Our little drunken parrot

Here is a recent video of sammy.

The drunken refers to his drunken sailor walk. He is doing great with walking and running and standing up without climbing up things. I think because of his height, and the newness of his task, he has a little bit of Jack Sparrow in him. You'll see in the end of this clip as he is running from Mom that he kind of pin balls between the couch and the table. We enjoy watching him, but feel bad when the drunkenness makes him hurt himself. He runs into a number of doorways and chairs and things. In fact if you look at his cheek close enough you can see a little line that might match a bar on our chair.

The parrot part is a new thing of his. Just very recently he is starting to mimick words and phrases of ours (This morning I got a B-Y-U out of him that was darling!) with Uh-Oh being the favorite. He is also mimicking some of the baby signs which is fun, so we'll have to get some of those as well.

Enjoy!

A Lot Can Happen in a Month!

Well it's been more than a month since our last post, and to be quite honest, life around our little household is hopefully going to quiet down soon. Here's a little catch up of what we've been doing.

First off, I QUIT my job at Parkside El and took a new part-time job with Washington Online. This has meant cleaning out and boxing up my 2nd grade classroom (holy fire! I am a pack rat!)and training (in St. George - yeah, what a sad perk!) for this new "teacher" position that will allow me to stay home.

For any of you who know how much I LOVE teaching, you know this was one of the toughest decisions I've ever had to make. Seriously, months of thought and prayer went in to this decision. I mean, I know that I'm supposed to stay home with Sammy, and I'm thrilled to do it, but it has been super hard to give up what I've put so much of my grown-up-life in to. I didn't really ever consider it my job...it was more of a hobby. I get a little sentimental as I realize today was the first day of school and all my teacher friends have just met their new students. Sigh. However, I also really like rolling over at 7:30 am and realizing I don't have to get up and go anywhere. So far, I've really enjoyed what I'm doing and my new found "freedom."

On to other news, my sister, Jen, got married on 8-8-08. We spent a lot of time helping out with preparations weeks before and especially the day before and day of the reception. It was a lovely day and we are excited to have another boy in the family. Welcome Cody! Maybe they'll update their blog with fun pics of their new apartment! (hint, hint)

Then, a week ago today on 8-18-08, Kimberly had her twins!!! Yeah cousins! It was super sudden and kind of emergency-ish since she wasn't due until October 8th. K went in for a routine ultrasound and some stress tests and when they checked her, she was already dilated to a 2. So they admitted her to "keep an eye on her" for about 48 hours, but 4 hours later, she was at an 8 and 100% effaced. One of the twins was breach, so after a quick C-section the twins were born!

The babies are both boys (Luke and Lincoln), both weighed 4.2 pounds and were both 17 inches long. They are super healthy for premies and haven't needed any oxygen - a good sign - but will have to stay in the new born special care unit until they can eat on their own and they gain a little more weight. Kimberly was discharged on Thursday, and goes in to visit twice a day. I'm hoping she updates her blog soon with better details. (hint, hint)

Baby Lincoln - (born 1 minute before Luke)

Notice how tiny he is compared to the blue snot sucker (does it have an official name??) - they're almost the same size!

Baby Luke was wide awake the first time I went to visit.
The Boys now officially out-number the girls in the Pond family. We'll have to start working on that one...

Then, two days later, my sister, Nicole, went to China to teach English. This meant going through a lot of donated school items in order to help her pack and keep her bags under the weight limits. People are so nice! and donated a lot of great school and non-school items for her to take. And then, she was off on her adventure. Apparently, she arrived safely and will also hopefully update her blog soon! (hint, hint)

And, not to leave my sister Heather out, she started soccer for Utah State several weeks ago, nearly a month before the semester actually started. Poor girl! Summer's short when soccer season never ends! She's played in 2 games so far and heads out to Oregon this week. Go HP!! We can't wait to come up and cheer for your next game!

Finally, my sweet husband starts school again today - his last semester before getting his masters in Engineering. He was smart though and only scheduled classes on Tuesday and Thursday - so Sammy and I get to enjoy a lot more of his company for the next 4 months! We are going to be so spoiled!!!

On Laughter...

“God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me” --Sarah (Genesis 21:6)

"If you're not allowed to laugh in heaven, I don't want to go there." --Martin Luther

"The act of laughter, which is a sweet contraction of the muscles of the face, and a pleasant agitation of the vocal organs, is not merely, or totally within the jurisdiction of ourselves." --Sir T. Browne

"Laughter is an interior convulsion, producing a distortion of the features and accompanied by inarticulate noises. It is infectious and, though intermittent, incurable." --Ambrose Bierce

"The person who can bring the spirit of laughter into a room is indeed blessed." --Bennett Cerf

"There is little success where there is little laughter." --Andrew Carnegie

"The most wasted of all days is one without laughter." --EE Cummings

"With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die." --Abraham Lincoln

"What soap is to the body, laughter is to the soul." --Yiddish Proverb

"Laughter is the shortest distance between two people." --Victor Borge

"With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come." --William Shakespeare

Good-bye baby Sammy -- Welcome toddler!

