Happy 2nd Birthday Wyland!

Oh my .. I can’t believe my baby turned 2 today! Wyland has been such a treasure. He continues to amaze me all the time. He and Jackson looked a LOT alike when they were first born, however as they have gotten older they are very distinctly different. At least on the outside. Most people marvel at how much Wyland looks like me. He idolizes his big brother to bits. Wyland is still a very loving boy, but at the same time he definitely has opinions of his own and won’t be pushed around. When people see Jackson getting physical with Wyland they are so worried but truly Wyland holds his own. That kid can dish it as well as he receives it. He does the whole crying when he wants his way, that whole little brother trick they are all born with (yep referring to you Mike!). Wyland is really smart too, he speaks really well for his age, he can count to 10 with little probing. He had a bus full of people laughing at him on one of our trips back to the hotel from Disneyland last month when he sang his ABC’s too. He flirts even better than Jackson did. I think because he is slightly more outgoing with strangers. Jackson has always been (and still is) a Mama’s Boy to the bone, Wyland on the other hand will take turns. He’s equally a Daddy’s Boy too, just depends on his mood. Wyland is also really independent. His favorite TV show right now is Max & Ruby. I don’t understand the fascination to be honest, but I know he isn’t the only kid. He enjoys going outside and hanging out in the backyard with Jackson. They have a swing set and now a small trampoline that I’m sure will keep them busy for hours. In short it’s been an amazing 2 years. Among all the other stuff Wyland is just a beautiful child, inside and out.

He wore a helmet for almost 6 months.  I'm so glad we chose to do it.

My little world traveler on his first trip to England.

Was this really only a year ago??

Whoops .. don't get confused.  That's me .. not Wyland in a dress.

Do we look a little alike or what?

I can't believe how grown up he looks here.

Summer Fun Begins

This past weekend we started our summer of camping/boating fun. What does this entail you might ask? Well we used to be hardcore campers. I’m talking the tent kind. As of a few years ago we myself and my Mum purchased a trailer together. Oh MY .. best thing we ever did. My Dad then bought a boat a few months later and it’s been so much fun ever since. My mum even made the comment this past weekend about how now we look and people and think .. what do you do here if you don’t have a boat? But WE were those people. We say that but we camp at different places now. We didn’t used to camp so much at lakes with nothing else there to do. We used to go places where there were rivers and rent the rubber boats you can go down in. And that in itself was a ton of fun as well. So it’s definitely a different kind of fun. But it is a whole lot easier going out of town with the trailer than when we were packing tents and stuff. Almost all of our camping stuff just lives in the trailer. I put diapers and wipes in at the beginning of summer and never have to bring more. All we do is pack clothes and food. We don’t have one of those super fancy trailers either. We actually originally went to look at the pop up kind. The one we bought ended up being cheaper! I believe it’s supposed to sleep 9. That’s a tough squeeze. But we easily sleep our family and my parents, with plenty of wiggle room. For now with the kids still small there’s plenty of room for an exciting game of Phase 10. That is our card game of choice when camping. The best part about camping weekends too is that a lot of it is just relaxing! We will go boating for awhile but don’t feel like we have to squeeze an entire day in. We can come back around 4pm and still have plenty of time for dinner and just hanging out chatting. That’s half the fun of these weekends is just spending time together. Definitely my favorite part of summer. We easily go pretty much every other weekend. Living where we do, there are so many choices that are less than an hour away. So you don’t spend a ton of time driving somewhere either. It’s always my family and my parents. Sometimes Evan and Rachel will join us and just pitch a tent on our site. Then maybe once per year (usually Lake Powell trip) Mike and Amber will join as well. But even if everyone doesn’t come for the camping part we always have people stop in for a day of boating while we’re there.

I love Wyland's farmer tan, not to mention how tan his legs

are compared to my own.  So cute!

Wyland actually wasn't feeling good this weeked.

We're thinking perhaps 2 year molars.

Baylee likes to nap on the boat.

Love this brotherly love.

