Olympic Airshow

For obvious reasons, our family loves to go watch the airshow every summer.  It always falls on Father's Day weekend, so it's a great way to spend time celebrating with family and friends.  We made plans to meet Tristan's family to picnic and watch, but actually ended up meeting up with a group of our friends on accident so we had a rather large group!  The kids played, adults napped and visited and we had a great time...even when it poured at the end of the show!  Tristan got some great shots of the airplanes as they flew overhead.  Some of them get so close to the ground you think you could reach up and touch it!

 There is a bark distributor across the street from the airport so Ethan always likes to go see the diggers when we go to the airshow.

 Hangin' out it the back of the car

 This was a BIG plane!

 Ethan plugging his ears

 Daredevil stunts are always fun to watch.

 How many kids can fit into one wagon?  Poor Caitlyn...a wagon full of boys and they are making her do all the work.  Look how Ethan is trying to squeeze on by sitting on the handle.  It was pretty funny to watch!

 The airshow includes helicopters as well, which is always a highlight for our family.

 We had originally invited my dad to come down and watch with us as well to celebrate Father's Day with him but he had some other things he had to take care of.  But he did stop by to say hi and Ethan, of course, wanted to take him to see the diggers.  Funny story:  So my dad took Ethan and Caitlyn for a little walk and right about that time the Hornet, which is SUPER loud flew over.  The next thing we know my dad is walking back with a screaming Caitlyn and a rather confused-looking Ethan.  He said that when the plane flew over, they both started crying and ran in opposite directions.  My poor dad didn't know what to do.  I don't blame the poor kids, my ears hurt when it flew over.  After that we put earplugs in Ethan's ears and they stayed in the rest of the day.  Ethan didn't want to take them out!

 Tristan's brother and his wife, Nicole, came down to visit as well!  That's his sister Desiree in the background.

 Tristan's mom and sister, Tennille.

 More helicopters!

 I think this might have been the one that was really loud, but I can't remember.

 Channeling Top Gun...

 Carter did great.  He even napped in the Ergo for about an hour.  This is the end of his battle with Hand, Food and Mouth disease so he's got some blisters around his mouth still.  Poor guy!

 Laughing with his Uncle Kelsey.

 We had a great time with our family and friends and I know that this is one family tradition that our little family will always enjoy!

May Family Fun

We were fortunate to have some nice weather early in April and May this year, which made it easier to get out and enjoy some family fun!  Tristan got the opportunity to switch shifts, which means he'll be home for Christmas and other fun holidays this year.  But in order to do that he had to got back and forth every other week instead of every two weeks like normal (but just for a month).  That combined with mandatory recurrent training meant almost two months of only seeing him for a week at a time.  Ethan had been dying to go to the zoo, but Tristan really didn't want to drive practically back to the airport to go to the zoo when he was only home for a week, so I decided to take him while Tristan was away.  When my parents heard of my plans they offered to come along!  I was grateful because I was a little nervous to take them on all on my own!  It was a beautiful day for the zoo!  

Carter has become quite a fan of finger foods and enjoyed munching in his stroller while we checked out the animals.

 Ethan being silly by the sharks

 Running around the field

 Carter chillin' and drinking his bottle

 Two little monkeys!

 One thing we did get to enjoy while Tristan was home was the Lacey Spring Fun Fair.  It was a ton of fun and we will definitely be doing it again next year!

We told Ethan that this better be the one and only time we see him in the backseat of a cop car!

 We like this seat much better!!  He loved getting to sit in the front!

 Ethan loves buses!  I don't think he could believe that he was actually this close to one!

 Me and my boys trying out the seats

 Ethan thought it looked like a great place for a nap!

 Driving a bus...it just keeps getting better and better!

 This was a little mini bus they use in the parade and they let Ethan get in and try it out!  This was more his size!

 They had a HUGE zip line that Ethan loved to watch.

 He also got to sit in the front seat of an old-school fire truck...I think he probably thought he'd died and gone to heaven!

 This isn't a very good picture, but they had a tumble bus that kids could go in and do different gymnastic activities.  Ethan loved it!

 Sitting in a military vehicle

 So they also had this train that took people for trips around the fun fair.  But by the time we went to get in line for it, they were shutting down until after the parade.  I was sweatin' bullets because we promised Ethan.  So after the parade we raced back and got in line.  Thankfully we were the LAST people to get on for the first ride after the parade.  We narrowly missed a melt-down!  Here we are, ready for our train ride!

