Car Accidents

Word of the wise:
"Don't get in one-- they suck."

Brother From Another Mother

Since everyone has done this baby making thing, I decided Mark and I should do it too. Not the real thing, but the picture thing. Anyways, I think the first baby is actually Dave and Natalie's. See!



For this next picture, I think that Russ and Nat actually have our baby... HOW WE GOT A WHITE BABY IS BEYOND ME.....


This is our white boy baby.... Our options were mix it up OR black baby and white. No comment.

Charly

Meet Charly. I know I was supposed to post this back in the day (around September) but we have been really busy.

Words to describe Charly:
1. paper shredder
2. popsicle stick shredder
3. lysol sniffer
4. speed racer
5. stuffed animal "de-stuffing" machine
6. cuddle bunny
7. potentially calm puppy at night
8. traveling poop express (WILL BLOG LATER)
9. Livvy's rag doll
10. Emma's rag doll
11. random sound maker
12. Chloe's "hot potatoe"

Charly is so much fun! You would think dogs are just smelly and gross.... yes they have their moments, but it is all on how you take care of them. See I dont like smelly dogs..... I dont like dog slobber. Charly, is very well groomed (thank you very much!). She is not your typical pomeranian. She has spunk. I think she thinks she is human...

Here are some photos of Charly:

She loves to inspect our household chemicals-- making sure they are safe.


Play mode.



"Wet Willy" mode.



Oh my cute dog!

Like "father" like "dog"

I honestly think that Charly is a great blessing to me and Mark. It sounds so STUPID.... How could a dog POSSIBLY bless someone's life? Well, if you haven't noticed... last year was slightly difficult- in more than 10 ways. This year (2009) hasn't lacked on the difficult side by any means.. Charly has been our smile maker. She has such personality. When I was working, I would come home and Charly would get so excited to see me. Mark doesn't even get that excited! JK. She gets that way when Mark gets home too. When we are frustrated, she will get into snuggle mode, and if you give her a little attention, she will go straight into play mode. After you start playing with her, you forget what was bothering you. We love Charly SO much!

Jackson Hole

In August we went up to Jackson with some of our family. Here we are with the Tetons in the background.



Look! Rocks! Who doesn't love rocks?



Here we are in front of a beautiful and stinky hot pot.



How cool is Livvy? Do we have a future rapper in the making?



Another cutie



And here we are in front of Old Faithful.

Looks dangerous doesn't it? Don't worry, it's not lava.

The trail to the falls was closed, but we still got this pretty picture from the outlook.

The bison were crossing the road which provided a lot of entertainment. Mostly from all the agry drivers honking at them to get out of the way.

Some wedding reception

We went to a reception at the Alpine Art Center and got bored so we started taking pictures with the statues.

Here we are with a statue of President Hinckley.

Don't ask me what I'm doing. Indian rain dance?

Can you guess which one is the statue?

That's one big cat.

Discovery Park

We volunteered to babysit for Dave and Nat for their anniversary. I think Annie told me it was cause we needed practice. Natalie warned us that we didn't really know what we were getting ourselves into, but fortunately no children or animals were harmed that night. After popsicles and some mac & cheese, we took the kids to Discovery Park to play.

Sara posing as usual and Livvy planning her jump off the "bull".

I think they're supposed to be driving something here.

Here are your little worker bees Natalie. Maybe you can use this against them later when they don't want to do their chores.

River Rafting!

Annie and I have been scolded over and over again for our slacking on the blog and finally I have been shamed into submission. I'll start with the Payette river rafting trip in July.

Like most of our vacations so far, this one didn't start off so well. If you've been reading this blog from the beginning, you probably know that Annie is quite allergic to mosquitos. Ok so that's an understatement. She swells up like a pregnant hippo on steroids. Of course she just had to get bit in the eye on the first night of the trip. As you can see it's swollen completely shut and that's just from one bite. She's an amazing trooper and went down the river with just one good eye. If this keeps up I'm going to start bringing a patch on our vacations.



For our first run at the river we were lucky enough to get the duckie. Kristina wanted to join us so we gave it a go with 3 people. We actually did pretty well through the first big rapid. We stayed pretty straight and just got tipped because 3rd person sunk the back end too low in the water (not calling anyone fat here!) It was a fun experiment and I highly recommend it. Here is Kristina being our propeller.

Here's the whole crew after our second run on the big raft. Despite the moquito distaster and other bumps, it was a great trip!