Fun With the In-Laws!

Last Thursday, Collin's Grandma and Grandpa Evans came to visit (aka Trav's mom and dad)!

On Friday we visited Letchworth Park. It's a whole lotta driving to get there and look around, but it's worth it! hehe. It was breathtaking, but make sure you know how to get there before you start the trip! :) Truthfully, we only had to turn around once, but I like to give Trav a hard time. We've heard that Letchworth is the "Grand Canyon of the East". I guess you could call it that, just add thousands of green trees and much smaller canyons. It's about an hour and 20 min. to get there, then you pay to drive into the park, which is about 18 miles, and then just drive to different lookout points. There are trails and waterfalls and beautiful views.

I like this picture because you can see a man in the bottom left and it just shows how enormous the water fall is!

We also saw quite a few animals including a deer, a beaver, chipmunks, and squirrels.

This little guy didn't know it, but Trav was soon to run over his cousin squirrel on our way out! So sad! I was looking at Collin when Trav saw it run out. I felt the bump, then stupidly looked behind us to see him, paws up, on the pavement. I don't even like animals, but I so hate to see them die! Trav assured me though, that we did the forest a favor, as it was a mafia squirrel that beat his little squirrel children.

Could this BE any more picturesque? Seriously people, this was the scene as we drove away.

We were pooped after our little trip and decided to go have dinner at "CheeChee Burger" (as Wayne called it :) This is one of the faces Collin was making on the drive to the restaurant. He was crackin' me up. It looks like he's getting ready to eat... maybe he was excited that we were going to CheeCheeBurger and thought he was getting nummies. Haha.

Wayne still needs to take it easy, since he's still recovering from his surgery, so we just hung out around the house on Saturday. They watched Collin in the morning while Trav and I went garage saleing (sp?) and then Wayne played ref while Trav and I played Badminton.

Darn Trav beat me again!! I can't catch a break in this game!

It was nice having them come to church with us on Sunday and then we had friends over that night to play Mafia, so they joined in on the fun. Forgot to take pics of the killing though. :)

On Monday, Trav had school all day, so we spent the morning inside. Wayne caught a pic of Collin getting his "reading time". I'll have a Scripts Spelling Champ for sure! (hopefully if you know me well enough, you know I'd consider my child quite the loser for being in that-certainly not a goal I have for them! Let's get real :)

Then we went to Delaware Park for a picnic and enjoyed the nice weather.

That night we went to an FHE/BBQ at Cheektowaga Town Park with a bunch of friends.

Which one is Trav?!

Wayne got this pic of Trav that I love! I'm sure Trav will be thrilled that I included it. :)

Don't let that winning smile fool you though, he's about to wreak havoc on the flock of seagulls that wanted to join us. Funny cuz you can see one invading in the background of this picture.

He and Ryan decided to put their footballs to good use, trying to hit the seagulls that were dive bombing our dinner. First the squirrel, now the sea gull. Can this man be stopped?! And look at poor, impressionable Marcus in the picture! I'm afraid he'll be held accountable for this one.

On to the church history sites! We spent Tuesday in Palmyra, first at the Hill Cumorah.

Then we visited the E.B. Grandin Publishing Building. This was our first time there and I really enjoyed it, minus the talkative man with all the obsure questions on our tour :)

In the display box is a first edition Book of Mormon. There were 5,000 printed and it took about 2 years to complete the project.

Then we went to the Smith Farm. We were in the log cabin, and the sister missionary was right in the middle of describing the First Vision, tearing up and trying her best to bring in the Spirit, when Collin just let one out. That's my boy! We had to wait until she was done with her presentation to step out, and here is what awaited us....

I think he was quite pleased with himself. It was such a mess, I just stripped him right down in the grass. Now how many people can say they've been naky at the Joseph Smith Farm?

While in the Sacred Grove, Collin had his hands clasped together like he was praying. So cute. Of course he's really doing one of his favorite things, sucking all over his hands, arm, whatever he can get in his mouth.

On Wednesday we went to Niagara Falls. We dropped his parents off at the Falls, then drove farther down to park ( we just though $18 was a little pricey to park). Of course that meant walking through the mist and getting soaked :) Always a good time.

And then later that night we went to the Original Anchor Bar to eat. Supposedly this is the very place that wings were "invented". They even have the story on their menu. Pretty tasty. We had a great time with Grandma and Grandpa and miss them already.

The Not-So-Eternal Flame

More hiking!

