Our Summer Vacation

And we're back... from Wyoming that is. It was so nice up there to spend time with family and enjoy the cooler weather (almost too cool some nights). The drive up was long and the drive back seemed even longer, although the boys did quite well considering. I am so grateful my Daddy flew down to help with the drive (yes, that is over 3000 miles round trip. AHHH!!!). I don't think I would have been able to do it alone with the two boys. One of them always needed a toy or a snack or something... THANKS AGAIN DAD!

The highlights of the trip include:

FAMILY weekends (on both sides) I wish I had taken a group picture :( But kissin' cousins are good enough.

CAMPING in the Uintahs (let me tell you about how cold it was....)



COUSINS playing with sticks in the woods

SALT LAKE TEMPLE SQUARE walking around with the boys and trying to guess where all the Sister Missionaries were from. The country where they are from is located just below their name tags. We saw ladies from Paraguay, Guatemala, Korea, and Australia just to name a few

HORSES and horse rides around the pasture. Cael even rode Ol' Peppy all by himself!
and Brecon rode Hunter all by himself :)

BEAR LAKE sand and sunshine (or is it Bare Lake?) you decide.
SMILES and LAUGHS

and on the way home: SIGHTSEEING at ROSWELL, NM and CARLSBAD CAVERNS... yes we saw aliens and then we hiked a mile underground. There were steep switchbacks all the way down, my calves were killin' me by the end!

And now we are home again home again... jiggedy-jig! The boys are getting back to a routine and Cael starts Kindergarten on Monday! AHH!! What will Brecon and I do all day? I'm sure we'll figure something out.
Also exciting news for our family.... I'm really going to be outnumbered! We are having a baby boy in November! For those who wish to know that makes me around 27 weeks along. I thought I better share the news before this baby arrives, you know? We just had to keep up the the other Platt brothers who have 3 boys as well. We are looking forward to the adventure that these boys will bring, can you just imagine the trouble we're in for? Wish us luck, we're going to need it.

JU JUNE and JU JULY

GREETINGS.... I COME IN PEACE!!!

Now that swim team for Cael is officially over (hence the brotherly kiss) and we still have 4 more months of HOT weather, our vacation time has finally arrived. In 2 short days we will be making the journey up to the promised land to spend some quality time with our family(s) and play catch up for the past year. And we will be enjoying the much cooler weather!!

In the meantime, we've been enjoying taking trips up to the Guadalupe River and swimming around. I know Brecon looks pretty cool eating watermelon and lying in a river, but it was still a very HOT day!

Ben "sort of" made me a cake this year. It was still cooling off and he shaped it and frosted it. Really, it tasted delicious! But we all know what happens when you try to put frosting on a cake that is still warm... the frosting turns to a glaze and pieces of cake start falling off. I still had my piece and a tall glass of milk :) It was a good way to end the day.

We had a fun 4th of July that all started with the last ward activity that I was in charge of. The food was delicious and we had a huge turnout! The best part was watching the kids beat the "uncle sam" and "american star" pinata. When Cael came up to take his turn, Ben shouted "keep that away from him".... Cael nailed it so hard the pinata broke off of the string!! A friend took a picture right after the pinata was on the ground, Cael had the most intense look on his face and the kids in the background had their mouths wide open, whether that was in amazement or anger because now they wouldn't get their turn. Ben figured out a way to strap "uncle sam" back up for all the other children to have a turn, but it was still a funny moment in 4th of July history :) After cleaning up the party, we went to a buddies house who would be moving (and now have moved) and they needed some help eating the rest of the groceries in their house so they hosted a pool party BBQ. The boys swam and swam until around 4:30 when we put them in the car. Before we had even pulled out of the neighborhood Brecon was OUT! At 5 o'clock Cael went to his bed. We didn't see them until the 7 the next morning, bright-eyed and bushy tailed!!! Now that is what I call a fun day :)

Cael is 5

It's crazy to think that our son is now 5! We had a pretty fun little party with Cael's buddies in the backyard. There was plenty of water fun to go around, a pinata, and cake. I took pictures and video of all the little friends, but it was on the other camera. These pictures below are of the gifts sent from Gma/Gpa Platt and Hoopes taken on our spare :)

Cael is also doing well on the swim team this year. He is in the 6 and under age group and got a couple of ribbons for the races we have had. He has taken 6th and 4th in the 25 meter freestyle, but he had a little 4 (for his age) next to his name and he was racing against 6 year olds! We think it is pretty cool and he tries so hard. Little Brecon gives him big hugs after the race is over, we know that he sure loves his brother!