So this past weekend we headed to Utah Lake. This is actually a late start for us. Usually we begin in May (one year as early as April), but with California vacation it sucked away 2 weeks in June. It was a beautiful weekend though, good weather the entire time. Unlike last years crappy summer weekends. It was just us and my parents Friday through Sunday morning. It was a great time on the boat and also hanging out at the campsite. My dad won the game of Phase 10 and we shared homemade ice cream out of the bowl (another trailer tradition). The only downside to the entire weekend was the nasty mosquitos! We had stupid burning candles and we were all coated in bug spray and it didn’t help us at all. As soon as dinner was over they came out and started nibbling. Thank GOD we could escape in the trailer. We all came home covered in bug bites. Better hope none of them had West Nile! EEK!! Not really sure what more precautions we could have taken. We had a similar experience there last year, so it’s definitely won’t be anywhere we will be returning this year for overnight camping. Jackson is just enthralled with camping and the trailer this year which is really funny. He asked me several times if we will be camping and boating LOTS this summer. I assured him we would be.

The stage is set.

Oh my gosh how I just loved this picture.  Made me laugh so hard.

Another funny story is about the cars passing through the campground. Jackson has actually gotten to the age that he is more cognoscente of cars and getting out of their way. Wyland on the other hand isn’t, he’s not yet 2. But boy oh boy when we yelled car coming that kid came RUNNING! It was so hilarious. He was almost panicked about it (perhaps we shouldn’t find it so funny). But what a good boy he is. At one point they were both playing along the opposite side of the boat from the road near their bikes and I called out car because I didn’t want them darting out to the other side, Wyland immediately jumped on his bike like he was going to go somewhere but then looked panicked at the same time. I’m not really even sure why he thought it was a good idea to get on the bike. Hilarious I tell you. Guess you had to be there though. We had a great weekend and are already looking forward to our next trip.

Trip in Review

Just to mention I have posted 3 posts in a row for the last two days of our trip.  So you may have to go to the next page to view them all.  Sorry it's hard to catch up when there's so much to show you all. 

As if I haven’t already said so much about our trip. All in all we had such a good time. We squeezed a ton of stuff in a very short amount of time. As sad as we were to come home, I can only speak for myself but I was also ready to come home. We were gone for eight amazing days. We are already talking about going back again in two years when Wyland will be 4 years old. Hopefully he’ll be as tall as Jackson and get to go on all the big kid rides at that time as well. We had planned on this vacation 2 years prior so it’s not surprising we’re already planning again. Amber and I talked about the fact that this was the best Christmas present for the kids (thanks again Mum and Dad!!). They still get toys from us but the gift of these types of memories will last so much longer than any toy will. We would love to plan some sort of trip like this at least every other year. Even if it’s just getting a beach house somewhere and spending a week on the beach.

When we do this again in two years here are some things I would do differently:

1.  Request a 1st floor hotel room.  Don't want to be hauling luggage upstairs again.

2.  Plan at least 1 if not 2 more days of “down time” to go to the beach.  This would make it last longer and also give us a break from the "go go go" all the time.

3.  Bring less food. While we saved a ton of money and we would still brown bag lunches. We didn’t quite need as much as I brought.

4.  Hopefully Evan and Rachel can come too. Maybe not their cup of tea until they have kiddies of their own though.

5.  Hopefully Mum and Dad can join us for longer.

Highlights of the trip and favorite quotes:

1.  Jackson (says on the beach): “Mom, the beach is SOOOO much fun!!”

2.  It was awesome for Baylee to get to see her Godmother.

3.  Jeramie (says in bed): “I really have to poop, but I’m just too tired to get up.” (this may only be funny for those of you that intimately know my husband)

4.  Jackson (says at the hotel): “Mom are we going to ride the alligator?” Me (confused): “Umm .. no we went to the zoo yesterday.” Jackson: “No, are we going to ride the ALLIGATOR?” Me (still confused): “No Jackson, we aren’t riding any alligators, they might bite us!” Jackson (frustrated): “NO MOM THE ALLIGATOR!!!” Me (light bulb turns on): “Oh you mean the ELAVATOR?! Yes we will ride in the elevator.” HAHA!!!!!!

