Westley and Caleb started swimming lessons on May 12. They are taking lessons with my friend Lindsey's two boys, Jeremy and Tyler. Caleb sure had a hard time at first. He did not want to put his face in the water, and wouldn't try anything else because of that. He even cried so hard that he threw up once. I was about to pull him out, when we bought both him and Westley goggles. Corey told Caleb they were "magic goggles" and he has improved 100%. He puts his face in the water and does all the things the teacher asks of him. He still struggles with blowing bubbles out his nose and mouth and prefers to hold his nose with his fingers. His teacher doesn't want him to do that, which kind of annoys me, since I didn't figure out the whole blowing bubbles out my nose until I was 12. Anyway, I think he's doing so much better just because of the goggles. I'm sure he'll be swimming by summer's end.
Westley is doing awesome! He's getting the hang of swimming. It's great! At least two of my kids will be swimming this summer, hopefully. I'm still toying around with the idea of putting Travis in some sort of swimming lessons. We'll see. I'm just glad I got them into lessons before the In-N-Out picnic, which is at a water park again this year. We are leaving Travis and Eliza home with a baby-sitter and taking only the two older boys. I thought it would be more fun for us that way--with all the water, it's easier to have only two kids to watch. It will be even more fun now that they have the basics of swimming down!
Corey finally uploaded the pictures from the digital camera from the past few weeks. One day, when Corey was at work, the boys decided to dress up. Westley was Spider-man, Caleb was a pirate, and Travis brought me this tiger suit to put on. It was a little small, but he LOVED it, and now he brings it to me almost every time the boys pull out the costume box. He chased me around growling, it was hard to get a decent picture. Every time I held the camera up to get one, he lunged for me and growled, tackling me to the ground (I was on my knees trying to get pictures closer to the ground). What a cutie!
These are from about a week ago. Daddy and the boys washed both cars. Mostly, the van needed to be washed after our trip to Utah. Then he washed his car also. They had fun getting wet and playing in the water. All except Travis, that is. he didn't want to get wet, and every time he so much as got a drop of water on him, he would come to me screaming. Amazingly enough, they never targeted me with the hose. I didn't think that taking pictures (and video) would protect me, but it worked! I'll have to remember to be the camera-person for next time also! The best was when Westley put the hose up to his face to see why water wasn't coming out, and Caleb turned the water on right at that moment! He got a face full!
Westley Brady King was born at 6:46 a.m. on Thursday, May 8, 2003 after 26 hours of labor and 5 weeks before his due date. We were so thrilled at his entrance into the world, albeit surprised! Now, he's a thriving 5-year-old, bright, imaginative, and sweet. Here's to you, Westley!
Welcome to the World!
1st Birthday Football Cake (age 1)
Westley loves horses, cars and Spider-man (age 2)
Westley is very good at puzzles (age 3)
Westley and his pattern block design from home preschool (age 4)
*side note: I just noticed that Westley is wearing the same shirt in the last three pictures. Weird that it fit him for that long. Poor kid, must look like we don't buy him any new clothes.
We actually celebrated Westley's birthday on Monday night because my brother Aaron and his wife Kaori were here from Japan and they left this morning. We wanted to include them in the birthday party. I let Westley pick what he wanted for dinner, so this was his menu: spaghetti, breadmaker French bread, broccoli, and red jell-O with strawberries and bananas. I made him a cool Spider-man birthday cake, which he loved (he is really into Spider-man as of late).
Spider-man on top of a building cake
Westley blowing out the candles
After dinner and cake and ice cream, he opened presents. He got a bunch of plastic food and a grocery cart from us, some plastic food and a toy microwave from Grandma and Grandpa, a bunch of Spider-man clothes from Uncle Aaron and Aunt Kaori, and a Spider-man costume from us. It was a very fun day, and I'm glad we were able to celebrate it with so many! We love you, Westley!
