Back to August

It's October, I know, but I have so much that I didn't post about summer that I have to backtrack. Let's take a step back to August because, it was wonderful wasn't it?

Most of our evenings were spent on walks, usually to a playground or park by our house. We live by quite a few and can alternate where we go.

 Ben's version of the trust fall

Teddy's turn

Nayeli and Teddy are still trying to find their groove as playmates. Most of the time they are on two totally different wavelengths. He is an intense, crazy, busy boy to the core and Nayeli is a girly girl that like to play by herself. He wants to wrestle and she wants to have a tea party. Sometimes it is maddening how much I feel I have to referee just to keep the peace in our home, but slowly they are learning to play together.

 A moment of friendship

 Our neighbor Anita gave us butterfly nets so we went on some butterfly hunts. We didn't catch anything, but you wouldn't know it by their faces.

 At certain times of the year our apartment has ants like crazy. These were the traps I set in the bathroom after only a few days. One day I look forward to living in a place where I don't find ants in my kitchen, shower, bed, etc. One day.

Our beautiful apartment complex 

We also have been spending lots of time at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) since Tina left us with a year pass from her visit. It's a really fun place and they have great exhibits for kids.

"Look Mom, I'm a bacterium!"

The sand area

Playdough!

One thing that Ben did with the kids in August is he took them magnet fishing in the Willamette River. Ben bought an old set of speakers at Goodwill and extracted the strong magnets from the inside. He then attached the magnets to paracord and dragged it along the bottom of the river from a dock. The idea is that you can catch metal objects on the bottom of the river. Unfortunately we only caught dirt, but we still had a great time doing it.

 "Won't it be so exciting when we catch a tin can or a rusty old nail kids?!"

 This picture just KILLS me and I can't stop laughing about it. Isn't this the quintessential parenting moment? We kill ourselves to impress our kids, and this is how they respond? 

One fun event at the end of the month was that we were invited to a "Husbands with July Birthdays" party. Essentially, a bunch of my friends have husbands with birthdays in July and every year they do a birthday party together. Since Ben's birthday is in July, they invited us. We weren't able to meet together until the end of August, but we had no problem partying like it was July.

A tradition of the party is that every guy brings his own pinata. The guys love it because they get to hit something and the kids love it because they get candy.  I didn't want to spend the money on one, so I looked up how to make one on online, simplified it (like I do), and voila!

 (L to R) Ben, Jodie Fish, Ryan Reese, Jason Gough, Keith Smith

Our glorious, homemade pinata that was made from a gift bag, cardboard box and tissue paper. It actually worked perfectly and was the best pinata break of the night.

CANDY RUN!

Singing to the birthday boys. I made a big Texas sheet cake for the birthday cake and it was DELICIOUS (sorry to toot my own horn, but it really was).

 My good friend Jana Fish showed up wearing the exact same outfit as me! Who wore it better? ;)

More pictures of the kids and Teddy laying on top of Nayeli as she tries to have "alone time"

  Snuggles. Five seconds before the brawl broke out.

Nayeli is becoming a better helper every day, even when she "helps" me take the spaghetti leftovers out of the fridge :)

At the beginning of the summer, Jane sent Nayeli three sunflower seeds. We planted them in a small pot, but I really didn't think they would grow, especially when Teddy dug them up and ate one. Little did I know that in Oregon, everything grows. The other two sprouted great and soon we had to transplant them to the soil outside our house. One was eventually knocked down by a maintenance worked, but the last seed continued to grow until it reached almost nine feet tall. It was the talk of the neighborhood! We even had people take pictures in front of it! Nayeli was so proud of her sunflower and we loved getting to see it's progress each day. It's now bent over and wilted and we're waiting for it to brown so we can harvest the seeds and plant more next year. We'll also roast a few because, isn't that what you're supposed to do with sunflower seeds?

Our amazing sunflower.

Our sweet neighbor girls Maddie and Makayla, who often come play with kids outside so I can cook dinner in peace.

On a Sunday walk. The summer weather was hot at times, but so beautiful. We went on so many walks and enjoyed so many days outside. I love where we live and I love Oregon. August was a wonderful time to be here.

Three trips in one

On July 20th Ben, Nayeli and I all embarked on three trips in one. It was a good adventure and though I didn't take very many pictures, I wanted to record what a wild ride it turned out to be.

CASSIDY AND MATT'S WEDDING

 Cassidy and Matt with her parents

Our first stop was at one of my best friend's (Cassidy's) wedding in the Bountiful temple. Even though she planned the wedding in only a month, it turned out great! It was especially special because since she's a convert to the church and the only member in her family, I was her escort. It was such an honor and I was so happy to be there. My awesome sister Christina even came up to watch Nayeli so Ben got to attend the sealing as well. I love attending sealings with Ben and this one was good for Ben to be at since Cassidy was instrumental in setting us up. She was the one who gave Ben my phone number.

With Nayeli at the wedding. Ben objected to me putting this bow in her hair because "It's way to big". I'm sad to admit he was right. It was a little over the top.

