Amanda's Pool

Around General Conference time, a family down the street from us had a yard sale which included a great crock pot for $5. Amanda saw this pool there, too, and the family kindly threw the pool and a matching beach ball in for free. Ever since then, Amanda has been wanting to use the pool, and the day finally came. So, here are Jared and Amanda "swimming" in our backyard.

Dolphin Beach

After we finally rolled into Virginia and arrived at Uncle Mike's house, we found lots of friendly family to visit, or at least Dad and the kids did. Mom took a nap. (Didn't get much sleep on our "camp out" for some reason.) The play (The Odessy) was in the afternoon, right in the midst of Jared nap time, so Mom enjoyed some quiet time at Uncle Mike's house while Dad and Amanda went to the show with everyone else. Mom heard that it was a good show. In the evening, Mom did actually get out for a family outing to Dolphin Beach, one of the beaches around the lake in the middle of Uncle Mike's community. Why the name? For the statue, of course. (OK, so I don't really know, but they did have the statue shown above.)


Here's a view of the beach area. Anyone want to play "Where's Waldo?" to find where Amanda is in the picture? (I guess that would actually be "Where's Amanda?")


While Amanda and her cousin Naomi played at the beach, most of the rest of us observed the beach activity from the shaded pavilion shown above. So, who can name all the tiny people?


One of the best parts of our Virginia trip was getting to see Grandma and Grandpa again.


Another great part was getting this picture of Curtis with Dad. Isn't it sweet?

Camping! (Sort of . . .)

Ahhh, behold the cool beauty of a misty morning in the mountains of Maryland. (Stop laughing, westerners, they really are mountains for out here.)


And here we have our tent. Not too roomy, but great for keeping the rain out!


And here we have the reason we spent the night at this particular campsite. (Haven't these people ever heard of leaving the credit card pay option on over night? We can personally testify to the remarkable number of customers they lost before their pumps opened at 7 a.m.)


They did have some lovely flowers, though, in a little planter.


However, as Curtis's expression tells you, on the whole it was not a camping trip we'd like to repeat, and we beat a hasty retreat from the lone Exxon station at Exit 68 on I-68 and continued on in our Odyssey on the way to see our nieces and nephews in a production of The Odyssey.

Our front yard flower bed

A local nursery had the answer to our flower craving: marigolds on sale, 36 plants for $10. Plenty to put a border around our plot of dirt in back, in case we get ambitious and try growing something like food plants, and to add color to our front flower bed.


Amanda picked a flower and decided to plant it.


This is a hosta plant. It, along several companion plants, lay dormant under they ivy that used to be out front for who knows how many years.


Here's one of our mini rhododendron bushes. In spring, it has purple flowers. Mom put in three of them before Curtis was born.


Here's our front flower bed as it now stands. We're curious to see how big the marigolds will get and how things will look then.

Curtis's baby blessing day

Today Grandma & Grandpa, as well as Uncle Mike plus 3 (Naomi, Bethany, Peter), were with us for Curtis's baby blessing at church. This picture of Curtis in his blessing outfit, though far from being a great example of photography, is nevertheless significant, since it was actually taken. Unlike the nonexistent equivalent photo for Jared. However, this is approximately what Jared looked, like, too. Both Jared & Curtis were blessed while they still fit the outfit, whereas the first baby to wear the outfit, Nathan, rather resembled a stuffed sausage in it by the time he got to wear it. More on that on the Angel Muffin blog later, I think. Anyway, it was a beautiful blessing for a wonderful child, and we're glad we got to have family here to share it with us.

Another event of note: Amanda went home with Uncle Mike's family to spend about a week there. This is actually her second time going out there without us, and so we know she'll enjoy it (what little girl wouldn't love going from "Mom's helper" back to "baby sister" if she had a chance?) What will really be interesting is to see how Mom does being the only human female living in the house. :)

Also today, Jared practically dragged Mom to nursery this week (stopping only once to smile at a cute baby), and he didn't fuss when Mom told him good-bye. Dad's home teaching companion is also named Jared, and today we learned that that Jared, whom Amanda calls "Big Jared," has a mission call to Oregon! Congratulations to both Jareds!

Grandma & Grandpa are here!

Hooray! Grandma & Grandpa are here to visit, and just in time for Curtis's baby blessing tomorrow. Amanda is very excited to have them here, Jared got excited, too, after he remembered who they are, and Curtis seems excited, too. Also, Uncle Mike and cousins Bethany, Peter, and Naomi are here. We're so glad to have family visiting. :)

Happy Anniversary, Grandpa & Grandma!

Grandma & Grandpa celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary this weekend. We're sorry we couldn't make it out to the reunion, but we're looking forward to seeing you out here soon. We love you, and congratulations!

Stories from church

Yesterday was fast & testimony meeting, and Amanda wanted a turn. Dad helped her learn a short testimony to recite, and after she passed it off to Mom, Dad gave her the green light to go to the podium. She encountered a slight setback when an older youth beat her there, but the bishopric made room for her to wait for them and then helped her up to the stand when the other youth was done. She recited her testimony very clearly, even better than she'd done to Mom, and then proudly returned to her proud parents in the audience. After Mom gave the closing prayer, the bishopric commented to her on how well Amanda had done. This incident is especially noteworthy given Amanda's past speech problems. We hear from her primary teachers that she's quite the answer-giver in primary. What can we say? We're proud of our Manda.

We're proud of Jared, too. He went to nursery by himself for the first time, and he apparently did just fine. Dad checked on him occasionally, but never had reason to stay. Hooray for Jared!

All of this meant that for the first time in a long time, Mom attended all of Sunday School and Relief Society, Curtis having taken his lunch break during Sacrament Meeting. Good job, Curtis, for picking the meeting that Mom could hear broadcast in the mother's lounge for your snack time meeting!

After church, Dad had a temple recommend interview. The youth have a temple trip planned for this week, so many of them were also in the foyer where Mom & the kids were waiting. As Mom listened to them, she realized that we have really great youth in our ward. Mom was always a little intimidated by teenagers growing up, especially when she got to be one herself, but she says without hesitation that the youth in our ward are really, really great kids. Looks like we've got some more babysitter candidates to call . . . assuming we ever have something to pay them. :)

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Amanda & her friends like to "bake" in the backyard. So, Amanda made this special low-calorie, flame resistant "birthday cake" just for Mom. Thanks, Manda!

Mom's fancy hair

Amanda fixed Mom's hair today. One of Amanda's friends complemented Mom on the clips.