The Heckler

Allow me to tell you a little story. It requires some background, so bear with me. As you probably know we are University of Utah fans at our house. Which means by default we want BYU to loose to whomever they are playing, right? Well, last weekend BYU played Texas Christan University (TCU), so naturally we were rooting for them. Our bishop is a die-hard BYU fan. He and Greg have a constant friendly rivalry going on and make jokes with each other about their respective teams. Also last weekend was the primary program in our ward. Isaac and I were both involved in it and went to a practice run through on Saturday morning at the church. On our way out the door, Greg said to Isaac, "When you see the bishop, tell him 'Go Horned Frogs'!". (TCU's mascot) I just rolled my eyes and rushed out the door with Isaac because we were late. (We're always late.) I completely forgot about Greg's instructions to Isaac until Sunday when after the primary had finished with their Sacrament meeting program and the Bishop was walking up to the pulpit to make some closing remarks at the end of the meeting. Isaac was sitting right by the stairs to come up to the stand. I was sitting with the class I teach right behind him. I saw it coming. Isaac got this big smile on his face. He looked right at the bishop and said. "Go Horned Frogs!" Nice. Thanks, Greg. Later, in the adult meeting the bishop told anyone who didn't hear Isaac what had happened. He said that he stumbled with what he was going to say in the meeting because he was so taken back by what Isaac had said. Well, at least I know Isaac is loyal to the Utes.

Oh, and BYU lost to TCU :).

Las Vegas

WHAT! Three posts in one month! BAGOWZA! (That's a shout-out to my sis) And October isn't even over. It's a Halloween miracle.


I realize that most of this blog is about my kiddo. Why not though? He's fun. He's cute. He's a heck of a lot more interesting than me. But I thought I'd post about something fun that Greg and I did earlier this month. Every year Greg, my sister, her husband, Dan, and me try to go on a vacation. It's usually only for a couple of nights and it's usually to Las Vegas. Normally we try to go in February or March, but if you remember Greg didn't have a job at that time so it wouldn't have been too smart of us to go blow our money in the city of sin. We decided to put it off for a while. We were watching for a good deal on airfare, and it paid off. We were able to fly to Vegas for cheaper than we would have been able to drive. Awesome. Isaac stayed with Greg's parents and was spoiled beyond belief. He loved every minute of it.


It was so nice to hang out by the pool, stay out late, and be irresponsible for a few days. We did a lot of shopping and went to the Beatles Cirque du Soleil Love show. That was really cool. It's amazing what those performers can do.

This is the walkway into the theater for the show. It changes colors all the time.




Here's Melanie, Greg, and Dan playing the Beatles Rockband game at the gift shop. I'd post the video too, but Melanie would prolly kill me for posting a video of her singing.




We also went to old Las Vegas and Fremont Street. It's something we've been meaning to do in the 3 or 4 years we have been going.

Me, Melanie and Dan underneath the video screen that spans the entire length of the street.

Happy (late) Birthday Isaac

Isaac's 4th birthday was earlier this month. Here's the thing. He only has one cousin on my side of the family and two on Greg's side. So, yeah. He's a little spoiled. He had almost three weeks of birthday.

His main present from Greg and I (with some help from my parents) was his EZ Ski. It's a water skiing trainer. We gave it to him a week or so early because I was afraid that if I waited until his birthday he wouldn't be able to use it at all until next summer because it would be too cold. We had been looking at videos of the ski online for a few months trying to decide which kind of trainer to buy, so when he opened it he knew exactly what it was. He was soooo excited.

That weekend we went boating.

Greg was on a tube out there with him so when he fell off (and he did fall and was NOT happy about it) Greg just jumped off the tube and grabbed him.

I love this picture of Isaac and Greg. Isaac had so much fun and thought he was the coolest thing ever. He wasn't scared at all to be out there, which I'm not sure is a good or bad thing.

That next day, Greg's family had a little party for him. Isaac is really into golf right now and Greg's sister Heidi made the cutest cupcakes. They have a golf tee with a gumball as the golf ball. Such a great idea.

Later that week Isaac got to go shopping with Grandma and Grandpa Baldwin for his birthday. He was staying with them while Greg and I were out of town for a couple days. I'll post about that later. He talked for days about how he got to play with all the toys at the store and all the cars there.

On his birthday he got a few little things from us, and then we went to my parents' for dinner that night. Isaac shares a birthday with my sister, Melanie. He thinks that's pretty cool. So we had a party for both of them.

THEN (see I told you this kid is spoiled) the next Saturday we had party at home with his friends. He wanted a golf themed party, you know, since he was turning fore, so we played a golf version of pin the tail on the donkey, ate pizza, made golf visors, and played some miniature golf games. It was a lot of fun, but ten four year olds can make a big mess in two hours. :)

I can't believe that my kid is four years old. He is my buddy and I'm so glad he's a part of our little family. Happy birthday Isaac!

Bend it Like Baldwin

Isaac has been playing on a Tiny Tots soccer team. I wasn't sure he was going to be able to play at first because I learned about the soccer league after the sign up deadline had passed. He was put on a wait list and we were lucky enough to find a spot on a team. He wasn't able to be on a team with his neighborhood friends, but it turned out just fine because his coach was great. It was so much fun to see these little kids play. Scoring goals for the other team, comparing grass stains on their knees, and climbing on the fence.

