Gabe, Suzanne, Carter and McKay

Trips to the California coast

2011-08-15T19:56:00.016-06:00

Wow! A lot has happened since the last time I posted anything to this blog - about 3 months ago. In that time we moved from Newport, Oregon, to Redding, California. We really miss all of the good friends we left behind there in Oregon, but we knew it was the best thing for our family. We LOVE being closer to family. Here's McKay playing with his cousin Naomi. They are 2 days apart in age and they get along fabulously. We had to shoot down their plans to get married, although I'm not sure if McKay was in on that plan or if that was just Naomi.My family, led by my sister Angie, takes a trip to the Fort Bragg area every year for a big campout. As you may remember, Suzanne is not that enthusiastic about camping, but we enjoyed ourselves anyway. Here's a family picture on Glass Beach. Carter was trying to smile as wide as he could. We've spoken to him since then about how you smile in photos and you'll get to see some better ones later.Glass Beach has a neat history. Years ago, the city of Fort Bragg used this ugly little beach as a city dump (Please suspend your outrage, they've learned their lesson and stopped that practice a long time ago). Everything was broken down or washed away, except the glass, which was broken and rolled by the waves. The ocean waves acted as a natural stone polisher, so now there are smooth pebbles of glass from pea size to quarter size. You're not supposed to take any home, but everyone does anyway. How's that for recycling? They dumped their trash in the ocean, now we go pick it up and take it home as a keepsake.McKay in the red lifejacket, Carter in blue, playing in the ocean at Sanddollar Beach. We've seen too many kids get rolled farther out than they wanted by the waves, so we always put our boys in PFD's when we hit the ocean beach. Carter got much bolder than I wanted, going up to his chest in the water. I imagined him floating out to sea in a riptide, so they didn't get to play as long as they wanted. Angie joked that I was "playing lifeguard". Or maybe that was Leigh... Anyway, the next day their older cousin Colton posted on facebook that "a riptide almost took my life" so I felt justified. They all had fun, and Colton learned a valuable lesson: never underestimate the power of the ocean.The boys with their personal lifeguard (already suited up in a lifejacket... Just in case!)That was the end of our trip to Fort Bragg, but not the last trip to the ocean this summer. Suzanne's mom and sister came over from Idaho and Las Vegas, respectively, and Suzanne and the boys took off to Eureka for some more beach fun.They had fun seeing the sights too. I hear Carter got excited when he saw the famous Carter House Inn.On the trail to Agate Beach. McKay swinging from the railing.Checking out the Giant Redwoods.My dad and I drove over from Redding to spend the last two days with my family, and it's thanks to him we were able to get some great family photos, like these next two standing inside a burned out Giant Redwood. I used to show pictures like this to people I'd meet in Spain. They always made comments like "The things they can do with computers these days! You look like little elves." Their jaws would hit the floor when I'd tell them the trees really are that big. I'm still amazed.

My little family on a beach down in Trinidad - go to the stubby lighthouse and follow the 220 steps all the way to the bottom. The boys had a great time - McKay was distance jumping over a small stream and Carter climbed rocks to follow Papa. We also went to one of my childhood memories, the Eureka Zoo. That place has changed! There's a botanical garden next door, with a wishing well, hence the next picture.

The boys had fun in the zoo, Papa got them to go into the petting zoo with him.

McKay on a tractor in the zoo's "Barnyard"Carter on a horse in the Barnyard.Down the street there's the park where they filmed "Return of the Jedi". It looks a lot different than I remember, but that was twenty years ago. They boys had a lot of fun there, but then, they have fun everywhere. The most amazing part of the trip in my opinion was driving up to Klamath where the whale was lost under the bridge. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience to see a wild whale that close. We watched her as she swam in slow circles west of the bridge, hoping she'd find her way back to the ocean. We were very sad to see in the news that she passed away a few days ago.

Bunny Buns and other fun

2011-05-08T20:44:00.004-06:00

I love these two pictures because they tell a little story. In the first, the boys are having a great time. In the second, there's the realization that they should have thought this through. (I love McKay's face.)
Our most recent family photo: Christmas 2010.
Carter is on a baseball team for the first time this year, but there's not that much baseball. Mostly the games get rained out, as they did on this fateful day.
We have been getting the boys more involved in household chores. McKay has this strange desire to watch the Food Network at all hours, so we have an inexplicable urge to cook elaborate dishes for dinner each night. A few nights ago I asked Carter if he wanted to dredge the chicken, fully expecting him to say no. I was surprised to hear him say he wanted to help, but really more surprised by what a good job he did. (And when it was done he ATE it - Mr. Picky Eater himself...) You know how when Mothers' Day rolls around and kids ask "Why isn't there a Kids' Day?" and the standard answer is "Everyday is Kids' Day." Kind of true. Today is Mothers' Day and we spent the afternoon taking the kids to the park and working on a recipe that Carter found in April's issue of "The Friend": Bunny Buns. I let the boys do as much as was safe and they were really excited to decorate their bunny buns, even though all we had were Valentine's Day sprinkles.The globs at the bottom are tails, I think. I like McKay's best because it has red eyes and fangs. I wonder if that was on purpose. Anyway, as Carter said, "They are delicious!" Light and sweet with a hint of orange and a sugar glaze. The ears could have been longer.
Hope you all enjoy the pictures!

Star Wars Birthday Party = Escalating chaos

2010-11-13T19:10:00.008-07:00

The boys' birthdays are not today. Carter's Birthday was last week, McKay's birthday is next week. I wanted to give them seperate birthdays, but they wanted a Star Wars party, so we decided to give them a combined party. And time-wise we just split the difference.

We prepared for this party for over a month. We sewed little Jedi robes for all of their friends, we made lightsabers from pipe insulation, we planned activities, set up a skit (wrote a script, got a costume), and constructed a Death Star pinata (how do you add the ~?). By today, Suzanne and I were SICK of Star Wars - we wish we could just force it all out of our brains. Ugh!

Kind of last minute, we built a small obstacle course - a cardboard box tunnel, a bench to crawl over, spots on the floor to run on, and balloons to beat the children at the end. I named it "The Kessel Run" (the Millenium Falcon made the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs, according to Han Solo, even though a parsec is a measure of distance and not time) and assigned a spacey name to each part. I narrated as each child ran it - "Out of the hangar, over the mountains, down the hyperspace corridor, and through the asteroid field!" To our surprise, it was the hit of the party. The kids LOVED getting beat up by the punch ball balloons at the end!

We trained the kids then to fight with a lightsaber, which was a lucky thing, because Darth Vader himself tried to crash the party. (Movie below - click the play button)

The kids made short work of him and he left behind a clue to the location of the Death Star. The kids went on a treasure hunt to find the Death Star and quickly blew it up.

Then it was time for cake and ice cream then back for more of the Kessel Run (at the kids' request) until the box tunnel fell to pieces and the adults were too tired to hit anybody with another balloon. The boys opened their presents...
After that, there were no plans. I don't know how things went to complete anarchy so quickly. The kids hit each other with balloon punch balls and lightsabers and there was no controlling them. The paint came off the lightsabers, glitter from the Death Star was tracked everywhere, and the noise level and energy level got higher and higher. We were very glad when the party ended. We said goodbye to the last guest, and we were exhausted but still had to clean up. I think everyone had a lot of fun and I hope the boys will remember it.

Halloween pictures 2010

2010-10-31T08:03:00.004-06:00

Halloween! Personally one of my favorite holidays. I don't really know what we're celebrating - things that make you afraid? Whatever. It's fun to dress up like a weirdo and all anyone says is "Great costume!" Here's one of the boys with some glasses they got from Aunt Sherene. I pretend to scream everytime they wear them. So they wear them a lot.Carter and McKay have been obsessed with Lego Star Wars for the Wii for MONTHS. This is McKay with a toy golf club (which he tore apart to make a sword) showing off his Jedi fearsomeness. So it was only natural that they become little Jedi for Halloween. Costumes weren't really that hard, and you might see them again around birthday time... can't say more right now.

Ready for the Halloween party!

Hope you enjoy the pictures!

Not summer yet, but we'll take it!

2010-05-23T22:27:00.008-06:00

First, some clean-up - or pictures that don't fit the title that we still wanted to post. McKay insists this is the only way to eat a tortilla. Reminds me of the old Reese's Peanut Butter Cup commercials: "How do you do that, Rog?"Then 2 pictures of Easter. The first was at our house. It was cold and we found slugs on some of our plastic eggs.The second at Great Grandpa Phillips' house in Redding. It was about a week later, if I remember right. I love the puzzled look on their faces. I think I had just said, "You missed one right around here..."

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On to the 'Not summer yet' pictures! We spent a warm Sunday afternoon at Fogarty Creek (10 miles north). We had a great time. Here's me taking advantage of the first warm beach we've seen in many months.

