camp out but the ward camp out was the Friday after Grant was born so we didn't get to go, naturally. The girls' camp out was Sept. 16-17 and since Grant has been such a great sleeper, I decided to take him and go. I feel that nowadays there are so few get-togethers outside of church that I need to do everything I can to support them. I call it an "almost" all-girls camp out because the bishopric was there, of course, with their families, including the boys. And then there was Grant. :)

It was held at a ranch about an hour and a half from Mesa. It was a really pretty drive. I tried to take some pictures of the views but only got one or two good ones.

The road/driveway out to the ranch off the highway was washed out, treacherous, and scary but we made it--mostly due to my awesome driving skills. There was a grassy area where most people set up their tents but since it was just Grant and myself, I decided to just set up the air mattress in the big building where we held the activities and breakfast the next morning. Here's a picture of people inside the building.


There were a few of us staying inside the building. I began regretting this decision, though, when by 9pm people had seen or caught two lizards, one mouse, two scorpions, and about fifteen spiders inside this building. A tent would have been much more critter-free. But it was too late at that point. We had some fun activities and then went to bed around 11:00. Grant slept great, even with all the people running around that big, echoy building. Here he is all snug on the air mattress.


He slept until his usual feeding time (about half-way through the night) and when I brought him over to nurse him, I realized I had no idea how loud a little snorter like him can be in a silent, cavernous building like that. I really thought he was going to wake everyone up with his heavy breathing, snorting, and slurping. After I got him back to sleep, I began to feel really cold. About twenty minutes later, I took him, my blankets, and my pillow and went out to the van just outside the door. He slept in his carseat the rest of the night and I bundled myself up in the back seat. I didn't realize how cold it was going to be at night since we still have over 100 degree weather down here in Mesa. We survived the night, though. I left by about 10:00 the next morning, after breakfast, because they were starting the service project of cleaning up some of the weeds and overgrown brush around the ranch and I didn't want to get my hands dirty.

Just kidding. I actually felt bad skipping out but I couldn't do much with Grant and I had to get home early enough to take a nap before we all went to the circus that afternoon. But that's another post.

Great book sale!

We were at Deseret Book yesterday and I came across the best book deal I have ever seen. It was so good, I wanted to put it on here in case anyone reading this has a Deseret Book anywhere near by and would want to take this opportunity. They have a box set of all hard-covered, high quality classic books on sale for an awesome price. The books in the set are Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, The Scarlett Pimpernel, Emma, Jane Eyre, The Secret Garden, Anne of Green Gables, and Little Women. I thought this was a beautiful set and full of so many books I have always wanted to read but have never gotten around to. The only ones I ever read of these are Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre. It just warms my heart think I have this collection of romantic, beautiful stories that I know will be entertaining when I'm looking for a satisfying book to read. I NEVER would have bought this set in a million years, normally, but looks at this picture.

See how pretty they are? And they're great quality, too. The most attractive part, though, is that price tag on the front. $24.99! Can you believe it?! That's $3.13 per book! I thought it was a misprint, but nope. Here's the original price tag on the bottom:

Even though I would never buy this set for that price, $79.99 comes out to $10 per book, which in and of itself is a great price for hard-covered books of this quality. No, I am not getting commission from Deseret Book :) ...I just thought this was such an awesome thing that I wanted to share it just in case anyone else could take advantage of it. Christmas is coming and I know I would be overjoyed to get something like this. So if you know anyone like me, jump on it!

Ode to Laura

So long Fairport, NY and Salt Lake City, UT....hello Soulsbyville, CA! Hopefully for good. :)

Glad to see you're settled and have your internet set up!

First family of five vacation

About a week ago, we decided to take a last minute opportunity to visit Robert's mom up in Show Low. It's about a two and a half hour drive from here, so it's fairly close and she hadn't met Grant yet. It was really a lot of fun. We found a GREAT hotel room (luckily we decided against camping since it ended up raining a lot while we were there) and the kids did extraordinarily well. The drive there and back was great. We did have to stop for about 30 minutes or so about half way through for Craig and Ethan to get out and run around and once or twice here or there so I could feed Grant, but the drives were as pleasant as one could expect with three boys under four.