The drive home was WORSE than the drive up! We caravaned back to Arizona with Aaron, Kaori, and Maggie. We left Murray at about 8:30 am Utah time (7:30 am Arizona time). We were driving back down I-15 through St. George and Las Vegas because Corey wanted to stop and see the new In-N-Out in St. George. After about three stops for cranky babies, bathroom breaks, and even car sickness, we were about 30 minutes from St. George when we blew a tire on the van. By the way, we blew a tire on the van on Monday, April 21st and got just the one replaced. Corey then blew a tire in his car on his way home from closing two nights later, and replaced all four of his tires, since they were all needing to be replaced. So, we blew another tire on the van just about two weeks later! Since it was Sunday, there wasn't much that was open. I spent the time in the car from the blowout to St. George calling 411 and trying to find a tire place that was open. We pulled into the St. George In-N-Out at about 1:30 pm and Corey dropped us off and left to get the tires replaced. Yes, tires. We didn't want to risk blowing another one between St. George and Phoenix, so we just replaced them all. They were all about 6 years old, though hardly worn, anyway. The rest of us ate at In-N-Out while Corey took care of the car, and then, about an hour later, he joined us and got his food to go. We finally left St. George, after getting gas, at about 3 pm.
When we get to Vegas, we take the wrong exit for the 93 to Kingman, the first exit before the strip instead of the second one after the strip. So we spend an extra 30-40 minutes driving through Henderson, stopping once for a bathroom break for Caleb and Westley. Then we get back on the road and have to fight all the traffic by the Hoover Dam. After the Hoover Dam, we lost Aaron and Kaori behind us somewhere. So we pulled off the road to wait. We waited and waited and waited. We were out of range for our phones, so we couldn't even call them. We kept trying though and finally got in range and found out that they had just stopped to feed Maggie. We were worried that something may have happened at security after the dam, so we were relieved that they weren't detained by that. We finally made it to Kingman around 5:30. We stopped at a Carl's, Jr. to eat and stretch our legs. After that stop, we continued on our way down the 93. It was already dark and we were still several hours away. After the 93, we were supposed to go through Sun City and get on the 101 down to the 10, but we took the 303 by mistake and that put us on the 10 freeway 20 miles or so west of where we wanted to be, just west enough to get stuck in construction traffic. We finally made it to Mesa at about 11:30 pm! It was a LONG day!
I'm just glad that we were on I-15 before hitting St. George when the tire blew. If we had been south of St. George in the Virgin River Gorge, or south of Las Vegas, we would have had a lot more trouble finding a place to get the tire changed or it could have been dangerous (in the gorge). If we had been on 89 in Central Utah, we probably wouldn't have found a place that was open at all, being Sunday in rural Utah, and we may have ended up having to stay the night somewhere. Even though the tire blowing was not a good thing, it's amazing how we were blessed despite it.
First, there was a BBQ on Friday night at Eve's brother's house in Sugarhouse. We didn't get any pictures there, for some reason. But it was nice to meet Eve's family and great to see all the Fowles family that made it (Mom, Dad, Jordan & Andrea family, Aaron & Kaori family) and Adam and Eve, of course. After the BBQ, Corey and I headed back to Andy and Lori's so they could take off to go to Andy's brother Dan's graduation party without their kids.
Saturday morning was the wedding. We were running a little behind, but we were very glad we made it to the sealing room before the 10:20 time slot. At least we were on time, even though we weren't early. The sealing was beautiful, of course, and we are so happy for Adam and Eve and so excited to welcome Eve into our family.
After the sealing, we waited outside the temple for the couple to come out. We took pictures and just hung around. Their photographer was running late, so that delayed the pictures a little bit, but the kids were surprisingly well-behaved (other than trying to pick the flowers on the temple grounds and digging in the dirt). After pictures, we went straight to Eve's parents' house in Holladay for the family luncheon. It was great to see all the cousins that came to that.
