Loving the Adventure!

Sad tale of the week. I've lost another camera, yup, again. The first one was right after Kaleb was born, the 2nd one broke right before Alexander was born, and now another one, right before another baby joins our family. What odd luck!
Thankfully I'm pretty good about uploading the pictures onto my computer almost as soon as I take the pictures. I know there were a few on there that I now don't have, but nothing too big a deal.
I got Jake an early birthday present, a charcoal grill. Even in the rain he had to use it right away and made us hamburgers for dinner. He can't wait to get an attachment to be able to smoke all kinds of meat. I want to make him some clothes that he can wear just for getting stinky while smoking his meats. I'm see-sawing between pants with the words 'smokin' on the rear end, or a t-shirt with 'I love to smoke!' or maybe, 'kiss the smoker' He he he - yes, I'm a bit off my rocker and crazy.

I'll share the one picture I happened to upload from home:
The weather has turned hot lately. We inherited a turtle sand box. The sand was a disaster that I was always finding everywhere in the house. Thankfully, the boys dumped most of it over the edge of the balcony. I finished cleaning it out and added a few buckets of water. The boys love it! Since our balcony is wooden slats on the 2nd floor I'll have to make sure I don't put water in it when the neighbors are sitting downstairs on their balcony. The boys mostly just love to dump the water over the edge but they have fun with it. I need to get some type of flooring to lay down on the wooden balcony to protect against the heat and slivers.

Pregnancy is going exceptionally well. Jake is off track this semester, he has two classes online. He has a laptop so he can sign on from pretty much anywhere to work on his schoolwork. There were no excuses to not take a few weeks for family fun in Utah. I took time first to get a bit of pampering. Haircut, tinted eyelash, shaped eyebrows. I love my new haircut! It's wonderfully quick to style and looks good no matter what I do or don't do with it.

We drove down on Friday. Got to the Stevens, ran around for a few hours, then loaded back up. Followed caravan style to Little Sahara recreational area to play on the sand dunes for the weekend. I was a little nervous the boys would be afraid of the machines but they couldn't get enough of them. Not to worry, there was never a shortage of people who were more than willing to take them out for a ride.
(thank you mom for letting me confiscate your camera this week!)

Jesse

Kaleb

Alexander

Alexander and Aunt Shawna

Kaleb and grandma

Jesse and his daddy Cameron

Aunt Raygan and Alexander

Beside the 4-wheeler and 3-wheelers, there was a lot of sun, dirt and rocks. The boys loved every minute of this adventure!

 I have silly boys, I sure do love them!

Carolina and her mommy Hailey

Carolina even got to go for a ride. She loved it so much she fell asleep

the kids got really worn out with all the sun and playing

I wonder if anyone will notice I'm 8 months pregnant? Ehh, who cares, I'm goin' for  a ride!
(don't worry, I had Jake drive me around and we didn't do anything crazy. I did find it a bit interesting holding on to Jake with my belly in the way.)

Jake taught me how to drive with the clutch. I didn't even buck him off! I think this is what I drove last time, years ago, but I don't remember. At least this time I avoided rolling down any hills or almost flying off a cliff

sometimes Alexander had to settle for a different mode of transportation

It was a great weekend. The first day we got there I went to set up our tent only to discover we were missing some key parts; connectors to hold the a-frame tent poles up. It was dark and too late at this point to figure anything out. The 4 of us squeezed into mom and dad's small camper for the night. The next day dad used his amazing MacGyver skills. Using a coat hanger and his pliers he jimmy-rigged just what we needed to hold our tent up, even during the windy nights. As Jake says, "dad could build an atomic bomb with a rock" Dad says all you need to fix anything is chewing gum and bailing wire. I'm grateful to have him around! Thank you for "fixing" our tent dad. I sure hope the actual parts were just left at home.

The day after we got back to the house we got to go see grandma and grandpa and meet the rest of the Stevens family for pictures. Our family is like a computer, soon as we take pictures, they are already outdated. We'll have to take another picture in a few months when baby girl decides to join the crew. Here's a montage of playing at the park and picture taking:

notice that small bear patch on the back of Jesse's head? That was the only bloody mishap that happened at the dunes. He fell off the picnic table and his head connected with a big bolt. Mom and Raygan asked around and found some campers with super glue and others with gauze pads. Dad glued the wound closed, and it's healing well. Super glue, who knew what amazing things you could do with it!?

I am so blessed to have these amazing guys in my life. I sure do love them!

Kaleb's favorite spot. He loves any man-cover, grate, or hole in the ground. It takes forever to go anywhere when he is walking. He always has to stop and inspect every one of these amazing contraptions and find something that he can drop to the bottom.

I love the singing, entertaining entourage trying so hard to get the young ones to crack a smile and look at the camera 

I love being a mom, it's the greatest job in the world! I can't wait to add a  little girl to this amazing adventure. These boys have forced me to pay attention to life's small wonders that I have long ago started ignoring. Now I cherish that each walk, even around the same block,  is a new adventure with lots to explore and discover, it's not just a walk, it's a treasure hunt! I now marvel at airplanes in the sky, snow falling, observing the path of a bird or a lady bug, and today, rolling down a grass covered hill. When we were getting ready to leave the park Alexander was very interested in the kids rolling down a hill. He was eager to give it a try. It was fun teaching him the joy, dizziness, and pure delight of a simple hill.

dog pile on grandpa!

Life is wonderful! Sometimes I marvel that I get to spend the rest of my life with this amazing guy. 

I can't wait to see the professional pictures!

Not sure how much I'll update this blog in the near future. It's just no fun without pictures to help tell the story! Jake is heading home soon and I'm staying for another week or two (depending on how I'm feeling). I agreed back in October to watch my sister Emily's 3 kids while her and her husband went on a trip to Europe. I didn't know back then I would be 8-9 months pregnant! Jake is willing to head home with the boys so I only have 3 kids instead of 5, thank you Jake! Hope I can find a ride home when I need one. The nice thing about a college town is I always have the college ride board to look at when I need to hitch a ride. There's usually always someone traveling back up to school. What I'm really hoping is our 'new' car will be ready before I need to leave. Then I can drive myself in our Suburban (and offer people the empty seats if they need a ride up to school). Yeah for a car that will fit a family of 5! Thank you dad for all your work in always finding reliable cars for all your kids.

Adieu until I can post again...I sure hope it has something to do with a new baby girl.