jack's birthday adventure!

jack turned 3 yesterday and we had quite the adventure. at 10:27am we caught the front runner train to the gateway mall in salt lake city. we then hoofed it a couple of blocks. we cooled off at a deli and had some water and snacks. we then walked over to build-a-bear where jack and his grandma picked out a bear and dressed him in a soccer outfit (i was hoping for darth vadar, but oh well!) after that we headed to barnes & noble where jack picked out a dinosaur train book. we then got the boys dressed in swim wear and played in the water feature. we cooled down at california pizza kitchen and then road TRAX back to the front runner and made the train in 6 minutes to spare. jack had such a fun and special day!!

jack turns three!

after our big adventure that day in salt lake we came home, ordered pizza, opened presents and had cupcakes. this was a small affair. his family party is not until labor day weekend. his grandparents gave him a ball and bat, aunties raylin & mercedes gave him some cool star wars toys and we gave him some dinosaur goodies. jack grew 4 1/4 inches from last year! he was exhausted by the day's end, but he had a wonderful day!

jack's swim party!!

i will add more photos from the photographer we hired later this week. it is hard to believe jack is turning 3 tomorrow!!! we celebrated a little early since school starts on the 24th around here and the roy aquatic center also closes. all jack wanted to do for his birthday was swim! so, that is what we did. we rented out the bowery and went swimming! this place is a blast and has a kiddie pool with a frog to slide down in. a bigger pool with a playground in the water, a lap pool and high dive pool and a pool with 2 big slides. jack went down the big slides a couple of times. he had such a fun day. tomorrow eunice, lucas, jack, alora, roger (alora's daddy) and i are hopping on the front runner and riding the "train" to salt lake. we are then going to build-a-bear for grandma and jack to have a special time building one. after that we are going to play in the water feature there and then go get pizza at california pizza kitchen. of course, birthday's are a big deal to us, so we are also having a taco party for the family that was not able to attend the middle of the week swim party on labor day weekend. my cousin, heidi, made the adorable whale cupcakes. it is hard to believe jack will be 3 and lucas will be 2 so soon!!!

eunice & lucas & raylin

this is a miscellaneous post! the 1st photo is of lucas. he likes to get into daisy the dog's crate and get stuck. the middle photo if of eunice on her 70th birthday. allen planned it all out to have jack's 1st finger painting framed and i did all of the leg work. blake hung it next to a painting he did as a child. the last photo is of my sister, raylin, and her family on her 25th birthday. her daughter, alexis, is 5 and her son, peter, is 3 months.

oregon trip

we had a family reunion at the end of july in bend oregon. we stayed on elk lake and had a blast! this was for my dad's side of the family, the VanDeWarker's. the boys loved camping (well, my version of camping in an RV). they loved the water and the boat. i had no idea what good cooks we had in our family. we ate beyond well! 2 of my sisters and my brother were there. we had a family night where we did a 10 minute presentation. we also had a family game night and it was so great sitting around the camp fire bonding with family. my grandpa took jack "fishing" for 5 minutes. jack enjoyed it. we were smart and brought a sitter with us. she proved to be very helpful. it was a long drive (13 hours) but, we survived all of the whining.....and the kids weren't bad either. haha!