A Few Misc. Pictures

Josiah discovered Superman Icecream today and loved it...so much that he just had to save some all over his face for later. Plus you must take notice of his lovely outfit...his dad dressed him that day!!! :)

"Let me out!!!"
"I love my new desk, thanks mom!"

Grandma and Grandpa L. Visit

My dad and stepmom came down for a visit last week and we had a really nice time. It was absolutely beautiful outside, so we spent most of the time outside until Josiah had to get ready for bed. We ordered pizza, salad and bread sticks from a newly discovered pizza place in our little town. Seven years here and never had we eaten there. A little more expensive, but worth every penny :) Josiah did a good job keeping us thoroughly entertained throughout the evening as always!! From trying to drink beer to standing on the picnic table to saying "Bubboos" on cue ;) All in all a fun time!

Father's Day Excursion

Dan had heard about a park in town that neither one of us had ever been too. I had no idea that it was even there. I had passed by the park on countless occassions and had no idea what was back in there. But Dan had heard that they had something called a splash pad. In Dan's mind it was this great big sponge with a few inches of water and you could run around on it and splash about.

We had such a great time. It turned out to be a sprinkler type water park. You can see what it was like in the pictures below. It took Josiah about 2 minutes to figure out what it was all about and he dove right into the different sprinklers. He just ran and ran for about 2 hours straight. Needless to say he took a great nap that day.

So all in all I think Dan had a great Father's Day. After our naps, we packed back up and headed back into town to eat at Dan's favorite restaraunt. Thank goodness Josiah was good at this restaraunt, because he doesn't tend to be very good when we are eating out any more. All the more reason to eat at home...saves on both money and anxiety :)

The Tides are Changing

Today was a great day!!! My work is going well and I seem to be excelling at the type of work I am doing right now, which is always great! I am meeting new people and am enjoying work right now.

The great part about today part 1: I got a call for an interview today. I am sooooo excited! It is the first interview in my field in quite a long time. The position is for an entry level environmental field technician. Right up my line of work. It would be doing soil and water sampling, data collection and analysis and other environmental testing. My interview is for next Tues. at 5:15pm, so any prayers would be greatly appreciated.

The great part about today part 2: The hospital bills for the cat bite are going to be covered by home owners insurance. Who would have ever guessed? My stepdad, Bob, mentioned that it should cover, so we checked into it and low and behold it is going to be covered 100%. I am so excited. Plus we are coming into some early inheritance to help cover all of our other dr. bills that we have incrued over the past few months. My cup floweth over!

I just can't believe how blessed we truly are. The hard times are hard, but they only make the good times that much better. We just have to continue to have faith. Our struggles aren't over, but they seem much less of a burden with all of this great news. I just need to remember to turn all these burdens over to God, so that He can shoulder the burden for me. I just need to remember to pray!

Pete and Cassie's Wedding

It started out with a little bit of rain and turned into a beautiful day. And all of my worrying about Josiah being good during the wedding was for naught. He was good as gold and only screamed out once. Pretty good for having to sit still for an entire half an hour in his stroller. The wedding party was absolutely beautiful...white and cream dresses and all the guys were in kakhi pants and white shirts. And the reception was picnic style...literally. What a great idea!! We all lined up and picked out what kind of sandwhich and salads we wanted and put them into a paper bag. And proceeded to the nearest square of lawn. They had lots of chairs set up from the wedding too. A really unique idea!

Of course, what kid could resist climbing these stairs...unfortunately he wanted desparetly to climb them while the wedding party was taking pictures :)

He was just precious during the wedding. God must have been singing lullabies in his ear to keep him this content to be sitting.

If you look closely at the picture of Josiah, you can see that he is taking a string of mardi gras beads out of a jar. That little act is what kept him so content. That baby food jar and those beads have occupied many hours of that little boys life.

Brayden had a great time and was very good throughout the wedding too. Between crackers and toys, both boys did great!

All these hills kept both Brayden and Josiah on their feet most of the day. Kelly said that this was the most excited Brayden has gotten about walking which was very exciting and fun to watch him get so excited.

Who doesn't love bubbles...in fact on a side bar. BUBBLES WAS JOSIAH'S FIRST WORD :) Early this week he just started saying it. I take that back...DADDY was his first word and he started using it for Dan about 2 weeks ago. Tonight he called me BOBO, so we still have to work that one out :) But he is definately making a little bit of progress! Einstein didn't talk until he was 4 right??

A much needed drink break. Josiah and Brayden ran and walked all over, but the break was really for Kelly and I ;) Josiah was even body slamming other little boys on the dance floor. Funny, but we had to step in!!

Two very beautiful and blessed families!!!!