After the luncheon was the reception. It was a cake bar, and my boys LOVED all the cake. They must have eaten themselves sick, and I was so surprised when we all met up at Aunt Amy's for pizza afterward that they were able to eat there as well! The reception was a lot of fun. Eliza got sunburned from the temple and reception, since we were outside all day. It was overcast, which is probably why I didn't think to put sunscreen on her face. Here are some cute pictures from the day:
All the Fowles grandkids present at the temple left to right: Peter, Eliza, Westley, Hannah, Caleb, Travis, Leah, Matthew
Hannah, Leah, and Westley
Adam and Eve
Eve with the kids
Caleb, Westley and Travis eating cake (and actually sharing!)
Travis' cake face
Eliza in the bumbo with her red cheeks :(
Eliza and cousin Maggie (Aaron's baby) 6 months between them
It's been a week since we were in Utah, so this is a little late, but I wanted to include pictures and didn't get a chance to upload them until yesterday.
We left last Wednesday morning around 7 am and dropped Corey's car off at his work so it would be available when he was back in town on Thursday and Friday for his finals. The drive was long and exhausting. Because Utah is an hour ahead of us, leaving at 7 meant that we really left at 8, Utah time. Just north of Flagstaff, the wind really picked up and between Flagstaff and Page, near the Grand Canyon area, we drove for about 50 miles through a terrible dust storm where visibility was at 0 in some spots. I was driving since Corey had closed on Tuesday night and didn't get home until about 3 am. It was miserable driving through that dust and all the high winds (which continued from Flagstaff until just north of the Point of the Mountain).
Westley sleeping in the car
Travis in the car
We stopped in Page for lunch and ate at the city park across from the high school. The boys got to run around and stretch their legs, even though it was really windy and a bit chilly. With all the other stops we made for bathroom breaks and diaper changes, the drive seemed so long and miserable, and we didn't make it to West Valley, where we stayed, until after 9 pm. Once we got to Nephi, it started snowing also. It even snowed some on Thursday as well, and I was worried it would be too cold for all the outdoor stuff planned for the wedding.
Westley and Caleb at the park in Page
The lovely snow that welcomed us to Utah
So we arrived on Wednesday night after 9 pm to my cousin Andy's house in West Valley. We pretty much unloaded what we needed for the night and went to bed. Corey had to be up at 4:30 am to get to the airport for his flight at 5:45 so he could go back to Phoenix and take his finals. He was gone until late afternoon on Friday.
On Thursday morning, I went to the Valley Fair Mall kids' club with Andy's wife Lori and all the kids. After that, I ran some errands and met up with Aaron and Kaori to give them Maggie's clothes for Adam and Eve's wedding and for them to give me some diapers for Eliza. We had lunch at Andy and Lori's and then, after naps, I took the kids for a visit with my old college roommate, Jessica. She has three kids close in age to mine, so they played together while we visited.
On Friday morning, I tried to get in touch with some friends of mine for visits, but none of it worked out. So Lori and I put the kids down for early naps and then, right after lunch, we took all the kids to the nearby fitness club kids' center, which was very similar to Makutu's Island (all you Arizona folks may be familiar with this), except that below the massive jungle gym was a mini-city for the kids. There was a car race track, a little grocery store complete with plastic food items and real kid-size grocery carts (courtesy of Harmon's), a police station, a fire station, a theatre, a "library" (more like a reading nook), and a few rooms for video games. The best part was that it only cost $2.15 for kids over 3 and free for adults! Since I only have one that age, I only had to pay $2.15! Sure beats Makutu's $32.50 for my family right now! Unfortunately, I left the camera in the car, so I didn't get any pictures. After that, I went to pick up Corey from the airport. We went straight to Sugarhouse for the BBQ for Adam and Eve, and arrived by 4:15. We stopped at A&W to get drinks (we were SO thirsty from playing at the kids' center. Then we went over to Sugarhouse park and walked around the pond watching the ducks.
The rest of the weekend was wedding stuff, so I will use another post to talk about that and a third for the drive home.
