Swimming Lessons

Since we are in Utah for a while I decided it was necessary to get Keegan into some swimming lessons. Can you believe my kid has never had a formal swimming lessons?? I mean, goodness, I used to work at the pool. Crazy, I know.

So here is Keegan right before his 1st swimming lesson. He refused to smile, but he was excited.

Here they are listening to the rules. And there is the lifeguard just incase they let go of the wall. I will be mortified if my kid has to be rescued. Gratefull to the lifeguard, but mortified.

Finally in the pool and waiting his turn.

Kicking with the "surf board" as Keegan calls it.

Learning to do "Big Arms"
Kicking on his back. I can't even get him to lay back in the tub. I was totally surprised.

Floating on his back. Again totally surprised by this. And not sure why he is doing fish lips while doing it.

Floating on his stomach, he was totally squirmy.

Now I feel better. MY kid is finally in swimming lessons. And he loves them. How is it possible that I have put it off so long.

Bowling Party

Last night we had Keegans bowling party. We invited his little friends and their parents too. We had 3 lanes to ourselves. Amid some slightly organized chaos games got bowled, kids had fun, cupcakes got eaten.

And for a brief second the kids sat still.

Logan, Keegan, Mason, Audrey

Left to Right

The Boys
Thanks for the fun night. We loved getting together and seeing all of you.

Goodbye Vancouver....Hello Salt Lake

Today we are leaving Vancouver and heading home. We are kind of bummed, we have liked it here a lot, maybe even more than ABQ. And sadly enough, the place we have liked the most we spent the shortest amount of time here. No option for extending and even the other travelers that the hospital did extend had their contracts canceled. So since I am on a list kick I will list what we are going to miss the most.

1. Tillamook Cheese being cheep. Here, it is cheaper than any store brand out there. Soon we will be back where I can only dream about buying it.
2. The trees, it is so pretty here.
3. The weather, I really can't complain. It was never really cold and I actually like the rain a lot.

4. The park just across the street. It was so nice to be able to take Keegan to the park anytime it wasn't raining.
5. The fun things to do here, the zoo is gorgeous, Multnomah Falls, the beach was close enough to do in for a day trip.

Anyway, we will be hitting the road later today, wish us luck.

Happy 4th Birthday Keegan!!

Where did the time go???
How is he already 4??

He used to be so little
He used to let me put diapers on his head as a hat.

And now he is such a big boy.
I'm pretty sure he won't let me put diapers on his head anymore.

Happy Birthday Sweet Boy
Hope we can have a great day!!

Keegans Favorites

I decided it would be fun to have a little Q & A session with Keegan, here are some questions and his answers exactly as he told me

1. What is your favorite color?
Hmmm, blue I mean red and blue

2. What is your favorite animal?
Mammoths and my favorite dinosaurs are therapods like T-rex cause he has 2 fingers on each hand.

3. What is your favorite toy?
T-rex

4. What is your favorite show to watch on TV?
Dinosaur Train

5. What is your favorite movie?
Hmmmm, hmmmm Ice Age

6. What is your favorite book?
Hmmmmm, Lion King

7. What is your favorite food?
Hmmmmmmm, Ice Cream

8. What is your favorite thing about Vancouver?
Hmmm, playing on my scooter

9. What do you want the most for you B-day?
Hmmm, a bike

10. What is your favorite game to play?
Hmm, Hmmmmmmmm Zombies, I mean shooting games with daddy


So this was the first edition of Q&A with Keegan. I can't say I love the answer to #10, but that is exactly what he said. I was hoping he would say Chutes and Ladders but nope. He loves those dang Zombies.

Happy Valentines Day

Hope you all have had a wonderful day. Ours was spent relaxing around the house. Keegan managed to let us sleep in until 9:00, which was much appreciated. I made pancakes for the boys for breakfast which I think is their favorite. We then caught up on the Olympics that Josh had missed yesterday while at work. Josh was in charge of lunch and that left me completely STUFFED!!

I decided to list 5 things I love since Keegan does call today "Love Day"

1. Obviously my 2 guys. Josh and Keegan, they are truly the best things to ever happen to me.
2. Traveling, I have absolutely loved the opportunity we have had to travel and see new places. Our time her in Vancouver is almost at an end, I can't believe it.
3. Unlimited minutes on our phones. I don't think I could enjoy traveling as much as I do if I weren't able to call my friends and family ALL of the time. I do tend to harass some more than others. Thanks for letting me do so.
4. Chocolate..not much else needs to be said here.
5. Getting to go home and see family in 1 week.

A Couple of Keegan Funnies

So the things that come out of this kids mouth are usually sweet and nice, but sometimes it is just down right loud. Then there are the times that he just keeps me laughing.

The other day he was wearing a pair of pants that are just too big in the waist. I have to roll the waistband just to keep them up. So at one point I noticed his pants were falling down and I told him "your drawers are falling down" he looked at me and replied "What?!? my drawers" he then turned and ran up the stairs to go push in his dresser drawers.