Suzanne loves this beach, so we go there a lot. I think it's because the waves crash on the rocks and you can sit close to the waves and never have to run from them.Carter on the bridge over Fogarty Creek on the way back from the car.Carter's soccer team was the Lions. He was the oldest kid on his team and was the one they trusted most to get the ball up the field. Here we are at one of his practices. The coach wasn't there so the parents got into the drills. We're going faster than we look... really! McKay got bored at practices and found interesting ways to entertain himself. "For you, Mommy!"Carter's last game was the first game we remembered to bring the camera. After warming up he was sent off the field to wait until it was his turn to play. "It's not fair! I want to play first."He did get to play - here's a corner kick that he learned from the Karate Kid. (Not really)End-of-season party at one of the other kid's houses. Awesome treehouse with a shaky ladder. Here he's asking for help getting down.The medal for finishing the season. He had a lot of fun.Here's me paragliding. Just kidding. This guy was floating over our own Nye Beach. Suzanne said it looked boring but I want to try it.We actually went to Nye Beach to get rid of some stale bread. We stood near the drainage ditch and fed the seagulls. It looks like they're flying past us but they're not. They're flying into the wind and hovering right there - right over my head. I didn't see him.Now I do. "AAAAH! Shoo! Go away!"Nice catch, bird! The birds that hovered and caught mid-air got a lot more bread than those on the ground or in the drainage ditch behind us.We went to the bayfront later and this was the first time we've seen the capture cage. One sea lion had a chronic injury - a loop of twine wrapped around his neck and cut deep into his flesh. They couldn't risk a tranquilizer dart until he was trapped in this cage so he wouldn't escape into the water, lose consciousness, and drown. Once he was trapped, they darted him then the local vet and a couple of marine biologists cut the twine. They intended the cage for intermittent use but as you can see the sea lions love it! There are only 7 or 8 on the dock. The guy next to us on the overlook counted 23 in the cage. We laughed really hard when the big one nearest the gate climbed in on top of all the others. They all got mad and barked and shifted for a couple of minutes, then they all went right back to sleep. Lazy brutes.My beautiful sweetie and handsome boys in front of the sea lion overlook. McKay and me seated on the same iron chain.
Hope you all enjoy the pictures.

Another post

2010-04-03T22:20:00.007-06:00

Where to begin? Oh yeah, excuses. Sorry I don't update this page as often as I should. I wish I had good reason, but really I don't. I usually spend my free time doing stupid stuff and some important things end up falling by the wayside. Like Carter's tooth.Sunset at South Beach just before...A couple of weeks ago we had a bonfire on the beach with some friends. Good thing it was on the beach and there was nothing nearby to burn because that fire was a lot higher than we expected (like 10 feet high). Maybe it was the gasoline. Yeah, I brought the marshmallows, the other guy was in charge of the fire. We had visits from Grandma Carter and Gramma and Papa Phillips within about a week of each other. Somehow we didn't get pictures of any of them, but the boys were in photo shoots the whole week - like them climbing on this turtle at the aquarium with Grama and Papa Phillips...... and this hike with Grandma CarterThe hike is the Mike Miller trail in South Beach which ends at this little bridge over a pond. Suzanne couldn't wait for me to see it because last time she was there she saw tons of newts in the water. They swam up to the surface, curious to see what was causing that shadow.This time they were not so curious. We were lucky to get this picture. I could have lied and said it was the Loch Ness monster.We had an Easter egg hunt today (Saturday) in the primary room at church. I tried to take pictures of the actually hunting but all the camera was able to capture was a series of blurs and not-so-cute, ferocious-hunter glares from the boys. But here's a picture once they'd returned to normal. The search party after the mayhem had calmed down.

Before you look at the next picture I want to be perfectly clear: We are NOT announcing anything. We are not pregnant. We have no intentions to become pregnant. The following picture reflects Carter's wishes and do not reveal anything about our family. Ok, that out of the way, Carter brought this home from kindergarten. His teacher wrote the caption. We thought it was adorable because Carter is CONSTANTLY talking about wanting a baby. Now he talks about it at school. The caption is "My family I want it to be like" then he wrote "Dad Mom McKay Carer (Carter) Baby"

Hope you all enjoy the pictures!

Carter can ride!

2010-02-21T22:08:00.007-07:00

Winter may finally be coming to an end here on the Oregon coast. Two weeks ago I had five days off in a row! Sadly it rained everyday and McKay was sick, so I got to paint some walls and play the Wii. Ho-hum. But the sun has been out and the days have been beautiful and I have four days off this week! Sadly it's supposed to rain everyday again.

In the meantime I've been stealing an hour here and a half-hour there to teach Carter to ride a bike with no training wheels. We haven't had a chance because of the rain until now, but Carter is making up for lost time. A few days ago we got him a bigger bike (because he hasn't really fit on his 12 incher for over a year) and took him to a grassy park. I ran along holding the seat and it only took him a couple of tries to ride all by himself. Today we took him to a different park and he had a harder time because the grass was so thick - he couldn't get moving.

There's an asphalt jogging track at that park, so we moved over to that and I hovered closer, sure Carter would fall and skin something. Instead he took off like a bullet. You all know I like to run, but Carter gave me a good workout. I think he was moving at a good 6.5-7 mph - I wasn't sure how long I'd be able to keep up!

I couldn't just let him ride for a couple of reasons:

1. He gets confused when it's time to stop. I had to save him from running into a closed gate about 4 times today. (Look 100 yards ahead of Carter in the above picture)

2. When he finally does stop, he has trouble catching himself and he and the bike collapse to the ground in a little boy/metal & rubber pretzel.

We're working on that, but I can't let him go alone yet. So, here's me (below), running about as fast as I can without sprinting, my jacket now in my hand, flapping behind me. Suzanne thinks it's funny to see me pluck him off the bike when he's headed for a bad fall. The bike tips, he goes down... but OverProtective Dad swoops in to save the day.

Here's our little guy, too pooped to party anymore. He wore the helmet and protective gear in the car the whole way home. McKay is not ready to go without training wheels. He's still working on learning to pedal instead of scooting along Fred Flintstone style. (On Carter's old bike)

I think by the end of the summer they'll both be pros. Carter already has plans to ride to school. We'll see.

Halloween aka Where's Waldo Madness

2009-10-31T23:48:00.011-06:00

Before we get to the Halloween fun, I wanted to share Carter's Kindergarten picture. Don't worry, we bought the copyright so it's legal to post here. If anyone wants the file to print off, we can email it to you in a larger file size (color or black and white)McKay has been coming home with all sorts of rhymes and songs from his preschool. This one is our favorite but there are other cute ones too. (If you'd like to see the others, I could post them too.) We tried to tell him the word is "too" but he insists he's right :)

Closed captioning: I'm a mean old witch with a hat and I fly on my broom with my cat. My nose is pointed and my chin is too(t). You better watch out or I'll scare you. Boo!

Carter wanted in on the action too.

Closed captioning: (Carter) Um... uh.. "Wearing Halloween clothes!" (Gabe) Did you just make that song up? (Carter) Yes. "There's a moon up the sky..." (Gabe) Did you just make that song up too? (Carter) It's the same.

Remember 'Where's Waldo?'? It seems like that guy was always lost in some wacky place with way too many people wearing red and white, like the picture below. Somebody mentioned him about a month ago while I was trying to decide what to wear for Halloween...
An image popped into my head.. "That's it!" I thought. "It would be so easy! And everyone would know who I am, not like when I was Professor Quirrell and my customers thought I was Johnny Carson doing Carnac the Magnificent... All I need are shoes (check!), blue jeans (check!), and a red and white striped shirt and beanie and some round glasses."It turned out to be more involved than I expected. For starters, no stores sell any clothes that Waldo might wear except the pants and shoes. No red and white beanies, no red and white striped shirts. You can't even buy round glasses anymore. We had to make everything from scratch. The shirts we made with red duct tape over long-sleeve white shirts, and found that duct tape doesn't stretch enough and had to be retaped on the person's body once the shirt was on. The glasses I bent out of pipe cleaners. The hats... um, I had to turn in my HeMan Club card and learn to knit. Suzanne and I knitted hats for something like a week while we watched TV at night. But the results are, well, see for yourself.

After we made the costumes, Carter said he didn't want to be Waldo for Halloween. It was too late to do anything else, so he was Waldo anyway. But any comment like "Oh, you're such a cute Waldo" was answered with "I'm not Waldo!" Next year we'll make sure he gets to choose his own costume.

"Carter, smile for the camera."

"No."

P.S. - the glasses didn't last long.

I wore my costume to work and got complimented on literally every single thing I wore. "I love your outfit!" "Did you make that hat? It's amazing!" "That shirt, why didn't I think of that! It's so cute!" "How did you make those glasses? You must be really talented." I even got complimented on my jeans (which was a little weird) and to complete the package I asked a coworker if she liked my shoes, and she said yes. Not one customer yelled at me all day - I might dress up more often. You might wonder why I made fake glasses when I wear real glasses. I'm near-sighted, so my glasses don't help within about 6 feet, so it's a pain to wear them and stare at my computer screen all day. Don't the boys look cute?Trick-or-treating! We went to a really busy neighborhood and we probably got over a hundred comments. "Look, it's a Waldo family!" "Where's Waldo? There he is!" "Look, matching Waldo costumes! That's so awesome!" I felt like a celebrity. There was one group of annoying teenagers who "found" us four or five times and I had to tell them to check out the book - Waldo-finding fun on every page. Other than that, we had a BLAST.
In case you looked but couldn't find him, Waldo is slightly to the left of the center of the left upper quadrant, behind the shoe sales table.

Just a random blog post

2009-10-17T20:34:00.003-06:00

Sorry for the wait between posts, I felt guilty when I saw April's cutest post. These are just random pictures. We went to the Tillamook Cheese Factory again, after the boys got back home from school. We just felt like ice cream, and they have the best.

Carter is getting so big! Here he is on school picture day - the part in his hair didn't even last out the front door. Here's one at a friend's birthday party (giant slip-n-slide in the background)...

...and some playing in the front yard with McKay in the sprinklers. McKay had lots of fun too, in case you're wondering.