He had four games this fall, and he'll have another four next spring. On the way to the games, he would tell us, "I'm going to score three six nine goals." It was a lot of fun to see him improve over the few games and practices he had. At his last game of the season, he did score two goals for his team. Go Isaac! He had a blast playing and is always asking me when his next game is.

Preschool

So I'm going to sound like a big crybaby when I say this, but I'm going to anyway. My little boy is growing up. Isaac started preschool two weeks ago. I'm not afraid to admit it's made me a little sad thinking about how this is the start of many years of school for him. Then what? College? A mission? Who knows. I totally cried after I dropped him off that first day. Don't judge me. It was sad.

Here he is on his first day.

It's kind of a goofy smile. I couldn't get him to give me a good one.

He likes going for the most part. The last few times he's cried for a few minutes when I first drop him off, but then he's just fine. He's already learned most of the Pledge of Allegiance and several fun songs he likes to sing in the car. I think it will be good for him to be around different kids and have more structure in the day.

Yellowstone National Park

Earlier this month we made the drive to Yellowstone National Park. Just Greg, Isaac, and me went. While I love going on vacation with our families, it was fun to be together with just our little family and go at our own (read: Isaac's) pace.

We left on a Thursday afternoon and drove to Idaho Falls and spent the night there. The next morning we headed the rest of the way to West Yellowstone. We made it there about noon and after checking into our hotel, Isaac had to make sure there was a pool, we went into the park. Anyone who has been through the West Yellowstone entrance within the last, oh, eight or ten years knows that one of the first animals you're going to see is a bald eagle. There is nest right off the side of the road.



Soooo cool.


I think the animals are my favorite thing about Yellowstone. It's amazing to see them. That first day in the park we were lucky enough to see this buffalo up close. And when I say close, I mean he was less than 5 feet from the car.




I don't think you can see them in the pictures, but there were people STANDING outside their cars with this huge animal just feet away from them taking pictures. That is insanity. In fact one of the papers you are given when you first enter the park is an illustration of a guy getting flipped up in the air by a buffalo's horns. It said on it "Many visitors have been gored by buffalo". For some reason, Isaac thought that was hilarious. So, as we were watching this buffalo from our car and these crazy people are getting out and taking pictures in front of this beast, Isaac was yelling, "Many visitors have been gored by buffalo!!" I didn't even bother to tell him to be quiet. LOL.

We also saw elk and sheep.



Of course there's the other cool features that Yellowstone has. We went to see Old Faithful and while we were sitting around waiting for it to go off, Isaac decided to try his hand at photography. Here's a sample of his work:





When he was tired of waiting for Old Faithful, he decided to entertain the people around us with a chant of "Let's do this, Old Faithful!" and various dance moves. He's such a ham. When Old Faithful finally went off, we got sprayed big time.


One thing I didn't remember from past visits to Yellowstone, is the smell. It's pretty bad. Every time we would get out of the car, Isaac would say, "Ew, geyser!"



Here's my favorite thing we saw.





It's in Mammoth Hot springs. It was so pretty. it looked like someone had come in and designed it. The picture doesn't do it justice. It was made of salt and minerals, but it looked like ice in the middle of the desert.

We also pulled off the road and dipped our feet in the river. It was COLD!




The one animal we didn't see in the park was a bear. In fact, we went to buy Isaac a t-shirt and he told me he wanted one that said, "Isaac went to Yellowstone and didn't see a bear." LOL. So on the way home we stopped at Bear World in Rigby, Idaho. You drive your car through this little zoo where bears, buffalo, elk, and wolves roam around. It's pretty neat. They also have a petting zoo and a few kiddy rides.

Yellowstone has so many cool things and we had a lot of fun. Here's just some more random pictures. As if I hadn't posted enough already. ;)

If Wasn't For Pictures . . .

. . . I don't think I could tell you what we have been doing all summer. Seriously, it's a good thing I bring my camera along, and that Greg takes pictures (because I usually forget). I feel like one thing runs into another these days. So here's what we've been up to.

The first part of June we went to Hill Air Force Base and saw the air show. So cool. It's amazing what they can do with those planes.

Also in June we went to Idaho to a Baldwin family reunion. It was fun to see so many of Greg's family even if it did rain on us for most of the day. They had fun games for the little (and not so little) ones. Greg's dad did all the food and it was really good. He works wonders with a dutch oven.

Here's Isaac trying to win the marshmallow eating contest. I think he stuffed three of those big marshmallows in his mouth.

A water balloon fight broke out as well. You can tell by the look on his face that he was right in the thick of it.

For the Fourth of July we went to my uncle Preston's house for a barbecue/family reunion. He lives on a farm so Isaac HAD to go find the tractor.

We also went to a parade with my sister, Melanie, her husband, Dan, and Dan's family. Dan's family is so good to Isaac. Dan has three sisters and Isaac thinks they are super cool. So the day of the parade Isaac picked flowers for all the girls. How cute is that!

A few weeks ago we went fishing. We were there for about 4 1/2 hours and caught ONE fish. Oh well, I got to work on my tan a little.

And don't mind Isaac's swollen eye. He got a mosquito bite the night before and it swelled (?) up really big. I did end up taking him to the doctor and come to find out he is more allergic to mosquitos than most people. Want a closer look at that eye? Here you go.

Pretty gross, eh? It actually got worse than that before it got better. Poor kid.

And of course summer for us means boating. And so not to bore you with details from our almost weekly boating trips I'll leave you with some of our better boating pictures.