Fishing Boat Adventures

 Yesterday we went out on Daddy and Uncle Mitch's "new" fishing boat to give it a try. We were all pretty excited and I think all had a good time. Sam LOVED being able to use his Spiderman fishing pole to cast out and reel in over and over and over again. And the best part? He caught a fish every time! :)

 Sam was also the designated net dude to help bring the fish into the boat.

 Poor Amy had a rough time having to wear this large and uncomfortable lifejacket and also not having much room to roam and play. But thankfully she only tried to fly overboard once (and I think it was partly my fault since I was distracted with my pole catching my one fish of the day)

 Big smiles from my big boy!

 In this shot you can see the little red fish that is on the end of Sam's line. This is why he was able to catch a fish every time he casted out :) But hey, he loved it and we didn't have to worry about him all that much, so it was a win-win!

 The gorgeous view of the lake. We were able to get out fairly early in the day, beating both the heat and the onslaught of ski boats for the first chunk of our fishing trip.

 Sam getting ready to help Daddy bring in his first fish

Around eleven, we came back to shore and enjoyed a picnic lunch and some time off the boat. Sam found this pretty butterfly that stayed on his finger for a good long while. Long enough that he was able to take to it each person and show them :) Sam was also really excited to finally try out the water wings that Aunt Brandy had actually bought for Daddy and Uncle Mitch as a joke when they went on their first fishing trip down the river (not in this boat, though). He and Daddy swam a little on the beach and then everyone except me and Amy went back out on the boat for another hour of fishing. It was a great day and we look forward to many more fishing adventures on our little $150 fishing boat!

Splish Splash

 Sorry for not really adding much this week. It's been a week fun of the typical summer fun: free lunch at the school (which means playing at the park afterwards), shopping, riding bikes whenever it's not too windy, soccer practice, and swimming in the kiddie pool on the driveway! We set it out yesterday to swim but ended up going to a friend's house who has grass. So today after we got back from the free lunch I let the kids swim for about 20 mins before naps. Amy LOVED splashing in the water and Sam was happy as a clam, too. I think it is something we will definitely have to do more often - just not during the middle of the day when the heat and the sun are at the most intense! I am really looking forward to swim lessons in August when Sam will get to take level 2 for preschoolers while Amy and I do a Mommy & Me swim class at the same time.

I also forgot to post about going to the circus this week. It may have something to do with the fact that I didn't take a single picture, but that is life sometimes. We had our hands full trying to keep Amy entertained and Sam kept asking for every little thing they brought by to sell. He was especially upset when we said no to the light up swords (at it was at the end of the night, WAY past bedtime). It was quite enjoyable despite the challenges of two little kids in a confined space long past bedtime. Sam loved seeing the motorcycles in the cage and the animals that did tricks!

And last, but not least, I got a quick video before the camera died of Amy having the time of her life splashing away in the kiddie pool. Enjoy! Tomorrow we are going fishing on the lake in Daddy's "new" fishing boat!

Birthdays

 Today was the day of birthdays. First was a boy in my ward who I've babysat before and I am friends with is mom, so I offered to do a cake for him. Knowing how much he likes Calvin and Hobbes, I mentioned that I might be able to do that. After doing a little research, I knew it was beyond my abilities to draw something like that, so I decided to try something I have wanted to do for a while now and see how it turned out. At any Albertsons bakery, you can take a picture or image and they will print it in edible ink on a sugarsheet for $6. First the whole process of getting this picture on a portable device to take the store was a nightmare! And to save my sanity in the future, I spent a whole $8 on a new jump drive. Then, I wasn't able to manipulate the image at all to make it fit on the cake like I had wanted, so I think next time I will consider another method like colorflow. (Which if you want to see, I will ask my friend Julie to share her pictures of the birthday cake she did for her son (the other birthday today, see below) of the avengers)

 Then this afternoon we went over to celebrate Sam's best friend, Josh's, birthday at their house with their nice swing set and grass. The kids had a blast with a new sprinkler toy and foam rockets the birthday boy was happy to share.

 Amy LOVES the baby swing - especially when it is windy!

 Sweet little Johnny swingin' with Mommy

Blast off! Happy birthday to our wonderful friend, Joshy!

Air Show

 So this morning we decided to brave the crowds and take the kids to the Rexburg Air Show. It was pretty cool to see what all the hype was about. And I would say it was worth it! There were plenty of airplanes going by and up above doing tricks and stunts.

 There were also these guys doing wheelies and other crazy stuff on four-wheelers and motorcycles

 And a few museum items to browse in between airplane flyovers. I told Robert I wouldn't mind a truck like this (because he is always asking me if I would mind having this or that kind of truck)

 A picture of some 50 caliber shells. Those babies sure are big!

 And a couple shots of the guys lookin' and figurin' together over engines

 I told Mitch to act like he owned this sweet ride

 They also had tons of airplanes parked outside for people to walk around and look at.

 Two shots of some of the airplanes we got to see fly today

 Checking out the inside guts of a plane

 Sam next to a Dodge Viper! Zoom! Zoom!

And proof that me and Amy were there somewhere, too :) Love how I'm rockin' my new (girly!) John Deere hat?

