Wings

I can't remember exactly how this all started, but this is close enough....
A few nights ago we read Eric Carle's "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" to Hudson for his bedtime story. Shortly after, he was eating a lot of junk food and we told him he might turn into a butterfly like the caterpillar did after he ate a lot of junk food.
Now just about every time he eats (or wants to get out of eating is more like it) he says, "I don't want to turn into a butterfly". Or, "I'm gonna get wings and turn into a butterfly if I eat", or something to that effect. It's pretty funny.

How long do I let him go on thinking this? I think forever.

Shark Week

It's shark week on the Discovery Channel. I (we?) LOVE shark week. Love it.

The Dog Days of Summer

Few things make my heart smile as much as watching our boy play with our dog. Hudson loves drenching Oakley with the hose and I think Oakley enjoys it just as much, if not more. They are so good together. This totally makes up for when Oakley was an indoor puppy and would chase Hudson around and bite onto Hudson's arms and clothes, putting holes in them (his clothes, not his arms) and I would cry in frustration. And it makes up for the chewed drawer in our bathroom, the chewed up vacuum cord, and all the housebreaking accidents. He's a good dog. And Hudson's a good boy.

Jeff was mowing the lawn at the same time they were playing, hence the green dog. He just rolled and rolled in the fresh cut grass.

The Bees Knees

We've been so busy lately with our foster care classes (tonight will be our 6th out of 8....almost there!) and swimming lessons (Hudson doesn't like them very much and cries most of the time), and doctor appointments and dentist appointments....and laundry and dishes and life in general. Whew. Hopefully life will slow down a little after July. But I thought I'd post a couple of pictures to keep you updated.

Hudson has decided he wants to start wearing a tie to church. He doesn't have one of his own so he has borrowed Daddy's for the past couple of weeks. I'm trying to be the mom that lets him express his personality even if it's not something I would choose. I think it's adorable in a goofy kind of way and he gets lots of compliments at church about it.

This is a wasp nest that has been growing in our basement window since early spring. We thought it was kind of cool and decided to leave it so we could watch it grow and it got huge (I would say roughly the size of a cantaloupe)! Luckily none of us have been stung, but the wasps were starting to get pretty plentiful, so we decided it was time for it to go before we got stung. We wanted to keep the nest, though, so we had to come up with a plan to kill the wasps without damaging the nest. So we waited until night when all the wasps (and neighbors, in case something went wrong) were in bed, covered the window well with a tarp and sealed off all access. Then Jeff opened the window in the basement and put a fogger in the window well and shut the window. Then we were able to watch the madness. All the wasps started to fly out of the hive and boy were they ticked. We put our ears to the window and we could hear the buzzing. There were a ton of wasps and it was so cool to watch them writhe in pain! Moowahahahaha!
The next day we cut the nest down (I was surprised at how heavy it was) and found it was full of wasp larvae and there was still a live wasp in there. We tied it up in a plastic bag and will probably put it in the deep freezer for a few days to make sure everything is good and dead.

4th of July

Pretty much the only reason we went to Provo's 4th of July parade was because my Grandpa Schumann was in it (ok, and I like parades. Jeff...not so much). As the picture shows, he is a World War II Veteran. Words can't describe the love and respect I have for this guy. He's the best guy in the world and I am blessed to call him my grandpa. My heart was swelled up with pride as he went by and I wanted to shout to the crowd "This is MY grandpa!" and show him off to everyone. Almost all the girls in our family ran up to him and gave him hugs and kisses and I was happy to do the same.

Isn't he the cutest?

Our little family practically melting at the parade.

After the parade we met up with Jeff's family and drove up Payson canyon to Maple Lake. We ate fried chicken and then went fishing.

Hudson caught one.

Jeff decided to go for a swim in the lake. I was so tempted to join him but with the thunder clouds rolling in and with things to still do for the remainder of the day, decided against it.

Going for a ride in a kayak that Jeff's nephew built.

You have to eat watermelon on the 4th, of course.

After the lake we switched families again and met my mom and fam for fireworks. I thought I forgot our camera so I didn't get any pictures, but later found out it had been in the car all along. Argh. Oh well. We were a little disappointed with the fireworks this year. Oh well. It was still a fun day. Long, hot, and tiring, but fun.
I am so grateful for the freedom we enjoy and for the sacrifices of those that have served and now serve our country. Thank you. I love my freedom and I'm proud to be an American!

Walker Rendezvous 2009

This past week was Jeff's family reunion which they call the Walker Rendezvous. It was held in the Boulder mountains at Miller Lake. We had a good time despite quite a bit of rain and an insane amount of mosquitoes.

There were canoes there for us to use. Hudson wouldn't get in one until the last hour or two before it was time for us to go home. He loved it of course. It was really fun going out and fishing from the canoe. Jeff and I were out fishing by ourselves one time at the far end of the lake away from everyone and it was really quiet and we saw 2 deer come out of the trees and we watched them for a minute. It was cute :)

Behind Hudson is Raft Lake. This was a fun place to fish and where we had the most luck. We caught a lot of good sized fish.

We did a ton of fishing, mostly on Miller. Hudson was there right along with us, of course. That kid loves to fish.

We wanted to try fishing at a lake that was about 10 or more miles away called Spectacle Lake. We rode the 4 wheelers up and fished for a little bit. Then it started to rain. Then it started to hail! We decided to head back and drove for a few miles in the hail. As we were driving Hudson kept saying something but Jeff couldn't hear so he stopped thinking he was going to say he was too cold or something, and Hudson just said he wanted another treat. This happened a couple of times.
He got this awesome rain jacket and pants from his Grandma and Grandpa Bell and it sure came in handy the whole trip with all the rain we had, but especially on this ride. Jeff and I were both soaked by the time we got back, but when we took off Hudson's rain gear, he was as dry as a bone.

My boys eating their smores. Don't you love the marshmallow all over their faces?

We had an awesome fog roll through camp for a few minutes. I wish this picture had turned out better, but you get the idea. At one point we couldn't even see the lake.

Also, not pictured, we had a long rifle shoot, played games at night, the kids had a projector movie a couple of nights, we had campfire programs, flag ceremonies in the morning, dutch oven pot luck dinner, raffle, and an explosion Jeff made trying to light the furnace in our trailer that scared everyone half to death. Luckily everything and everyone was ok.
We had a really great time and were sad to have to go home, but it's always nice to have a shower and sleep in your own bed.

Foster Care

I'm happy to announce that Jeff and I have decided to do foster care. We just had our first interview and we are now on our way. We start training classes in July. Classes are four hours long, twice a week for a total of 32 hours of training. Then we have to do paperwork and a home study. We're pretty excited about it. We have some friends that do foster care and thought it was something we could and wanted to do. We've actually been thinking about it for quite a while but are just now getting serious about it. We are doing it with the hopes of adopting, but know that that could take a while and the ultimate goal of foster care is getting the children back with their biological families. We figured that if we had our way, we would already have 2-4 biological kids of our own, but since we don't, we might as well use our resources by helping kids that need a home and a family. So, that is what we will be up to, starting in July! Wish us luck!