Last Tuesday, we decided to go on a little "day adventure" with the Carters. It's about a 30 min. drive south to hike to the "Eternal Flame". It was only 1.3 miles total and didn't take too long, which was just perfect since we both had our little ones with us. Near the end, you hike along a creek until you get to the waterfall that has a natural gas leak behind it. The smell of gas permeated the whole area. It smelled much like my sister's kitchen did when I attempted to cook on her gas stove, but didn't quite know how one worked..... oops. Much to our dismay, the phantom "Eternal Flame" was not burning! Apparently you're supposed to bring a lighter to start it up, as it frequently gets put out by the waterfall. The only reason I knew where it was supposed to be, was because I had seen it on other people's blogs. Thus, we had to give it a thumbs down. :(

The Carter's will never trust us again for leading them on a fruitless treasure hunt!

Trav attempting to be Tarzan.

The Collinator was screaming for food by the time we reached our destination, so the Carters gave me some privacy as I donned my "supermom cape" :) Some hikers up above me weren't so obliging. I looked up when I saw a group of kids waving and shouting hi. Of course I was covered, and only briefly thought about giving them a show. Kidding! We had a great time and would love to find some other good hikes in the area. So I guess I'll just keep blogstalking and copying everyone else's good times :)

FuN In Da SuN!

Last Wednesday, the Mia Maids and Laurels went on a little hike to Niagara Gorge for mutual. I seriously looked forward to it ALL DAY. (I was getting a little tired of the house!) As you can see, there are four leaders (Tiff is taking the pic) and three girls. This is fairly typical of any YW activity :)

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The water was breathtaking- like a bright teal color. Where we are standing is still the U.S., but on the other side is Canada.

We had a fun picnic before the arduous hike. Complete with sandwiches that Sis. Varona made with her homemade bread. She is an amazing cook!

Collin came along for the ride. His first time in a Baby Bjorn.

We had to keep our eyes on Hunter, who liked to pick up millipedes along the way. Barf. And yet this girl is terrified of ants. Seriously!

It was really a very short hike, made up mostly of steep, rock stairs to get you to the water. From where I'm standing taking this picture to where the girls are by the water, was a very steep, dirt incline. I wanted to touch the water, but Sis. Varona played the mom card on me and said it was too dangerous with Collin. Sigh. I almost did it anyway, then decided to be a good example and obey my leaders, hehe.

So while the girls had fun, Tiff accompanied me back out so I could feed the babers.

Here is an example of one of the many flights of stairs we hiked. Can you see little, bitty Tiff at the top?! Needless to say our behinds got a workout!

Saturday afternoon, we went to Crystal Beach with the Shaws and their friends that were in town visiting, Jamielynn and Clark. It was a lot of fun, minus the hundreds of high school teeny boppers. Apparently we chose to go on school "beach day" :( And we were lucky enough to have a particulary intelligent group of kids that were fluent in the "four letter word" language, next to us. Who knew you could insert " f@#*! " 8 times in a sentence. No joke. I wanted to cover my little baby's ears. So glad they remembered their smokes too. That just topped it off!

Rach made us yummy subs for lunch.

Da Girls :)

Collin wasn't lovin' the beach too much, which makes me nervous for Oceanside, CA.... but maybe being a couple months older will help. Trav and I are whity white, but we took comfort in the fact that we could never be whiter than Collin, hehe.

Isn't this picture a gem! Haha. I didn't even see her do it. You have to beware, taking pics with my camera! Love ya, Rach! :)

And the ever lovely border. My worst fear is getting stuck in this mess and having to use the bathroom- ya know what I mean?! It would be like that scene out of Two Weeks Notice. And I would find a camper!

Well, fun in the sun was over by now, but I had to document our first experience at CheeBurger CheeBurger! When we first saw this restaurant, we just made fun of it, but apparently it's quite the place. And I knew my brother, David, would be jealous of the Mason jars they serve your drinks in! I only know of one other restaurant that does that and it's in the depths of a ghetto in Phoenix. It's called LoLo's Chicken and Waffles. Classic. A must if you visit the city of the sun. Kool Aid never tasted better. :)

