18 Months

Bennett’s actually 19 months now, but with all the traveling we’ve been doing I didn’t have a chance to do an update, or to take “official” 18-month pictures of him until last week.

I’ve started keeping a little “Bennett journal” with milestones and funny things he does so I can remember. I wish I had started it when he was born, but oh well – better late than never, right? I won’t bore you with all the details, but we are enjoying watching him learn new words (or at least attempts at them), animal sounds (my current favorite is the fishy – no actual sounds, he just opens and closes his mouth), and body parts (“show me your muscles”, complete with a grunt, is the current favorite). One of his favorite things lately is helping Nate take off his shoes as soon as he walks in the door – he then takes his socks off, puts his socks inside his shoes, and puts the shoes under the piano. He laughs easily and is pretty fun to have around. I attempted to get some photos of him last week, but brought a couple balls to keep him from getting bored – maybe a mistake? He just wanted to play with the balls and wouldn’t look at me. We think he’s pretty cute anyway.

(that second one is blurry, but it gives you an idea of what I had to work with – and it makes him look like he’s running really fast! :)

          

Park City

Last weekend, Nate’s family was staying up in Park City near Deer Valley and we were able to go up and stay with them Friday night and hang out on Saturday. On Friday, we went downtown with Heidi & her family and walked around looking at the shops and eating yummy ice cream cones. It was fun, but cold!

On Saturday morning, we went on a walk up to the ponds they have at Deer Valley and brought some bread so Bennett could feed the ducks. Last time we tried feeding the ducks in April in Idaho Falls, it was really cold and Bennett didn’t seem too interested in participating, but he loved it this time. There weren’t too many ducks, and they weren’t all together in a group, but it was still fun.

 

After lunch, Nate, his dad, Anna and I headed over to do the Alpine Coaster and Alpine Slide. Fortunately Anna suggested we do the slide first because you could get going a lot faster on the coaster and it was more exciting. They were both fun and it was nice to be up in the mountains – there were even trees that were starting to change colors for the fall. After the adventures, I made a quick trip to the outlets with Nate’s mom while he watched the (disappointing) BYU game, and we headed home. It was a nice relaxing weekend in a beautiful setting, and fun to spend it with Nate’s family.

Just Married Part 3: Las Vegas

A week after Bennett and I got back from Oregon, Nate and I headed down to Las Vegas for Dave & Liz’s reception at her parents’ house. We decided at the last minute to leave Bennett with Nate’s parents for the weekend because we were doing a lot of driving in a short amount of time, with late nights / early mornings. We were very grateful to them for being willing and it made the trip much more relaxing!

We got there late Friday night and met up with my parents and checked into our hotel, then attempted to go down and see the Bellagio fountains, but got there at 12:05, not realizing that the last show was at midnight. We did get to see the amazing conservatory and botanical gardens inside the Bellagio though:

(if you can’t tell, the snail and ladybug are made out of live flowers)

On Saturday, we slept in and hung out at Liz’s parents’ house for a little bit, then ran some errands and relaxed at the Caesar’s Palace pool for a little while. I have to admit that it was quite enjoyable to just hang out at the pool and not have to chase Bennett around!

The reception at Liz’s parents’ house that night was beautiful and we had delicious food. A few pics of the evening:

Beautiful flowers, great setting in their yard with the palm trees, and yummy brownie & cheesecake bites. Nate helped himself to several servings :)

Nate and I hurried after the present-opening to try to catch a couple Bellagio fountain shows before midnight. After lots of near-running, we caught most of the 11:45 show and the midnight show. I’d heard how cool it was but it was way better than I expected. A kind man offered to take our picture so we wouldn’t have one of those lovely self-portraits, and he even switched it to manual and adjusted the settings before taking the picture – surprising since I’m used to people asking which button to push (although you’ll see it still didn’t turn out great, at least better then a self-portrait :) We walked down the strip a little ways to see the Mirage and Treasure Island, then crashed for a few short hours before driving up to Kaysville so we could make it to Nate’s niece Elsie’s baby blessing. It was a fun weekend!

(ps: these are crooked because I was trying to prop my camera on the ledge since I had such a slow shutter speed)

Just Married: Part 2 – Oregon

After Dave & Liz’s wedding in San Diego, Nate drove back to Utah and Bennett and I rode with most of my family up to my parents’ house in Oregon. We did the trek in 2 days – 10 hrs the first day to Jake and Stacey’s in San Jose, and about 6 hours the next day. For most of the trip, it was my sister Jessica and I in her van with our 4 boys – 5, 2 1/2, 18mos, and 6 weeks. Considering the circumstances, it went pretty well but we definitely had moments of craziness. Bennett had fun trying out Kallie’s toys when we were at Jake & Stacey’s:

We spent the week at my parents’ house enjoying being together and helping get everything ready for the open house on Saturday. Bennett loved having a bunch of new toys to play with, and a bunch of cousins.

From top to bottom, left to right: playing cars with grandma’s garage, playing with the marble track my Grandpa Landon made, looking for frogs, playing tennis/raquetball with Grandma Landon, learning about potato bugs, taking a bath, the grandkids eating breakfast together, and posing with their new PJs from grandma Landon.

And some pictures of the open house in the Clasons’ beautiful yard:

 

yum…the dessert table. Homemade lemon bars, partially-homemade brownies, and cream puffs.

Bennett sporting the faux-hawk courtesy of Uncle Jake and Uncle Dave

trying out Jake’s new iPad

one tired little boy!

  

the happy couple after their very entertaining gift opening

and some pics I stole from Stacey: