ARRRRR, Shiver me timbers

This year Charles and I dressed up as pirates and we all know every good pirate has a parrot! Charles ended up being the creative genius behind our costumes. He even sewed Andy's costume, which consisted of a couple boa's on some red pajamas, a lightning McQueen hat and mesh from a trucker hat. Charles never ceases to amaze me with his creative talents. What a stud!

Here is what Andy looked like from the back. I think his little tail is so cute! He actually did very well being dressed up. I thought he would try to pull the feathers off or eat them, but he didn't seem to mind them.

Our ward had a stomp on Friday night. Charles made the poster for it. Yet again, he busted out some sweet skills. He came up with the design and then used a lazer to cut it out of cardboard. The pumpkin eyes, nose and mouth are cut out along with the information on the poster. It was hard to get a good picture of it, but belive me, it looked really cool.

I am proud to say, I helped Charles with brainstorming for this poster and the way stomp is written was my idea! Of course it came after I threw out about a thousand ridiculous ones, but hey, it turned out awesome.

Here are a bunch of our friends who were at the dance. I was amazed with their creativity. It was such a fun night. Mugatu and katinka won the costume contest.
If you cant tell, this girl is a germ and her husband is wearing scrubs and has a huge syringe.

Storm and wolverine

Pregnant girl with some huge utters.

Kiss even came to the stomp

These guys are our good buddies. Scott was a helicopter with lights and all and Megan was the color black.

Whats a party without smurfs?

These guys were so funny. They played their part the whole night. They would even dance like an old couple. It was so funny to watch them get down on the dance floor with their walkers and old people dance moves.

Cousins!

Awhile ago we got to hang out with my brother, his wife and their cute kids. Jon had meetings in Salt Lake, so Camie and the kids hung out with us for a few days. One night Charles and I watched all of the kids so that Jon and Camie could have a night on the town. Of course, Charles created all sorts of fun for everyone. They had car races on these sweet "ramps", they played soccer and then we ended the evening with a movie and popcorn. We all had a pretty good time. Andy loved having his cousins around. He couldn't take his eyes off of them. He was always so interested to see what they were doing.

I love this picture. Andy is just one of the big kids watching Cadin play a little Mario Kart.
Ryann and Morgann loved to "help" me with Andy. They were very attentive to his needs and were so good at sharing with him. Morgann is still learning how to react to babies, so Andy came out of the weekend with a few battle wounds, but overall she was a sweetheart to him. What I fun time!

We love Leonard

Charles brother Leonard just left for two years to serve an LDS mission in Argentina. We will miss having his fun personality at family gatherings. He is quite the kid magnet, so I'm not sure what all of the little kids are going to do with him gone! Andy sure loves Leonard. These two cute boys share the same vibrant blue eyes (defiantly babe magnets!) We love you Leonard!

Oregon

In the first part of September, Charles, Andy and I drove up to Oregon for Paul & Bev Louthan's wedding. I'm not going to lie, it was a lot of driving, but we had a good time anyway. I think between Thursday morning and Sunday night we drove about 32 hours total! Andy did surprisingly well. He was good in the car, only crying when he was hungry. Putting him back in the car was the problem. As soon as we sat him in his car seat he would start to cry because he knew he would be in it for a long time AGAIN. After a minute or two, he would calm down and just hang out until we stopped again. This is him at a rest stop about 10 hours into our trip, he is such a happy little boy. (I promise, he usually doesn't look this homeless. We had just changed his diaper and hadn't put his pants back on).

Paul and Bev were married in the Portland temple. It was so beautiful. It was hard to get a picture of the whole temple because there are so many trees around it. The trees made it feel really cozy and peaceful.

The happy couple. Bev looked gorgeous. They are such a fun couple, I'm so excited for them!

We stayed in a town called Seaside, right on the coast. After the wedding we decided to take a different route there via the coastal highway. You can't drive through Tillamook and not stop at the cheese factory, so we stopped to check it out. There wasn't much going on inside the factory, but they had some really good ice cream and we bought some awesome cheeses that they don't sell in stores. It was a fun little detour.

The drive up the coast was so beautiful. It was a cold, misty day but it made some really great pictures.


Poor little Andy. We got to see all of this beautiful scenery. I took a picture of what he saw for 32 hours of driving. What a little trooper!

Here is a picture I took off the balcony of our room. The mornings were always misty and cold, but it was kind of fun and different. We didn't have much time to enjoy a nice beach walk, next time we will try to take a longer trip.

kids are funny

Just a quick funny story. So Charles and his friend Cally were texting back and forth to decide what we are doing tonight. Charles text back and then got a phone call from Cally. The call was lost, so Charles called him back. Regan, Cally's 4 year old daughter, answered. Charles asked if Cally had called, Regan said she was calling Charles. She said " I got your message but I can't read." I thought it was so funny. For all of you who know Regan, it is so her.

Cirque de la Symphonie

Last night Charles and I went to an AMAZING performance at Abravanel Hall. The Utah Symphony played while Russian Cirque performers amazed us with their talents. There was a contortionist who did things I thought you body could never do. She moved so smoothly and gracefully in and out of amazing body positions while perched on two stools (they looked similar to bar stools). Another woman did amazing tricks on an aerial hoop. This wasn't just hanging by her knees. She hung by one foot and other crazy holds. There was also a woman who was in the air with a verticle rope. At one point she was completely perpendicular to the rope and some one was swinging her really fast, it was amazing! A guy also did aeiral artistry on silk fabrics. I'm sure you guys have seen this on TV or adds. It was crazy how strong and graceful he was. Its hard to explain how amazing they were. Each performance was so interesting I didn't want to blink because I was afraid I would miss somthing. The last performance was the best, it was called strong men. It was mind boggling to watch these two guys. One of the things they did was; one guy sat on the floor, the other guy got on to a one handed hand stand on the sitting guys head. They balanced there for a minute and then the guy that was sitting slowly stood up! Can you imagine the strength and balance both of those men needed to do that? AMAZING!

The pictures above are not from the performance, but they are the same type of thing we saw. What an awesome date, thanks Charles!

Lava Hot springs

Last weekend we went to Lava hot springs Idaho for our ward campout. We had tons of fun. On Friday we hung out and had a fireside/lip sync followed by glow in the dark ultimate frisbee. On Saturday morning we packed up and headed to the pool. This was Andy's first campout, and he did great. He doesn't sleep with us in our bed at home, so sleeping with us in the tent was a fun treat. Charles laid on one side of Andy and I laid on the other. Andy kept looking over at Charles and then at me and back to charles. He kept this up for about 5 minutes. I think he was wondering what we were doing laying with him and kept checking to see if we were still there. Andy is in the stage where everything must go in his mouth. I was unpacking in the tent and looked over to find him chewing on his bag. Once I moved that he moved on to the sleeping bags.

Andy loved my friend Megan during this trip. He loved sitting on her lap during the fireside. At the pool Megan and Scott played with Andy while we waited in line for one of the slides. He had so much fun with them.

When Andy first got in the pool he cried a little, but once he got used to it he had fun. He loved to dip his hand in the water and then suck on it. I was kind of grossed out- probably not very sanitary-but he hasn't died yet, so I guess it was ok.

These two waterslides went over the road. We got going pretty fast on one of them, it was tons of fun!
The pool had 3 diving platforms. The top one was 32 feet high. I am a chicken and didn't jump, but Charles did. It seemed pretty dangerous though. While we were there one guy dislocated his shoulder and another guy was knocked unconscious. We had our towels set up under a tree near the diving boards. It was the perfect spot. I could watch everyone do cool tricks and enjoy some shade with Andy. It was a great trip!