A shot of the boys at the beach at sunset of course. For some reason they never want to go, but they always have such a blast when we drag them there. Then it's hard to get them to leave.

Me after the race today in Lincoln City (Tanger Outlet 5k). It poured and everyone got drenched. But I made good time (3.1 miles in 24 minutes 15 seconds). Suzanne thinks I finished in the top 20.

Hope you enjoy the pictures. Sorry they always end with me racing - if this pattern keeps up (only posting when I run a race) you can expect another post on Thanksgiving day - maybe.

Visit to Redding & Moonlight Madness

2009-08-30T09:36:00.021-06:00

I had scheduled a vacation at the end of August, beginning of September, just because. We didn't have anything planned, and that got old fast. So we decided to visit my folks in Redding, California. It was hot! They were raving about how it was cooling off, but I'm used to the Oregon Coast. It was 65 degrees the day we left and it was 80 degrees when we arrived at 10:30 pm in California. We were worried the boys would get a little heat stroke when we went to Farmers' Market, so Grandma bought us all some refreshing lemonade (fresh-squeezed!) and Carter wanted his Mom to drink it with him.Then we went to Costco. McKay LOVES Costco. We didn't even have to feed him lunch when we got back to the house. Here he has a sample in one hand while he's asking for another. Mostly thanks to the example of fellow bloggers Brandon (an old missionary companion) and his wife Marci who participated in the Newport Marathon, Suzanne's friend Megan who ran the L.A. marathon, and my sister Angie who has raced for a while, I have been running for about a month following the Couch to 5k program on coolrunning.com. I'm signed up for a 5k in Lincoln City in October, but in the meantime I'm still kind of restless. Bored in the early morning on the day after arriving, I was web surfing and found a run in Redding that very night: the Moonlight Madness 2 mile race across Shasta Dam and back.

The race started at 8 pm, so here I am, decked out and warmed up at 7:30.

It turns out that 30 minutes is a long time to wait when you are nervous about running your first race since junior high, so my dad and I walked to where we saw a deer earlier. The deer tried to hypnotize us with his eye beams, but I was focused for the race and could not be hypnotized.

There was a guy with a bag of baby carrots who threw them out to the deer to coax him closer. At the same time, Dad figured out he could cover the flash with his finger and avoid the robo-deer look. This was probably the closest I've ever been to a deer without a pane of glass between us - about 12 feet!

Finally it was time to start, so I ran the race.

It was harder than I expected - I haven't done more than 5 minutes non-stop running since before my mission (about 11 years) but I've been jogging for a month and I knew I could just slow down and keep going. At first my goal was to see how fast I could go. But soon my goal was to run the whole thing, not walking at all, even though it was really tempting after the first 10 minutes. This picture was taken at the end of the dam, about 1.8 miles into the 2 mile run. I was tired and sore, but I didn't walk a single step of it.

I finished in 17:15, which would have made me ashamed in high school, but was 12 minutes, 45 seconds faster than what I told Suzanne my time would be. It was a good experience. If I didn't have to pay an entry fee, I'd run in a lot more of these.

Not really camping and other updates

2009-08-27T23:45:00.011-06:00

This picture is from the end of July, I think. Carter was in Idaho for a whole week visiting Grandma and Grandpa Carter and cousins. McKay didn't have his favorite playmate that whole time and spent a lot of time with us and playing on his own. (This is on our new deck.)Sherene (Suzanne's sister) came for a visit and introduced us to a new addiction: Catan! We can't stop playing and we've bought almost all the expansion packs for it - basic game of Settlers of Catan + Seafarers of Catan pictured here after an AWESOME game... which I won.Our good friend Rachel took us to her favorite blackberry/blueberry picking spot one day. We left the boys with her husband Russ and brought all the buckets we could find, thus the Trick-or-Treat pumpkin. We brought home enough berries to make us sick of berries for a couple of months. We made enough jam to fill the rest of the freezer but still had berries on cereal, ice cream and by the handful for snacks for a week and a half. Just one more benefit of living on the Oregon Coast - Berry Country, Yum!To appease the Spirits of the Berry Bushes, Suzanne gave them a blood sacrifice - MY blood, to be specific. I got her the biggest berries though, usually with a smarmy comment like, "For you, my love - the biggest, juiciest berry on the bush!" For "Before & After" effect: The old, condemned, rotten deck.... ...and the beautiful new deck!

The old, chipping paint job......our new, sleek, modern look! Tah-dah!Here's a series of pictures from our recent camping trip. Well, I don't know if you can really call it camping. Is it camping if you don't have to pitch a tent, or sleep on the hard, cold ground with rocks in your back? Here's Suzanne and the boys on the steps of our yurt.

The inside of said yurt. Like I said, this is not camping.The next several pictures are of the boys on the playground in the campsite. When I think of camping as a boy, we played with sticks and rocks and leaves, and we liked it!Carter pretended not to notice me there with the camera, then... "Roar!"Can you believe this is in a campground?

Sitting around the campfire after a dinner of hot dogs, chips, and grapes and still happy we're camping (except there was no barrier between our camp and the next. See the lady at her campfire behind Suzanne? There ought to be some bushes or something.)The next morning and no longer happy campers. We didn't sleep very well. The boys woke up several times, the baby next door woke up several times, the bathrooms were 30 yards away and had to be visited at midnight, the sun shone through the yurt's skylight earlier than Suzanne would have liked, and I accidentally set off the car alarm at 6:30.The boys went back inside the yurt after breakfast because they were cold, and there's a heater inside the yurt. A heater.Since we were "camping" at Beverly Beach State Park (less than 5 miles from home) we had to go to the beach. But it was cold and foggy and the boys just wanted to hide inside my jacket. Since I was the only one who appeared to want to stay out, I gave in and we all went home for baths and naps.The boys swinging on the swingset that I couldn't have put together without help from Russ. And in answer to your question, it IS level. It's the yard that's not.

Hope you all enjoy the pictures. We loved looking at April's recent post and felt ashamed that we hadn't posted in such a long while.

Road trip to Astoria

2009-07-05T16:20:00.010-06:00

The week before last I worked too many days in order to save up a few days off. We used those days off to go up to Astoria, Oregon, home of the Goonies. Those Goonies were amazing little kids if they rode their bikes all the way from Astoria to Cannon Beach on BMX bikes in one afternoon. That's got to be twenty-six miles! Anyway, Suzanne and I and the boys went to Astoria once before and we enjoyed our stay so much that this time we invited Grandma and Grandpa Carter. This is a picture of the Astoria Column, our first stop.It has 164 stairs and the view from the top is amazing! You can see for miles in all directions.Grandpa and Grandma Carter and McKay and Carter at the top of the Astoria Column. The boys always look like that on sunny days.There's a gift shop at the bottom of the column that sells balsa wood gliders for 75 cents each. We bought one for each of us. You throw it from the top, then someone at the bottom picks it up and claims it as their own. One old lady was yelling at some boys at the bottom, "That's my airplane! Don't touch it! I saw that!" If you try, your glider can stay aloft for 10 seconds or more. The boys tried to throw their gliders straight down. Here's McKay watching his nose-dive into the side of the Column.Another attraction in Astoria is an old town trolley that goes along the waterfront giving a little tour. The boys played musical chairs during the hour-long ride.We got off the trolley at the Maritime Museum, but we didn't go in. On our last trip to Astoria we had trouble controlling Carter and McKay inside the museum. We wanted to look and read and they wanted to run and climb. This trip we decided to skip the aggravation. Instead we hung out in the courtyard for 20 minutes. There was a huge bell that the boys got to ring - it was so loud it made my teeth hurt. They should put a warning on that thing. Around the flagpole there was a giant compass rose, but any circles on the ground are just race tracks to Carter and McKay.McKay sitting on another giant anchor. It looks just like the one in Florence, only bigger. He wanted me to pick the anchor up with him on it. He laughed when I couldn't, so I told him it was because he was sitting on it. If he hadn't been sitting on it, I could have done it easy. Right.The wreck of the Peter Iredale, which shipwrecked in 1906 on the beach outside of Warrenton (east across the bay from Astoria). The sailors were unharmed and were pickep up by a rescue ship. They later found they could have walked to shore. The wreckage was an instant tourist attraction, still is after 103 years, and will be until it rusts away completely.Carter and McKay ignored the history lesson though. They were too busy with the tide-puddle. Here's the newest money-wasting extreme sport I'd like to try: Kite-surfing. You should have seen these guys - there must have been 20 or more kite surfers. That beach is great for it because it's 10 miles long with steady wind from the North. They were going so fast they could have been water-skiing. Every so often they'd jump a wave and just keep going up - 10, 15, 20 feet into the air sometimes! Watch some YouTube videos if you don't believe me. They were all getting out of the water where we were, I guess because the shipwreck is such a good landmark. The boys were all wet and sandy, and the ground was sandier, so this is where they stood to get changed.On the way there we made a stop and the boys requested a rerun: the Tillamook Cheese Factory. So on the way back we stopped there again. I know it doesn't sound fun, but the place has lines like Disneyland.

On the upper floor they have an observation deck where you can watch the cheese being cut from 40 lb blocks to manageable sizes, then shrink-wrapped and sent to shipping (I guess). The boys would have stayed there all day.

