Sunriver!!

Sometimes husbands forget about their wife's birthday, and sometimes they think four months ahead and win a three night stay in Sunriver, OR.  I'm the latter, but at times have been the former (see, remembering DeA's birthday is already making me smarter).

We loaded up Bubbles on Thursday morning and trusted that the boys would get themselves into their carseats.  They didn't.

 Ryker was still on an attention-high after his birthday and was a complete ham for the camera.

 He kept switching sides on the seat and giving me a different smile.  What do you expect someone to do when they know that the camera loves them?

After dropping off the kids headed south to Oregon.  The name of this place is Sunriver, but today we woke up to about a foot of snow

 The snow gave DeA an excuse to do what she really wanted to do on this trip:

Ryker's Birthday=Rock's Meltdown

All the birthdays in February have come and gone.  We've had lots of cake, including Mama Zista's cake that Rock helped me bake and frost.

He was pretty proud of his 'Balentime's Cake".

He especially loved testing the frosting on the cake.

The boys played Frisbee golf to celebrate Ryker's birthday and did a good job of not chewing on the rubber balls at the end of the controller.

They really loved turning off the lights and watching the bright colors in the air while having their shirts unbuttoned like a capo.

For lunch on Ryker's day we went to Company Creek for a pizza party.  Ryker always slurps down his chocolate milk well before the pizza arrives.

He likes chocolate milk.

A lot. He likes it a lot.

Nick and Travis helped keep the boys in line by showing them how to play video games and getting chairs for the little ones.

Ryker loves exploring the pizza place and even found a pedestal to stand and sing to the other patrons.

Later that night we had a cake party at Mama Rae's and Papa Dale's house.  DeAndra made some super awesome Elmo and Cookie Monster cupcakes.  Ryker tried to taste them all.

For the most part he succeeded in licking every single one.

Ever since Rock started wearing my dress socks as 'pants' it has been harder to find socks before work in the morning.  To help eliminate this problem I bought him some real long johns.  It worked perfectly because he hasn't worn a single pair of my socks.  The only problem is that he won't take the long johns off, ever.  He'd even bathe in them if we'd let him (but we don't).

We thought that the long johns and a toy truck would help mitigate Rock's jealousy due to Ryker's whole day of attention.  It didn't work and as the night went on Rock got more and more cranky.  He completely lost it when Ryker opened his presents and Rock had to ask permission to play with his toys.  He went kicking and screaming into the van while yelling at the top of his lungs. 

He did everything he could think of to escape from his car seat to the point that I had to tighten it down as far as it would go.  That made him even more mad.  One good thing that came from his meltdown was that he wore himself completely out and was a sleep in no time.  That was almost worth the fireworks.

Meanwhile Ryker was pretty happy with his musical Elmo.  As I laid him in his crib he kind of started to wake up and then mumbled "Elmo.  I want Elmo".  As soon as I put Elmo in there with him he went right back to sleep.  The next morning when he woke up he found Elmo and started giving him kisses while saying "awe, Elmo...awe, Elmo" over and over.  It was stinking adorable.

All in all it was a happy birthday for our not-so-baby Ryker.

A Very Special DeAndra Birthday!!

Today is Sugar Boobs' birthday!  To celebrate we are going to spend a few nights in Sun River, OR without the kids (thank you Mama Rae, Papa Dale, Nick, Linz and Uncle Babis!).  She is pretty excited to have a few nights of pure sleep before Pebbles pops out and completely wrecks her sleep schedule.

Here is Mt. Bachelor outside of Sun River.  Pretty.

I couldn't find previously unused pictures of DeA for today's birthday post, so I Googled her name and found this picture from back in the day.  That's her on her way to prom or homecoming or skeet shooting, I'm not completely sure.  This is the picture that my parents found when they first searched her (probably using Ask Jeeves or metacrawler.com or something) back when we were dating.

Happy Birthday Love!

More Trax: The Rail Jam!!

I promised you that this was coming soon, and so here it is!  We went to the Rail Jam and watch skiers do sick tricks off the rail.  Rock loved it.

We found a good spot where Rock could hear bones crunching and dreams dying as the skiers crashed.

"Come on!  Break your board!"

Ryker was excited to roam free and play in the snow and scare people with his cougar growl.

We ran into trouble when the boys started chucking snow at anyone and everyone.

"That old guy won't even know what hit him!"

