play time

new discovery

someone found their toes

Family photo shoot

It has been a while since we updated our family photo. We asked grandpa to meet us at Jolly's Ranch to take some new pictures. We had driven up the day before and the hay bales looked like a fun place.

There was a huge metal tunnel at the back of the lot. Max loved running in it.

Kendall didn't know what to think of all this so he decided to avoid eye contact with anyone.

I really love these boys!

Max was about done with photos at this point.

Thanks Papa and Nana

Master of the slip and slide

Max was invited to his first "friends" birthday party. Zoe is now 4...I can't believe it.
Her Party was at Petetneet in Payson. They had rented one of the largest slip and slides I have ever seen.

Max loved it! He was really good to go down with his dad until I felt comfortable enough to let him go on his own. I got to stay on the sidelines with Kendall. He really is the perfect excuse for me not going down the slide myself.

I'm sure max went down the slide over and over for 2 hours. Curtis was burnt out before Max.

They really did have a blast! Thanks for all the fun Zoe, we hope you had a wonderful birthday!

This should give you a better idea of how long the slide really is.

Day at the pool

Kendall's face makes me laugh.

We had a wonderful day in the back yard. The pool was a cool get away from the heat.

Max got in a good hour by himself then Kendall wanted in on the fun. We had to let out most of the water to make it baby safe but Max is a firm believer that more shallow water will splash better... so he was ok with that.

The Cabin

We Love the cabin! I am sure this is one of the top 10 reasons why Curtis asked me to marry him. Max found his love for the cabin this weekend. He took endless trips down the slide, we walked up to the steam over and over, and we took one ride on the swing.
We arrived on Friday and Curtis immediately went to work on an awesome dutch oven something. We had a few uncles, cousins and grandparents over for the feast.
After all our guest had left, we started the bed time rituals. It was about 9:30. Kendall was happy laying on a blanket and I was laying by Max to put him asleep. Max and I were talking about his day at the cabin while Curtis fixed a toasty fire for the night.

This is the fire place he was using...you may notice something is missing.
As soon as Curtis shut the door on the fire, we could see some fire/ash coming from the connection between the fireplace and the flew.
Curtis diagnosed the situation as dangerous and while we were discussing the best way to distinguish our little fire...the flew detached and fell to the floor.
Now we had full flames coming out of the, now open-ended, hole. Because the cabin was quickly filling up with smoke, we felt it would be best for me to pack up our children and drive the short distance to get cell service and call Grandpa.
The conversation started with...The Cabin may burn down tonight. Grandpa stayed perfectly calm while I tried to explain the situation. He kindly offered to come up the canyon and bring up his generator (even though he would miss his 10 o'clock news broadcast).

By the time we returned to Curtis, he had found a shovel and moved the fire to the outdoor pit. The boys had fallen asleep in their car seats so we stayed in the car until Papa and Grandma arrived.
We connected the generator and found most of the smoke had cleared. We cleaned up the mess from the flew and tucked the boys into bed. Determined to have our annual night at the cabin, Papa taught Curtis how to work the old stove in the kitchen to provide heat for the remainder of our night.

Through it all, Kendall kept to his regular schedule and was ready to be up and going by 6:30.

Max, on the other hand, wanted to sleep a little longer.

We are happy to say, the cabin survived our stay.

Kendall

I'm not so good taking photos with my phone, but Claire really wanted a photo so here it is.