Andrew Pond

It's official. Harrison has a bona fide imaginary friend. His name is Andrew Pond. "His head and his neck are a live, but the rest of him is a skeleton that looks like a dinosaur." is the response I got when I asked who Andrew Pond was. Apparently he doesn't live in San Diego, because Harrison communicates with him through a cell phone. He lives in a museum, according to Harrison. Luckily the cell phone that Harrison uses to talk to him is a calculator, otherwise our cell phone bill would be sky high!

Sleeping?

This is what the boys room looked like this morning. Something tells me the boys weren't sleeping last night when I thought they were....

Trip Highlights

We've already covered a lot of the highlights from our trip in previous posts, but there's more!

We had a great time in Huntsville with the Payne's. here's the highlights (in no particular order):

Riding the "tractor" mower with Grandpa. - Noah & Harrison

Seeing 3 movies: Harry Potter, Ratatouille, & License to Wed - Sam & Mollie

Seeing a military band play at SHSU. -Everyone

Seeing Hilary, meeting her husband Ian, and visiting with Debby and Alison. - Mollie

Playing with Grandma's instruments, beads, blocks, stickers, pennies & banks. -Noah & Harrison

Taking LONG naps. -Noah

Taking Naps. -Harrison

Taking a campus tour of SHSU in a "golf-ball" cart. - Sam, Mollie & Harrison

Evening visits with David & Grettle. - Sam & Mollie

Holding, and at times, torturing Kat. - Noah

Helping 4 Rushing Oak get Wild Blue. - Sam & Mollie

Getting bumped to a nonstop flight, having our bags delivered right to our home, and for all this getting compensated $600 in flight vouchers. Thanks again Delta! - Everyone

Texas BBQ twice. Once with the Gibbs, and once on the Ranch. -Everyone

Cream-cheese stuffed jalapeño peppers at the Ranch. - Sam & Mollie

Playing in the garden. -Noah & Harrison

Play Rummicubes & Apples to Apples with Roman & his bride-to-be. - Sam & Mollie

Eating fresh veggies from the garden. - Everyone (well, maybe just Sam and Mollie...)

Getting to see a real flash flood downpour, and not getting wet! - Everyone

And of course, all the other things we previously mentioned: trip to the ranch, fishing, the fire station, and the animals

Challenge

My sister Amanda had this on her blog and tagged me, so here goes

4 Jobs I've had

1. Paper Delivery Girl
2. Kohl's Cashier
3. Computer Science TA at BYU
4. Software Developer for the Navy SEALs

4 Movies I Can Watch Over and Over

1. Return to Me
2. Sense and Sensibility
3. Much Ado About Nothing
4. Finding Nemo

4 Places I've Lived

1. Utah
2. Oregon
3. Virginia
4. California

4 TV Shows I Enjoy

1. The Office
2. The Biggest Loser
3. Numb8rs
4. Alias

4 Places I've Been on Vacation

1. Clifton, VA
2. Fruit Heights, UT
3. Huntsville, TX
4. NYC

4 Favorite Restaurants

1. Cheesecake factory
2. BJ's Pizza
3. PF Changs
4. Stan's of Provo

4 Websites I Visit Daily

1. www.google.com/ig
2. www.gmail.com
3. BLOGS
4. www.toodledo.com

4 Places I'd Rather Be Right Now

1. on the beach
2. in bed
3. on vacation
4. out to dinner

4 People I Think Will Do This

1. Sarah
2. I don't know... Does anyone read any of this stuff???
3.
4.

Good Afternoon

You may have noticed I've updated our blog quite a bit today. And how is this possible? Noah is still sleeping (and has been for over 3 hours now) and Harrison crashed just behind my computer chair. Sometimes the dog days of summer are a good thing.

Noah's new bed

Well, there's actually nothing new about it at all. It's Harrison's old bed, and it's been waiting for Noah for a few months now. Harrison got a new bed and we've been waiting for the right moment to move Noah into Harrison's toddler bed. Coming home from vaction seemed like the perfect time. So, Wednesday morning (while I was at the gym - thanks Sam!) we took down the crib, and moved the toddler bed into the crib location. Well, it seemed to work like a charm. He slept all night in it last night, and aside from the fact that it looked like he was up a little late reading some books, it went off without a hitch! He is still napping in the port-a-crib, which is fine, because Harrison likes access to his room while Noah is napping anyway. They have so much more room in their room now - I'm loving it, but I think the boys are even more!

Fruitful Summer

Or should I say "veggie-ful" summer? This is what was waiting for us in our garden when we got back from our trip to Texas. Thanks, Isa, for watering while we were gone. We had at least a dozen roma tomatoes, and a couple HUGE heirloom tomatoes. We traded some tomatoes for zucchinis (gotta love co-op gardening) and had some really nice cucumbers also. The bean plants look healthy, and we have a couple new tomato plants that are growing bigger by the day and our zucchini plants are coming a long too. Tonight we'll be having some bruschetta thanks to the bountiful amounts of basil. Did I mention that we have 6 ripe pumpkins on our porch as we speak, not to mention the 2 that are still on the vine? Yes, and all from a volunteer. Not sure what I'll do with those... The strawberries are just about finished, but I guess there are plenty of other veggies to keep us busy!