First thing this morning he asked me how old I was. I told him and he looked right at me and said "Wow, that's a lot"

It's kind of funny how he just says exactly what he is thinking even if I didn't want to be reminded of how old I was.

We'll just have to see what he comes up with tomorrow.

Cannon Beach

After what seemed like forever in the car we managed to get to the beach. Keegan was so excited. We got to a beach called Hug Point. It was really rocky but sounded really cool when the waves pulled the rocks back down the beach. We listened for a really long time, so long that we almost didn't notice the waves getting closer, we would have all had very wet feet.

Here was the cave on Hug Point

The rocky beach

The scenic viewpoint before you actually get to the beach

Keegan at Cannon Beach

All he did was run, and run, and run

Standing with Pa watching the waves

More running

With Pa and Grandma

Holding still for just a sec.

Winter beach attire, rubber boots are a must.

We ate dinner at a place on the beach called Mo's. The sun came out just in time to set.

We had a great time and were able to see a lot of fun stuff.

State Champion Spruce Tree

We decided to go to Cape Meares Lighthouse. So after the cheese factory we headed out on this little road to go to this lighthouse. Well as we get to the turn off we see that the gate is closed. We head up this little trail hoping that we will be able to see it. And as we are walking I remember that this is the lighthouse that was vandalized 1 week before and that is probably why it was closed. So no lighthouse but this trail was the trail to the BIG Spruce tree. Now I have never seen The Redwoods but this thing was the biggest tree I have ever seen.

Here is Keegan going under a tree root. It wasn't The BIG Spruce but a pretty big one anyway.

Tillamook Cheese Factory

On our way to the beach we stopped at the Tillamook Cheese Factory to take the tour and eat some yummy ice cream.

It was a little piece of cheesy heaven. At the end of the tour there were cheese samples. I have to admit that we all went through the line more than once.

Farmer Josh and Keegan the cow

The cheese slicing and packaging room.

Weighing the baby loafs, some of them seemed to be a bit on the light side. So they got an extra little slab on top.

One of the best parts of living this close to the Tillamook factory is that my favorite cheese is cheaper than the wal-mart brand. Yummy!

Multnomah Falls

On the same day as the zoo we also went to Multnomah Falls, since it wasn't raining we decided that we probably wouldn't find a better time to go, so off we went.

Keegan the tour guide showing the falls to the grandparents..

A visit to the zoo with Pa and Grandma

Paul and Tari flew in last Wednesday for a visit. The first place we headed to the Oregon Zoo.

Here is Pa and Keegan outside the gift shop.

Keegan having a good time outside the lion exhibit

Keegan the baby eagle.

Mount St. Helens

We decided that since Josh had a few days off we would do some sightseeing. Since Mount St. Helens is relatively close we headed up there. It is a nice drive and everything is of course sooo GREEN. We were only able to visit 2 of the 5 visitor centers/observation points since it is the off season but oh well.

Here is Keegan outside of the visitor center and museum. He was just happy to be out of the car. The museum was really neat. We all had a good time going through.

This is from the 2nd visitor station further up the canyon. This is the Toutle River Valley. This is one of the areas that was most damaged by the eruption. According to the museum, a mudslide/flood that reached

200 feet in height came rushing down this valley.

Back behind the mountains you can see is Mount St. Helens. ( do you see it?) lol It is a rainy cloudy day and it is snow covered. So while we can say we have BEEN TO Mount St. Helens, we can not say we have SEEN Mount St. Helens. We did drive further up the canyon hoping that the clouds that were covering the top 2/3 of the mountain would disperse. However, they did not.
We stopped at some overlook spot from which you could see the dam that was built to hopefully stop future flooding in the event that the mountain decided to mis-behave again. No picture of the dam but I did think this tree trunk looked cool. Oh well So even though we didn't actually get to see the whole mountain it was still a great day. The museum was really informative and had great pictures and a movie that you could watch, so it still felt like we were seeing it. I think Keegan was a little disappointed though. I'm pretty sure that he was thinking we would be seeing molten lava oozing down a mountain when we told him we were going to see a volcano. After me telling him that the snow covered mountain up ahead was the volcano he asked "mom, does it still work?" and "is it going to be erupted today?" I love the way his little mind works.


And here is the day it decided to snow here. It isn't really that much and it didn't stay too long. If you had been here to see the news that night you would have thought it was 2 feet not 2 inches.

Merry Christmas

I hope everyone is having a wonderful day. We miss you all and wish we could be home to see you all.

With Keegan napping

and Josh at work

This is how I'm spending my afternoon. Warm and cozy infront of the fireplace with my nice warm new socks.

And 9 years later...

So 9 years ago I started a project. I was all jazzed and got half of it done right away. Then, life got in the way and this little project got packed away in a rubbermaid container. I brought it out again 3 years ago, only to do part of it wrong. Totally discouraged, I put it away again. But as we were packing our stuff for Vancouver, I decided I was determined to get this blasted thing finished.

FINALLY

done with the hard part

All that is left is to put the borders on and then find someone to do the quilting. There is no way I'm going to try to do that myself. There are computerized machines for just that purpose. I would go NUTS.