Bridesmaids and Groomsmen

Yep, one of those pictures

MONTANA

After the wedding festivities, we slept the night at Ben's mom's house and then drove to Montana the next day. We had so much fun relaxing in the cabin, eating until our stomachs were going to burst, and getting out. We hiked, had a target-shooting competition with our new gun (yeah, we bought a gun- future post to come) and explored the big-sky country. And I only took two pictures. Lame.

We hiked with Emily and Laura's families to a beautiful lake. It was seven miles but all the grandkids did it, even my four year-old niece Bridie. 

So Montana was a blast (like always), and we loved it (like always). And Ben, thinking that it would be fun to film his friend on the Snake River, decided he would take a day of work while we were on vacation. And that's how we ended up in...


JACKSON HOLE

We arrived in the afternoon, and Ben filmed all day while I shopped. Let's just say shopping in Jackson Hole has gone to pot. When I was a kid they had a Benetton and J-Crew outlet, as well as a Gap. Now it's full of designer boutiques and souvenir shops that all carry the same things. What was foreseen as a fun day of shopping ended up being a day of walking from souvenir shop to souvenir shop, trying to entertain a three month-old and myself. And just when I thought I'd found a safe haven in a designer pearl boutique that was very interesting (I struck up a conversation with the owner who was wearing a $10,000+ pearl necklace), Nayeli had a blowout onto my shirt. Yeah, it was one of those moments.

By the time Ben was done filming at 8 pm I had hit my limit. We had agreed to go camping (to save money on hotels and because Ben LOVES camping) so we rushed to get to the campsite before dark. As soon as we got there, we began unpacking and realized... Ben had forgotten his sleeping bag. 

I had a severe moment of "we are getting a hotel room and don't think you're going to talk me out of it", but Ben calmed me down and told me that he had the perfect solution. He said he would sleep in his clothes, wrap himself in a blanket, and stuff his feet in my partially unzipped sleeping bag. So the two of us shared the sleeping bag until about 3 am when Nayeli got cold and I put her next to me. By the morning, all three of us were sharing one sleeping bag. Yeah, it was one of those camping trips :) 
 
 

 In actuality, it didn't turn out awful. At least we look like we're mildly enjoying ourselves here :)

Our little monkey

And in the end, it was probably worth it. Most adventures are, right? At least we got a great YouTube video to show for it.

Random Summer Happenings

This summer has been so fun... and I have all sorts of random pictures of what we've done. So here they are, all meshed together.

This summer I quit my job in the ER at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center. This was the picture one of nurses took of me saying goodbye. It's been bittersweet- I miss the people and adult work environment a lot. However I don't miss the night shifts or the drunks and psychotic patients. I think I'd had enough of those.

When Ben's brother Sammy came home from his mission we hiked with the Petersens up above Snowbasin. It was really beautiful.

However Nayeli got really hot and we ended up having to strip her down to her diaper.

This wasn't technically summer but I'll include it in here. We went to plant flowers in my Nana's yard for Mother's Day. She is 95 years old and still lives independent. She's one of my heroes.

A first for Nayeli- we took her swimming in her great-grandparents' pool.

She actually really seemed to like it. Maybe we have a little swimmer on our hands.

The fourth of July

When people see Nayeli there are two things they comment on: her big eyes and her big cheeks. This picture makes it obvious why those are the first two things they notice.

Lake Powell

At the end of June (right after Nayeli's blessing) we went with Ben's family to Lake Powell. It was only my second time but super fun. We enjoyed swimming, jet skiing,water skiing, good company and great food. And of course Nayeli had a great time.

Isn't she just the sweetest thing you ever saw? She has such a pleasant personality.

Can you guess what Nayeli thought of the life jacket? Not her favorite.

Family picture from the top of the houseboat. I forgot to mention that I chopped five inches off my hair sometime in June. It's been great for summer and with Nayeli, but doesn't fit in a ponytail yet. Thus the pigtails. Not my favorite (I feel like a child) but functional.

The End of the Summer of Dreams

The summer of 2010 is over. Last week Ben started school, ending our riotous (while righteous :) ) living. Knowing that we won't always be newlyweds and childless, we tried to take advantage of the summer months. They were short, but oh so sweet. Some of the highlights were:

• We had 3 great vacations to Belize & Honduras as well as Lake Powell and Montana. Getting to show Ben my mission was incredible, while spending time with our families was great too.
  
• Ben encouraged me to buy my first ever mountain bike off KSL.com, then regretted it after trying to teach me how to ride it. In my defense, it's hard to understand gears when you've never owned a bike with more than one speed. I told him on one of our rides, "You deserve a prize for trying to teach a DeBry woman to do something that she already wants to know how to do".
  
• We got to use the camping gear we got from our wedding or bought with wedding gift cards. According to Ben, that was the best use of the money :)
• We slept in some days, and stayed up late even more nights.
• Happy hour at Sonic was an appointment nearly twice a week. Those limeades can't be beat.

Those are the only things that come to mind, but I'm sure Ben will have some more memories. Either way it was, as Ben calls it, the summer of dreams. Now we just have to get through the Fall of "have opposite schedules with your spouse but attempt to see each other as much as possible anyway". Life is good :)