playing wild

Helping Daddy clean his dive gear
You know Mom, hoses are really cool.
Watching the Blue Angels practice. We were really close
A little too close. Whitney didn't like us holding her ears, so she learned how to do it on her own
The babies watching the Blue Angels practice. Yep. Tucker is eating peas off the highway. I just don't think about it and he usually doesn't get sick from that. I think
Babies eating lunch during practice
Another overhead, close fly over. Any really cool pics Jim missed because we were covering the babies' ears
This was on the walk back to the car after the air show. What made me laugh is that Tucker was in this position, carrying on a full conversation with me (either about the airplanes or the different ridges he noted on the freeway) for about 3 minutes, cheeks smashed and all
The sun came out just as we got to the air show after being cloudy and cold all morning, so the babies were stuck in long pants and long sleeves for the afternoon in the sun. Whitney was not amused with the heat but liked being squirted with the water bottle on the head to get cooled off. She liked it so much she did it to Tucker during church with her sippy cup when he got upset

Tucker at the splash park. Except he didn't like getting splashed. Either that or he was grumpy from a dislocated elbow that Mommy was unaware of until later in the day. Poor guy! what a trooper. He ended up popping it back into place himself.
Whitney loved the splash park


Climbing on the baby whale. They also loved the frog that is in the background, but so did a lot of bigger kids, so they hung out here more



Whitney enjoying food immensely. Her white shirt looked about the same as her bib and high chair tray underneath. I still haven't figured out how she gets food underneath the bib, too.


Plain ol' Grandma would be proud. It turns out that both Tucker and Whitney love fried okra


Both assisting Daddy with his fried okraWhitney loves to be big, including helping Mommy practice


I hear this is a fun age. They are learning so much every day, but are not too rebellious as of yet. Whitney is getting better about saying milk to ask for it. She also likes to wash Tucker's hair. And anything that allows her to do something like Mommy and Daddy makes her happy. That's how I finally got them to really drink water. They have their own water bottle, just like Mommy and Daddy.

They are really having fun together at night. Around 6, after dinner, they do what we call playing wild. For about an hour they bounce off the walls. For some reason it is way more fun to do it in the house. They ask for flips from Daddy, push their chairs around the floors, bounce against the couch, bounce against each other with the pillows and charge at Mommy, Rocky or Daddy at full speed laughing their heads off. Sometimes they will run in a circle looking for each other and try to catch up to the other, giggling hysterically.

Tucker continues to love to help unload the dishwasher and weed the yard, which mommy still adores. Tucker learned to give Rocky and Whitney gentle hugs that they don't mind. You'll note Sammy does not participate in charge at sammy game or hugs. Not into it.

This week has been fun packed and fulfilling for the parents, too. I've been able to meet some goals of mine. I went kayaking with a friend this week, trading babysitting with another mom to go to the temple, and did some family history as well as read up on my physical therapy stuff.

I also have been doing some geneology stuff and hit a dead end, so I decided to learn how to look other stuff up using information that I already know instead of trying to find great...... grandparents. I've always wondered about my grandparents coming to America from Finland. After making a ton of mistakes, I found them on the Ellis Island roster Sept 19, 1916. My great-grandpa was 7 at the time. He came with his 5 older siblings, his mom and it looks like an aunt on his father's side with her two kids from Sarkkola Finland. Since the mom and kids came alone, I wonder if Sarkkola is where her parents are from? Who knows, but it's a start to another mystery. I've always known that they immigrated, but it was really fun to find out other details that I didn't know or remember, on official records. In the process I figured out how to puzzle together where people were at what time. The cool thing about the Ellis Island register is it tells you where they were going and any physical descriptions of them. I loved figuring out the mystery. I don't know where his dad was, but I don't think he came through Ellis Island. Another mystery! No wonder geneology is addicting.

Jim has found a buddy that meets with him once a week to talk business plans. The doctor stuff is on hold for now. I voiced my concerns about the timing of starting school as far as financial stuff is concerned this month, and he decided to put it on hold as far as attending lab classes and stuff until Jan. About that time he found a buddy that wants to own his own business, too, but is a marketer and not getting the stuff made or done like Jim. So once a week they meet and are in the planning stages. I don't know. The whole starting a business sounds more like the Jim I've known for 7 years and matches more of the things he's been wanting to do since we've been married, so maybe the doctor thing is off. Which is fine by me. I'm not excited about doing the medical school widow thing. Jim tried catching crab again this week, but I think we've eaten all the legal sized ones from that beach. There weren't any big enough. No worries. Better luck next week.

We had a ton of fun watching the Blue Angels together and picking blueberries, too. The blackberries might be ripening finally, so hopefully we can pick those this week too and I can learn to make freezer blackberry jam. I'm excited to learn.

The video is when we brought the babies to the blueberry farm. Whitney was sooo glad to find out that there are more blueberries where they came from. She was really good about only eating blue or blue/red ones, too, which surprises me even still