Actually, it was more like a whole week of mission related activities. Sunday - Denver is set apart, Monday - Kent gets home, Tuesday - Denver leaves, Wednesday - Kent is released, Sunday - Kent's homecoming talk in church. Kent looks so good, and he seems to be doing really well. Here's a couple pics.
Waiting outside of customs -- here's Conner with the poster he made. Everyone thought he was so cute. Some of the limo drivers who were also standing there with signs joked with him, "hey, your sign is bigger than mine."
This is my personal favorite photo of the trip -- the two missionaries looking all suave.
As for the rest of our visit, here are the highlights of the trip:
- Conner toasted the 2 missionaries in an "Article of Faith" death match. Everytime Kent pulled a number he was sure that it was the one about the Bible & Book of Mormon. About the 3rd time Conner set him straight, saying matter of factly, "it's number 8." It was totally out of the blue and got us all rolling with laughter.
- In - N - Out hamburgers
- Picking strawberries in Grammer's garden
- Frescante's and Italian Sodas any time of day and night
- 108 degree weather, and trying to see if you could really cook an egg on the sidewalk
- Experiencing the joys of living in the country and all the little critters that come with it. Over the course of the week Scott stepped on a frog outside by accident, we found a frog in Grammer's bathroom, a little scorpion in the bonus room, and the boys got pretty good at catching little bugs that made their way into the house.
- My Dad's surprise 50th birthday party -- it had a 24 Theme to it.
- New books for the boys: The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog, and Click Clack Moo. When Conner gets a new book he listens very intently to you as you read the first 5 or 6 times. He's stone faced, not reacting or laughing at the story, just focused. What he's doing is trying to memorize the story so that he can tell it to you. Once he memorized "The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog" he went from person to person finding a cozy spot next to them and sharing his new story. To listen to him tell it is just hilarious -- he has so much drama and animation in his voice. By the end of the week we were all reciting things like "Each morsel is a joy. A celebration in a bun." and "It just tastes like a hot dog, okay?!!"
- Catching up on movies from the past 2 years with Kent
- Scott and I went out on a dinner date at a very nice restaurant. We had late reservations and sat out on the back patio with burning torches and christmas lights strung around the area -- a cozy, romantic atmosphere.
- Conner & Payton sang, "I Feel My Savior's Love" in sacrament meeting. They did such a good job -- I only wish I could have seen their faces (I was at the piano). We had them each stand on a chair pushed up to the podium and pointed the microphone a little more towards Conner. We've been working on teaching Conner how to sing in his nice Sunday voice, which he does a good job at. Payton, on the other hand, sings a little bit louder. Which is great -- at 3, we're just happy he's singing the words. As they were doing their musical number Payton decided he needed more microphone time so he stood on his tip-toes and leaned in real close. It was pretty funny. They sang 2 verses of the song and it went off without a hitch. It also helped knowing that dad had a bag of M&M's in his suit coat pocket, waiting for them if they did a good job.
And I should probably mention swimming, since that's what we did all day, everyday. Swim in the morning (because it is 90 degrees at 9am), swim after lunch, and maybe swim again right before dinner.
Anna loves the water -- I can already tell that she's going to be a little fish just like Conner. And yes, she is sitting in a bucket. She was so squirmy and just wanted to dive into the water, so we put her in the bucket to keep her in one place. She didn't seem to have any problems with it.
This year we upgraded Conner to water wings (it's been Speedo life vests for the last 2 years). He really swims so well with them. He was all over the pool, trying to get us to race him, and picking fights with Uncle Mason. At the beginning of the week when he wanted to jump off the diving board he stood on the edge and counted his fingers to 3 or 5 or 10 and jumped in. No problem. By the end of the week he wanted to do it like Uncle Mason, so he started 5 feet behind the diving board and took off in an all out sprint without ever slowing or hesitating. Now that's my boy!
And our success story of the week is Payton. We showed up on Saturday around 5 and right away decided to go swimming. Payton would have nothing to do with it. We eventually forced him into the water (he's got to get over this fear) and he was screaming and crying the whole time. Scott worked really hard with him over the next day or two. Payton continued to put up a fight. But eventually he got over it and loved to go swimming. He soon felt comfortable swimming in the water without holding onto someone, he could jump in by himself (no diving board yet), and engage in some mild water battles. He was such a cutie.
Now all of our trips for the summer are over and done. I need to come up with a plan to occupy our days at home, some outings . . . some kind of schedule that we can look foward to specific activities on certain days. That way the summer won't seem like one big blur when we reach the end of August!