Speaking of the Brecon man.... He is very good at trying to keep up with his big brother and they have so much fun together! I just have to mention this story that happened around the end of may while Cael was still in pre-k, Ben and I took Brecon shopping. While picking up a few items in the cereal aisle, Brecon became focused on a task he felt needed to be done. It wasn't until after he had filled the shopping cart that we began to take some pictures of what had just occurred.

He filled up the entire basket! What was so funny is that he would only grab the TOOTIE FROOTIE bags and nothing else. People walking by would giggle and say "that's so cute" and they were right. It was.

And after a long day of playing, sometimes you just gotta let little boys sleep. It doesn't matter that you are at the swimming pool and everyone is in the water. A boy has got to sleep!

:(

THIS IS THE LAST PICTURE our poor camera ever took.

It was at Cael's LAST soccer game of the season.

It never came back into focus...

At least it captured this fine moment in time.

Things we haven't been able to take pictures of since:

*My Spring Piano recital and all the cute kids. All my students did such a great job, I'll have to get copies from the parents!

*Ben got PRK (like lasik surgery) on his eyeballs. No more glasses. No before and after surgery picture :(

*Gave the boys their summer haircuts. Brecon's blonde-ness had been growing for almost a year. Now he looks like a little boy

*Two brothers playing and Caels says "Mom, take of picture of this..." Sorry buddy, I just can't.

*A really cute picture that Cael drew of our family (and I don't have a scanner) We'll figure out a way to share this one, it's a keeper :)

*Cael's first swim meet of the season. He swam in the relay and in the freestyle (6 and under)races. He did so great! I was cheering for him the whole way down!

It's amazing the things you want to remember, but without a camera those events just blur together in our memories... Maybe we'll just have to go shopping and get us a new one, right?

Update and Furniture Projects

I know I leave some huge gaps in-between posts, so I try to make up for it my posting a REALLY long one (or at least it feels that way) I worked on this baby and then the computer shut down, thank goodness for the auto-save or else I don't think I would have come back :)

My classes are done... I'm back to a some what regular routine again and just taking it easy. We have been really enjoying Cael's soccer practices and games and seeing what an amazing kid he is! He scored 2 goals this last Saturday, his number on his back is 3 so Ben keeps telling him he needs to score that many goals. We like to set our "standards" high :) Just kidding! Only 2 more games and then spring soccer season is done :( At least we can sign him up again in the fall...

We've been trying to keep cool with visits to the community pool almost everyday last week. We did manage to squeeze in about an hour of swimming before Ben has had to leave for work for his night ICU rotation (yuck!) He is gone all night and sleeps all day! The only upside is Cael has been going to sleep/bed especially early, around 6:30 or 7. That kid must be growing or he is really burning up all his energy. Either way I am left with a too much time with nothing to do! I need to figure out a project or something...

Speaking of... I have had few finished projects I've meant to post. A friend of mine has really inspired me with color, and I wanted to add a bit of that to some furniture that we were given, we had, we found, or bought for $5 at a garage sale. There are some sweet spray paint colors (and oops! paint in just the right colors) at some stores here in town, which I bought and proceeded to color dressers, bookcases, etc...

#1 Black bookcase.... WA-LAH! it's blue! I let Cael paint until he was bored... he actually stuck with it for much longer than I thought, however, I did finish the job after he left the brush inside the paint bucket after becoming distracted by something his brother was doing.