It really was interesting - you wouldn't expect to see robots and conveyor belts in a cheese factory, but that's how they get the job done.While the boys watched that, I stood in this line for ice cream. This is the shortest line in the factory to buy ice cream. The others are downstairs and are a lot longer.The ice cream there is wonderful - they have 38 flavors, but we only tried a few: orange sherbet, lemon blueberry pie, blueberry cheesecake, Sweet Centennial, Tillamook mudslide, Udderly chocolate, and white licorice. Yum. I think it's the reason the boys wanted a second visit.Carter enjoyed the road trip...... and McKay enjoyed the road trip. We all had fun, but we already miss Grandma and Grandpa Carter.On a completely unrelated note, our deck is finally going back up. Our friend Stu is helping us build it, and it's a good thing because I don't know anything.

I hope you all enjoyed the pictures. I know I enjoy it when my family updates their own blogs. (Guilt, guilt, guilt.)

More Sunny Day Fun

2009-05-30T08:04:00.008-06:00

Hello, Friends and Family! It's been beautiful here on the Oregon Coast and we have the pictures to prove it. It's Berry season and strawberries as big as McKay's fist are on sale everywhere and we can't get enough of them. McKay usually can't even wait for them to be cut up before he's scooping up the biggest ones he sees. Fortunately for us, strawberry juice comes out with a quick spray of Shout. We've had so many strawberries that we've stocked about half our freezer with homemade jam - YUM!Deer are being seen in our backyard again. They're welcome to come eat our weeds anytime and we hope they invite their friends to come along for the feast.I've never seen a deer do this so I thought you might be interested too - she was scratching the side of her face just like a dog does.Yesterday we took a road trip to Florence and stopped at the Muriel O. Ponsler state park before we finished the winding part of the trip - so the boys could rest their queasy stomachs. Carter and McKay could have stayed there all day throwing rocks into that little stream.An hour later we made it to Florence and the beach. Florence's beach is famous for its dunes and infamous for the Exploding Whale Debacle. Hiking over those dunes was not easy as they are steeper than they look. The boys had a blast playing in the sand and searching for broken seashells. Right to left: Suzanne, Carter, McKay. McKay was the first to head for the waves and he lured us all in within a few minutes. Brrr! It was so cold! Quote from "What Spock Forgot" (a book about children): "It's called the great outdoors because it's free." We love this picture!The beach had little puddles left as tide pools. They were about 20 degrees warmer than the sea and the boys played in them until they got too boisterous. I had a sudden mental image of a thousand-dollar trip to the orthopedist to get a new cast because this one got wet, then we decided it was time to do something else. We found these seashells on a walk after all our water play. We kept the three best shells, plus a sand dollar we found."McKay, you can choose your two favorite shells to take home."
"Only two?"
In old town Florence before going home.That night was the Elders' Quorom Annual Pinewood Derby. Once again I didn't remember to make my car until an hour before, so it was an aerodynamically-sanded block with 10 pennies glued to the rear end. But this picture tells it all! Nobody expected me to win! Here's me holding the trophy! The crowd was screaming!I think what the crowd was screaming was, "Put down that trophy, you poser!" Here's the leaderboard. See #12 for yours truly.
Maybe next year.

Can't waste the good weather!

2009-05-17T08:14:00.005-06:00

Summer is here! Maybe. Yesterday it was a scorching 70 degrees and we knew we had to get out and play, especially since I had to drive to Portland for a seminar on my last "day off". I needed some R & R. We borrowed a canoe from some friends at church, perched it on top of the car and drove the mile to Big Creek Reservoir.

We paddled the whole length of the reservoir. That's the part on this map with the names on it as well as the long tail going off to the right, then we paddled back. (Our house is straight down from the "+" and "-" and straight across from the word "Reservoir". Scroll to the left to see the ocean and eat your heart out.)

View Larger Map

Amazingly, everyone had fun and there was no crying the whole trip! We didn't see a lot of wildlife until the very end when a flock of geese flew over and landed fifty yards away (no pictures). The boys played in the water as we floated along, and McKay kept telling us that he saw fish jumping, or dancing, or whatever he felt like they should be doing at the time.We cleaned out the cobwebs before we got in and picked out the 5 snails living in the canoe, but somehow this guy stowed away until we were out on the water. The boys and I decided to name him Boris. Picture by Suzanne.The whole gang enjoyed the trip right up to the very end. This picture was taken on the last leg - our car is visible as a black speck on the shore. We stayed out on the water for a good hour, maybe an hour and a half. After returning the canoe, nobody was ready to go back inside, so we ate lunch and went back out to play. Big Creek Park is right at the end of our neighborhood and the boys got to run around until they got bored.McKay picked flowers, but not really for any purpose, so we stuck them in Carter's hat.
McKay thought that was weird.
Carter didn't mind at all.
The boys had fun at the park and it was a perfect day...

...except that I no longer had an excuse for not mowing the lawn.

McKay is Potty-trained!

2009-05-10T20:16:00.003-06:00

He decided to do it as a surprise for Mothers' Day - but he told Suzanne about his progress every day. It only took him 2 days to get totally potty-trained! We are so proud of him!

Update: He's been sleeping in "big boy underwear" since day 2 and there have been no accidents, night or day.

First of many ER visits?

2009-04-28T20:12:00.014-06:00

Greetings again! We've had an eventful day and I think the fastest way to answer any possible questions is to get the news out there. But we do things backwards from the evening news here - our top story is the least important! It is on top, and I was too. The living room is finally painted! If you look at dates on our posts, you'll see just how long it took me to finish.

Yes, I was afraid.

Grandma and Papa Phillips came for a visit and we went to the Wooden Boat Show/Crab Feed, the Lighthouse/Tide Pools, and the beach. (This picture is of Carter.) I got some of the pictures mixed up, but I think this is Papa at the Crab Feed.McKay and Papa relaxing in the morning. So here's the main story today: Carter broke his arm. REALLY broke it. Both bones, the radius, the ulna... all of it.

If you're squeamish, don't read the next sentence. Carter's forearm looked like it had two wrists a couple of inches apart. There was a bend in it where no bend belongs, as you can see from the next X-rayHere's the story: Carter likes to help out by throwing away McKay's dirty diapers. He thinks it's fun. He picks up the diaper, takes it to the diaper pail in the garage and then runs back in announcing his good deed to the room at large. This time after disposing of the stinkbomb, he missed a step on the stairs (the same set under the scaffolding in the picture at the top of this post) and fell end over end down the steps and stuck out his hand to stop his fall. That's what we think happened anyway - I was at work and Suzanne was putting McKay's pants back on in McKay's bedroom. She heard a series of thumps, then crying. She called me at work and my coworkers were kind enough to let me off for the rest of the day so I could sit in the emergency room with Carter. He was a real trooper - there was a small amount of sniffling, but he put on a brave face and only cried once when he got bored of lying there while his arm was being stretched back into place... He was BORED. The nurses (who all happened to be male) told him they were impressed with how tough he was and how brave. I was very proud of him.

The ER Doc had a nurse put on a temporary splint until we get to the orthopedic surgeon on Thursday, when his arm will be examined, maybe set (ouch!) and casted. Oh yeah, and he was pretending to be sad in the picture above. Acting was hard for him - he kept laughing. He really looked like this:

He's doing fine now. We're still trying to figure out what adjustments need to be made to his routine now that he'll only have one good arm, but he seems to be happy otherwise. We'll keep you posted. In the meantime, Suzanne and I are debating whether we should move to a house with no stairs, but Carter, Suzanne, and I all agree that it's time for McKay to be potty-trained.

Disneyland

2009-02-23T18:21:00.011-07:00

We went to Disneyland this past week with Gramma and Papa Phillips, and we let the boys tag along too. The first day it rained in the morning, so we were all in our rain gear. This first picture is Carter waiting outside "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride". While in line he decided he didn't want to go on it after all. Since it's a Model T ride that ends in Hell (no really - flames, dancing demons, the whole schmear. Watch it on YouTube if you don't believe me.) I couldn't really blame him. We waited for everyone else to finish the ride. Fortunately we found plenty of rides that he liked later.The boys' favorite rides were Dumbo, the Casey Jr. Circus Train, the Storybook Land boats, and It's a Small World. We had to keep going back there, over and over and over. But they loved it. This is McKay in the monkey cage on Casey Jr.

My little family on Main Street, USA, with Sleeping Beauty's castle WAY in the background.McKay and me at the Monorail station, overlooking the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage (which was a lame ride when I was a kid but now is pretty cool.)Carter LOVED Autopia. He couldn't steer very well and was laughing his little head off every time the wheels hit the rail in the center.Carter also loved meeting the characters. After taking this picture, he turned and gave Goofy a big hug. It was so cute. I was really mad that I had just put my camera away.Carter and Handy Manny. Carter ran up and said, "I have a cap just like you!" He and McKay have been wearing their caps night and day for the past month.Gramma, Papa, and the boys in the central plaza.Dad and I went on the Tower of Terror, which drops you 13 stories, then raises you and drops you again and again. Guaranteed to make you scream like a little girl every time you ride it, or maybe that's just me. Dad said, "Before I went on the Tower of Terror, I was a little afraid of it. Now I'm terrified of it!" McKay got tired of wearing his ears one day, and I didn't want them to go to waste ( in front of Flik's Flyers in "A Bug's Land").

McKay driving Goofy's car.

McKay loved driving too. Tuck & Roll's Drive-em Buggies is almost the perfect size for him... Almost.

McKay at Goofy's Playhouse in ToonTown.

Suzanne and Carter on Dumbo for the millionth time (probably the fourth time).

McKay wouldn't let me leave him alone near that big mouse. Notice the boys wouldn't even remove their caps to wear their Mickey Mouse ears.