It has been so much fun watching Sammy's walk develop. He's been walking along things for several months now.

But...on Tuesday, July 15th he decided that walking has its perks! Here are his first, tentative steps. He's so careful to make sure he's balanced and when he's not, he knows crawling is much more stable! This is also his favorite blanket, could you tell?

Sammy has been practicing his walking all week and he's getting VERY good at it. He's even better now than when I took this short video. He's a very quick learner!!! Yikes! My baby's growing up!

Pioneer Sammy

We had an eventful end of June and beginning of July, with our Nauvoo trip, Sammy's birthday, and Yellowstone. For personal family history reasons, we've wanted to do a detailed job on these posts and we did Yellowstone first because we were waiting to get some pictures from other family members for the Nauvoo trip. Anyway, in the meantime, I thought I would post this movie of Sammy.


The movie was taken in the Far West visitor's center. There is a sister missionary talking in the back ground, and my sound effects may be slightly annoying--for you sound-effect-inept-individuals, I'm making the sound of the whips :-)


We had already posted this on The Sams Blog (the blog for our birthmom) but thought everyone else would enjoy it too.

Yellowstone Vacation July 4--July 7

Yellowstone – Day 1, Road-trip
For the Independence Day weekend, the DaBell family (Michelle’s Mother’s family) decided to take a trip up to Yellowstone. It was actually just Dan & Jean’s family as well as Michelle’s immediate family (minus the Baum’s). Anyway we took the road trip starting Friday morning (after I finished putting up flags for the scouts of course!). I was pretty excited to go because I had never been to Yellowstone. I think Michelle was more excited for me to have my first time. It was like the first time we went to Disneyland, I think she was more excited for me to go my first time than I was excited for me to go my first time. What a fun wifey she is!

Nicole was the lucky person for the ride up that got to sit in the back seat with Sammy. He had a rough time the first and last hour of the trip, and Nicole nearly lost her sanity. It’s funny because Michelle and I usually can just tune him out when he is being fussy, but not some of the aunts who aren’t used to him. So after a little while of fussing, she is going nuts and we aren’t really paying attention to it. That was probably exaggerated by the fact that I was listening to Eragon on cd, so I was only focusing on that and the road. :-)

We stopped for lunch at Bubba’s BBQ grill in Jackson Hole. It was great food!


The route we took went through Jackson Hole and up through the Tetons. They are an amazing ridge of mountains, and we’ll have to plan a vacation there sometime as well. I’m sure there are some fabulous hikes and views to enjoy!

The lodges in Yellowstone we stayed in (Lake Lodge) were quite cheap. They were pretty simple but did the job. The cabins were located just off of Yellowstone Lake. Of course it was a beautiful area, and we even enjoyed some roaming Bison right close by. In fact one evening 4 Bison came roaming right through our little cabin area. A couple nights we heard Coyotes howling and they sounded quite close. Our neighbors got up early to see some bears in the area, but we weren’t ever lucky enough to catch a glimpse.

Here are some pictures of us by the lake.


This is Heather with Sammy. After Nicole went crazy on the way up, Heather became our passenger in back with Sam. I think her tolerance level is a bit higher from tending Sammy throughout the month of May, but Sammy did his best to try her patience at times! These road trips really make us thankful for the pacifiers! Remind me to congratulate Ronald Binky on an amazing invention. (M– is that really his name? D – Crapper invented the toilet, so why not?)

At nights we talked and played games all together. It was pretty fun even though there were 16 people crammed into one little 12’x12’ room. We played “The Name Game”, and “4 Socks on the Couch” and “Catch Phrase”. Aunt Jean was getting a little rowdy and unsportsmanlike with her post game victory dances, and so Ralph did some post victory antics to offset those. One night Ralph and Jean were actually on the same team so we did our best to ensure they lost so that it didn’t get too out of hand!

Yellowstone – Day 2, Old Faithful
Our second day of Yellowstone we hiked to the Natural Bridge, went to Old Faithful, and saw some of the geysers and hot pots in Biscuit Basin.

The Natural Bridge hike was funny because we heard some information that said it was just a 100-yard hike out of the parking lot. Well it turns out that it was probably a mile to the spot, and then a 100 yard hike off of the path. Oh well it was a fun hike and we had a great time with it.