A new house, a cat and a dog

A while back, Harrison was asking for a baby sister, and wondering when one was coming. Since we were in the car at the time, the most logical reasoning came to mind. I informed him that we would need to get a new car (or van) before that could happen, because there would be no room for a baby sister's car seat in our civic. He immediatly responded, "and a new house, and a cat and a dog." Well, on our trip to Texas Noah put his vote in for a cat and a dog when we get our new house. Grandma & Grandpa Payne have a cat (Kat) and several neighbors had dogs, so the boys got plenty of exposure. Several times a day Noah would ask where the cat was, and want to go outside looking for him. I'm not sure how we'll break it to the boys, but I really don't ever want either. I guess I should just be glad they aren't asking for a horse also....

Fishing

On the last day of our trip to Grandma and Grandpa's house, we went fishing in the pond across the street. My dad had prepared for the trip by purchasing two rods and some new fishing gear. It was a good thing, because he had not opened his tackle box (actually his father's) for many years. Anyways we got out and got set up. It turned out that the best rod was a Disney Cars one. It could cast further than the other. So we pulled up some chairs and cast in.

I was a little worried whether Harrison would have the patience for fishing. It can get pretty boring if you're 3. But he had more luck fishing than any single person I have ever met. Within 20 minutes, he had caught 3 fish. The last one was a pretty bass. I was totally amazed. I think he only cast 4 times total. There appeared to be a sweet spot in the pond about 20 yards in. Each cast was out to the middle. We told Harrison to let it sit there for a minute and then reel it in a bit. Every time he reeled it in to this sweet spot he caught something almost immediately. Amazing. We reeled the fish in and took pictures. He loved it. I spend a week at boy scout camp and didn't catch as many fish, but I did get fishing merit badge.

HFD

One of our many excursions while we were in Huntsville was to the local fire department. They showed us all their trucks and equiptment and talked a lot about fire safety. Harrison and Noah both got to get up in the trucks, and Grandma even modeled some fireman gear for them. The boys just loved seeing the big trucks up close - Thanks Grandma!

Trip to the Ranch

While we were in Huntsville, Grandpa Payne set up a very special evening for the boys (and everyone else!) Roger, the Rodeo coach, and a agricultural professor, at Sam Houston State University had us over to his ranch. The boys got to see big tractors up close, pet lots of dogs, ride horses, go on a big waterslide, and enjoy a Texas BBQ dinner.

Harrison did an amazing job riding Blue the horse all by himself, with Roger leading of course. He even learned how to make the horse stop by pulling back on the reigns and saying, "Whoa!" He would have ridden all night if he could have. Noah also liked riding along with Sam.

Roger had 2 young boys (3 & 4) who showed us what living in the country is all about. They ran around barefoot, hanging and climbing on anything they could get their hands on. I really felt like a sissy city girl around them! They were nice enough to share their waterslide, and Harrison and Noah LOVED getting wet in the Texas heat.

4th of July

We had a great 4th of July this year. It started out with the pancake breakfast at church - it's become kind of a tradition in this ward. I actually remember it being one of the first activities we came to when we moved here. That was a lot of fun - the boys enjoyed eating copious amounts of pancakes, and it was fun to sing patriotic songs.

In the evening we had plans to go downtown to see the fire works. Our bank (USAA) was sponsoring the big fireworks downtown, and I had reserved spots for us down on the B-Street pier. We weren't sure too much on the details of the event, so we packed some snacks and headed down. Luckily we had free parking right on the pier, so we didn't have to walk far. When we arrived we were very excited to see that there was a complete BBQ dinner being served, with all you can eat soda (a big hit with Harrison) burgers, hot dogs, chips, cookies, ice cream and all the fixings you could imagine. They had a little photo op where they took your picture, printed it, and gave it to you (for free!) and a bounce house for the kids to play in. Harrison and Noah loved playing in the bounce house, and watching boats sail and zoom by. They gave away several iPod shuffles (which we were not fortunate enough to win :(), little battery operated fans, and as many glow sticks as you desired. Harrison showed us some dance moves as we waited for the fireworks to start. Check out the movie... and the night ended with a fireworks show (of course.) The fireworks were launch from just a couple hundred yards away in the water, so it was pretty loud, but it was fun to watch. At the end of the day we were all pretty exhasted, but we felt it was worth it. And it was fun to see fireworks on the 4th again - it had been 4 years for us....

The Harvest

I love this time of year in the garden. There is always something to harvest. Everytime we go there, even when it seems like we picked everything that was close to ripe yesterday, there is always more to pick. This year everyone's favorite has been the strawberries. They started early (about 2 months ago?) and they just keep coming. I picked these today, and we get about this many everyday we go. Noah picks everything that is within his reach, and exclaims "stawbury! stawbury!" anytime we are close to the garden. I was only able to take a picture of the harvest today because Noah was napping - when he's around they dissapear pretty fast! He often leaves the garden with a brown and red stained face (becuase he ends up eating dirt along with most of the strawberries) and is often not patient enough to take off the green stem. The other day a garden neighbor asked Harrison what his favorite vegetable was that we grow in the garden. Without hesitation he exclaimed, "Strawberries!" They can't last too much longer, but as long as they do, we'll be stopping by the garden on a daily basis.

Blurb

At first I thought it was blurp. But wait, blurb, that makes a lot more sense. Just today I ran across this amazing website - where you can publish your own books. And at really pretty reasonable prices. They even have a tool that will take your blog and automatically convert it to their book format, which you can then edit as much as you would like! I have always thought that this blog would make a great "scrapbook" of what goes on with our family - since I don't take the time to scrapbook for real (even though I will admit to having a closet full of paper, scissors, and pictures I have printed up....) And now I have the perfect way to get it printed - bound in it's own book. Now I have another reason to blog more. Hopefully this will inspire me!