When we got the hotel room, we were just looking for something with two separate rooms so we could do nap times comfortably and all. We got the only one left in town and it turned out to better than I expected. First of all, I was ecstatic when I saw this:

You can bet we used that wonderful, huge, jetted tub everyday we were there. This is an example of what the room looked like about five minutes after we checked in:

The boys loved it, though. When he came home, Craig kept asking to go back to "our new home at the hotel". It had a little kitchen area and everything. It really felt like a home away from home. Craig slept on the fold-out couch, Ethan slept in the pack-in-play, Robert took one of the queen beds all to himself, and I slept with Grant in the other one. It was a perfect little set up for us. One day we met up with Robert's mom and her boyfriend, Eric, and drove out to a beautiful little lake. There is a path around it that's about a mile, so we walked that. I forgot the camera that day, but it was so cute watching Craig and Ethan walking my mother in law's dogs. Ethan liked to walk the tiny little Pomeranian and Craig walked the big German Shepherd-looking one.

The morning before we left, we took the boys swimming at the hotel pool with Robert's mom and a little boy she was babysitting. They LOVE the water and had a lot of fun.



Here was Grant the whole time we were at the pool. Basically, this was him during the entire trip. He slept more during those three days than he has since. But he's always a good little baby, so I have nothing to complain about.

I couldn't go swimming yet since I had just had a baby four weeks earlier, so I decided to occupy myself by taking really close, scary pictures. This one was the "best."

I was so glad to have such a good trip since we are planning on driving out to California next month and spending a week out there. I've been a little nervous about it being stressful and basically my worst nightmare, and it still might not be as smooth as this trip was, but I am a little more read to take it one than I was before.

Changes

Well, for the first time in six years, I applied for a job! I can't believe it was that long ago when I applied for the last job I held before becoming a stay at home mom. I worked that job for two years until I got pregnant with Craig, we moved to Montana, and I started staying home. I've loved it, to be sure. Part of me is sad to be heading off into the workforce again, away from my boys, but then I remind myself it is only temporary and VERY part time. And it's necessary.

Luckily, I got this job that I applied for during my interview yesterday. The job is as a tutor for a state-funded program for children who are behind in school due to language barriers. It's only 12 hours a week, at the most, but it pays well. Since Robert has been home now and going to school full time online, we were thinking he would be getting a part time job since Grant is too young for me to be away from him for too long. But then I came across this job. It's only for about two hours at a time, hopefully five days a week so we figure I won't miss much at home and Grant won't be missing me too much, either. Since it pays so well, Robert would have to work at least twice as many hours per week to make the same amount of money. So, really, it's better for me to be gone a few hours a week and he stays home than for him to be gone more hours per week and be trying to stay on top of his classes, too.

I am looking forward to the experience this will bring and the way I can help and serve my family. I hope it goes well and works out as I expect it will.

Team Geotrax...All Aboard!

I rarely post videos because they can take a long time to load and I don't know if anyone takes the time to watch them anyway. But this one was too cute to pass up. Ethan and Craig have this favorite show they watch called Geotrax. It's just four episodes of a badly-made, cheap cartoon about trains and their drivers. They love all things train so they love this cartoon by default. The characters in the cartoon constantly repeat the phrase, "Team Geotrax...all aboard!" Craig will run around saying it but Ethan hasn't had the language skills to put more than two or three simple words together until very recently...like within the last couple of weeks. Yesterday, though, he came into the kitchen and proudly announced to me, "Team Geotrax...all aboard!" He was so proud of himself. It was so cute. This is the longest, most complicated phrase he has put together yet and Robert and I were very impressed. I love the arm motion he does. I'm not sure if they do that in the cartoon or where he got it from, but he does it every time he says it. Which is a lot. Like today when we were at the grocery store and Robert and I had split up to make the shopping go faster. I could hear Ethan saying this all throughout the store practically. I also love in the video how Craig literally bounces in and out of the frame. That's how he is all the time. They don't call them "bouncy baby boys" for no reason. Craig has always gotten from point A to point B by either running or bouncing.

P.S. In the beginning of the video he says, "My birthday!" because last Monday on his birthday we kept saying, "What day is today?" and he would answer that. So when I asked him yesterday to say "it" he thought that's what I meant at first. He's just so silly...he cracks me up.

One Month Old

Grant turned one month old today! I can't believe how time has flown by. The older I get and the more kids I have the faster time goes. I also can't believe that today is the 10 year anniversary of 9/11. I remember so distinctly where I was and what I was doing when I heard about it. I wasn't a kid, either. I was already an adult, living on my own in Logan, had my own apartment and working full time. I had already received an AA degree and was working toward getting into Utah State to get my BA. Little did I know, I would end up going on a mission and would enter the MTC exactly one year later--9/11/2002. On Sept. 11th, 2001 I would have said I was never going on a mission. But on a mission I would go and it would be another eight years before I would receive that degree and I would be married with two and half kids, too. This September 11th holds a lot of meaning for me.

