Swimming

To begin I need to share some background. Ty is super super skinny. I am always telling him he needs to eat or I'll get him taken away because people will think I'm a bad Mommy for not feeding him. Bryton as a baby was pretty chunky -- not nasty chunky but cute chunky. So, we've always called her "fatty" or Chunky - monkey" meaning it in the most endearing way. Well, she's thinned out considerably, but still has a gut which makes her little body so cute -- and the nicknames have stuck. Yesterday we took the kids swimming with their cousins. (sorry no pics) Bryton, as always, was being so brave jumping in to us in the deep end, going under water and holding her breath.... Ty, on the other hand, was having a good time but only staying in the shallow end where he could touch. I brought him to the deep end and asked him to please try to be brave and jump into me like his sister. So the conversation went something like this.

Me: Ty why don't you try jumping in to us.
Ty: No Mom!
Me: But Ty it will be fun and I will catch you.
Ty; I don't want to Mom.
Me; (getting frustrated by this point) Ty look at Bryton, she's doing it. Are you really going to let your little sister be more brave than you?
Ty: Um, Mom don't you know fat things float!!

Polar Express

I know the day after Thanksgiving is supposed to be for shopping, but I tried that last year and it was miserable. So, this year we took the kids to the "North Pole" on the Polar Express Train.Getting ready to go. The kids were so excited to go to Santa's house. Bryton just thought being on the train was neat.Grinch 1 and Grinch 2On the way we sang Christmas songs with Jingle Bells and it was a tantrum when we had to give them back.Polar Express

Looking out the window at Santa's house as we arrived.

Telling Santa what to bring.

Bryton actually wasn't scared of Santa - just mad she wasn't getting a candy cane immediately!

Oops, Ty forgot a present and had to go back.

I think the kids had a great time (I did), and what a fun and magical memory to have.

Flippin' the Fly

I will admit I'm not an avid angler. I enjoy fishing but it's something I wouldn't do on my own, only if Zach goes (we were fishing when he proposed). Usually, I will only go in the summer when it's warm (so I can get a tan) and bring a book so I can read when I get bored, because Zach can literally spend the entire day fishing. But I do love the feeling of hooking a fish. Zach enjoys steelhead fishing because of the size of the fish, but goes when it's cold. Well, I asked if this year I could go spend two days in the cold with him, because I would love to catch a HUGE fish. He warned me this wasn't like regular fishing where you're at least getting a bite every so often. You fish for hours before you get a bite, but because of the size of the fish it's well worth it. We went to Riggins, and went with a wildlife biologist we met through Zach's dad. He studies the Salmon Runs, so the perfect guy to show us where the fish are. (Zach went with him last year)

This is Dr. Burns with a "fish on"
Bringing it in.
I have to admit this isn't what I expected-- to me it just looks like a big Rainbow Trout. But it is a steelhead and 25 inches.

And this is me giving up. 7 and a half hours of fishing later, a sore arm, and NO fish!! Nope, all day I fished, I kept telling myself positive sentences "I'm going to catch a fish this cast" "Okay this time"..... I've heard there's a book that says if you throw postive thoughts out to the universe the universe will hear you and reward you -- NOT TRUE. The second day I only lasted 1 hour before I gave up and took a nap in the car. I can only say it was beautiful up there and I did enjoy having nothing else going on or anything to think about except fish for two days.

Halloween

My mom made this cute clown suit when my brother Josh was little. I can't do anything like this, she spent my and Bryn's whole childhood making sure we weren't domestic and now wonders why we don't can, cook, sew or craftt!!! :-)

Seriously, not even 5 minutes after I put the makeup on and she already had it smeared!

Go Bucks!! I thought for sure with as many BSU fans there are here, one of them wasn't going to give a treat to Ty because he's not wearing blue and orange
The kiddos off to get the candy. Halloween was so fun this year. Ty actually dressed up without a fight and just headed off with his cousins, and Bryton loved trick or treating. All the other kids ran from door to door leaving her in the dust. She took her time, and went to all the doors as well only a lot slower, but she wouldn't let us hold her or her bucket of candy. She wanted to do it and didn't complain at all.

Vedera

Thursday night Zach and I went to the Mat Kearney concert. It was fun. I like his songs - minus the rapping he puts in some. Anyway, his opening act's name was Vedera. They were so good. I bought their CD and love it, so I thought I'd share. Vedera's a band of 4 from Kansas City, with a female lead singer who has the coolest voice I think I've ever heard. Check 'em out. I've put my favorite song on my blog. Take a listen and let me know what you think.

OcToBer

I tried to figure out how to do a slideshow for about a half hour and got frustrated. So sorry about the long post. This was the corn maze we went to this year. The kids had a blast.

Labor Day

I came over to my parents for the weekend and found these pics on my parents camera. Over Labor Day weekend we helped Josh put in his yard at his new house. It was long hours, and we were hoping to get to do something fun for Labor Day so we needed somewhere close to have a good time. We had heard of a place called Skinny Dipper not to far away, near Horsebend so we headed that way with Bryn and Luke and my parents. It's a natural hot spring some people turned into soaking tubs. We had heard people go in naked, but others told us that's not true and people just said that because of it's name. So we thought we'd try it out so we'd have something fun to do, and soaking in hot water after working so hard in the yard sounded fabulous. It's a good climb into the hot springs from the road. We started way down there by the water.

