Summer Showers

Summer is officially here!! Dallas is out on our last guided trip of the season which is actually pretty late for us, but he's fighting the bugs and trying to keep everyone clear of heat exhaustion, so there's a reason we don't do many guided trips in the summer months. 

I'm dreaming of a life where we can live half the year down here and our hot months somewhere in Alaska, Montana, Washington...somewhere that has cooler climates in the summer. I guess if we can't live there for a couple months it would be nice to just to be able to afford to spend extended times there this time of year :) I really am happy with my life, and don't want to sound like I'm complaining or unappreciative because the Lord has blessed us and we are very happy!!!

Emit was having fun 'flying' the other day at the pool :) And Joss couldn't jump in enough. It's crazy how different the time spent playing in the pool and time spent in the ocean can be. We still get to hang out at this pool where we used to live because our Grandparents still own the one bedroom place that we lived the first time we moved down here. We maintain it and take care of the utilities and such to offer our friends and guests, so we still enjoy the occasional dip in the pool. It's so sad to see how much the property has gone downhill since the new owner's took over the complex. There's all kinds of stuff on the property and the landscaping is a joke now. The previous owners did such a nice job of maintaining it and keeping it pretty. 

Emit was having fun floating on his own too and would work his way close to me (I wasn't in the water this day) and start saying "hey-lp, mom, hey-lp" wanting me to grab him up. He wasn't in danger or anything... just wanted to get out so he could slide back in, but it was cute the way he kept saying it. 

The boys love this little show called Artzooka (I can't remember if I've mentioned it on here already or not). It comes on the Canadian CBC station that we get down here. The guy on it makes all kind of fun and cool art out of recycled items, scraps, trash, just fun kids crafts. The boys will sit there and watch it and say, "I wanna zooka that!" :) So we've been playing with glue, scraps of wood, paint, chalk and all kinds of fun stuff lately. They been having fun "Artzooka-ing!" :) 

Summer brings our rainy season! Thank goodness because we've needed it for sure. We're going to feel like we're in a little jungle soon after all the rain we got last week. One night it started when we were going to bed and didn't stop until about 11am the next morning. That's a lot of rain for us. Our little wagon got left out in the rain and was running over by time the rain stopped (it's a good 5 inches deep). Well, we couldn't leave all those puddles out there with no one to play in them...

We didn't even waste time getting out of our PJ's. 

This kayak got full of water and this little activity (pouring out the water with these little cups) gave them about 3 days worth of fun when they went outside. 

More messy bubbles fun, but they weren't so messy when everything was wet already :) The boys still loved them though (as you can see). 

Every time I try to get a shot with the two of them it seems to turn out something like this... Neither of them looking at me, but Emit is almost always looking at Joss. Gotta see what Big Brother is doing!

I tried to video a few minutes of this playtime outside, but I'm not sure how it turned out... I was trying to video the boys and hold and blow the bubbles at the same time... might be a total disaster, but they were having such a fun time :) 

See what I mean about the brother shots.... At least I have eye contact from Joss here! They loved their purple noses. 

We had a guy fly in to help Dallas with this trip as an intern...our first ever intern, and I'm liking this setup :) He flies himself here and goes on the trip for free, but he's working and helping Dallas! Sweet Deal!! Anyway, his name is Michael, and one of the toys they boys have is named Michael too, so they just went nuts when they met a real live Michael. The day he arrived you would have thought these kids were attention deprived and had never had a friend in the world the way they interacted with him. And this was about 3 days after my folks left, so I can assure you that statement holds no truth in it. Not to mention that all day everyday revolves around them too! I definitely do not have a problem with my kids meeting new people. As long as mommy and daddy are close by they are easy going.

Here they are having fun playing in the neighbor's yard and PUDDLE!!! 

I've been running with a combination of 'owwees' lately and have not felt very good at all. Joss has been very sweet trying to take care of me and make me feel better. Each day he'll come (often many times a day) and ask me where it hurts so he can give me kisses and make it feel better. Of course, I take full advantage of this and get kisses all over :) He tells me, "I'll keep you safe mom and give you watts (lots) of wuvin' (lovin') to make you feel better!" It does help, that's for sure. 

Emit is my chip JUNKIE!!! That's all he ever wants to eat. I've had to make it a game almost... give me three bites of this and I'll give you a chip. I know chips are horrible for them, but they are totally addicted so I'm trying to use them to get something good out of the deal. Sometimes it works in my favor. Emit doesn't fall for it as well as Joss does, and maybe he doesn't quite understand the deal, so we'll have to work on that. I swear he's taken notes from Puss-n-Boots on Shrek. You know the LOOK I'm referring to here with the big ole pleading eyes. He comes up to me and puts his hand on my leg and will give me this look and softly with his cute little pouty lips say "Chups" (chips) and then if that doesn't work he throws in the "chups, peez" (chips, please). Man, if he wasn't so stinking cute when he begged :) Makes it very hard to tell him no. 

I love these little guys...mud, dirt, critters and all! They've found this new little game to play while I'm hanging clothes out on the line. There's this rock that they run and jump off of and go back and forth. Each time they jump over it they yell "Yikes, a spider!" Emit's usually comes out like "ikes, pida!" but he gets the gist of the game at least. It's funny how long this game entertains them while we're out there. 

So far they've been really good for me while Daddy's out camping. It's hard to believe that just a little over a year ago these weeks with daddy out on the water were so much more stressful and hard to manage on my own than they are now. Crazy how much they change and grow in such a short time. They are really great pals and starting to play so nicely with each other (most of the time) and I love seeing them play well together! I have a feeling they are going to be super close over the years. At least that is my prayer!!