We hope you enjoy the pictures. Sorry the comments were thin, most of the pictures seem pretty self-explanatory to me. There were lots of other rides we went on and a million other pictures. We had a lot of fun and can't wait to go back... in five years or so.

Longest post ever? Most overdue for sure.

2009-01-19T18:38:00.023-07:00

For the past 3 months I've been feeling guilty because we have all these wonderful pictures and I just haven't been motivated enough to put them on the web for all of you to see. I hope this will make up for some of it. So included in this post you'll find pictures from Halloween, the boys' birthday, Christmas once we got home, and beyond! Let's go chronologically! First Halloween. Besides buying candy and costumes, we didn't do anything until Halloween afternoon, then it was a big Halloween party from beginning to end. Grandma and Papa Phillips came up in the evening, just in time to go Trick-or-Treating with Carter and McKay. Here are the boys cutting out cookies.While they baked, we started cutting pumpkins. The boys kind of watched when we started (and I lost the picture)...But they got bored and went to watch something else.When the cookies were finished, we got to decorate them. McKay globbed on a tablespoonful of orange frosting, squished on a handful of candy corns, sprinkled excessively, and voila!Carter did about the same, with slightly more restraint.Suzanne and I each carved a pumpkin (I emptied the goo from both). She did the cat and I did the spider with the help of a kit from Wal-Mart. Pretty cool, huh?Carter and McKay had firefighter-themed costumes- Carter already had the rain coat and we got McKay's dalmation costume off of eBay. We only had to go down one street before they had WAY too much candy.

November 14th we had a joint birthday party for the boys. We had it in the cultural hall at the church and they had 11 of their closest friends there. It was complete chaos for 2 hours. Luckily all the parents stayed so we had plenty of help cleaning up at the end.Soon after their birthday, Carter and McKay were invited to their friend Gabbi's birthday. Gabbi turned 5 and for her birthday wanted everything Tinkerbell. Gabbi's mom made every guest a pair of fairy wings. I was not happy. "What did you do to my boys???"Girly as this new attire was, it led to some pretty cute pretend play.Here's the perfect example of some really cute pretend play. For all who are not internet savvy, this is a SUPER-CUTE VIDEO. Click the play button to watch it.

Closed caption for the hearing impaired (or if you just have trouble understanding McKay):
McKay: (quiet) I'm gonna change you into a frog.

Me: You're gonna what? You're gonna change me into a frog? Yeah. Ok.

McKay: It don't have any magic in it.

Me: No, not really, but it's fun to pretend, isn't it?

McKay: Uh-huh!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'd like to say that this next picture was a white Christmas, but it was the beginning of January. A Monday, by the garbage cans. This was one of the two snowy days this winter. But let's pretend it's Christmas.

As most of you know, we had to leave California and our Christmas plans didn't go over like we hoped. Then Grandma Carter's flight got cancelled and that was another sad occurrence. But we had a fun Christmas morning with just us. They're so cute in the mornings.
These were taken just last week. This is a shot out our back window. Suzanne and the boys saw 3 deer in our backyard and called me at work to tell me what I was missing. I did see one in our driveway later that night (when I rode my bike home) but I didn't have a camera.

We have been planning to paint our livingroom/dining room a different color for a long time. We are not fans of the red! The boys loved helping.

I will be spending most of my days off on a tall ladder painting up by the ceiling. Remember how I'm afraid of heights? I'm having to work on that.

We hope you enjoy the pictures. I know these are far apart and we plan on doing this more often. We love you all and we hope to talk to you soon!

You won't believe what we bought at a yard sale...

2008-10-19T21:56:00.013-06:00

Before we get to our amazing purchase, here's me on a surfboard. Oh yeah! Sure, that's a wimpy wave, but we started skiing on the bunny hill, right?The boys were very impressed.McKay wanted to try it. He was game until the cold cold water touched his feet. Then he became a spider monkey and climbed up my arm. (That's a boogie board, not the surfboard I was using.)Different day, kind of grey. Suzanne took the boys to a different beach while I was working for the Man. The boys had fun at the beach that day, but they had a lot more fun with what we bought at the yard sale yesterday. There are a few more pictures to enjoy before we get to that.We helped the boys write their names in the sand. McKay did the "M" all by himself!Carter only needed help lengthening the leg on his "R". For some reason he'll write in the sand but not on paper. The last "R" really is there, it's just too light for this picture.There's a nice walkway up the cliff from Nye Beach and the boys like to stop on each of the dozen benches on the way up. They're about 10 feet apart. It makes the nice walk a very long nice walk.This is the view from those benches, but usually there aren't two cute boys there.Same pathway up from Nye Beach. At the top there's this tall spike that acts as a sundial (but no numbers, go figure.) and the boys like to climb up and hug it. I don't know why - that's just what they do. They decided to just stand by it today.The ridge they are standing on has this inscription: "Light is an appointment we all must keep when we are quiet and can find the way." That means that this sculpture was made by a Confucius wanna-be and nobody seems to know what they meant by it. Many-a-time we've walked past tourists staring at it muttering, "What it the world is that supposed to mean?"The boys have to bring their toys EVERYWHERE - to the store, to church, Carter even takes his dog to school. They decided the toys need to be buckled so they stay safe. They did this, not us.Carter introduces the family like this: "This is my friend Dog (the toy), this is my friend McKay, and that's my friend Mama and that's my friend Dada!" Cute, but it shows who gets priority, too.If it's too windy at the beach, the boys always love playing at the park. This is one of their favorite games. I stand at the bottom and roll the balls up and they roll them back. They like it best when both balls come at me at once so I miss one, then I have to go running to get it.The boys like to race ever since I read "The tortoise and the hare" to them. Carter tries to assign roles to McKay but McKay ignores him. My favorite part is how the race begins: Carter says, "I will be the bear!" (Because the bear had the starting pistol in the book) "Are you Marks? Get set... Go!"The boys are playing wall-ball, but really they're thinking, "Do you think the person reading this has figured out the amazing thing we bought at the yard sale?" "No, there's no way!"I think the boys are ready to show you what we bought... Scroll down.

"Oh my gosh!" you say. Yup. It takes up all the available floor space in the family room, and it's really loud because the pump has to run the entire time. But it blows up in about 20 seconds and the boys LOVE it! The boys spent the entire morning playing in it.

I don't know why Carter is yelling at McKay to stop, but this is what the morning looked like:

Come on up and enjoy the show for yourselves.

Visit from Idaho

2008-08-15T21:27:00.014-06:00

To my side of the family: since we forgot our camera when we went to Cleone, we need you guys to send us pictures! We would have put up a post about the trip, but we didn't have anything to show! Please email them to me at gphill79@hotmail.com so we'll have some memories of seeing you all at the California coast. It's... fuzzy... can't remember anything...

Hello again from Newport! The boys had a visit from the Idaho cousins - left to right: Kobe, McKay (of course), Lexie, Kip (in arms), Kortland (holding Kip), and Carter. On a trip to the aquarium during the visit. This was the only picture where somebody wasn't blurry from moving too fast - these kids are active!
Here are some posed pictures of our little guys. McKay is so photogenic! There were others that will probably end up in Grandma Carter's frame, but I love this one of McKay. He's happy and playful, with just a little bit of mischief, and McKay with no mischief is no McKay at all!
Carter is also extremely good-looking (it's in his genes!) but he has trouble sitting for pictures. McKay had 4 shots, all with big smiles. Carter had a dozen but he's faking smiles in these three, blinking in those two, using his hand to spread his mouth into a smile in that one... you get the idea.
For any who are technically challenged, below is a video. Click the play button at the bottom of the picture. It's a rhyme that Carter learned from his Aunt Sherene. I had to be sneaky when I shot this video - I held the camera in my hand down low and told him I was going to take a picture of him later. But you can tell from his eyes that he knew it was there. McKay froze up if it pointed his way, so that's why it's a solo. If you listen carefully you can hear McKay providing back-up at his favorite parts.

Here's the closed captioning:
"Four little monkeys swinging in the tree, teasing Mr. Alligator, 'You can't catch me, you can't catch me!' Along came Mr. Alligator quiet as can be... SNAPPED that monkey out of that tree!"

Fathers' Day at the Stables

2008-06-15T20:58:00.007-06:00

For those who read this post already, Suzanne asked me to add more pictures. Scroll down to see the updates.

For Fathers' Day we met our friend Gloria and her daughter Allison so the boys could ride horses again. It was Carter's third time, and McKay's first! In the past he was too afraid, but the trick was to not try to make him ride all by himself. McKay didn't want to get near them at first, but I climbed up and he allowed Suzanne to lift him onto my lap. Here's Suzanne and McKay a little later on Blue, with Allison adjusting the stirrups. Here's a video of Carter, being walked by Gloria. She was really patient with him, even obliging when he started giving commands: "Fast! Now stop! Now fast!"

Sorry you can't see his face. He had his hood up the whole time and there are no pictures where he doesn't look like a Jedi.

I was busy looking stupid - Gloria was trying to teach me to run on her black horse, Pixie, and I "accidentally" deleted a long video of me making kissing noises and shouting "Giddy-up!" while the horse walked in lazy circles and the onlookers shouted something about ballet dancing. Fortunately we did manage to get this ego-saving gem. Sorry about the sound - Newport is a windy city.

