Keeping Up With the Joneses

Our lives have been pretty dull since returning from Waterton a week and a half ago. Mason and Myles have been spending a lot of time in Delta where Mason is taking swimming lessons. This is his third swimming class and he has loved the other two. This one started out differently, however, when it took Mason three days to even get in the water. We think his tubing accident scared him to death, but luckily he has a very patient teacher that encouraged him to get in. Since then he has been slowly getting more courageous and now will join the class. Myles continues to be our little family clown and will do anything for a laugh. He has picked up a bad habit of hitting and is starting to receive many, many time-outs. The problem is, we think he really doesn't mind. Whenever Mason gets a time-out, Myles will follow him and sit with him until it is over. I had a problem the last week we were in Waterton with my knee where I kept dislocating the knee-cap. The first time I was turning to si...

We just got back from another two week vacation in Waterton. This time, Marshall, his sister, and nephew joined us for the last week. We had a great time with lots of hiking, boating, and best of all RELAXING. Turns out I was the only one without a Nintendo DS on the trip (which was fine by me). This is how everyone spent some of those cold Canadian nights. . . Including Mason and Myles! One day we took the kids to the Remington Carriage Museum in Cardston. I thought it would be really boring for them but they loved riding in the "caboose" and driving the horses (really just a video of a horse's butt riding along). They loved bike-riding with their grandpa Goates. As soon as Myles would see grandpa, a bike, or the stroller he would start calling "gampa, bike!" Mason right before the horrible falling-off-the-tube accident. He wouldn't try tubing the whole rest of the time which was a shame because he loved it so much. And finally, Marshall took about a zi...

We've been in Waterton for a few days now and last night I had the scare of my lifetime. Mason was riding on the tube behind the boat and having a blast. First he was with his grandpa, then he refused to get off and give Jessica a turn so she rode with him. After a while we tried to talk him into having a break but he was loving it so much he just didn't want to get off the tube. So we started up again with him and Jessica on the tube, going slow as usual. My dad very slowly accelerated a little and somehow the front of the tube got caught under the water and pulled them under. Mason fell off the tube into the FREEZING COLD lake and Jessica jumped off after him. I was the spotter and as I was yelling at my dad to stop I couldn't see Mason anywhere. Neither could Jessica or my dad. I was starting to really freak out and was climbing over the edge of the boat to jump in and find him, when Jessica saw a tiny hand reaching out of the water. She quickly grabbed him and pulled ...

We had a busy but very fun day here in Provo. This is my first July 4th in Provo and we found plenty to do. We left our house a little before 6 AM and headed to the Balloon Festival, where 20 or so hot air balloons take off and fly around a field. We parked in the McDonald's parking lot so we felt like we had to grab some breakfast there before walking to the field, and who did we meet but Ronald McDonald. Now, unlike when I was his age, Mason had no idea who is was but was still excited and talked to him and wanted us to take a picture of him. The balloons were really neat and kept the boys entertained. . .for a little while. After some resting, driving around looking at houses, and shopping, we had a big BBQ at my house. Originally we thought we would have 5-7 people and didn't really plan on anything, but a few hours before the BBQ people started showing up to hang out and we invited a few more people, and before we knew it we had 17 people over. Good thing the fridge was...