5.  Watching the kids play on the beach and loving it.

6.  Going on big boy rides with Jackson.

7.  Baylee got talked into riding the Tower of Terror with the big kids. I think the only reason that she agreed was because she couldn’t actually see what she was agreeing to. So she’s sat next to my mum on the ride and as soon as the first drop comes she literally grabs and clings to my mum’s arm for dear like and yells, “GRANDMA .. SAVE ME .. I’M SCARED .. SAVE ME GRANDMA!!!!!” When it was over she was fine.

All in all an amazing vacation. It was fun to share all these things with my brother Mike and his family. I don’t think any of us at any point wanted to kill eachother or eachothers kids (contrary to predictions). We had no big traumas during our visit. The kids all had a blast. I’m glad my parents were able to share some of it with us as well.

Thanks everyone for the memories!!

Day Eight - Coming Home

We had originally planned to take some family pictures on the beach while we were in San Diego at the beginning of our trip. But with our hotel being so far from the actual beach this didn’t end up being super convenient. So plan B was to make a run into Redondo Beach on Saturday morning before heading home. This was really pushing us for time since we were planning to drive straight through to home that night. But we couldn’t pass up the opportunity. We were up around 9am the next morning (we wanted to be sure to get a full 8 hours sleep knowing we would be arriving home in the wee hours of the morning). We rushed to pack up all of our bags and consolidate as much of the other stuff as possible. We ended up taking home a TON of food. (note to self – don’t need to buy so much food next time). Then we quickly got on the road to head to Redondo Beach. We were a little nervous because we had all of our luggage in the back of the truck and were having to park in an underground parking structure and just leave it all there. But it was fine. Jeramie was more stressed than I was. And the pictures … the pictures were so worth the effort!! All the boys ended up switching up outfits since there wasn’t an iron in our motel room in Anaheim. So they ended up with white shirts which I’m not usually a fan of in pictures. But because we had just spent the last week in the sun they all looked so yummy and tanned! Like my bargain dress?? $6 on clearance at Old Navy!

I truly adore all these pictures! I’m so glad we stopped to take them. This beach is the beach that my family literally grew up on. So it holds a great deal of sentimental value for us Howard’s. My parents were great about following us out there in order to be our official photographers.

We were then quick to head out and get on the road for home. Wyland was lucky enough to get to stay with my parents and fly home with them. So he didn’t have to endure the long drive home. He was the lucky one because he’s the youngest and by mere days was still able to fly for free. He turns two next week. Baylee and Jackson were both SO amazingly good in the car. The trip home was uneventful, we finally rolled into the driveway at 2:30am. But getting up Sunday morning we were SO happy that we had done it.

Day Seven - Disneyland .. AGAIN!!

Today was rather bittersweet. It was our last day of vacation which is sad .. but our feet were just painful stumps at this point too. My dad joined us for the day as well which was fun. Oh .. and my Dad I swear goes to Disneyland specifically for their parades so we also took in the parade today. The parade was actually pretty fun as well. We met all back up together again in the early afternoon to take in the Jedi Training that they had. Jackson enjoyed watching this. Then we headed over to Critter Country for lunch. We went on a very amusing Splash Mountain ride as well. It was Jeramie, myself, Jackson and my parents. Well I went in the middle of the log because I didn’t want Jackson to get soaked. This left Jeramie and my mum to fight over who got stuck in the front. Of course my mum won and it was Jeramie. However, they both got SOAKED!! It was hilarious listening to Jeramie’s girl squeals. Every time he ducked my mum got it!

Wyland got his first Mickey Ears. Then Jackson decided he wanted some as well. All my kids have their first Mickey Ears and a stuffed Mickey Mouse from their first trip to Disneyland. I’m always a little amazed at families here in Utah that haven’t taken their kids. To drive down there is so affordable. We already plan to go back in two years when Wyland is four.

We stayed this last night until after they closed and finished off the day with Space Mountain. What a fun week. We walked out of there at 12:30am on Friday night (technically Saturday morning), just full of wonderful memories.

Zarley participating in the parade/celebration.

I'm not sure people really go to Disneyland to see Mickey and Minnie anymore.