Mountain Fun

We spent some time in the mountains late summer/fall. The first trip was a family reunion involving my mom's family (cousins, aunts, uncles) up at the Heber Valley Girls Camp owned by the LDS church. It's a pretty nice camp with cabins - that probably makes for more comfortable girls camp experiences when it happens to rain. I remember having to pull our sleeping bags away from the side of the tent when it rained at Girls Camp when I was a teenager. Good thing I stuck it out for 4 years and was a Youth Camp Leader and got to stay in the lodge in beds with real mattresses my last year! :D

Anyway.... enough of my rambling - onto the pictures! We didn't get any pictures of me at the reunion, just Mason and Marc by the fire... My boys are so cute!!! I especially love this picture!

  I'm pretty sure Mason is watching the fire in this one.

 Then we went up to Great-Grandpa's cabin near Fairview! Lots of fun for little boys at Grandpa's cabin because there is a never ending supply of rocks (from the gravel roads) and sticks! Boys and their sticks, if they aren't out in nature with their sticks, they sit at home in front of the TV with a digital 'stick' such as a remote or a wiimote. ;)

 Starting out on the family nature walk to Mason's Great-Great-Uncle Jim's house.

  Mason showing off his stick!

 What a good little hiker I have. Someday he'll be able to do 50 milers (backpacking trips) no problem!

Coming back to the cabin, but first he has to push these flower stalks out of his way!

Saying "Bye-Bye" to cousins Joe and Andrew.

I love getting toddler hugs on the camera - so precious!

Enjoying the swing set Great-Grandpa built.

Another family nature hike - there is no short supply of sticks for Mason to find and pick up!

Our family tree at the cabin. We etched our names in the tree on MY first visit to the cabin (so our first trip together since Marc has been MANY times before) and then under our names we etched in Mason's name for the date he came to the cabin for the first time (in 2008 when he was 7 or 8 months old). I still can't believe Marc and I are coming up on our 5th year wedding anniversary!

 Enjoying the wildlife - the deer get pretty close to the cabin. It is always fun when we see them down in the meadow.

Toilet Surprise

15 July 2009

I heard Mason opening the toilet lid and by the time I got to the bathroom to investigate, this....

is what I found. He was taking stuff out of the garbage and putting it in the toilet.

Mason styling in his suit

So here's the link to another video where Mason is stylin' in his new suit from Grandma Jeanette and signing "please" and "I love you"

"Please" and "I love you"

Mason and Schmetterlin's duet

Mason and his neighbor friend, Schmetterlin (German for Butterfly - her parents are from Argentina but of German descent) played the piano together this week and it looks like they are popcorn kernels popping up and down in an popcorn air popper!

Click on the link below to go to my YouTube video of it. 

Mason and Schmetterlin

Boxes and Boxes!

I don't remember where I was this night.... but when I came home Marc made sure I saw pictures of what they 'played' with Aunt Cissy while I was gone... sliding Mason back and forth across the kitchen floor in a strawberry flat (a shallow box that holds multiple containers of strawberries). And thanks go to Chris for thinking of getting out the camera to take pictures!

With Aunt Cissy

Obviously in the middle of a push from Daddy.

A small break for a picture.

Maybe Mason is a little too aware of the camera?

Giggle Giggle


Then.... since we had so many boxes around the house getting ready for Mason's cousins move to their new house (we were collecting boxes for them and then took a couple after the move to use ourselves).... Mason decided that they made for a great obstacle to climb in and out of and sit in.

Happy 19th Birthday Stuart!

Again, I do realize that there is a bit of a timing issue on this post since my brother's birthday was in June and it is now September... but there you go. Anyway, we had a little family party at Shane's house ON Stuart's birthday with those of us that live here in the area (Spencer, Shane, me and our families...) Then later that same week after Kjersti had a chance to get up here from California, my parents drove down from Idaho and we had a surprise party for Stuart at a park.... pictures to be forthcoming.

In LDS-dom, when a young man turns 19, about 50% of the time he will choose to serve a mission if he is in good health. Stuart has chosen to serve a mission and he has been called to serve in the Ghana Accra Mission English speaking (yeah... he got his call well over a month ago). He will report directly to the Accra MTC the 3rd week of October, spend 3 weeks there and then spend the next two years of his life teaching the good people of Ghana about the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. We are so excited for him! He will be the first grandchild of either sets of my grandparents to serve in Africa - the rest of us served in North and South America, South-East Asia and Europe, but so far nobody has EVER gone to Africa (my great-grandfather served a mission to Australia where he met our great-grandmother... so I'm including that far back of my direct line).

I still can't get over that he is really old enough to serve a mission, I actually remember him as a baby and toddler! I think that's why I sometimes call Mason "Stuart" and have to correct myself and call Mason by his correct name! Stuart and Mason are the same many years apart that Stuart and Spencer (my oldest brother) are... so I'm going to work really hard to make sure that Mason doesn't forget Stuart, like Stuart forgot who Spencer was by the time Soencer came home from his mission.

Here's Stuart and Ethan.

This is really cousin Lily's car, but it is Mason's favorite toy when he goes to his Aunt Lolo's house and the times that Aunt Lolo has watched Mason for me, she tells me that he stays in that car pretty much the entire time he is over there. Ah Mason... if only we had a house we would get you your own car.

And here is my sweet niece Abby. I love her large blue eyes! I just realized that all of my parents' grandchildren have inherited large blue eyes. They are so cute and at least Mason gets complimented on them all the time, as I'm sure his cousins do as well!

Mason LOVES the water!

How bad is this... it's Labor Day and I'm posting pictures from the Saturday before Memorial Day! Probably not what Jordan had in mind when he e-mailed me last week to find out if I was ever going to update our blog. Ah well.... I haven't posted this pictures before and Mason is a cutie in them! This was the last singles ward activity we attended before Marc was released. The previous bishop of the ward (the man who was the bishop when Marc was first called into the bishopric but then was released 2 months after Marc was called in) has a long standing service project at a cemetery down here where the statues and memorials to the servicemen from that city are cleaned and the polished. He asked if the singles ward could do it again this year (they did it last year) and they willingly obliged. Afterwards, the bishop invited everyone to his home on the other side of town to swim in his pool he had just opened up and warmed up. Marc and I didn't bring our swim suits even though we brought Mason's, and only one of the singles actually did bring her swimsuit so she could go swimming... so here is a VERY happy Mason playing on the steps and then swimming with Julia! He is sooooo excited!