Beau's First lost tooth!

Beau has had a loose tooth for quite a while now, probably a three or four months. He was sitting by me, looking at a book, and I noticed it was looking pretty funky, not sitting right in his mouth. I asked him if I could feel how loose it was and he let me. It was way loose. I told him to move it back and forth and he said that when he did he felt it snap. I told him it would come out pretty easy, and he said he wanted Dad to be there. We got Dad, and Beau tried to pull it out on his own, not scared at all. It was proving a little more difficult than I thought so Dad helped him just a little. He barely noticed, just complaining because it didn't come right out. It was out, and he was so excited. The first thing he said was, "I'm excited to get money from the tooth fairy!" He looks so grown up with his little tooth missing, on to the next stage, having the mouth full of different sized teeth :) Speaking of teeth, Jarek also lost a tooth last week, when we were at the hospital to see Aunt Kim after she had Kallista.

Congratulations Beau!!!

A new layout - Our Family

I had to put together a scrapbook page for our ward Spotlight. I was told about it about 2 months ago and decided to do it last night (I'm a slacker). Digital Design Essentials is having a 50% off Summer Splash Sale so I splurged yesterday.

This page was made with papers and elements from the following kits at DDE: Penelope, Snapshot of Spring, Lovey Dovey, Cozy Comfy Fall, Garden Party, Whirly Twirly Spring and Wish Big.

Cape Cod

Since we didn't make it to Fenway Park when we were in Boston, we made sure to go back the next day on our way down to Cape Cod. We didn't park and get out, it would have been $15 just to take pictures since we weren't there to see the game... not worth it, but we were there :)

Here's Joe out front

Chatham Light - Chatham, MA

Our first stop on our lighthouse tour was Chatham Light.

There was a beautiful beach with huge oceanside houses.

Three Sisters and Nauset Lights - Eastham, MA
The next light or "lights"were the Three Sisters Lighthouses only 1/3 mile away from the Nauset Lighthouse. We walked to the Three Sisters first. All 4 of these lighthouses have been moved from their original locations due to erosion, the Three Sisters were the original lights and Nauset Light was brought from Chatham later to replace them. The Three Sisters were moved back and spaced out just as they originally were.

The Three Sisters

Nauset Lighthouse
This place was beautiful. We didn't get to this beach, but Joe did go up a "closed" path to take a peek at the ocean while I stayed in the car and discovered a tick on me! From the cliff there was a huge drop off to the beach below. In their previous locations, all 4 lighthouses would have fallen off the edge.




Highland Light - Truro, MA
We only had time to make it to one more light. We hit Highland Light the northern most light on the east side of the Cape. We actually took a tour of this one and went up to the top.

Looking up the staircase from the bottom

This is us at the top of the lighthouse. The tour man said that exactly behind us is the sunken Titanic, and Spain.

Joe out at the observation deck overlooking the ocean.

From the observation deck

This one to me was the most beautiful and the perfect end to the day.

Boston Part II

Okay, more pics, they are finally all on the computer. This is why I am a bad blogger, I take pictures and then leave them on the camera forever. Anyway, taking up from where I left off...

We left the temple, then headed for downdown Boston. We were scheduled for the Duck Tour, which is a tour on a WWII truck/boat.

This was ours

That took us all around town, showed us the puritan settlements, Boston Commons where the shoreline was before they manmade the rest of Boston, Beacon Hill where all the well to do people lived and still live and where Cheers is, the US Constitution (Old Ironside), Bunker Hill, etc. We got to ride right down into the Charles River (which is no longer a toxic mess).

Here is some footage of us going into the water.

Some pics from in the water

Closeup of Longfellow Bridge

Zakim Memorial Suspension Bridge
After the tour, we headed back to the subway to take us half way back to our Parking Garage. We wanted to go to Cheers so we did some walking. There is a little walking tour that they mark on the streets with a red line so you can follow a map and see different sites. We didn't do the whole thing because we saw a lot of it on our Duck Tour. Our first stop after the tour was Berklee College of Music, Joe really wanted to go see it. We went in and walked around the campus, heard alot of people in different studios practicing, it was neat.

Here's some pics at Cheers

This pic of Joe was taken with his friends before I was there, he didn't want to take another one.

This was in the Oak Room upstairs where we ate

I think I may be Norms long lost twin?

There's a neat spiral staircase going back down into the main bar area, this was painted along the wall going down. I think Joe was sick of pictures by this point :)

Me on the way out

On the marked path tour we went by an old cemetery and saw Samual Adams and Benjamin Franklin's parents graves.

One of our last stops was Faneuil Hall which is a big marketplace where people gather round to watch street performers. That's a statue of Samuel Adams out front.

Whew.. that was a pretty exhausting day. After this we just headed for the car and went home.

Boston Part I

Joe was in Boston for a few days before I got there. He was downtown for the Celtics/Lakers Championship game when the Celtics won. They were just out watching all the rowdy people, and were there when the riot squad showed up pushing people out of the streets.

