3rd camping trip of the season

Our 3rd, and final, camping trip of the season took place over Labor Day weekend. We went all the way to Lost Valley Reservoir this time, and brought some of our friends with us: Sefa, Fanua, and Naki Matagi, and Matt, Lacy, and Karter Casperson. It was a blast, but a little to cold, and remote for my liking. We had enough food to survive on for a few weeks. Fanua and Lacy are awesome cooks, so we ate very well.

This is Karter (left), Spencer (middle), and Naki (right). We all have one little boy, around the same age, so it was really fun. They all played really well together, and Karter definitely managed to get the dirtiest.

Naki was a little bit on the sick side, so he didn't run around as much as the other two did
"I know," said Spencer to Karter,"Let's dump out the entire bag of Trix, step on them, and then they'll be there for later if we want to eat some!!"

We drove down to the waterfall/cliff jumping area, and the boys decided to swim in the freezing water.

Go Fanua!! The only girl to rough it in the water with the boys:)

Going to go trudge through the mud

We were surrounded by cows!! Spencer loved to sit on Scott's shoulders and chase the cows around!

Spencer's birthday weekend extravaganza

Spencer turned 2 on August 22nd!! We had a weekend of events planned for the occasion.

The festivities began at the fair, that Friday night. Spencer loves to go see the animals, and just run around. He loves feeding the goats, right out of his hand.
The fair was immediately followed by a trampoline slumber party. Lindsey, and her 2 kids, joined us for all the festivities. Spencer and Alex had so much fun jumping on all the blankets and pillows. Scott was pretty lame, and slept inside. It ended up being really nice outside, really clear. Lindsey's 2 slept in shorts and were fine.
Spencer woke up to a Cars (Disney/Pixar) themed house. His main gift was his new castle and forest fortress. We love ebay, and craigslist:) This castle/forest fortress/and accessories was cheaper than just the new imaginext castle alone...which is what I initially bought.
If you've seen the movie Cars, you probably can recall the tractor-tipping scene. Spence got a die cast "frank" for his birthday. He is constantly running around saying, "oh-no it's Frank!!" However, he leaved the "r" sound out, and switches the "a" sound for a "u" sound....you can imagine how it sounds.
Katie and I played with the castle for awhile. We set it completely up, and carefully analyzed which one would win in a battle. Based off of number of people, weapons, placement, dragons, and a few other factors.....the forest fortress would win. Then Spencer came along and actually played out the battle. I guess girls and boys differ in their play:)

After he opened presents, and played for awhile, we went to Planet Kid.

Spencer loves the zip line:)

That evening we ordered pizza hut, and had a birthday dinner. Lindsey made the cakes, and made Spencer his very own small tire cake. Our ward had a water party that evening, so we walked over after dinner. Spencer ran around, threw water balloons at dad, and squirted everyone with his squirt gun. Afterwards, we invited a few of our friends to come and do some night swimming. It was a very action packed day, and Spencer was ready to crash when it was finally bed time.

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to me (August 15) I'm now the big 2-5!!

Thank you everyone for lots of nice gifts and lots of food - - it was awesome!!

We're making progress

Spencer has always been a horrible sleeper. And I'll admit it comes from my side. My mom said that from the day I was born, I never took longer than a 20 minute nap. When Spencer was first born he would wake up every hour, and took really inconsistent naps.Throughout his first year, I put him down for a nap, at the same time everyday. Some days he would fall right asleep, others it would take hours. Some days he would be asleep for 2 hours, while others it would be 20 minutes. There was no telling what his nap would be like for that day. Needless to say, I never, and still don't, every really get anything done. Up until he was almost a year he had yet to sleep through the night. He finally started sleeping all night, around 11 months. However, he was still in our bed. The naps were still hit or miss, so by the time night rolled around I didn't care where he was, as long as he slept. After awhile, we tried to have him sleep right next to our bed...on a mattress, that was about 6 inches lower than our bed. That was a nightmare, he woke every 20 minutes. We've tried everything, but nothing works...hard to change someone when it's in their genes to be a bad sleeper. A few days ago, I was de-cluttering all of our stuff, and took a load of stuff to a used kids store. Spencer is really into planes, trains, and automobiles right now. And when we walked into the store, we saw this awesome fire truck bed. I don't have the slightest clue as to why I bought it, but I did. Why buy a bed, when we can't get him near any but ours? The first night, I crammed myself in by him, until he fell asleep. The whole night, I was subconsciously waiting for him to waltz in....but he never did!!! He slept in it ALL night:) Night number 2 wasn't so great, but we are making progress:)

