The last two weeks

OK, so I know it's been a while, but in my defense, I was on vacation for most of it. We went to Oregon to see my parents for Memorial Day weekend, which was a lot of fun. Grandma and Grandpa Janes got a special toy for their grandchildren - a Ford F-150! Power Wheel, that is. The kids had a great time going on walks in the truck, and just driving around the neighborhood. Lear actually got pretty good at driving - as long as he didn't get distracted by things going by on the sidewalk. Usually he'd steer off the sidewalk about then. 

We also took a day to go up to Tacoma, WA to see Cory's cousins, Callie and Ezra. We had a fun time there, too. They have two kids who are each about a year older than our kids - Phoenix and Halcyon. (Students of Greek mythology will note an unintentional similarity between the two names.) The have a sandbox in their backyard, and they got a couple plastic gutters and some bins and set up a little water course to keep the kids busy - Lear was so  busy with it that his pants got wet and we had to take them off him to dry in the sun. If you look closely, you'll be able to see that he isn't wearing any pants in the picture. 

We also got a new car! It is a CNG car, which means that it runs on compressed natural gas - which is only $.63 a gallon here in Utah! We got a GMC Yukon, which is a bonus in itself, since it has third row seating, which will be nice. The one complaint I have about it, however, is that because the CNG stations here can't keep up with demand, there isn't enough pressure to fill up the tank completely, so the car has a range of about 50 miles before it switches to gasoline. Cory flew to Phoenix, AZ to get the car (CNG cars are WAY expensive in Utah because of the demand) the day after we got back from Oregon, and drove it back the same day. He was expecting to get home around 1:00 AM, which worried me, because we'd just driven 14 hours to get home from Oregon, and he had to turn around and drive another 10 hours to get the car home - and through the boonies of northern AZ and southern UT. It turns out, however, that he didn't have quite the marathon we expeted - he blew a tire between Page, AZ and Kanab, UT and ended up spending the night in Page. Call us sometime for the complete story, which is full more more peril than I just described. This post is getting long, so I'll cut this short: one hotel stay, a tow to Page, and four new tires later, we have a nice, big car that costs about $2.80 to fill. Fun stuff, huh?

Lear quote of the week: (in a whisper) "Ella, if you want to throw up, you have to put your finger in your throat." (Lear's advice to Ella while driving to Tacoma on how to more effectively get Mommy's undivided attention.)

Ella quote of the week: "Dang it!" Said after Mommy insisted on helping her roast marshmallows. (More on the marshmallow roasting soon...)