The Boy Who Loved Water

His love for this stuff is epic.

Hunting for Lizards

  

In this arid terrain, trading frog-catching for lizard-catching sounded like a pretty good plan to me.  Jeff was all in too, since he himself is an ardent small desert reptile chaser.  Next, we needed to get Sawyer on board with the trade, which basically meant all we had to do was say, "Hey bud, you wanna go outside?" That made three of us ready to go lizard hunting.

We packed our little crew up to the Y Mountain trail head and looked and looked, but all we found were rocks and bees and sweaty people- not one measly lizard. Probably because the inherent flaw in our plan was that we'd take our ultimate-white boy out on a day that was neither too sunny nor too hot, and well, lizards like it sunny and hot.  So even though we didn't see a single scaly-skinned reptile, it turned out that all we needed were rocks to make this hunt worthwhile.

Jeff's Birthday Preview

Birthday week kick-off!

First Sawyer stole Jeff's presents, then we headed off to Riverwoods to party with Nana and Popski at Tucanos. We also got to watch the first half of my cousin Rhett's first football game-woot! woot! he was great. Going to high school football games makes Jeff feel young again, which is a big deal since he'll be an rickety 27 year-old next week. Just kidding....it's mostly just good family fun and with just a little bit of re-living the glory days.

And pictured directly above is what happens when the pregnant lady and her loving mother go to pick up birthday cupcakes: a baker's dozen for four adults....um, not really a problem when they're from the Sweet Tooth Fairy bakery, right?!

22 weeks

It's scorching at home. I forgot how unpleasant it is to be pregnant and over-heated!  But we have lovely cool mornings and nights that give us plenty of time outside.  And our apartment views make us feel like we're not missing out too much on the great outdoors, even when we're hunkered down inside with the AC chilling our bones. I love our home, and we've had a really smooth transition back into our life here.  Some of our neighbors are new, and some of our old friends have left, but there's still so much that is just how we left it (and just how we like it).

Baby girl didn't give me much trouble at all on our road-trip, thank goodness! We were even able to locate my random cravings for taco salad and freshly baked apple pie without having to resort to fast food (because yucky, that would not have cut it), and that was in the middle of South Dakota! Between traveling under lucky stars, coming home to a clean apartment with fresh flowers and stocked refrigerator, and feeling not the least bit sick, my girl (and boys!) and I have had a pretty great week.

Home Again, Home Again, We're Doing a Jig

 {Sawyer's first taste of road snacks: S'mores Pop-tarts}

 {fields and fields of sunflowers!}

{this was disconcerting...nothing like turning your cooped-up toddler loose in a field with poisonous snakes}

We made it home! 50, high-energy renditions of "Down by the Bay" and "Daylight," 25 over-performances of "The Wheels on the Bus," a sack full of noisy toys and interactive books, and innumerable trucks, tractors, windmills, cows, horses, sheep, motorcycles, buses, flowers, and birds got us back here well entertained.  Sawyer now knows how to sing along and clap with his three favorite songs, and is extremely well versed in naming motor vehicles (he called out nearly every one he saw, it was fabulous! Jeff and I beamed with pride every time). Now we're taking our party to the streets and hitting up all of our old haunts.  We've got a little over a week until Jeff's last semester of undergrad starts, and we've got BIG plans.

Au Revoir Wisconsin, and My Favorite Cenex Signs

We're heading back to the land of Unicorns- as Jeff's friend kindly refers to Provo- and bidding our good-bye's to our summer home, Wisconsin.  We've got at least 20 hours of driving ahead of us and if we're lucky, Jeff might let us stop at the Reptile Gardens in South Dakota, which would most likely be the highlight of the trip. 

Even if that doesn't happen, we've got a lot to look back on from our summer.  There's plenty to be grateful for,  plenty to remember, a few things to be glad to leave behind (like, ticks!), a few things to look forward to seeing./playing at again, oh and plenty to be laugh about, like my favorite gas station signs.  We drove by Cenex gas nearly every day and it didn't take long to become accustomed to its humorous signage.  Silly and simple enough, it was one of the things I looked forward to seeing on our drives.

 {obviously, this wasn't meant to be funny but sometimes those are the best!}

21 weeks

I've had a nasty summer cold this week so sleeping has been extraordinarily terrible.  The only thing that makes zzzz's happen at all right now anyway is my Boppy mommy pillow- a HUGE, FABULOUS person of a pillow.  It's a never-ending, re-arrange into any position, sleep rescuer.  Jeff brought it home to me as a thoughtful husband gift a few weeks ago. He knows I never sleep well when pregnant, not like I bother him about it or anything (ahem, grunting and whining and thrashing at night do not count as bothering).  But these past nights not even my Boppy has helped. 

On a much more pleasant note, I visited the midwife this week (I couldn't get in last week) for a routine appointment. She said our baby girl was looking fabulous on the ultrasound, may be coming a few days early, and is already measuring in the 95%ile. She said everything looked "perfect." Isn't it comforting when healthcare professionals use such fear-assuaging adjectives? It's so reassuring to me, especially as a mama who takes child-bearing so personally.  I realize that not all factors of the growth and development process are up to me, but I'm really careful to do all that I can to be informed of what I can do to help and contribute positively to my baby.  I drive Jeff crazy sometimes with all my "is this cheese made with pasteurized milk?" and "is this lunch meat freshly sliced, or pre-packaged?" or any number of "baby doesn't like that........"{fill in the blank with numerous foods, drinks, physical exertions, and negative emotions}. Perhaps it's a little over-protective already, but it's just my way of showing my dear girl some love.

In the wise words of my favorite silly old bear:

 

"Some people care too much. I think it's called love."- Winnie the Pooh

 

 

River Rats on the Mississippi

 

{Luigi skiing at 53 mph} 

{Bowser, if you haven't caught it yet, the show was Mario themed} 

 {barefoot skiers}

 

{Mario, Luigi, and some other dude landing some sort of seriously difficult jump}

 

 

My man knows me.  One night he came home from work and off-handedly mentioned how some co-workers were talking about the Twin Cities River Rats waterskiing show.  They told him that they have a performance on the Mississippi River nearly every Thursday night and do awesome tricks like human pyramids and ski jumps. Families come, pack picnic dinners, and watch the show.  He said, "It sounded like something you'd like." Hello, this was an event tailor made to my liking! Then he mentioned it was FREE. Double score. The only thing that could make it better was if gypsies put on the show. We looked up how long it would take to drive over to the river, planned our trip for that same week, and anxiously waited.  I dreamed of gypsies flying across the river in all their river rat glory, long greasy hair waving behind them, golden coins on their water suits glittering.

Sadly, gypsies didn't do the skiing.  But we still had an awesome time. We laid out our blanket and rolled out the cooler, sat down to dinner and enjoyed the show.  Sawyer was in awe. Mama was in awe. Dada was awful hungry, but also in awe. We chased Sawyer around for most of the second half of the show because keeping that boy away from water is like trying to mix oil with water, but we anticipated that and I pulled out my secret weapon: starbursts and suckers in small, rewarding doses.  Afterwards, we packed up with amazing efficiency and changed our little river mouse into his jammies, then drove home to dream of gypsies.

"Um, Mama, Are Birthday Suits Machine Washable?"

  

"Oh OK, great. I was worried for a second there...."

Straight to the tub with this one.