The Circus!

It's been a few weeks ago, but we traveled to Utah to visit the Highfield's our best friends. It should have only been a 3 hour drive from Elko, but there was construction and William had a blow out... Yeah, not a fun to deal with ever. We gave him a bath in a rest area sink and proceeded with our drive. So it took us a bit longer than we had planned on... We did make it there just in time.

We arrived in Salt Lake and were a bit turned around. We called Julie to see if she could help us a little with the directions. We drove up and down a few streets, but we finally arrived in the right place. The parking tendant didn't even charge me for parking since we were just coming in from out of town. This was a blessing in itself, because I would have had to go somewhere else to get cash. I didn't know that we were going to have to pay for parking. After getting settled for a brief moment.

We all made it to the same place and we finally saw Julie and Jessa at the pathway leading to the pre-show area. Nicholas ran and hugged them. He had been so excited, he kept asking if we were almost to Salt Lake yet so we could see Zach and Jessa.

Here are the kids at the pre-show.

Nicholas showed his excitement in a number of different faces throughout the night, but I caught this one and thought it would be a great memory of how he felt while watching the circus.

The Highfields cute as always.

Jessa and William. She does such a great job with kids. Both Nicholas and William adore her.

Here is a shot of a lot of the circus performers. They really put on a great show. It has been quite a few years since I've been to the circus. But it was great just like the one I remember going to. I still have the globe light that my Grandpa Lyons bought me. It has a tiger on it. Funny the things we keep from our childhood.

Nick and Jessa enjoying the show.

One of my favorite acts of the circus is the elephants. It's amazing the things they can do with their large bodies and how they interact with the humans.Another favorite from when I was a kid was the motorcycle cage. This time it almost made me nauseous. The thought of so many people in a cage on motorcycles made my heart race. I covered my eyes a few times thinking that they would crash into eachother. They didn't of coarse and everyone was safe.

Julie spoiled Nicholas and got him a light up sword. He carries it around with him often and has tried to take it more places than we will allow him to. Thanks for inviting us to a great show. We had a great time. We can't wait until the next time we can visit.

Great Grandma & Grandpa Lyons

Corn Maze

September 10, 2008

Another one of our family traditions in the fall is to visit a corn maze. For the past 5 years we have went to the Rutledge Corn Maze. Every year they change the theme. Last year it was a Pirate just like Nick and we let him take his pirate hook with us. This year, it wasn't anything too exciting... It was a bank, I'm sure the sponsor of this years corn maze. It is still fun to get lost in the corn...
Here is a picture of the boys at the entrance of the maze. This is before William became scared of the corn blowing in the wind. The only way we could get him to walk, or should I say run was to say go... He then would run to catch Nicholas. I think it made him concentrate less on what was happening around him.
We found the first checkpoint. Both of the boys were excited.
There were two bridges in the maze. It's kind of neat to be able to look out on all of the corn that seems to go forever.
The boys wondering... Toward the end of the corn maze, William wasn't quite as afraid of the corn. But my bladder was about to explode. I wondered if we would ever find our way out...Thankfully, we made it out just in time.

A trip to the Zoo...

Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium

July 30th, 2008

I've always been amazed by the beauty of the peacock.

I was surprised at how close I was able to get.

Unfortunately, he didn't fan his feathers out for us though.

Every year we try to visit the zoo at least once. Nicholas was really excited to go to the Point Defiance Zoo because of the new spider exhibit... Needless to say he was disappointed because he couldn't see the spiders. However, he had fun playing on the big rope spider web they had in the kids zone. The boys at the entrance of the aquarium.
Nick searching for the artificial crabs through a viewing bucket. It was a neat little activity center they had set up for the kids.
The best part of visiting the zoo for us is the aquarium. It is our all time favorite. We love to watch the fish and sharks swim by the glass windows.

Some Tears and a Few Stitches...

Back in July we had to take a trip to Urgent Care. We were in the middle of packing and William tripped and hit his eye bone on the side of a milk crate (a toy container). We moved it to the kitchen because we packed the toys that were normally stored in it and were going to use the crate to pack the canned goods. It was a good idea until we heard him crying. I picked him up to see what was wrong and at first he seemed to be fine. It took a minute for it to start bleeding. It's never fun to have your little ones in pain. I managed to stay fairly calm, but that's because I have great friends that were right there to help me with what I needed. I didn't have to worry about having an extra child while waiting to be seen by the doctor. Another friend came with me to keep me company while we waited for the doctor. William on the other hand was a great trooper... He didn't cry other than the initial fall and when they did the stitches. While we waited for them to see us in the room, he played hide and seek in the curtain. What a kid! He's a tough little guy.

The damage... to the eye. He had some pretty bad buising,

but it looks great now. Daddy even took out the stiches a week later.

Where's William?
He had a total of three stitches. Not too bad, I thought it was worse than it acutally was.
When it was all over with, they gave him a sucker and bandaged it to keep it clean. Needless to say the bandage only stayed on about an hour.