"Um, what Dad?  No, I wasn't going to throw this at that old guy.  I was...just...holding it..."

Then he got mad that the snow was too compacted to make snow angels.

"RRRROOOOAAAARRRR!!!"

The night started getting cold and the skiers weren't falling enough so we high tailed it out of there and had dinner with the Hinckleys (not pictured: Hinckleys).

So, to recap the Trax day for the boys: They ran the Frosty Fun Run, they went to breakfast, Rock went ice skating, they went to a rail jam and then had friends over.  Not a bad Saturday, and to top it off them enjoyed cracker sandwiches that Mama Zista sent them for Rock's birthday!  Sweet!

"What Dad?  No, we're not tired.  We're just...letting.......our eyes............rest................"

And then just as they were about to fall asleep Ryker drilled his forehead against the leg of an end table.  That's a goose egg that would make Bugs Bunny proud.

Two Years: A Rykerspective

I looked over the past two years of the blog searching for pictures of the Ryker.  I honestly forgot all that we've gone through since our little guy was born: 

• The day he was born I had to leave to graduate from Palmer
• A week after he was born we had to drive 10 hours each way looking for a job
• Two weeks after he was born we moved up to Renton
• About a year later we moved to Manson and opened the practice
• His mommy got pregnant and is planning to cheat on him with baby Pebbles

The poor little guy hasn't been with us for the easiest part of our marriage, but we have been glad to have him.  Now he is this smart and funny little guy that yells "Swyper no Swyping!" at my phone after he opens Dora on Netflix all by himself.

Happy Birthday Baby Gyker!!

A Little Cleanup and Catch Up

The local news rag The Mirror has a story about Rock's big race and the rest of the Trax events that we enjoyed this past weekend.  Click here for their story and a sweet picture of Rock shooting out of the gates. (Note: For those that aren't sure how links work, I mean to literally click where it says "click here" in the last sentence, not the "click here"s in this sentence.  You're welcome Grandmas and Grandpas)

Here is their slideshow with a great picture of Rock fixing his 'running' socks at the 1:30 mark.  It also has pictures of Rock's friends Cole, Olivia and Finn along with others.  Warning, there are way too many pictures of dogs in that slideshow, so it may not be suitable for all audiences.

See what I mean?  There were like a bajillion more pictures of dogs then there should've been, but it still had some good pictures in there.

I think we mentioned briefly before that Aunt Lindsea made the boys jetpacks to wear around the house.  Well, this adorable video has two (2!) views so hopefully we haven't discussed this yet.  Either way, here is the video again.

We had FHE last night with Mama Rae and Papa Dale, the Elmers and the Volles.  Rock was the main show and serenaded us with his hit single "Baba Baba Mama Gooy"

The Big Race

As I'm sure you all recall, Rock has recently been training for a big race.  Athletes are creatures of routine, and Rock is no different.  The day before the race he got dressed in his best business suit and held meetings with his sponsors, handlers and donuts procurers. 

 After getting dressed like this he informed his manager (DeAndra) that he had an important meeting with Grandpa Dale at the store.

 After all the rituals, routines and training were done it was finally time for the big race!  Manson had a Frosty Fun Run this morning for their winter festival called Trax.  DeA wants me to emphasize that he got himself dressed for the race in his 'running race clothes'.

 Ryker wore a full bodysuit for better wind resistance.

 Rock took off like a shot and ran the entire course, a whole 1K!  I couldn't believe it, mostly because the course felt closer to a half mile than it did to 1000 miles, but who am I to argue with race organizers?

 He would stop at times to fix his socks, but otherwise ran the entire race.  He was pretty tired when he got into the cool-down van.

 "I'm number one!!"

 Ryker also ran pretty much the whole route, minus about 50% of it.  He walked with DeA and with how fast Rock was going I didn't get a good picture of Ryker.  But here he is with his 'water bottle trophy' that Rock think they both won.

 As a little post-race tradition (because all traditions start somewhere, right?) we took the boys for Happy Face pancakes at the Apple Cup.

  They really enjoyed their recovery chocolate milks.

After breakfast Ryker crashed in the car, so DeA took Rock to the ice skating rink while I 'babysat' Ryker on the couch.

Rock wore himself out quite a bit, so he recharged with canned and real oranges.  You can tell from his smile that he was struggling with energy.

Ryker was also pretty burned out, despite his nap.  He kept playing on the floor without doing a lot of movement.

Coming soon: The Rail Jam!