Fishing with Dad

I attended a geology conference in Utah last week and took a day off after I was done to go fishing with my Dad. I took him on the Provo River to a place I affectionately call "The Bowhole" because of the prolific numbers of Rainbow trout I've caught there. I wasn't disappointed with my nice Rainbow and I was THRILLED to have Dad hook up with a couple of nice Brown trout. It was a great day fishing!

Sam walks!!

Brent's good idea.

As I walked out the door to Wal-Mart, Brent whispered, "Get the kids a little swimming pool." What a sweet daddy, eh? So I found one (for a whopping $4, I might add). When I arrived home, he'd told the kids that Mom had a surprise for them. They could hardly guess what it was, even though Dad had dressed all three of them in swimming suits and covered them in sunscreen.

A brilliant idea for anyone with three little kids who like to go outside, especially during the summer in Houston, TX.

Harvest time

Yes, we harvested in the spring (our winter garden, that is). We pulled out all the spinach, peas, and carrots. Do you like my boquet?


Now we're growing corn, zucchini, squash, cucumber, and a lovely salsa garden including cilantro, green bell pepper, jalapenos, habaneros, serranos, and 4 varieties of tomatoes. Hopefully the Houston summer sun doesn't fry it all before next harvest time!

By the way, we are REALLY enjoying seeing which bulbs the previous home owners had planted. We have a new surprise every couple of weeks.

Spaghetti, anyone?

I make it a matter of tradition to have a picture of my babies with spaghetti all over them ... I have one of these shots of myself as a one-year old. So here's spaghetti-Sam.

(And because they didn't want to be left out, two lovely pictures of Nathan & Becca eating their spaghetti, too ... I guess we're still working on Becca's fork skills)

Happy Birthday, Becca!!!

Now Little People houses are cool, but the best present of all was having Aunt Bonnie and Aunt Susan around on her birthday. Becca's mom was particularly grateful since the cute aunties put up the decorations (very well, I might add ... they're still up a week later), and helped with the birthday cake "project". With three of us frosting all at once, it didn't take long to create this beauty (and it tasted good, too):

The party preparations took a lot out of her, I guess. But she woke up just in time for the party to start!


Thanks for the cute presents, Grandmas!

Sister Sue

Now we didn't want Susan to miss out on all the vacationing fun, so she flew down just after the family left. She stayed as long as she could between semesters (five whole days), which was not enough for Nathan. I've never seen him so mopey as when we dropped Sue off at the airport. Highlights of Sue's stay:

Doing baptisms at the Houston Temple.



Sue caught this whopper (by the fin, no less). And while Bonnie wins the size prize, her poor fish had to endure being caught in the eye.


After running around Minute Maid Stadium like crazies, we finally secured seats for ourselves on the very back row of the nosebleed section for an Astros baseball game. They won!


Thanks for coming, Sue! We love you!!

Vacation in Houston!

The wonderful Hardman family packed their bags, hopped in the van, and drove for two long days to get to us. We did all kinds of fun things before they had to hop back in and drive back. Here are some of the highlights:

Becca, Nathan, Aunt Emma, and Sam playing mission control at NASA.

Visiting the beautiful Houston Temple.

Sam showing off his new walking abilities.

Building mud fortresses on a beach at Galveston.

Picnicing and fishing at a city park near Brent's work.

Thanks for coming everyone!!!!

We love you!