Family fun times

2008-06-06T22:12:00.007-06:00

Hi, everyone! Since our last post, Suzanne and I took a trip to Disneyland. Here's the only good picture we have with both of us in it, in front of Big Thunder Mountain. Those things hanging around our necks are Dream Speedpasses, which we got for doing absolutely nothing! They count as a speed pass for 12 of the busiest rides in Disneyland and California Adventure Park, meaning we spent all day cutting in line! Oh yeah... we left the boys with Grandma and Papa Phillips. "Mommy and Daddy went to Disneyland and all we got were these stupid t-shirts."
We do try to make sure they have fun times. They get to whale watch in Depoe Bay (no whales were out this day.)
They got to go to the "Touch-a-Truck" activity put on by Lincoln City Parks - they got to climb all over a fire engine, a police car, an ambulance, a search-and-rescue helicoptor, and a garbage truck. Suzanne reports that Carter liked the garbage truck best. He was in the driver's seat turning the steering wheel when the worker raised the dump part. Carter thought he was doing it!
Inside the helicoptor.

Playing at the McDonald's Playplace. We don't like to eat there, but the slides bring us back anyway.
There was a carnival in town with overpriced rides. The boys were really excited to go on the Merry-go-round, so we shelled out six bucks and I got to ride free to keep them on the horses. McKay started bawling before the ride began, but I was thinking, "If I let him get off now, it's three bucks down the drain! Plus he might start to like it, you never know..."

Suzanne took a picture everytime we went around, and they tell a great story: McKay's face got redder and redder, mouth open wider, until this last one. I like to think he started smiling before the end, but this could just be relief that it was over.And since we're on the subject of riding horses, this was taken on the Saturday before Suzanne's birthday. A friend of mine has horses and was kind enough to lend them to us so I could make up for my dismal lack of thoughtfulness on Mothers' Day. My horse is named Blue and Suzanne was on Desi. We rode up and down Nye Beach for a couple of hours and really had great time.Hope you all enjoy the pictures.

In our New Home

2008-04-19T14:29:00.005-06:00

Hello, family and friends! So that you all feel like you've visited, welcome to our new house! We apologize for not inviting you inside right now, it's a little cluttered.

Out back we've got a deck, or we did until Grandma Carter and I tore it out. I thought it would take a really long time, but I guess it doesn't take that long when the whole thing is rotten and waiting to fall over anyway. I started sawing through the boards to begin with, until Grandma showed me you could rip them off the railing with your bare hands! They came right off the nails leaving a nail-sized hole in the board and the nail stayed in the supports and beams!
This picture is from a little later on. Grandma is off to the right of this frame. Suzanne, Sherene (Suzanne's sister), Carter and McKay watched us from the sliding glass door (boarded up now). Five minutes after this picture was taken I moved to the edge (far left) and the floor crumbled underneath me. That's about a twelve foot drop, but luckily I wasn't hurt. Unluckily, I walked away and stepped on a rusty nail, so I took a trip to the doctor's office anyway. The next day it tried to kill me again by falling on top of me when I was pulling down the beams. The bruise on my hip was beautiful! You should have seen it.
Easter morning was pretty dull, but we had a terrific egg hunt the next day! Maybe it was just the excitement, but it took McKay a full minute to find that purple egg after we took this picture. Carter was quicker to spot them, but we made him leave the easy ones for his little brother. Maybe next year we'll ask the Easter bunny to hide them LOWER.
A good time was had by all! (And a good haul.)

To my siblings: Shame on you for not updating your own blogs!

Magical McKay

2008-02-02T15:19:00.003-07:00

To set this video up for you, I often make small objects disappear when I don't want the boys to have them. They're entertained for a moment, which means they're distracted from the fact that I've just taken away their toy.
A few weeks ago, McKay started doing his own brand of magic tricks, with no formal training whatsoever...

Closed captioning: Gabe: "Here. Show me your magic trick."

McKay: "Where's marble?"

G: "Oh! It's gone!"

M: "It's gone?"

G: "Wow, that's amazing."

M: "Where's marble?"

G: "Oh! It's amaz... It's gone!"

M: "It's gone?"

G: "Where did it go?"

M: "Where'd it go?"

G: "You don't know? Wow, that was amazing, McKay."

M:"It's...it's...it's...on the floor."

G: "It's all gone...it's on the floor?"

M:"It's on the floor."

G:"Oh, ok. Go get it."

Surprises, surprises!

2007-11-27T14:23:00.000-07:00

All right, so there are really only two surprises. The first is that I'm posting again without waiting the usual 2 months + and I'm not going to start out with an apology. On to the good stuff! First, a couple of shots of the boys at Fogarty Creek, our favorite beach.

On my short vacation, we took the boys to California to see Grandma and Papa Phillips. This is somewhere near Whiskeytown Lake. It was great to see family, and we can't wait to see Suzanne's side ASAP!
McKay tried to dress himself one night. Look carefully: that's a sweatshirt - one leg through the sleeve, one leg through the neck, one arm through another sleeve, and I'm not sure if he's crying because he can't figure out how to wear it or because it's uncomfortable. Poor little guy!

While in California, the boys got hooked on bubble baths.

Pony ride - Sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice, that's all I know (Ow, McKay, let go of my hair!)
The boys got a combined birthday in California, too, with WAY too many presents.The got seperate parties at home too. I don't know where the pictures of Carter's party are.
This is a shot of the boys on Thanksgiving. We went to the church because our apartment is so small and invited a few couples to come along for dinner. The other couples both have little kids too, so there were plenty of toys and all the kids had a blast. When we got home, Suzanne and I were ready to fall into a Turkey coma, but Carter looked up and said, "I'm hungry, Dada." They had so much fun they forgot to eat!Here's the real surprise: We got a much better digital camera, and we should be able to do video now. This is the first test. Don't expect one every time, only when we happen to get something super cute, like this one of the boys on Thanksgiving Day.

We hope this worked on all of your computers. We love you all!

Post from California

2007-11-09T22:08:00.001-07:00

Though this excuse will sound really feeble, I lost the cord to our camera. I couldn't hook it up to the computer to download pictures. Then I was covering for the other guy's vacation for a whole month, blah, blah,blah. I hope this extra long set of photos will make up for it. First off, anyone who wants to come up and visit, please do! We'll take you to the aquarium. They put you in a tank so the sea creatures can come and see what people look like. Yes, that crab really is the size of my head. But you should see the big ones - Japanese Spider Crabs!The rest of these will be in chronological order, more or less. To begin, before we moved again, McKay discovered pudding. Enough said.Then while we were in the middle of moving, the boys decided they were going to sleep in some of the cardboard boxes. We put a stop to it, of course, but thought it was a kodak moment anyway.McKay sleeps just fine in our new home, but how he does it in that position I'll never know. He's practically vertical.Carter is getting big.

He had his fourth birthday just a few days ago and Suzanne took cupcakes for snacktime to his preschool class. He caught on quickly to the fact that we were more willing to give him things and tried it every chance he could afterwards. We ended up skipping the free birthday sundae he was offered in order to get him home before he got any more spoiled.We took the boys on a whale-watching tour. You won't see any photos of whales because I was holding on too tightly to the boat to risk any more pictures. The ocean was very choppy that day and we rolled and rocked this way and that for a very unpleasant 60 minutes. Carter was violently sick all over that nice blue bench and all over me. We were all feeling sick before the end but Carter definitely had it worse. Poor little guy. Suzanne no longer wants to buy a sailboat.
The highlight of the trip was actually before it began - seeing seals swimming around the dock while we waited to get onto the boat!Halloween saw McKay as a monkey and Carter as an alligator (he said he was a green duck, but he still pretended to eat people). They were very well-behaved when they went out and as you can see they were the cutest trick-or-treaters in Newport.Sorry for the black corners - the lens cover sometimes sticks. The boys like to ride on my feet down the hallway sometimes, but their favorite is when I climb the stairs. It really gets them laughing and I get a great workout. Feel the burn!
And finally, something totally unrelated: My pinewood derby car for the Elders' Quorom activity. I don't have any power tools or even hand tools except for my old Boy Scout knives, and I forgot to work on my car until the morning of the race, so I started whittling as fast as I knew how when the boys went down for their naps. After 30 minutes, it was clear I wouldn't get my block to look like a car, so I made it look like what it most resembled - a thumb. Out of 20+ cars, I got 3rd. Weird, huh? (Getting third with such a poorly-made car is weird, not my car.)

I found a solution to the missing cord problem, so I hope to update more often. Call me on it if I don't, ok?

Remember when I said you could subscribe to the blog way back when? Well, here's how - leave a comment under this post and be sure to put your email address in the box where it asks for it. I'll put you on a mailing list and email you when I update. I promise the only thing I'll send to that mailing list is announcements when I update this blog. Any questions email me at gphill79@hotmail.com but don't expect an overnight response. I only get to a computer every couple of weeks.

To Emily P. who wrote to Suzanne through the blog last month: She tried writing back but we didn't have your email address! If you leave a comment or email me (see last paragraph) I'll make sure you get the email she tried to send.

I hope you all like the pictures. Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Phillips for letting me use their computer in California and for the cool crab picture up top. We love you all!

Family picture

2007-07-12T17:17:00.000-06:00

This is the photo that will be displayed at the family reunion. We wish we could be there, but there was a schedule mix up and plans were not made in time!

2007-07-07T14:47:00.000-06:00

News from Newport:

All right, I know that I start off all of my posts this way anymore, but I'M SORRY! If it explains things at all, since I last posted I finished school and graduated, moved from Boise to Newport, started a new job, studied for and took and passed two terrifying tests within a week, and I finally don't have anything big hanging over my head waiting for my attention. I hope that these ten pictures will help make up for my lack of updates in the last 3 months.