But I digress. Grant is growing and filling out so well. He was almost twice the size of the 2 1/2 month old boy in the mother's lounge at church today. Like Craig when he was a baby, he's not necessarily chubby. He's just a solid little boy. Ethan is and has always been smallish. For example, I just noticed his pajamas the other night were getting a little high-waterish and looked at the tag. They are 12 month pajamas and he just turned two this last week. Craig, on the other hand, was 12 months wearing 2T. Grant is turning out to be the same, I think.

Grant has begun to notice a lot of things around him. I can see a lot of expressions in his eyes and face and am just waiting for that big grin to break through any day now. He's smirked and cooed and spasmed when I've tickled him but I'm still waiting for the big smile. He's a handsome little baby and I can't wait to see more and more of his personality revealed over the next month.

Number Two turns 2!

Ethan turned two years old yesterday, Sept. 5th! His little life has truly flown by so quickly that I have a hard time remembering details. I was feeling kind of bad about that so I went through some of our picture files from when he was a baby and refreshed my memory. Thank goodness for cameras! All day we kept asking him, "Ethan, what's today?" Then he would happily answer, "My bir-day!" He's such an adorable, sweet little addition to our family and we are so happy to have him with all his hugs, kisses, and cuddles.

We spent the day together at home and had a special dinner for him. We invited our home teacher, Jason, and his two girls. They're much older than Craig and Ethan (7 and 8 I think) but they love playing with them and are fun little girls. We had Stoufer's lasagna (one of the boys' favorites), garlic bread, and fruit salad. And, of course, cake and ice cream. It was a carb fest, but Robert and I made it a cheat day, gave the left overs to Jason, and now we're back on track. Ethan loves strawberries, so I decided to make a strawberry cake with strawberry filling, strawberry icing, and strawberry ice cream. Oh, and strawberries on top. The cake had its issues, but it turned out okay and tasted good so the rest doesn't matter.


We opened presents, of course. He got a Wonder Pets toy from us, a walking Rex "from" Craig, and a book and puzzles from our friends. My parents mailed him a huge collection of Lego Duplo pieces, too.


Right before our friends got here, we noticed Ethan was a little groggy and warm so we took his temperature. It was 104! He does this a lot, though. He'll get a little virus with no other symptoms which causes a really high fever and sometimes he even gets shaky. But once he gets some medicine in him, he's as good as new. We gave him some ibuprofen and within 30 minutes he was ready to celebrate. We warned our friends, just in case, but I'm sure it's nothing they haven't already had when they were toddlers. Poor kid, though. It stinks being sick on your birthday. Good thing he didn't really notice. :)

Blessing Day

This Sunday we took Grant to church for the first time. I was SO glad to finally get back after 3 weeks, even though I didn't make it to anything other than Sacrament. The blessing was great, as usual, and Grant was so wide awake and enthralled with looking at everyone around him that he didn't make a sound. Unlike Craig who cried through most of his. To each his own. :)

New Clothes

We were all at the mall play area the other day when we noticed an outlet children's store nearby. We remembered that Craig's been needing new pants sine he's growing out of all his 3T stuff and needing 4T so we decided to go there and look around. It was so funny to see him so excited about getting new clothes. I washed them when we got home so he kind of forgot about them. The next morning I pulled them out and let him pick which pants and which shirt he wanted to wear. Again, he was SO excited...more so than the day before. We put them on him and he ran around the house yelling, "New clothes! I love my new clothes!" I thought it was funny and wondered why he was so excited this time, and then I realized what the reason was. He's never gone through the process of shopping and then wearing clothes that are all new to him. I have been very fortunate to have three older siblings who all have had at least one boy and periodically over the years I get bags or boxes of hand-me-downs for Craig. My most generous benefactor, my nephew Liam who is only four months older than Craig but up until now has been significantly bigger, has slowed his growth. Or maybe Craig has caught up to him. Whatever the case, Craig needed new clothes.

Every so often I have purchased an item or two here or there, but mostly from thrift stores and as often as possible I've tried not to have the kids with me when I'm shopping in a place with breakable things displayed at their level. So this whole process of acquiring brand new clothes was totally new and novel to him. I had to take a picture and Craig was more than happy to comply.
Of course Ethan wanted in on the fun, too. Craig said, "Here, Ethan, let's hold hands. Okay, smile!"

And a blog post wouldn't be complete without the wee babe. :)