In Memory Of...

I think the universe has it in for my clothes. Skirts in particular. Just before we left to go out of town labor day weekend, Cameron sprayed the house for bugs. We had been having a problem with beetles and ants, but had seen a couple of cockroaches *shudder* too. There was a colony of ants living somewhere in the wall by our garage door and they were coming into the kitchen via a tiny hole at the base of the door so I told Cameron to make sure that he sprayed there, which he did. When we got home, 4 days later, I found that the ants had taken up residence in the master closet, in one of my skirts! Yuck! They were crawling all throughout my skirts but there was one in particuclar that they must have liked better because they set up their colony there. Upon asking Cameron, he said that he ran out of bug spray before he got to our master closet.

 This is the skirt. You can't tell, in this picture, but there are several holes in it now, so in the garbage it goes. I was telling some of my friends about the incident the Saturday after we got home, and one of them responded with something like, "Oh that's horrible! I think I would have cried!" To which I responded, "Well, it was my least favorite skirt. If they were going to pick one to chew holes through, I'm glad it was that one." But, I spoke too soon...

Earlier, on the day that I had the conversation with my friends, I dropped off my FAVORITE skirt at the dry cleaners. I was supposed to pick it up on Tuesday of the following week. On Monday morning, I read that a dry cleaning building had been struck by lightning and burned to the ground. Don't worry, it was in the evening, no one was there, no one got hurt, and their insurance will be covering everything. But, I didn't think it would affect me at all.  After all, building A burned down, and building B is where I dropped off my skirt.

When I went to pick up my skirt, they told me that they send a lot of their items to building A to be cleaned. Along with my skirt. So yes, my skirt was burned to a crisp in a lightning fire. Less than a week from when another skirt was eaten by ants. I don't have a picture of this skirt. How was I to know it would soon meet a fire-y demise? But to give you an idea of what it looked like...

Kind of like this, but brown and white and not quite as many flowers.

Maybe the universe is trying to tell me I should dress better.

Cameron's Hobby

Anyone that has known us for a long time knows that Cameron loves taking pictures. Usually, his subjects are animals rather than people. When we go on a hike together we come back with five hundred pictures of animals and scenery and maybe twenty pictures of the family. Cameron's most recent camera is one that also takes videos. So now he has been recording the scene by videos and photographs. He recently set up a youtube channel to upload all of his videos to the internet. Here is a link if you are interested.

Cameron's Videos

Be warned! He doesn't taking any videos of anything cute and fluffy unless it is being eaten by something else. Some of these videos are not for the faint of heart. Like the one with a Gila Monster eating a Rabbit. Although, he did edit out most of the bone cracking sounds. There are some videos on there that are kind of cute. For example the one with Black Bear cubs playing in Yellowstone.

Also, since I'm showcasing Cameron, here is a link to the site where he keeps all of his photographs.

Cameron's Photos

Enjoy!

Down By the River

We love to go swimming during the hot summer days. Unfortunately there isn't a free pool for us to go to. So we make due with the river instead. In some ways it is more fun. But the amount of sand that travels home on these two cuties isn't much fun for mom.

Don't worry. Eli didn't do anything to her. She is just pouting because she wants to splash and not sit on top of a rock for a picture.

This girl is a fish. She LOVES being in the water.

He does too, but not as much when he was Brianna's age.

This particular river has a lot of sand by it (as previously mentioned). So Eli and Cameron built a sand face. They built a car too, but I don't have a picture of that.

Very picturesque don't you think?

These are a Few of my favorite things...

 I love chocolate mousse! Actually I love any food, unless it is green or eggs. Then I probably won't eat it, but green is negotiable.

I love to go through daddy's wallet. I'm not sure what those little cards are for, but they must be important.

But my most favorite thing to do is climb! Mom gets mad at me for climbing on top of the counter all of the time, but what can I say? There is so much to do up there! That's where mom keeps the bananas, and I LOVE bananas. Sometimes there is even a cup of water up there that I can spill all over and splash in when it is hot. Climbing in the bathroom is even more fun! I can turn on the water and fill things up. I can also put my toothbrush under the water and brush my teeth! I really like to brush my teeth and when mom tells me it's time, I'll respond with an excited, "Teethers!"

P.S. I still have blue eyes!

The adventures of a three-year-old

Today, when Eli asked me if I wanted to play, I could tell that he said something like, "Hide-and-Seek," but I couldn't tell what he said instead. Apparently what he said was, "Bite-and-Seek." So guess what he did when I found him.... Yeah...

I told him I didn't like that game and didn't want to play Bite-and-Seek anymore. So he said, "How about Hit-and-Seek?"

Boys.

Monsters!

A couple of nights ago Eli ran into our room during the middle of the night (despite previous blog posts this doesn't really happen very frequently). I was very groggy, having just been awoken from a deep sleep. As near as I can recall, this is what he said:

"Mom! I was sleeping, and when I woke up, there was a monster in my room! Then it sat on my head!"

I groggily told him to go and get his pillow and blanket and sleep beside our bed which he immediately did.

Those stinkin' monsters. What do they want to sit on a little boy's head for?

Yellowstone

Over the fourth of July, we went camping in Yellowstone. It was beautiful! I've never been before, so I was amazed by all of the hot springs. I couldn't believe how different they all were! Cameron, of course, went to see the wildlife. Here are a few of the pictures from our trip.

Our biggest wildlife related scare actually came from buffalo. We were driving across a bridge over a deep gorge. There were three buffalo crossing in the other lane. Cameron was driving and was trying to creep past the buffalo. The HUGE one in front stopped and stared at us with a look like, "What do you think you are doing?" He was big enough that if he decided we were a threat, we would have ended up at the bottom of a gorge! Cameron stopped the car entirely and waited for the buffalo to pass.

 Despite the light color, this is a black bear, not a grizzly bear. We saw about 6 bears total, most of them black bears.

A coyote we spotted on the side of the road. Cameron was disappointed that we didn't see any wolves.

 Tower Falls. Named for the rock formations to the sides of the falls.

 While in the campsite, the kids spent most of their time playing in the dirt.

 With my wee ones on a hike!

Mammoth hot springs

I really liked the colors on these.

This one was like a boiling pond

 You can see steam billowing behind us from even more hot springs.

While hiking around the mammoth hot springs, I was telling Eli about the sink holes. I don't think he entirely understood what I meant and responded, "I don't like big hot springs. Because they make the world fall down." Cameron thought it was hysterical and said, "Deep thoughts from Eli Rognan!"