Remaking the Great Outdoors

After a recent hike, Henry decided that he would make his own forest. Using rocks for the base and flowers and pine cones as "trees," he created his masterpiece. I'm surprised by his imagination - no one taught him this, or really event told him what a forest is.

Cake Wrecks

This evening Joe was laughing hysterically for quite a while. Finally, I gave up on what I was doing, because laughter is totally distracting if you're not participating, to find out what was so funny and hopefully join in on some of the fun. Someone suggested the blog: Cake Wrecks to Joe and some of it's posts are hilarious, check out the favorites link on the right hand side of the page for some funny ones - my favorites are The Cake That Started At All and Cupcake Cakes: Always Wrecktastic. Always.

The cake I made for Henry's 2nd Birthday

Feeding the Fire

Henry and I went to the air show in Wendover today. I almost didn't go but I'm SO glad we went. Not only did Henry have a great time but I surprisingly enjoyed myself as well. Some of the highlights of the show:

• Seeing the helicopters


• Going for a ride in the helicopter, Henry and I got a 20 minute ride around East Wendover. The view wasn't specacular, but the ride was phenomenal, especially for Henry. He didn't hold his breath, like he did at the Kids Fair when he saw the helicopter fly close by, or scream like he does when they fly over our house, instead, he seemed calm, relaxed, like he was just taking it all in. When he called his Dad afterwards and saw his grandma later that day he excitedly talked all about it. We both enjoyed the ride!


• Did I mention that there were helicopters?


• Seeing all the airplanes with propellers that look kind of like helicopters


• Getting a picture of a helicopter from Life Flight


• Getting a picture in the helicopter, there are many picture from our ride, but this is my favorite. He really does have the same cheesy smile that Joe has.


• Oh, and there was a cool air show (in all honesty, Henry loved the air show, even though it was airplanes and not helicopters). If you listen carefully in the video below you can hear him narrating (he even suggests that the airplane is "cooking"). He loved the show - ooo ing and ahhh ing through out the entire thing.

Even after all of the fantastic stunts by the airmen in the show, when Henry and I were leaving, a bit before the show was over because it was way past nap time and he was clearly not surviving well, Henry cried because he could see a helicopter on it's landing pad and didn't want to leave without seeing it up close.

We will definately go to another air show. This was a small air show and we had a blast!

Straddling the Border

This weekend, Joe's little brother Spencer got married. The wedding was fantastic and seemingly very mellow compared to many weddings Joe and I have been to. It was a nice change of pace. Here are a couple cute pics from the day.

Josef and Lasse, Aliza's boys; McKenzie and Austin, Dan's kids and Henry. This is the best picture I have ever seen with all five of them - it's impossible to get 5 toddlers to cooperate at the same time.

Joe's cute parents right before the Reception

Eww gross.

While at the gym this morning I encountered two disgusting men:

• First guy was a trainer who works at the gym. I was waiting to drop Henry it the Kids Care when I saw this trainer, probably 30 or so, go stand in front of the glass door that leads into the classroom where a large group of women were doing step aerobics. He stood there, just out of sight, watching them step from the back. He is gross.
• Second guy was probably 50 plus, he was resting on a weight machine watching the girl a few feet away who was bending over repeatedly. He was really gross.

Why do disgusting guys have to prey on innocent, unknowing females? I'm seriously disappointed in males today.

JoE

Joe started rotations the first week of July this year. This is an exciting time in his medical education because it's the first time he has really been able to step out of the classroom and into a patient oriented setting. Joe very much enjoys working with patients and the staff in the hospitals where he has done rotations so far. He has tons of exciting stories, things that would make you choose to steer clear from "learning hospitals," which is excitedly shares at every opportunity. He still has another year before he needs to decide what Residency programs he wants to apply to, but for right now he hopes to try and potentially choose from: radiology, radiation oncology, neurology, anesthesiology and emergency medicine.

Any patient who has Joe as a doctor should consider themselves quite lucky. Joe is an extraordinary person with a great deal of compassion for the people he currently serves and the people he hopes to serve in the future. Medicine was the perfect choice for Joes profession because of his awesome personality. I hope, we hope, that he continues to be served with many incredible opportunities throughout his life!

Curious George

Henry loves curious George so we went to see him recently at the Kids' Fair. Henry excitedly waited his turn to see the monkey (Henry actually thinks that the Man in the Yellow Hat is named George and the monkey is just called Monkey). His excitement, however, quickly wavered when he approached the larger than life monkey and he couldn't wait until the picture was done and we could escape. We can't wait to meet Santa Claus in a couple months.

Helicopter

Henry with all the items he now requires prior to going to sleep:
at least one helicopter toy and at least one helicopter book.

I am not sure when Henry's obsession with helicopters began, sometime after his birthday, I suppose. Whenever it began, it only increases in intensity every day - Henry is addicted, obsessed, over-excited, whatever adjective you choose - Henry loves helicopters!

We live near the flight path for the University and Primary Childrens helicopter transportation for patients. Every day now he begs to go outside where we wait for a helicopter to fly by. The fly near our home frequently, but nevertheless, it's a frustrating thing for Henry to stand outside, excitedly waiting for the sound which you can always hear before you see the helicopter. The sound which he always recognizes far before me, the sound of the helicopter flying overhead.

At the end of the movie "Cars" Mader rides in the blue Dinoco helicopter, one like Henry is holding in the above picture. The scene is probably 30 seconds long and if you wait a minute or two you get another 10 second clip of Mader riding in the helicopter. When we watch "Cars," that is what we watch, over, and over, and over.

Henry has a white board on an easel that he loves to draw on. That white board is never without at least one helicopter drawing on it, usually three or four because Henry insists on having someone help him draw helicopters.

Before bed, day and night, we read at least one book about helicopters (or with an airplane that has a rotor). Henry sleeps with at least one helicopter toy and at least one helicopter book. When he wakes up, he panics until we have recovered his helicopters from the blankets.

Finally, Henry can name several helicopter parts: main rotor (the twirly blades on top), tail rotor (the twirly blades on the tail), tail boom (the tail), the landing skids and the cockpit.

Pundits Double Speak on Palin

I thought this was funny, not because it makes Palin look bad, for some strange reason, I kind of like her, but because it makes the pundits look ridiculous.

Testing

I've been trying to figure out how to post to my blog using my new iPhone, that's why some of you saw that silly picture of homemade card bags the other day. I think I've finally figured it out and it's SOOOO easy (no thanks to the iPhone, it's blogger, or should I say, Google's, innovation.) And, if it works, this will be the first time it wasn't because of my friend Joey's voluntary Google marketing skills that I started using a new Google product.

If you're interesting in blogging directly from your iPhone, or another mobile device or email account, and you're using Blogger, find out how here for email: http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=41452 and here for phone: http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=42448

Happy blogging!