Guess who we found in gunnison...

 Those teeth are recognizable anywhere right?

 That's right, we found Tow Mater! Chase was pretty excited about seeing those teeth!

 

 But, besides that was pretty ornery.  He fell asleep on the way to Lyman and wasn't happy about not being there when he woke up.

I kept trying to convince him to let me get a good picture of him with Mater that I could print out for him to have, but he didn't think he would want one.  Now that we are home he does....  

 Since I couldn't really get the boys excited I took one of Daniel and I.  Apparently I was more excited than anyone else anyways. :)

The training wheels came off last week, and we have a maniac bike rider on our hands.  More to come....

Random stuff...

Just a few random pictures-

Chase hates clothes.  He would rather just run around in underwear all day if I let him.  One day he came down with a pair of Brody's pants on.  Buttoned and zipped and everything.  He wore them for seeral hours and it didn't even phase him that they were way too small.  Another day he came down with pants like this:

This is the favorite game in our house right now.  We "play vacuums".  This is Chase "plugging" them in.  He plugs them into the couch because really plugging them in is too scary- they could accidentally turn on by themselves.

Playing vacuums.  Sometimes they are actually vacuums, sometimes the hose is a compressor to fill up tires or balloons, sometimes it's a fireman hose, and sometimes it is a gas hose.

Stansbury lake is just a couple blocks from our house and we love to go and feed the ducks on a walk.  The sea gulls have caught on and they swarm us now (this picture does not come close to showing the "swarm" of sea gulls)

Daniel has even trained them to catch bread in the air.



Chase's favorite activity is to wait until the ducks come up to get the bread and then chase them back into the water laughing.

Hiking in Arches

 I have been on the hike to Delicate arch more times than I could possibly have counted, and I never get sick of it.  Just one of those perks of having your parents live in Moab :)

Roasting hotdogs in Lyman

This was so long ago (from the beginning of the summer) that I can't even remember why we were down there, but we always have a good time up at Fishlake.

Johnson Family Reunion

I played catch up today while Daniel took the boys for a drive so keeping scrolling down if you dare.

 The Johnson reunion was once again fun this year besides a whole night of absolutely no sleep courtesy of Brody.  My very favorite part of the whole weekend was Dalen's talent where he had my mom and all her siblings write down memories about each other and we played a guessing game.  It was a good laugh.  I took pictures because I was having so much fun watching people getting defensive and laughing and I can't help but laugh as I look back through the pictures.



Like this one:  this is where we learned that Dalen used to pull his pants down and squat to fart on Trevor's (my cousins) face.  I never knew such a side of Dalen existed.

 Karlene humbly accepted most of the stories about her as the truth.

Jay would stand to give his rebuttal of the "real" story which usually ended up being worse than the actual accused memory.

 My mom seemed to take the brunt of most of it, and defensively tried to pass the blame to others.  Look at Polly's face- I think she's getting ready to say "no way, don't put that onto me!"

Here I think she's saying, "What do you mean?  What else could I have done? She made me do it" or something of that sort

 Again Karlene humbly accepting her accusations.

 Dalen listening earnestly to accusations being made against him, which he usually argued against only to succumb under the pressure.

 The funniest was my grandparents.  I'm sure a lot of these stories weren't exactly funny at the time they happened, but they sure got a laugh out of them now.

 Jay trying to explain another of the memories about him.

 Again my mom "wait... wasn't that someone else?  I'm sure I did nothing wrong."

 This picture is my favorite.  Jill is looking at my mom like "REALLY MOM?!?!?" and my mom and dad both have their hands over their faces like they just can't contain the embarrassment.

We even got to hear a few stories about Bishop Grandpa and his relationship with alcohol. :)

My mom "oh oh I know I know".  Looking at the picture it's pretty obvious who the story is about you just have to look at Polly's face.

It's so funny to learn that your parents weren't perfect growing up either.

swimming lessons

 I decided at the last minute to put Chase in swimming lessons and I am so glad I did.  He loved every minute of it.

 The picture above is Chase and another boy in the class trying to dunk their teacher.

 And all three kids riding around on their teacher.  There were 2 teachers for their class and they were so good and put up with a lot to make it so much fun for those kids.  It was an introductory class so it was mostly getting them comfortable with the water and letting them have fun.

 After the first couple days, they let them jump off the diving board.  Chase was a maniac and just loved jumping.  The first day all of the kids except Chase were lowered by their arms from a teacher standing on the board down to a teacher in the water.  Chase just walked right up there and leaped off.  On another day they were jumping at the same time as the 8 year old kids.  The 3 year olds were lining up at the smaller diving board while the older kids lined up at the taller diving board ( which was just a couple feet higher than the low dive).  Chase just got in line with the older kids and would jump off the bigger diving board while the rest of his class jumped off the lower on.  It was funny to watching him standing in line with kids twice his height.

On one other day it was just their class at the diving boards and once again while all the other kids went off the lower diving board Chase had the higher board to himself.  The rest of his class had to wait in line for their turn but Chase got to just keep jumping and jumping. 

(his first time jumping in)




Getting ready...

He leaps off the board....

Gets ready for landing....

Did you notice the HUGE grin in every one of those pictures.   That's my little fish!

Date night

Fire Station

 A friends of mine set up a tour at the fire station (Aug. 12) and invited a bunch of us to come along.  I try not to tell Chase things too far in advance because he just can't contain the excitement and will ask multiple times a day if it's the day we get to do _________.  I finally told his the day before we went that we were going to go and he was thrilled.  We had an opportunity to see a fire truck at the safety fair in Tooele, but Chase was a little too scarred to climb up in it and so he immediately remembered that experience and told me he was going to be brave and that he had a lot of questions he needed to ask the fireman about their hoses.

Daniel surprised us with staying home from work that day (since he has been working insane hours the past couple months) so he was able to come along with us.

 The firemen were so sweet and went all out for these little boys.  They had one fireman get all dressed up and even in his oxygen mask and everything.  They were teaching the kids that firemen are there to help and if they are ever stuck in a building to not be scarred and hide from the fireman if he is coming to get them.  One of Chases little friends yelled out "NO!  I don't want him to come get me, he is soo scarry!!"

True to his word, Chase was brave and climbed up into the firetruck, several times and he asked the firemen all sorts of questions about their trucks and their hoses.  I was so proud of him because I know it was a little scary for him.

Chase and his buddy Dane who lives across the street.

Most of the kids that were there, my lens wouldn't allow me to fit all the kids in.  Still trying to talk Daniel into a new lens :)

The firemen took each of them and buckled them in one at a time and let them sit up front for a minute.