Picture of us back at the cars, and YES there are naked people there. Most people were wearing bathing suits but a few 65-75 year old men were naked. My kids are young enough they didn't even notice. I thought it was so funny, my mom was uneasy the whole time which made it even better. And the best story of the night --- We stayed so late that it had gotten dark on us and as some more young girls were coming in, and we could tell they would be "putting on" their birthday suits, we started to head out. My mom gets scared going downhill anyway, and we didn't bring headlamps. So, as she admitted her nervousness out loud to us, one of the naked guys got out of the tub and walked over to his clothes. He turned to me (unfortunately, I had gotten out of the tub only second earlier where his clothes happened to be) and said he had a flashlight we could take - just leave it on his car at the parking lot and he reach out to hand it to me. Let me just say I did it for my mom. I walked over to him keeping my eyes focused on his EYES the whole time and thanked him ('cuz that was super nice of him) When we got to the car my mom was freaking out that I had just so nonchalantly walked over to get the light (How else was I supposed to do it? Start giggling? because honestly inside I was!) I thought it was awesome and such a funny memory to have, but I think next time we'll find some other hot springs.

September

Ty with our neighbor. They bought this little go-cart at a garage sale and their dad fix it up. They ride it all over the subdivision.

We also went camping at Zach's parents ranch. It's fun to go out there. It's right against the Payette river so the next morning we took Ty fishing and he caught his first fish!

I think his Dad is happier about it than Ty. There are no pics of Bryton. She was there but completely naked. She started out in a sweatsuit, but loves the water and kept getting wetter until I finally just stripped her down and let her play in the water. It was only about 70 degrees, but she was happy.

After 3 hits to his front tooth 1. The snowmobile accident in Jan. 2. Walking into a handle of a rake in Aug. and 3. Whacking a wall as his sister chased him. Zach and I finally held him down and pulled the dang thing. It would seriously rock back and forth as he breathed it was so loose and he still wouldn't pull it out.

Frogg Lake

Zach has cried and cried about not being able to go to Frogg Lake since we've had kids. Seeing how it's a 8 mile hike in we need them to be just a bit older. So, finally he just went with his buddy Aaron last weekend and now hopefully the whining will stop. (Zach at the trail head)

Yes more pictures of fish. We have more fish photos than family.

O - H .....I - O!!! FRIENDS AND FOOTBALL!

So I absolutely love watching sports, especially football - as long as it's college (No Pro) and after much coaxing finally convinced Zach we needed to go to Columbus for the OSU/USC game. I got to catch up with old attendings, see a lot of friends, and eat at all of my favorite places. Zach and the Ormes ate at Adriaticos the first lunch there, but since I didn't want heart burn and stomach pain for 2 weeks I opt'ed for Panera. (thanks Kelly for the great company) It was so great to get to go back to the university, but now not as a student. However, I would have to say I'm jealous of Elmores who recently moved back, for reals, and if it took being a student to be back there I would be up for it. It was fun to see you guys. One of my favorites there was Rusty Buckets. For any of you that never ate there, you missed out. So when you go visit you need to stop in (Lane Ave) at least for lunch and order their chicken fingers. YUMMY. They are famous for their fried pickles -- but I don't like pickles. So I've never had them. Spencer and Amy had them though and seemed to think they were pretty good.Zach bought stupid shirts. Look closely. I would have to say the Adriaticos was okay but the Handels was stupid. I think it magically needs to disappear.

It honestly is the best ice cream.

Elmores, Ormes and us at Handels. (zach's dumb shirt)

We couldn't go all the way to Columbus and not get their ice cream, and I'm not even a big fan of ice cream - except Handels. I know spouse like a house is a common favorite among the buckeye ladies, but I went with the black raspberry chunk.

106,033 in the stadium that night. It was so loud in there. Oh yeah - except at the end when we lost. You could have heard a pin drop. Serious.

Mirror Lake -- I never was a crazy one to jump in this in November for Michigan Week!!! Let alone naked like a lot of people! --- maybe if it was summer :-) j/k

Brutus heading to the game

O-H-I-O in front of the Shoe!

One of the highlights --- Greg Oden. I was honestly this far from him. The camera is NOT on
zoom!!! The lady with the brown long hair standing in front of him is the athletics dentist (Dr. Mendel) for all athletes at OSU. She took care of him when he fell hitting his chin during the Tennessee game during March Madness and damaged a tooth.

TBDBITL entering the field

If you look close you can see they are spelling Ohio for both sides of the stadium.

Bucks getting ready. We were under an awning for our seats so it's deceiving what the stadium really looks like. If you look across the field you can't even see the B and C decks.

Script Ohio

Brutus

The band playing during the third quarter.

End of the game. Zach was actually not as upset as I thought. I guess because this year we lost by fewer than 30 points :-)

After the game and the wrap up of the flag. Final score 15 to 18 USC I was so sad. I can't believe we were that close and Tressel can't pull through. Come on Tressl - Carroll totally would have attempted the 50 yard field goal attempt. I know everyone is a huge Tressel fan if you're a Buckeye, but I'm over him. He lost the game for the team -- not the players. If I was the offense I would be offended by the way he makes them play.

But all together the best vacation I've taken, maybe next time we can pull off the W though.