End of Summer

This has been the summer of exercise, gardening, dry-walling, mudding and trips. I went to Youth Conference and all of Young Women girl's camp, Phil went up to King's Peak with some friends and climbed the whole thing in like 14 hours (a time he is determined to beat this weekend), and I flew to SanDiego with some very fun friends for just a day of lying on the beach and eating mexican food! FUN!!!

We ran a lot of races (okay, four) from May to September (Bryce Canyon was one of them; definitely a favorite) and we have only two coats of mud to go before we paint our upstairs and get carpet! Wahoo! The picture above was taken at the Greek Festival 5K/10K race that we ran a week ago, where Benson was a real trooper, although his Mommy had to take a break in the middle of the race at a Chevron to use the restroom. Oops! Daddy had pushed him in the last race, so I did this one. The double stroller adds a ton of weight, but it is awesome to be able to run with the whole fam, whether there are babies or not. (Don't make fun of the double. When baby #2 arrives, it will have been worth pushing around an empty seat for 2 years! Seriously!)

I planted my very first garden this year. Everything died, except the tomatoes, and up until this weekend I thought my peppers had died, but low and behold, there actually are like three baby green peppers growing! Who would have guessed. A good friend helped me learn how to grow from the plant above, to the jars below! What a satisfying event to eat your own produce!

Although he looks a bit sly here, onesie boy not only learned how to crawl this summer, he also has learned to pull himself up to standing and cruise around on furniture, or even push chairs. He is also a big fan of stairs, where he has learned to go both up and down. His O.T. came two weeks ago to do his 18 month review, and he is at age level for all areas of development (fine motor, social/emotional, language, etc.) except for gross motor, where he came in at a roaring 11 months developmental age. That, I tell you, is amazing! He has progressed so much from six months, and we are so grateful. As our Occupational Therapist says, when he walks into Kindergarten, no one will know the difference!