McKay was really hungry and tried to take the plate of french toast that Suzanne made for everyone. He climbed up and dug right in!This creek is on a little beach a little ways north from Newport. It is on the path about 100 yards away from the ocean waves. But when we take the boys here, it's always a struggle to get them any further than this point. They could spend all day here, and they have several times already!This just in: Although we've known for a while now that Carter prefers to identify himself not as a little boy, but as a cookie monster, yesterday he proclaimed that McKay is also a cookie monster, and that Daddy is the only little boy in the house. Here are our two little cookie monsters, laughing at me. Carter outgrew his tricycle. It was passed on to McKay, so here's Carter's big boy bicycle (to which Carter would say, "Not big boy bicycle, cookie monster bicycle!" And he means it.) Carter is getting potty-trained right now, and it seems to be going ok. McKay is the enthusiastic one though. He always wants to sit on the potty and watch the "Elmo's Potty Time" video. Suzanne and I end up whistling the tune to "Accidents happen" for the rest of the day.
We take the boys to the beach all the time. This is Nye beach, and the boys like this rock because it juts out into the waves but it has little tide pools on top. It was kind of a windy day, but that's pretty typical for a sunny day. Go to the beach in the morning!

The boys waiting for the cookies to bake. Look familiar to anyone?When we take McKay to the beach he spends the whole time looking for beach junk. It takes forever to get him down to the water, and we have to check all of his pockets when we get home or we end up with a washer full of rocks and shells. Speaking of picking things up off the beach, this next picture is specifically for my family. There is a beach up here that is COVERED with agates - it puts Agate Beach to shame (there's an "Agate Beach" up here, too, but it is horribly mis-named.) I won't tell you where it is, but I'll take you there when you come to visit. Suzanne brought me to this beach and I couldn't believe my eyes. The picture below shows the handful that I found within about 10 minutes hunting. I just walked along the waves and picked them up - no searching, no digging. Eat your heart out!
We love you all. Hope you are all doing well and anytime you want to visit, just give us a call.

Easter pictures!

2007-04-13T22:04:00.000-06:00

Hello, family and friends! Before we move to Newport, we're happy to present one more very overdue set of photos of the littlest members of our little family. We realized on Sunday that we didn't have baskets for Easter so we sat down and made some out of cereal boxes. Carter had a lot of fun (notice that the eggs on his basket are in a perfect row - same on the back) but Suzanne got to decorate McKay's because he was sleeping. They had a lot of fun at a neighborhood egg hunt and at a family hunt at the park later. They both ate a lot of candy, but Carter stopped after a little while. Not McKay! That kid has a hollow leg. He just kept shoving jelly beans and M&M's into his mouth. McKay at the park later that day...
And modeling for ebay... (The hat is a frog)
And in the best seat in the house.
Carter's hair got so long and I just couldn't resist one evening while washing his hair.

Carter at the park after hunting eggs (saying "Daddy down!")
Carter riding a man-eating tiger at the zoo during Grandma and Papa Phillips' visit...
And trying out a turtle's home...
Don't shoot us! Carter was always sweating because his hair was so thick and long. Getting it cut was a traumatic experience for him. He was afraid of the clippers at first and I lied and said, "I'm just going to comb your hair, Carter." He let me, but when the first long blonde locks fell, he picked them up and started crying, "Uh-oh, broken!" Then he cried into the wads of hair, and got hair in his mouth and tried to wipe it out with a hair-covered hand... It wasn't until it was all washed away and he'd rinsed his mouth that he was ok again, but now he likes it and we think he looks really cute!
Hope you enjoy the pictures. The next ones will come from Newport!

Sorry, sorry, sorry...

2007-01-14T18:23:00.000-07:00

Hello, everyone! Sorry it's been such a long time - I'm in a new rotation (Pediatrics) and I barely have time to get all my homework done, let alone do this. Anyway, here we go.
Here are our two little nudists. After baths we have a hard time getting them to stay still long enough to put their PJ's on, so most of the time Suzanne tries to make a deal with me, "I bathe, you dress?" She thinks I haven't caught on, but I humor her. For once they're not fighting over who gets to sit in the good seat!

Sometimes they do get along - lately they like to ride this thing together.

McKay resists getting up from naps lately. He tries to look cute and snuggle with Tigger so we think he's still tired. Maybe he is.

The mess that was our living room on Fake-Christmas morning (Dec 21st?). But the boys had fun.

Suzanne considered using McKay as a model for some of her Gymboree auctions. I thought he looked great, but he didn't make the final cut!

I just love this picture. They did it all themselves. They even cleaned out the cupboard first!

"Stop! You must not hop on pop!" I hope you all like the pictures. Sorry the comments are not as clever as I like to think they usually are. What with my most stressful rotation so far, and this nasty cold we've all got, just be grateful I found some time to post this. We hope you're all doing well!

Finally, a vacation!

2006-11-25T21:13:00.000-07:00

Here it is, a picture of the town that Suzanne fell in love with- Newport, Oregon. Well, it's a picture of the bay in Newport from the window of the hotel we stayed in. But the rest of the town is nice too.
We did get a day of sunshine while traveling up the Oregon coast. We stopped at a little unmarked beach between Brookings and Gold Beach and took a break from driving. The whole coastline is gorgeous. It must have been Suzanne's first time playing in the sand, because she got caught unawares by a sneaker wave. It only wet one of her shoes. Gas to Oregon: $36.00. One wet sneaker: $20.00. Watching your wife do an impromptu jig to avoid a sneaker wave: Priceless. :)
All right, you didn't come here for a slideshow of vacation pictures, so let's get to the kids. Our kids got to spend plenty of time with the only remaining set of California cousins: My brother Davy's kids. The tall, dark-haired belle is Paris, the little pink primadonna is Naomi, and the Huckleberry Finn look-alike is Colton.
Their mom is Leigh, in the middle of this picture, and those are my parents on the right (your right, not theirs!) We were at a little pond throwing pieces of bread at some very snooty waterfowl, who turned up their noses at it and wouldn't come closer than twenty or so feet. McKay got cold, Carter got muddy, and cousin Colton got to show off his Hulk-like muscles.Our two little troublemakers got to spend plenty of time with their Grandpa and Grandma Phillips (Carter knows them as Papa and Maagna, respectively). We had a joint birthday party for Carter (3 years old Nov. 6), McKay (1 year old Nov. 20), and cousin Naomi (1 year old Nov. 22). We managed to pull the boys away long enough for just a few shots.
The new shirt says "napper" in case anyone wants to know. McKay spent a long time practicing a fake smile for pictures, but luckily this one is real. Don't let that innocent look fool you! He made a huge mess out of everything he touched. My parents moved tons of things into their own bedroom to avoid the destructive power of "McChaos!" Even so, I know they were sad to see him go. With a face like that, who wouldn't be? Last but not least, our little three-year-old. He had loads of fun playing with his grandparents and he loved going into Grandma and Papa's backyard to ride the trike.
We are glad to be home, but sorry we couldn't bring our family back with us. Hope life is treating you all well. Hasta la pasta.

Halloween

2006-11-01T20:58:00.000-07:00

Halloween was yesterday, and I'm sorry I didn't have these up then. I was just too tired by the time we finished getting the kids into bed. Just so that nobody is confused, Carter got to wear two costumes this Halloween: One for the Trunk or Treat, one for Halloween. But these are both from the past few days. McKay only went to the Trunk or Treat, so he only got one costume. But we had plenty to choose from! First from the Trunk or Treat- Carter was Blue from Blue's Clues (all of you with kids know exactly who I mean. For the rest of you, Blue is a dog, in case you can't tell from Carter's costume). McKay was kind of a dragon. It's hard to get the full effect of his costume in pictures because you see him straight on, but those orange spikes were much cuter in real life.
Here's the first picture in a long time of Suzanne. I don't know how I convinced her to pose but I'm glad I did.
McKay is normally very sweet, but when our nest egg was stolen, we were shocked by a blurry picture captured by our security camera.
Although this concerned us, we were much more concerned when McKay began a terrifying transformation on Halloween night... Into a vicious, belt-biting Were-Beast! The horror! No one is safe!
Carter and I went Trick or treating that night, and he loved it! For Halloween, I went as a doctor and he was a box of crayons. At first he was just confused, but after 2 doors he saw the pattern and started running between apartment buildings! He practiced his "Trick or treat" after ringing the doorbells (it sounded more like "choo choo train" to me) but when the door opened he forgot his line and just stuck his hand out. Sometimes he said, "Eat it," but "trick or treat" was forgotten. He became bolder as the night went on, and I had to stop him from running into houses as soon as the door opened. He grabbed at the candy bowls and took more than he was offered and I had to apologize at more than one door.
All in all, we had a great Halloween, and we hope that all of you did too. Talk to you later!