#2 Dresser was given to us from my good friend. Cael helped with the sticker-pulling and even kept a few of the Thomas the Train ones. I had to sand, prime, then paint. This is where spray paint is a beautiful thing!

now it's GREEN! I got some cool looking silver handles at HD. It looks pretty sweet!

#3 sewing table: was WHITE now BLUE with Green handles! However, since I do not have a working sewing machine, this baby is now resting quietly in the closet... don't worry, she'll be going to work as soon as I get a new machine :)

#4 My garage sale dresser. Because it was so dark originally, I had to prime this twice, paint a base color (twice) and go over it with spray paint... you guesses it... TWICE! I do love the yummy yellow! The next move with this little treasure will be choosing the inside drawer color, something bold, don't you think?

#5 This last little number is now a spunky bedside table. I didn't take a before, but just imagine a boring, dark wood that has now been transformed...

Well, that just about does it for now. Until next time, or when other exciting things happen with our family....

Some fun stuff

We had a great visit with Grandpa Platt when he came down for a few days. It seems like when we have visitors we put them to work, and Grandpa was no exception! Our Saturday was spent loading/unloading and laying new sod in our backyard. And then he even rolled a big heavy water barrel over it to even it out. Boy! It sure was a good time.

Cael has gotten the bug for cartoons and the computer. It seems every other word coming out his mouth is to ask when he can play the computer. Sunday evening we were trying to keep the boys entertained, which included going for a beautiful walk, eating apple crisp with ice cream, and eventually sitting down to an entertaining round of balloon twisting. Cael wasn't satisfied with the crazy hats and swords dad was making for the boys and wanted armor. This is some video of him admiring himself in the mirror, and as usual, Brecon is doing all he can to follow the craziness of his older brother. Cael loves the armor and wants to wear it to church next Sunday. We told him that would be a great idea so he better put it in a safe spot. I'm sure it will be destroyed by that time.

Gma and Gpa Hoopes Visit Us

I just had to post some of the adventures we had while my mom and dad were in town for a few days. Our big trips included Six Flags Fiesta TEXAS and also the Natural Bridge Caverns. We sure had fun, and even got some yard work out of our visitors (THANK YOU AGAIN) We are so glad you were able to come and visit us. We love you!

After Mom and Dad flew in Saturday afternoon and a short stop at the house to unload luggage, we all loaded back into the EX (the beast of a truck) for Six Flags. I was quite nervous going so late in the day and thought the lines would be terrible and we wouldn't be able to ride on anything. Boy, were we wrong! There were hardly any lines, we walked right on most the of big roller coasters, and Dad about lost his lunch after GOLIATH (the very first ride we rode). We walked around the park and stayed until closing time. Our favorite was the TONY HAWK skateboard/rollercoaster, but Cael was not a big fan. He had this look on his face of pure disgust/fear, which made Mom, Dad, and me laugh and enjoy the ride even more. Poor kid, when the ride was finished he said "is it over?" YEP! it sure is!

Grandma and Brecon watching Cael and Grandpa on the Wiggles Airplane ride.



And the two on the ride, YES... they are having fun!

We can't forget our favorite super-hero HULK and that guy in the black cape... what is his name again?



I love this picture of Ben and the boys... Cael has that hand on his hip thing down pat! Just like a real SUPERHERO!

Here we are on the airplane ride... That Cael just loves going on that thing!

On Monday we took the family to the Natural Bridge Caverns . Quite an interesting journey and cool caves to explore. While waiting for the tour to start, we played "gold-miner" with a water trough and the extra dirt that was at the bottom. Needless to say, some people got wet! But it was a great way to pass some time.

Notice Brecon's shirt and the dark color on his sleeve.... He just trying to play with his brother and be a good gold-miner!

Inside the cave was really quite amazing and beautiful, but taking pictures just couldn't due it justice. Our camera was on the verge of dying with each picture that we took, so we at least got a few to prove we were there.... (I'm obviously taking the picture, I'm still there I promise)

WHAT A GREAT TRIP we HAD! It's always fun when family comes to visit. We are now looking forward to Grandpa Eugene, only TWO more days until we can have fun with HIM!!! See ya soon!