Labor Day Trip!!

Aunt Lindsea flew up to Utah from Florida for a half marathon, so Bampa Dale and Mama Rae got tickets for us to fly down and see everybody! Rock was pretty silly stoked about the plane ride!
He got to sit with his grandparents and be cool, instead of being around his lame parents.
Ryker wasn't as lucky.
We got to Sherry's house in Sandy at around midnight, and the kids were up waiting for us. R&R were excited about the attention.
Almost everyone woke up early the next day to meet Travis and Lindsea at the finish line of the race. Rock was still loving both the attention and not having to walk.
He was all smiles around the family.
Saturday afternoon Rissa, Whit, Nick, KC, Dad and I went down to Provo for the BYU-UW game. Nick couldn't help but notice the picture on the UW truck...it's of the Huskies getting ready to punt or kick a field goal. That means that their most intimidating picture for the truck is of them not scoring a touchdown. Fourth down, it's the Husky football way.
Here is one of the plays on our end of the field.

Dad, KC and I sat in Sherry and Larry's seats (THANKS!!) while the kids were over in the student section.
The next morning we all got up early for church, which normally isn't an adventure. Well, with my cousin TJ everything is an adventure. Here he is posing as "Mario TJ".
Ryker wishes he had a cool Mario mustache.
Marissa led us on a tour of all the chapels in Utah where Sherry and Larry DON'T have church, we finally found the right meetings. After the meetings DeA got to meet with two of her aunts, Karen and Jan. They have uncle Dustin hair.
TJ had a skateboard in the backyard, and so Rock added it to his list of hobbies.
Sherry and Larry also have a sweet trampoline, and Rock jumped himself out cold.

Sunday afternoon we took some family pictures. Rock knew he had to look his best, and so he got all dudded up.
Aunt Sherry helped him get ready.
I would post some pictures of the family, but Mama Rae wants to be the first to post them (which she did! Click here). Hopefully with school starting they will be up soon.
Eventually we ran all out of time for fun and had to fly home. Rock was still excited about flying in an airplane, but not excited to leave everybody.
Ryker decided that being with his Mommy was a pretty good way to go.

Mama Rae packed some cartoon for Rock, and he watched them all the way to and from Utah. We could hear him yell or laugh at random times, and since he had headphones on he would yell extra loud.
Now that we are home Ryker can get back to trying to master his crawling. It's still more of a moon-crawl instead of a forward crawl, but it's coming. Oh yeah, it's coming.

Man Stuff

Psychologists everywhere are typically one of two things: Expensive listeners and sure that men need to do man stuff to not freak out on people. Ryker knows those two things, also, and that is why he is honing his listening skills. He is very good at sitting still and listening to people talk.
He is able to listen to people talk without openly judging them. Like a good psychologist he knows to do his judging quietly and after the patient is out of the room.
Rock is becoming more and more of a polished singer. Our FHE activity this week was to randomly call people and let Rock sing to them.
Most of the times it is a good performance, but sometimes he likes to feature beans in his pre-show routine. Those shows get a little stinky.

So, what does Rock do as his man stuff? He likes to chill in his recliner and watch Cars or a 'Tee-awk game'.
He's getting more and more excited for the college football season to start. He's super excited that his chair is all ready to go for tonight's first games!
The other big thing that the boys do is play with trains. Well, Ryker plays with trains and Rock takes the trains away from him. It doesn't seem like the most fun game, but Ryker keeps playing it.
Maybe it's because Rock can't be around all the time, and when he's gone Ryker gets to play all by his self.
He's getting pretty good at grabbing the trains as they go by, kind of King Kong-ish. Here he is waiting to pounce on the unsuspecting train.
In other man stuff news, yesterday Rock and Ryker got to watch BYU's exciting news that they are going independent in football!! That means that all the BYU games will be on national TV, usually ESPN!! To celebrate, Rock found this video to get everyone pumped up about indy and for the upcoming season!!

Living Room Rug and a Streaker!!

For our anniversary I got DeA a new living room rug. Ryker was pretty excited about it, and played with it as much as he could. Well, he loved it while it was rolled up, but after it was unrolled he realized that he wanted Mommy's attention more.
Mama Rae, Papa Dale came over to watch the boys so we could go out and Nick came over for the Seahawk game. They took advantage of the time to absolutely overload Rock on sugar.
Yup, that's a chocolate frosted donut with M&M's on it. Healthiest breakfast ever!
I don't know what is going on here, I just know that Rock had just gotten out of the shower. I'm assuming that he was cold, but heaven knows I don't know what goes through that kid's mind.
So, while the next few pictures might look like they were taken at the same time, they actually weren't. Now that he's semi-potty trained he likes to take his Cars skivvies off and run around nekked.
At least here he is looking for new undies to put on.

We finally got some clothes on Rock and Ryker was happy on the new rug, so we took a picture just to remind ourselves later when one is naked and the other one is crying.
Last night we heard the sound of a helicopter buzzing our house. When we looked outside we saw what looked like a search helicopter circling overhead. I opened the door to look at it and heard some rustling in the yard, so I had DeA flip on the flood light. I found three bandits running across the yard with their little masks on. Rock thought they looked more like kitties than burglars.
Rock still enjoys feeding Ryker, and Ryker is starting to enjoy it also...sort of.

Five Spot

Rock and Ryker find it hard to believe, but there was a time in DeA's and my life she wasn't the only one that was young and good looking. Five years ago persistence and constant peer pressure paid off and DeAndra finally "settled", "gave in", "Sold out her future" or whatever else her mommy told her at the time to talk her out of it.
The time has flown by, but when we look at all the changes in our lives it is hard to remember all the way back.
DeA likes to look at our wedding pictures and ask me "look at you, you look so young and carefree...what happened?"

Sometimes she has had to grin and bear it, but lucky for me she's hung in there.
We've been able to make fun trips to visit friends and finalize paperwork for arranged marriages...
and we've met awesome new friends at our stops along the way.
The whole time we've had the great support of our families...

or, more appropriately, our family.

Happy Anniversary, Sugar Boobs!! I love you!!

MY FACE!!!! Part XVII

So, us boys were just chilling at home while Mommy was out on the town. Ryker was chilling in his swing just trying to escape.

"Ugh...so close...so very close..."

This was the morning that Rock woke up at 5:56 asking for Bampa Dale. At 5:58 I got a text from Bampa Dale saying that his helicopter burned to the ground in the hangar. Pretty freaky, huh? Well, getting up that early made things difficult for Rock as the day went on. He was pretty tired and just flat crashed on the couch.
After his nap, he was running around the living room when he got in another fight with the fireplace. This marks something like the 87th time that Rock has had a gnarly open wound on his forehead.
At least he still seemed happy.
Pretty sweet, isn't it?

He decided that the best way to deal with the gash was to drown it in Trix and milk.
It seemed to work for the pain, but not for his beautiful face. What will happen to his beautiful face now that he has another cut? Rock says it will just make him more rugged.