Our Camping Trip

Once again it has been far to long! But fear not, I have not stopped taking pictures and there is lots to talk about. Most of which I won't get to on this post. But the main purpose of this post is to post lots of pictures and tell of our adventures while camping and a little bit of our post camping trip. Lots of drama!! So enjoy :)

A while back, Jeremiah and Kelly and Dan and I had decided to go camping over the weekend that both the guys were in a wedding in the UP. Dan and I did the math, figuring out how much it would cost to simply pull "our" camper up there. Using Dan's truck, it would have cost us around $300. So we decided that wasn't such a good idea. Dan's brother, who lives up in the UP, had recently purchased a "camper". So I decided to call and ask if we could possibly use it for the weekend. Little did we know that the camper was actually going to be nicer than our house, just about. As you can see from the following pictures, there was a little bathtub, a full living room, central air...yep luxury, a microwave, stove and kitchen area. In other words, it was awsome. If we had known how nice it was, we probably never would have asked to use it. But I am glad we did. We did leave a little something for Gary and Fay for letting us use their awsome camper. At any rate..enjoy the pictures, because who knows when the next time will be when I have a free night!!

Josiah loved having the freedom. But he especially loved having the water spikit right at our site.

Josiah and Brayden made it worth taking the picnic table with us!!

Mothers and Sons

This is a picture of Josiah running away. This was the story of our weekend. He was soooo busy and on the go. We would let him go so far and then take off after him.

I was able to get some scrapbooking in!! But it was so windy that my pictures kept blowing all over.

We finally got a picture of all of us. Not the best picture, but still we were all in one picture :)

The first picture is of Josiah driving his truck on Brayden. The second picture is of Josiah giving Brayden a hug and the third picture is of Josiah sharing his water. The kids were too cute this weekend.

Kelly had the bright idea of getting some excersize. So we took advantage of the grandparents taking the boys overnight on Friday night. We had some adult time on Saturday morning and it was so great to just hang out. It was like old times!!

That tetherball ball was really hard and really hurt, but was really fun!!

Brayden had fun in the water, as long as he was outside the pool. It was too funny when Kelly tried to put Brayden in the pool...his little abdomen is so strong that he could hold his little legs parallel with the ground for quite some time.

Brayden was a lot of fun to photograph!! Isn't he such a cutey!!!

Aren't we cute couples!! No wonder we have such cute kids :)

Best Buds

Boys and their trucks

Little did we know that the reason Josiah kept laying down because he had the beginnings of strep throat...and the drama began the morning we were getting ready to head home.

I woke Josiah up so we could get everything packed up, but he was unusally whiney that morning. I picked him up and snuggled him and realized he was burning up. I had had forthought to put the thermometer in and discovered that his fever was 102.7. Needless to say, our trip home was pretty long. Between stops to stretch, go to the bathroom, eat and check his fever/meds...it was a 9 hour trip home. Two nights later he would run a fever of 105 degrees. I was certain we were headed back to the hospital. It was the middle of the night and I already had our bags packed when the doctor returned our page. He told us to put him in a luke warm bath for a half an hour to see if we could get his fever down. Right in the middle of his bath, when were trying to warm up the bath because it had cooled way down, the heating element in our hot water heater decided to die. So no more hot water. I sat in the bath tub with him trying to console him. In the end it brought it down to 103 and many hours later he finally fell asleep. We took him to the Dr. first thing in the morning and they concluded that he had strep throat, the same illness that put us in the hospital with the seizure and high fever only a few months ago. I tell you what, between the seizure (which entailed an emergency room visit, ambulance ride and overnight hospital stay), the cat bite (which entailed 3 emergency room visits, two Dr. visits all with substantial co-pays and his medication) and this last bout of strep throat (which thankfully was only a dr. visit and the medicine), we have about broke the bank. It is unbeleivable how much Dr.'s cost with decent insurance, I don't know what people without insurance do. Anyway, after a week of clingy, whiny, not going to sleep, screaming when dad came near, only wanting mom and wanting mom all the time....Josiah is finally back to his old self (well mostly)! Glad to have our happy guy back, whiny is not fun for anyone.

To top off our trip home, we hit a deer. Actually the deer flew into us as we went around a corner. Never saw it coming! But the damage is going to set us back our deductible of $400, that is when we get around to fixing it. For now, we are content with crawling through the passenger side window, Dukes of Hazard style.

But our drama didn't compare with that of Jeremiah and Kelly. When they got home they discovered that their house had been vandelized. they had taken their DVD's, video games, jewlery and some other stuff. But the worst part about it was having their home invaded. The purps tore apart their bedroom and kicked down their doors, among other stuff. To top off the whole experience, Brayden decided it was a good time to choke on a penny. Timing is everything;)

However, even though all that stuff happened..we had a wonderful time up in the UP once again!! Even though I had apprehentions about taking an 18 month old camping...it worked out great and we all had a really fun time.