Summer Vacation Part 2-Who knew bowling could be so dangerous?

It's a family tradition to go BYU bowling whenever the parents are in Utah and this year was no exception. Asher had bowled maybe 4 frames. We had a ramp and bumpers for them, but the adults still assisted in the process. It was Asher's turn. He picked up his ball and started walking it over to me by the ramp. He tripped, dropped the ball and landed with his chin against the ball. Lots of blood and 4 stitches later, he doesn't like bowling anymore. We'll give it a few months and take him again. Thank heavens for forgetting - especially about all the stuff that happens to you when you're 3.

Summer Vacation Part 1

So there I was, camping at Flaming Gorge, minding my own business, taking pics of my baby girl with her 'cousin' Olive...
when all of a sudden I was ambushed by HYRUM!!! - With a 6 foot snake draped around him.
WELCOME TO MY LIFE!!!

Springfield, IL

We went to Springfield after Nauvoo and had a great time there too. This was Lincoln's home.

We also went to the Lincoln Memorial and all rubbed Lincoln's nose for good luck (and probably a germ or two).




We found a park to play at while Brad was at his conference.

And of course, the vacation was finally complete with a little critter joining the show. Hy caught a frog, loved it, and let it go 10 minutes later.

Nauvoo

We went with a group to Nauvoo, IL in May. It was fantastic! Here's the pic of all of us in our pioneer garb. I promise Samara was not choking on the bonnet, she just didn't like it.

This is one handsome pioneer boy!

Samara loves animals, even/especially wooden ones.

We stayed in the Nauvoo House run by the Community of Christ. They were great to us. This is how close we were to the river - literally 40 feet or so.

About 100 feet in the other direction are the graves of Joseph, Hyrum and Emma.

The turtles in the Mississippi River would climb up on these logs and bask in the sun. My boys thought that was the coolest thing ever...until they saw something else cooler...

The weather was perfect and we absolutely fell in love with the ambiance of the little town.

I'm still alive and breathing

No, I have not had ear problems for months. I lost my hearing in my left ear but got it back about 3 weeks later.

It has been too long of a hiatus from blogging. Today is the first day of school though so hopefully I can use some of my time to play catch-up. We had a great summer and were lucky enough to see most of our families and a lot of friends. If we didn't get to see you this time, your time's comin'.

I also had an ultrasound today. I am 20+ weeks and everything looks great. For those who remember Samara's placental (?) problems, you can probably guess that I was overly interested in where the placenta is this time. Well, it's high and looks good and will not interfere with the delivery. My due date is the same - January 22nd. As for gender, all we asked is that the technician be sure that it is either a girl or a boy, but we opted not to know. He gave us some of those 3D pictures. We had never had them done before - they are awesome! This is the closest we got to seeing the face.
What you see here is the hands grabbing the feet with the head in the lower right-hand corner.Flexible little one, huh?

Here's the more traditional view.

Everything looks great! It's amazing that they can see so much.

I will try to get on here soon and update everyone on the other happenings of our little (and growing) family.