 Ethan kept looking around to see what was going on!

 A happy boy after his ride on the choo-choo.

 We decided to make a quick trip inside the pavilion before we headed out.  They had some fun activities and animal balloons inside that Ethan enjoyed as well.  Carter opted to take a little nap in his stroller while we played.  Ethan loved these little scooters.

 One last stop before heading home:  the huge inflatable slide.

After this we did have a huge melt-down and had to walk about a mile back to our car...fortunately we were able to distract him and he chilled out a little, but needless to say we were all pooped out after a day of fun in the sun!

Gardening and Composting

I have wanted a garden for a long time but we have always lived in an apartment.  Well, now that we have a rental house we are still kind of limited so my dad said we could plant one at their house!  I was so excited, especially because he's got a super green-thumb and I knew he would help keep me from killing our plants!

Ground breaking

 Tristan and my dad put together the bed frame while Ethan "helped" turn the soil.

 A better view of the size of the garden bed.  Now it just needed plants!

 In the meantime, we decided to start composting because we don't have a garbage disposal in our house.  We figured it would help cut down on our garbage and then we could use the compost on our garden.  Win-win!  We ended up deciding to use worms in our compost since their waste is super nutrient dense for plants, plus they help decompose your food faster.  You have to use a certain kind of worms--red worms.  Believe it or not, we ordered them online!  They arrived in our mailbox all ready to go.  Ethan was all excited to see the worms.

 I think he wasn't sure what to think at this point.  I couldn't get a good picture of the worms because they were all buried in the dirt, but Ethan really likes them.  I have to admit, the bin is kind of at a gross point right now.  We are still learning and working out the kinks.  We lost a hand full of worms because we didn't have a good enough drainage system worked out and they drowned and now we are battling maggots (sorry, I know it's super gross).  We need to get some screening to seal up the ventilation holes and keep flies out and then we should be all good.  Some people like maggots in their compost, but we do NOT.  Hopefully we can make this work!

 The garden is doing great!  We have already started harvesting lettuce.  We have green leaf, red leaf and one other green variety I can't remember the name of right now.

 My dad's strawberry plants are also exploding right now.  It's early in the season, so they aren't as sweet as they can be, but man are they still good!  Ethan loves them and at practically all of these in one sitting!

 Here's a look at the garden now!  We've come a long way!

 The corn is starting to come up!

 Iceberg lettuce is starting to form heads.  It's amazing to watch how the leaves just curl in to form the head of lettuce.

 The beginning of some broccoli!

 We also have cauliflower, cucumbers, peppers, carrots, green beans, sugar snap peas, radishes, and cabbage planted.  Hopefully they will do well also.  My dad also recently purchased a blueberry and raspberry bush.  It's a lot of fun to see the plants grow.  We don't get to help him work on it as much as I would like, but he swears it doesn't need all that much maintenance other than watering at this point.

Tristan and I have a sweet, yellow tomato plant at our house now and it has started to form some fruit!  I'm super excited for them to ripen!

 We also brought over some pots with some carrots in them since we way overplanted and hand too many to keep in the garden bed.  We transplanted them to these pots and are hoping they are going to do o.k.

We also recently discovered that there are mint plants already planted here at our house.  So we have quite a few things going on!  We are learning some things that we would like to do differently next year and my dad says he would like to DOUBLE the size of the garden next year so we can have more corn planted.  Apparently you need to have a certain amount planted in order for it to fertilize properly, so we're not sure if we'll get anything out of it this year.  Either way it's a fun and super yummy learning opportunity!

Random May Pictures

Carter turned 8 months old in May...I just can't believe he's such a big boy already.  He is generally such a happy boy--especially when he's eating.  That kid has an appetite for sure!!

 We met the Shellhart's out at Lattin's for a day of seeing the baby animals, but Ethan, of course, found a tractor!  Not many pictures, but we had a great time.

 We invited Rich and Allisha over for a Cinco De Mayo fiesta and even had some yummy pina coladas!

 And the boys, well, they were their silly selves.  Ethan loves to hold Carter, but Carter doesn't really like to be held for long periods of time since he's so mobile now.

 And just like that--holding is over!

 Helping Dad do some tidying in the backyard

 I can't believe Ethan is turning 3 this summer...he's such a big boy!

 He's such a SILLY boy!!