Big news (for us)

2006-10-08T10:58:00.000-06:00

Welcome back, for another exciting edition of "The Blog!" Whatever. Anyway, we have been having more and more trouble getting pictures of McKay for the same reason that we used to have trouble with Carter: McKay sees the camera and wants to touch it (or eat it, more likely) and makes a beeline for the photographer. But, here are the good ones. First, McKay playing with the toys on the bookshelf behind the chair (remember I said he likes enclosed spaces?). We had to pull the chair out of the way to get a shot of him.
And here's the big news, first pictures of McKay standing! He also walks short distances- between chair and ottoman, couch to chair, etc. It won't be long before he's officially a toddler...
I tried to get a photo of him by keeping him at bay with my feet and got this instead. I like it better.
Suzanne was trying to take a picture of Carter this morning, since he was kind of posing. He stood on his puzzle everytime she wanted to take a picture, but he wouldn't smile until I started blowing loud raspberries with my tongue. Works every time.Even though he's got SO MANY responsibilities, Carter still finds time to relax.
This was actually the first picture we got of McKay standing. We gave him a book light so he'd forget to fall (a la "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" book series). That's Suzanne in the background, working on the computer (that's the only picture I've gotten of her in quite a while).
Until last week, this is how McKay was smiling. He knew we thought it was funny. What a ham.
The piggy-back ride was going well until McKay decided to try stunt-riding. I don't think I'll get him a dirt bike anytime soon.
From the picture, you'd think Carter was saying, "See? They snap together, just like this."
I think what he really said was, "MINE!"
Hope you all enjoy the pictures! Talk to you later.

Our Silly Little Boys

2006-08-27T18:51:00.000-06:00

Hello, everybody! I know it's been a while, and I'm sorry. Hopefully, these 2 posts will tide (sp?) you over until we can get some more up. Here' s one of McKay eating his rice cereal- see what a clean eater he is? He just hates to get messy. Maybe it's because McKay is small, or a messy eater, but I think Carter thinks McKay is a puppy. He is always patting McKay on the head and shoving food in his mouth. We're trying to get the idea across to Carter that McKay is his brother and not a pet. Even the way he talks to him, "McKay, no! No!" We'll keep working.Carter and McKay both love to read, and they're even getting old enough to play together a little bit. Thank goodness!
While Carter and McKay were playing in the tent (the tiny one that Carter got for Christmas) I snuck along with our camera, lifted the tent flap just a little, and tried to get a few candid shots. It's obvious that didn't work, and McKay was laughing pretty hard as he tried to catch the camera. Well, I got too close to him (thus the big nose and eyes farther apart than they should be), and probably left the poor kid seeing spots for a while, but there they are... his teeth.You might think they're "darling" or "cute," but he leaves some deep little bite marks on the furniture and fingers (mine and Suzanne's). Scroll down for one more post.

Silly Little Boys

2006-08-27T16:32:00.000-06:00

Hello, again! I suppose this will be the second on the page of two posts, because I've got a lot of pictures I want you to see, but I can't seem to put on more than 5 at a time. First, this is McKay, in case anyone wasn't sure. He loves small, enclosed spaces. If we were to throw a box on the floor, I'm sure we'd never get him out. Carter has gotten very good at doing puzzles. He loves them and they're only a challenge the first time. After that, it only takes a few minutes.
McKay's baby blues.
Don't worry... it's just root beer (as a matter of fact, I think it's just water in a root beer bottle)
McKay helping Carter do a puzzle. I'm sure Carter appreciates it (note the sarcasm).
We love you all. I think you can "subscribe" to this blog somehow so that you'll be emailed every time that I update it. It's something to try.

Mostly McKay

2006-08-05T14:39:00.000-06:00

Hi, everyone! It's me again, Gabe. Suzanne did great on her posts, but she wanted me to get back on as the main blogger- I think she didn't want to be associated with anything as nerdy as blogging. Anyway, this will mainly be pictures of McKay because Carter comes running anytime the camera is brought out- all pictures of him are closeups of the bridge of his nose. We just can't get him to back away. First off, McKay playing with a plastic eyeball. Doesn't he look just like Carter at that age? Carter is learning his letters- he probably knows 10 of them by sight and can name them. McKay likes to chew on them and shove them under the fridge. Pretty soon Carter won't have to learn any more letters because we'll be down to the ones he knows already.
McKay's learning to drink from a sippy cup, but if Carter leaves his cup on the floor, that's game too.
McKay played with his reflection for several minutes one day. Suzanne got several pictures...
... including ones of McKay practicing his kissing technique.
McKay is ALWAYS curious about what Carter is doing. He attacks Carter anytime Carter gets his diaper changed. In this one, Carter sat down to enjoy his sandwich...
In this one he's realizing he can't enjoy his sandwich in peace with McKay around. I think Carter scooted away (saying, "No, Kay! Mine! No, Kay!") and McKay continued to chase him for a full minute before we put down the camera and rescued him.
McKay wished me a Happy Half-Birthday on July 19th. Carter learned how to sing, "Happy... TO YOU!!"
That's all for now. Hopefully we'll be able to show you some of the cute things that Carter's been doing next time. Cross your fingers!

2006-07-16T19:16:00.000-06:00

Hi all, this will be a short post but I was just searching through our pictures and found some cute ones, so here ya go.

Carter and McKay take their baths together now. They like to splash each other.

McKay has learned to crawl. Here he is in pursuit of the ball.

This picture was taken before McKay had learned to crawl. He's hanging over the edge of Gabe's big papason chair

Just a beautiful picture of McKay that I wanted to share with everyone!

2006-07-12T21:09:00.000-06:00

Hello everyone! It's Suzanne. Since Gabe seems to be slacking on posting pictures, I'd thought I'd take matters into my own hands. Hope you enjoy the pictures!

This picture was taken a little over a month ago, just as McKay was starting to roll over. He was still having trouble getting that arm out from under him. Well he has mastered the rolling over now and is now just starting to crawl.

I think this picture speaks for itself. Kids will be kids!

Just an adorable picture I was able to get of Carter. He is usually so hard to take pictures of because he always wants to be right up close to the camera.

Well, Carter managed to get into my makeup bag and smeared mascara all over his face.

McKay just hangin out in the walker at Grandma Carter's house. So far all he can do is push himself backwards.

McKay's first time in the johnny jump-up. Carter used to jump and jump in this thing. McKay prefers to take one big jump, lift up his feet, and swing instead.

Here he is falling asleep in the Johnny Jump-up after his workout.

Carter has started doing some chores. Here he is putting the silverware away.

On our whirlwind trip to California we managed to find time to take the kids to the park. This was McKay's first time in the swing. He loved it! He was laughing like crazy! Carter was laughing too (mostly at McKay) until we got out the camera.

Cute McKay hanging out at the park.

First Pictures from Boise!

2006-05-28T16:33:00.000-06:00

Sorry it's been so long... what with moving, and then starting rotations... Anyway...

So far, this is what Carter likes to do best here in Boise. Trips to the mall take an extra 10-15 minutes! He never gets bored, but we sure do.

This is a little old (ok, a lot old) but we needed the perfunctory Baby's First Feeding photo.

Carter's finally learning a few words... Sadly, "permanent" isn't one of them.

McKay's favorite food has switched from hands to toes! He especially likes clean toes, right out of the bath.

McKay is learning to sit up on his own!

He can even sit with no support! (but the flash surprised him, and he fell over right after this.)

Last but not least, future blackmail material, but so cute!

Love you all!

Another long overdue update

2006-04-16T19:50:00.000-06:00

Hi, everybody! School has kept me busier than a one-armed man in a paper-hanging contest! But I finished my presentation on medical marijuana and so I have a lot more time now. Thus, the update.

I know that Grandma Phillips will love this: Naked baby pictures! I don't know why though.

Carter is getting off the binky little by little. He's on a 12-step plan. Step 1 was to get him down to 2 binkys at a time.

Corn on the cob: the only vegetable that Carter will eat.

Just a cute picture of McKay getting some tummy time.

We had this shirt made because we wanted Carter's clothing to reflect his hobbies.

The whole family. We had a cuter picture, but it got lost. "You get what you get, kid."

These are the latest pictures of McKay- just taken a few days ago. Here he is beginning to wrestle the stuffed dog.

Here he is losing.

We love you all. We hope you enjoy the pictures! Talk to you soon.

Fun photos

2006-03-08T09:27:00.000-07:00

Hello! It's time for another update. Here are some more pictures of my too cute kids. The first one is of me talking to Grandma and Papa Phillips, while Suzanne lets me fend for myself (She was doing dishes, I think.) Edit: Suzanne says, "Who do you think was taking the picture?"

It's been such a long time since we've gotten a smile out of Carter because he's usually so curious about the camera (See the "Happy Birthday, Papa!" post for examples of his usual pictures.) The thing on his chest is a sample shipping label from ebay. We thought we'd mail him somewhere since he was whining that day.
Next is McKay, on the bed, where he normally naps. But usually he's in a nest of pillows. Suzanne just did this because she thinks it's cute.
Then she put him in the Ultra-Saucer to see how much he liked it. A little young still?

Finally, some bath-time fun! McKay drying off on the bed,
then Carter soaking.

I hope you enjoy these, too. Sorry about the format. I really don't know what I'm doing. Carter and McKay send kisses!

Long overdue update

2006-02-28T16:03:00.000-07:00

McKay is fattening up... 3 months and 11 1/2 lbs!
McKay watching "Finding Nemo." We thought he was too young!
McKay in his usual place. (Notice the scratches. He did it himself.)
Carter... just being Carter.
McKay eating his favorite food... hands!
Carter fell off his chair and sprained his ankle. Here he is relaxing with a book while he heals up.
Carter chose this spot to throw a fit!
We love you all! Hope you like the pictures!

Happy Birthday, Papa!

2006-01-31T08:52:00.000-07:00

We wanted to make a special birthday card for Papa John Phillips (ha ha) so we had a photo shoot...

Carter was in front...

He was kind of hogging the camera...

And McKay got jealous...

But once Carter apologized...

Everybody was happy!

Happy Birthday, Papa!

Hello, World!

2006-01-23T08:26:00.000-07:00

Since Mom and Dad have an email address that won't accept emails, here's my solution!