A Little Something from Me

 Yesterday was national german chocolate cake day and Robert has asked me a few times when I am going to make HIM a cake (and asking for this cake in particular), so I whipped together this homemade cake and frosting as a suprise. Robert said I nailed it. I'm guessing that's a good thing. I know I thought it was good. Thankfully, I had someone who needed a "thank you", so we shared half our cake so it isn't sitting around tempting me today.

And I finally got outside to take a picture of my flowers. Yes, I now see that the camera didn't open all the way, but it was bright outside, so I didn't notice it until I uploaded the picture and I am too lazy to go back out and take another picture and upload it all over again. Our flower seeds Sam and I planted a while back have finally started to come up, so I weeded really well, spread out some weed preventer stuff and laid down some red mulch. Best investment ever!! I love the way it looks with the yellow and blue flowers - just makes it pop! And for only $10 to do the whole flowerbed, you better believe this is going to be an ongoing thing from now on! So that is what I have been up to lately. This week we start soccer, Sam playing and me being the assistant coach. Should be fun. Or crazy. Or both! :)

Go-Carts

Robert's good friend, Mitch, had his family bring up his go-carts when they came to visit a few weeks ago and Sam is officially hooked on riding these things! Thankfully the guys have fixed the one Sam drives so it doesn't go as fast as usual, but he still gets booking on that thing and will ride it all night long if we let him! Almost every day he asks me if Daddy can take him to Uncle Mitch's to ride the go-carts when he gets home.

Into the Pit

It's kind of a short one, but I love how it shows the enthusiasm Sam has for everything he does!

Enjoying Sunday

 Sunday we had a nice, relaxing day with friends over for a yummy dinner and some go-carting afterwards. Amy has really taken a liking to Sam's old trike, it's so cute! And if you look on the left, you can see I finally got my mulch down and it really helps those blue and yellow flowers to pop against the red mulch. I LOVE how much better it makes my flowerbed look, and especially for only $10! I think I am now a believer :)

 Daddy took a few minutes to give Amy a ride on the go-cart. The top one was pretty clear, but the one below was super cute!

Gotta love the big noggin!

iJump

 Saturday we had a fun day checking out a place called iJump. It is a newly opened indoor trampoline place and though it was kind of expensive, it was a fun thing to try and really helped all of us get our exercise in!

 It was really hard getting good (meaning non-blurry) pictures not only because they were moving, but so was I! (plus I was holding Amy most of the time)

 Amy in the "Wee Ones" foam pit.

 My handsome little man

 Amy had a pretty good time on the trampolines! They had four areas: wee ones jumping and foam pits, dodge ball jump area, regular jump area and jump-into-foam-pit area.

 And as you can see, we really wore the kiddos out. But don't be fooled, us adults were pretty tired, too! After iJump, we headed to Petco to get some fish for the fish tank. Ever since our "sucker fish" died, Sam has been asking if we could go buy some fish to replace them. We came home with two goldfish that are named Big Black and Sparkle.

After we got the fish, we joined up with some friends at Big Judd's for some good grub. On our way out, we decided we would go all out and get some ice cream (it was Reed's dairy after all), but as luck would have it, I switched my ice cream to the hand that was around Amy so I could lick some ice cream that had fallen off into my hand and she reached out and pushed my ice cream right off my cone. And she did this in front of a bunch of college kids. And it was huckleberry ice cream. Mommy was not a happy. Still not. I was REALLY looking forward to having Reed's dairy huckleberry ice cream. (last time I had it was last September at the state fair) But that's life - especially life with kids :)

Sucker Fishing

 So on Sunday, Daddy thought that in addition to our hunting for buried treasure (geocaching), he wanted to take us to see the river he had gone fishing at the day before and to show Sam how to catch "sucker fish". Sucker fish are the little itty bitty fish that you catch to use as bait for the big river fish (which he did catch 2 of on his trip and we ate for dinner last night). Sam thought they were really cool and wanted to take them home with us and put them in the fish tank (we had fish at our old house, but when we moved we got rid of them and the tank has been sitting empty in our garage ever since) So we did. But sadly, all the fish were dead by the next morning.

 The gorgeous view of the river and it's surrounding vegetation. We also went looking for buried treasure near here, but it turned out the cache was across the river, so we weren't able to find this one. Thankfully Daddy was wise and had two caches to go find and we were successful at finding the second one near Beaver Dick park.

 Once we got to the place where we were to trap the fish, I decided I wanted to try and do a little photo shoot with Sam. He isn't the best model, but he sure is cute! And the green shirt with the green vegetation wasn't too great, either I realize but I wanted to give it a go and got a few shots in before my camera died. Thus no other pictures of our adventure, sorry!

 I think I like this one the best. It is closest to his genuine smile. We'll have to give it another go another time when I can think about it more in advance. Photography is (I know, yet ANOTHER) a hobby I would like to cultivate eventually. (And yes, expert photographers, I DO realize that I can't take superb pictures with a snap-and-shoot in auto mode, but eventually I will get there - finding different angles and backdrops is just my first teeny, tiny step in that direction)

P.S. Thanks Candace for reminding me, I forgot to mention how we caught those sucker fish! You have a sort of trap that they swim into, but then can't figure out how to get back out of. And what do we use to lure them in? Dog food of course! (Whaaa?)