Oliver is 3!

Oliver celebrated turning 3 in Canada at Nana &  Papa Jack's house!  As you saw in the previous post, he got to go to the splash park in the morning and then later in the afternoon we celebrated with my brother and his girls and a couple of other family.  We had a BBQ, presents and cake.  Oliver was thrilled to get his first, very own lego sets and they were Toy Story!  He also got Stinky the truck so he was very excited.  His brothers were excited too because now maybe he will stay out of their legos.  Caleb was more than eager to help him build his new sets and Elton showed him how Stinky worked so fun was had by all.  All 3 boys got new Nerf guns with darts from Uncle Lindsay and Papa Jack set them up a Target in the garage so they could learn how to shoot properly.

Splash Park!!!

I have heard of Splash Parks before, but we have never had the opportunity to go to one.  In the town my parents live in, there was one put in last year so we decided to check it out.  I have one word for it - Awesome!  I wish we had one and know that we would go there often.  The boys had a blast and I know we will be going back before we leave.  This was a great way to start Oliver's birthday day!

Visiting Grandma

This week we made a very long road trip to Canada to visit my grandma. This is my grandma that I wrote about previously giving me her sewing machine.  We are very happy to be here to see her!  She had a heart attack 3 weeks ago and we are so glad she made it through.  She loves seeing the boys!  Grandma will be 94 in November.

Helping At The Dog Pound

Every year the "Mighty Mutts" 4-H group pick a month to go to the pound once a week and help out walking and grooming the dogs.  This is how Teddy became part of our family last year.  Caleb and Elton helped out for 2 hours.  When Oliver and I got back, I let Oliver out of the car to check things out and he was more than eager to jump right in helping brush the dogs.  Elton named the black and white dog he worked with "Yogi" and loved how the little dog took to him and listened.  He is really hoping to see him again tomorrow, but I explained to him that hopefully Yogi has found himself a new family already.

Craters Of The Moon

This 4th of July we decided to avoid crowded activities and took a drive to Craters Of The Moon. All we told the boys was that we were going on adventure.  The boys and I had never been and it had been years since Dan had gone out there.  We stopped at IHOP for breakfast on our way out of town and I had packed a picnic lunch for later in the day.  While it was a warm day, there was a breeze.  With sunscreen on we made it through the day in the sun and black rock without anyone getting sunburnt!

The top picture was looking up the "Devils Inferno".  When we reached the top we saw this shade tree and a woman volunteered to take a picture of us.

Here is Dan and the boys headed back down.

Here they are headed into the Indian trail cave.  Oliver and I went in a little ways and then decided to head out and let the others find there way through.  There were other caves that we did not venture into as we had done alot of walking already and decided to wrap things up.

Here are some pictures of the landscape we saw as we walked around.

Robotics Camp

This week Caleb had the opportunity to attend Robotics camp. With his love for building and lego it was a great experience. He learned about programming and worked together with a team. On the last day they had a competition with the other teams called a "Rectangle Rumble". Their team name was "Firewire". Caleb was excited that he helped design the claw on their robot. Team Firewire won the competition with their robot and it was a great experience for Caleb!

Fun Match Dog Show 2011

Last weekend was the annual 4-H Fun Match Dog Show for the boys. It was Elton's first dog show and he was very excited. He was really cute to watch and Mimi cooperated really well for him with her previous experience. Elton was so excited with the medal and ribbons he received!

This was Caleb's 3rd Fun Match, but Teddy's first dog show. While Teddy has been doing great at the 4-H meetings/practices considering he is about 11 years old, he decided on this day he was not going to do anything that Caleb wanted him too. Whether it was all of the other dogs, the judges, the excitement, or all of the above he did not perform well. Caleb tried very hard and I thought he did excellent considering, but was very discouraged. We had great weather and a great morning, so hopefully Teddy will decide to cooperate a little better at the fair.