Sucker

I'll admit it. I'm a sucker. If I ever come across an infomercial, I have to watch it. I start out scoffing, but within 10 min. I've decided I just HAVE to have those awesome knives that cut through aluminum cans or the Shark vacuum cleaner that picks up nails. Never mind that I've yet to serve tin for dinner or had a need to clean up a construction site via vacuum cleaner. Now the latest contraption on my list is The Magic Bullet. I had seen the actors whip up salsa and smoothies in mere seconds on T.V., but the clincher was when I went home two weeks ago and my mom had actually purchased The Magic Bullet! I had a delicious fruit smoothie for breakfast every morning and now I was as hooked as a trout on a line. Now some may ask, why the need for the individual sized cups? That my friend, is the essence of the Bullet. No big blender to clean up! The blender becomes your cup and washes as easy as a glass in the top rack of the dishwasher. I am a "dish consolidator". My mother is not. Which is interesting considering that she bought the Bullet. I can make a whole pan of enchiladas and only dirty one pot, a bowl, and the pan that they bake in. When my mom came to visit, I think she used every pot and bowl in my kitchen to make enchiladas. This is humorous, but beside the point. I now feel like the Bullet is my destiny. I woke up this morning, turned on the T.V. and wouldn't you know it, the Magic Bullet infomercial was on! The complete 21 piece system was selling for only three easy payments of $33.33!! But wait! There's more! Order now and get the second system completely free! That's all I needed to hear! Of course I only needed one system, but I could sell the second one on Craig's list. It was the perfect plan. I had the number written down and was up in bed, waking Travis to beg for it, in mintues. He just paused, sighed, and said "whatever you want". (He's gotten really good at responding to my requests this way!) However, I know it means he really doesn't think we need it, but he's not going to tell me no. Funny how giving me the go-ahead actually has the opposite effect. I got to thinking, we're poor students. I guess we don't really, technically need the super cool Bullet. I could probably spend $50 on something practical like the phone bill I always forget to pay. Sigh. Being practical never has a bright side. So I will go without my dish consolidating- uber cool smoothie maker for a while longer. I guess I still have my completely useless Shark to ease my pain. If only it sucked up hair as well as it sucks up screws....

It's Gettin' Cold in Here....

... so put on ALL your clothes!

The weather is so weird out here! On Thursday it was so humid and warm that I turned on the air conditioning and then this morning the thermostat read 63 degrees! I must have been cold last night because I dreamed that it snowed again. Shudder. I didn't think Collin would get the chance to wear this cute, wool jumpsuit, but here he is, all warm and snuggly!

I think the weather started going downhill on Saturday night. Camille wanted to surprise Andy for his birthday, so she threw him a BBQ at our house. Lots of people came and we had a great time until about 9pm when it started to rain. :(

Collin enjoyed the party from his perch on the picnic table.

Even though it was a sunny day, the wind was pretty cold and I ended up giving out a couple of my jackets to some girls who hadn't anticipated the cold weather.

Here's Dave with his new toy.

The three prego girls...

Trav was the grill man for the night, but the wind was making the fire a little difficult to control...

... thus singeing some poor hair on his hand.

Camille went all out on the food- burgers, hot dogs, beans, veggies, watermelon, fruit, apples and Snickers salad, pasta salad, green salad, chips, dip, rootbeer floats, cake and ice cream. I'm full again just talking about it!

He turned the big 26 today. Happy Birthday Andy!

I don't know if my cousin, Jenny Richardson, ever checks my blog, but I wanted to thank her and Randy for helping me out last week. Collin had an appt. at a Diagnostic Imaging Lab to have a scintiscan done. It was to check to see if he has reflux. I debated about actually going through with it because 1- I was nervous about the procedure and 2- even if it confirmed he did have reflux, I didn't really think I wanted him on Prevacid or Zantac to treat it. It was the night before and I had been online researching everything I could find on reflux and the scintiscan, etc. when Randy's name popped into my head. He's a pediatric radiologist and would be the perfect person to ask for his opinion about this. I only hesitated because I know doctors get annoying people asking them all sorts of questions and wanting free advice and I didn't want to be one of "those" people. But I guess I either have no shame or was just really desperate because I called him anyway. Not only did he not act annoyed, but he asked me questions about Collin, was so helpful, and told me just what I needed to hear! I was SO relieved and thankful! So in case you're wondering, I did not go through with the scintiscan. I still think Collin has reflux, but they eventually grow out of it, and I'd rather help it with natural things. Hence, the picture below. I bought some homeopathic Colic Calm and the only think I hate about it is that it's dark black, because of the vegetable charcoal. I don't give it to him very often, but I did one time last week, then stuck his pacificer in. When I pulled it out, this is what he looked like! Hehe, my little French man with a goatee :)

Collin keeps pretty busy during the day with such things as......

helping me with the laundry ....

(with the washer in the basement, and our room upstairs, the poor kid has taken many a ride in the laundry basket as I transfer loads up and down the stairs)

... tummy time.....

(yes mom, we are doing all we can to prevent the dreaded "flat head" :)

... working on balance.....

.... and of course looking handsome!

I think this pic is hilarious with his facial expression and the way he's holding his hands. Like he's on the way to the country club or something. Oh this kid makes me so happy!