School

I'm so excited to start my flute lessons again!! School starts on Monday. I had to change the background to fit the occasion:)

Best Friends

Lindsey and I are fortunate enough to have a life-long friend, named Melina Vaughn (now Melina Vaughn Pugsley). We grew up together, Melina grew up down the street from us. We were all born into the same ward; so I guess you can say that we have been friends since nursery. I don't think a day went by, growing up, that we didn't see each other. We car pooled to high school everyday, every year. We've gone on numerous vacations together. Melina dropped her glasses, and lost her contacts in our pool, several times. I can't even count the number of birthday-IHOP- 4 in the morning parties we've had, or how many times we've been to McDonald's. We use to come back to our house (Lindsey's and mine) for lunch during high school, and decide that going back to school was superfluous. One time on the way to school we ran out of gas, and decided that once we got the gas going to McDonald's, then home was a better idea then actually going to school. We drove a VW bug to school, and Melina would sit int the middle...yes in the front...and yes it was stick shift....how....we don't know...but we did it. Matching pajamas, movie, and snickers cake was a regular...as well as matching underwear...I guess we still do:) I could go on for hours writing down the stuff we use to do. Melina graduated and went to BYU-Idaho and became a 9th grade English teacher in Salt Lake City. She also recently got married to Seth Pugsley. We miss her a lot, but still keep in touch. Melina had to show Seth where she grew up, so they came and visited us. It was so fun. I'm sure that Seth had a blast listening to all of our, "Remember this" and "Remember that" stories. All of our laughing at inside jokes, and talking about people we knew.
Swimming was an obvious. A good chunk of our lives have been spent in the pool.

Another chunk of our lives was spent at IHOP:) We took Seth to most every spot in Boise with some significance, played games, and did a lot of visiting. It was so nice to see her:) I don't have a scanner, or else I would have scanned some pictures of us when we were little. Maybe I'll update that when I get a chance.

2nd camping trip of the season

We just got back from our 2nd camping trip this year. This time we made a reservation at Ponderosa State Park in McCall. It was the same group as last time: Scott, Spencer, and I, Lindsey, her 2 kids, Katie, and Katie's friend Cassie. This time was really fun. Scott's parents let us take their camper (thanks again!!). So we didn't have to deal with as many coolers or tents. Our fire started...no problems there. We did a lot of hiking around. Well, for us it was a walk, for Spencer, Natalie, and Alex it was a hike.

The wonder pets: Linny (Alex), Ming Ming (Natalie), and Tuck (Spencer).

Matching camping pajamas

All Natalie wanted to do was play with bugs. She brought up her bug collector kit to find some. We found a whole bunch of one particular kind of black beetle. It may not have been an actual beetle, I don't know. They had really long antenna, and longer legs than I think beetles have.

I was too scared to take the lid off, for a better picture. And yes, she did play with them...not just look at them. For awhile, she would grab one out, put it next to her, and start scooting off, and wanted it to follow her. Of course it wouldn't, so she would have to go back, grab it, and put it next to her again.

The first bug that we found for her ended up crawling away. At that time, she only had the one. She was so upset when we couldn't find it.

When she lost it, she sat on the ground, curled up in a ball, and just cried. It was so sad:( After that, everyone went searching to find her another one.

Katie and Cassie got the tent, while everyone else stayed in the camper.

Walking around town, is also a favorite pastime while camping in McCall. Katie and Cassie bought new sarongs, and Spencer decided to wear it:)