When I got to Boston it was a lot less crazy, thank goodness. I got in Thursday night. Friday he only had training for an hour so we got a whole extra day together. We went on a nice little drive to a nearby place called Plum Island. On our way there we passed through this very quaint little town called Newbury. It had this little street with shops, right near the water. Here are a few pictures of we took there.

Out on Plum Island we got to see a few lighthouses and a beach.

Plum Island Light

Not even sure if this is an actual lighthouse, we saw it as were were driving down the street. It's right on the water though.

Our next stop was Salisbury Beach

Saturday was our trip into downtown Boston. We first visited the Boston Massachusetts Temple.

Joe wins Best Photo award for this one - he was laying down on the ground :)

To be continued... more pictures to come (thanks for making it this far!)

Finally a layout to share!

It's been a long time since I've felt creative enough to sit down and design a page. Jane was over yesterday, and we were playing with Paint Shop Pro and Photoshop Elements, I started to get the itch again.

Today Jarek was talking and I noticed his tongue was green. He started being silly, and it was the perfect picture. It inspired me to make a page.


Page was made with the Embrace Life Kit by Sande Krieger, various fonts.

Happy Birthday Joe!

Today was Joe's 29th birthday.. no he still hasn't hit 30. He likes to remind me and everyone else of that fact too :) Today started out with him going to PT for his legs, then relaxing. He took a whole week off as his birthday present to himself. After Jarek got home, we went to BYU to bowl, he's pretty good! It's alot different than bowling on the Wii, which I've gotten used to :) After bowling we went to his favorite place to eat... Brick Oven! He got the Heaps of Pizza and his free slice of Chocolate Mousse Pie. It's become tradition to go there for his birthday, he must think it's worth getting sung to :) After dinner he finally let me get him Smash Brothers Brawl and he and the kids came home and played, the kids played longer of course, while Joe snuck off to play some more guitar before bed.

Anyway, I just wanted to wish him one more official Happy Birthday! Loves honey!

What's the emergency?

So while making lunch today, the pot of milk/water for our pasta over flowed and started smoking up the kitchen. I knew the smoke alarm was going to go off, but I had to get the mess cleaned up. I was opening windows, Joe was going to turn off the alarm. He put our code in and the alarm stopped, then started beeping a minute later, so he turned it off again. He ended up turning it off three times. We just go about our lunch, the phone rings and there is no one there. Normally, with a monitoring system, if you don't turn it off fast enough, they call to see if everything is okay, or if they should send help. Well, no one said anything, so I figured it was nothing. As we are eating lunch the doorbell rang. Joe got the door and it was a police officer! "Just cooking?" he asked. "Inside or outside?" :) We explained what happened. He said the big guys would be coming to check it out, and as soon as he said it a big yellow firetruck was parked outside our door. Then an amublance! Wow, good to know we're covered. They actually had the wrong address, so it's good our name and address are on our mailbox. We didn't think we were still being monitored, we thought it was only through our 6 month absence to Virginia, but apparently they are still doing the job, so we are going to call them up and make it all official.

When we came back inside Jarek said.. "It's a good thing it wasn't a real fire, our house would have been half burned up!" I guess he thought they were a little slow in getting there, but in reality it was only about 5 minutes!

I realized I should have taken a picture of the truck out front... by the time I thought about it they had already left... shoot!

Jarek's Cat in the Hat School Program

Tonight we went to watch Jarek in his Reading Celebration program. Grandma Cathy came along too. He got to sing some Dr. Seuss songs. Good thing we got there early, so we could get some good pictures before all the hats got there :)

Here he is pre-show, cool as a cucumber

During the show, it was a bit hard to see him because his classmate Joshua was in front of him. Joshua is one of the tallest kids in his class, and of course he had his hat sitting on the very tip of his head. We did get a few good shots of Jarek singing. He doesn't like to smile for the most part while he's singing.. he doesn't think that's what he's supposed to do and doesn't want to get in trouble :)

Here Joshua has his head turned to the side, thank goodness.

Jada even got into costume during the after-party festivities

What do you suppose Jarek read before going to bed? The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss. He is doing so well at reading. He is at a 2nd grade reading level, so I am very thankful for his teachers who have done such a great job encouraging reading. Good job Jarek!

Beau Starts Tai Kwan Do

Tonight Beau started Tai Kwan Do with Jarek. He has been looking forward to it for a while, and we finally got him registered. We got to class early, and Jarek and Beau warmed up running around on the mats. It was great to see the two of them out there together, instead of Beau sitting on the sidelines watching.

When it came time to count out the stretches, the instructor asked Beau if he could count for them. He sat there kind of quiet saying he needed help. The instructor told him to just count "1...2...3", but Beau whispered "Ha Na...Dool...Set...Net...". The instructor was impressed saying "wow, he got almost all of it, you just couldn't hear it!", then helped him count it all out loud.

It was a big day for our little guy who is growing up too fast!