Our Summer

It's hard to believe the summer is nearly gone and soon fall will be here. We're getting excited for the holidays, though, since the boys will be 1 and 3 this year. I'm enjoying the 'calm before the storm' right now, because the next few months will be BUSY! In addition to the holidays, we all four have our birthdays in the months of November and December, along with our fourth anniversary.
The summer months have been busy, too. It seems like we're always waiting for things to calm down but I wonder if that's even possible! The boys keep us on our toes and we've been trying to get some work done on the house, which we're hoping to sell in the summer of '08.
Jeff and I got to take a trip to Portland in May. It was only a short weekend trip but we had fun exploring the city. We took a lunch cruise on the river and went to the Oregon Zoo.

We went camping in Oregon with my parents, brothers and sisters, and my nieces and nephews

Kamden had fun 'playing' and 'talking' with his cousin, Isabelle, who is four months younger than him. Ethan liked the boat rides on the lake and even went fishing a few times with Grandpa and Daddy. I think his favorite part was being able to play in the dirt, collect rocks and sticks, and not have to worry about taking baths for a few days!

Ethan went on his first white-water rafting trip this year. We got a little cold and whenever he got splashed by the rapids he would hang on for dear life & yell "No bath!" He had fun playing in the sand and even took a turn rowing the raft.

Jeff & I took Ethan to Lagoon in July. We enjoyed watching him have so much fun.He really liked the "Choo-Choo" and the "car-ies". He thought the ostriches were really funny when he saw them on the train ride and he liked going on rides with his Uncles Jeff & Brian, Erin, and Grandma & Grandpa Stoker.

We've gone to the park a lot this summer. Kamden laughs when we push him in the swings and it's nice for Ethan to be able to run around and be with other kids.

Ethan has started potty training and has been doing really well with it. Needless to say, our lawn, trees, and flowers are all growing a lot better, thanks to him!

Jeff also got to go on a fishing trip to Alaska near the end of July. The boys and I went to visit my sister in Oregon while he was gone and he came home with lots of fish! I've had enough salmon to last me the rest of the year!

We've made several trips to visit Jeff's family and it's been good for Ethan to get to play with his cousins and see Grandma & Grandpa. We even went to the fair and rodeo. Last year Ethan got scared when the calves were being roped, but this year he had a lot of fun. He did get scared when he saw the huge pigs, though. But he really liked the big tractors and sheep.
Kamden is going to be 10 months old in about 2 weeks. I can hardly believe it! He is 'army crawling' now and everyone says he looks like he's a little fish when they watch him try to get around. Ethan has had a lot to adjust to this year, moving twice and a new baby brother. He's been great at it though and has been a big help with Kamden. They already play great together and Ethan used to love holding his baby brother & giving him kisses...now it's too hard to get Kamden to hold still long enough for Ethan to do any of that. Kamden is still working on getting his teeth in, and it's been a lot more difficult than it was for Ethan, so that has been a bit of a challenge for all of us. He loves to clap his hands, blow kisses and raspberries, and his favorite game is to shake his head and then he stops and waits for us to shake ours.

This week Ethan has been helping me with yard work. Yesterday we picked the apples off our tree and pruned all of the fruit trees and rose bushes. Today we're going to pick pears, make zuccini bread, and tonight we're helping grandma & grandpa can tomoatoes.