Cousin’s (in law) and second cousins. Sammy’s second cousin Blake was only around for half day Saturday because they had to get to another “work” conference in Alaska. We thought it was funny that the whole trip was Mike’s idea and then he tried to get out of it, but we were glad to see them for a couple days.
Below the bridge
Above the bridge
Tanna, Jed, Pete & Abby. Pete & Abby were so cute with Sammy! They would always come say hi, and try to include him in their games. Later on there is a picture of Abby and Sammy holding hands as we walked along one of the boardwalks. Darling!
Wildlife on top of the bridge

More wildlife
More wildlife
Sammy really enjoys going on hikes, though half the time he just enjoyed the nap! So did we!
Old Faithful was pretty cool. As we were driving down the mountain to get to the Old Faithful area, it was going off and steam soared above the trees. That was a fun start to the Old Faithful experience. I couldn’t believe how many people were there to see this geyser. There was a massive parking lot and a huge crowd around the boardwalk waiting for it to blow. We had some lunch then found a shady place to sit and watch.

Hurry and get a picture while it is going!

Then we went on a walk around some of the boardwalk trails that have a bunch of boiling pots and mini geysers in the Old Faithful area. They were fun, and amazing to look at and think about how thin the earth’s crust is around here; but the smell wasn’t too pleasant! We termed those areas free fart zones. :-)

Goofing around on a random rock that looked like it was the base of a statue at one point. We tried to see how far back we could lean before we tumbled off. Easily amused I suppose.
Relaxing after some ice cream. Those rocking chairs out front are for sale, but who would pay that much money?!

We then went to see some smaller geysers and springs in the biscuit basin area. To be honest, we enjoyed those more than the Old Faithful area. Old Faithful was cool, but the surrounding boardwalk wasn’t as cool as the ones in the biscuit basin boardwalk. There were a couple deep clear awesome springs, that were really amazing.

Michelle with the Sapphire spring. This was one of our favorites.

Sammy, Daddy, Grandpa

Baby plumber crack to go with Grandpa’s plumber t-shirt
The water 100 feet downstream was still VERY Hot

We then made a quick stop at the Blacksand basin:

Let’s be honest, Sam doesn’t mind if I’m wearing his hat, he tries to pull it off most of the time anyway.
Annette & Ralph aka: An’ma & Am’pa
Heather & Nicole in front of the Sunset spring.

We finally finished the day at Keppler Cascades. This was an amazing slot canyon view with a big waterfall and sheer drop off. Totally worth the 3 minutes to pull over and see the view.

On the way back to the cabin we saw some Bison, the final picture being just west of our cabins.

Heather: Hey! Is that a bison? Or a really dark rock with horns?

Yellowstone – Day 3, Grand Canyon
The third day of our Yellowstone trip was for the Canyon area.

The first stop was at Dragon cauldron’s. My favorite part about these was the dragon’s mouth. It was a big cave that looked and sounded like a Dragon was breathing inside. The steam and mud gushed out of the entrance with a sound of a Dragon. Pretty Cool!

Here is the darling little picture of Sammy and Abby.
Stinky Sulfur Sauna
Heather trying to decide what stinks – Sammy, the sulphur pool behind her, or the fact that all we keep seeing are Bison! If only a bear were hanging out on the other side of the pool!
boiling mud pot

In front of the dragon’s mouth
The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone was awesome! I think these were my favorite sites to see. There was the upper falls and the lower falls. There were a couple of viewpoints to see the falls from above, and then a hike “Uncle Tom’s trail” which was stairs to about ¾ down the canyon. From here you could see the larger lower falls about as close up from the bottom as you could see. It was totally worth the 300 something stairs!

The upper falls. We would eventually go to that viewpoint on the other side just above the falls where you can see people standing.


The lower falls

The next few pictures are all from Uncle Tom’s trail bottom

Another destination of this Grand Canyon area was Artist’s Point. This was downstream of the lower falls and had some breathtaking views.

Nicole and her Mom

It’s a bit rough on a little guy that doesn’t walk. He doesn’t really have much freedom to move around – he’s either in a stroller, a car seat, on being held. So when we stopped for a bit, we let Sammy forage around in the bedding that was used by Jen’s fiancé Cody.

We stopped for lunch at a little pull out area down by the river.


We finished out the day by seeing the other side of the canyon at the viewpoint that could be seen in the Upper Falls pictures. This was awesome! We were super close and Sammy even thought it was cool.

Family photo time!
On the way home we stopped at a little visitor’s center. They had a bunch of the animals found in the park taxidermied and on display. It was pretty cool. Jen found Sammy a little ranger hat that looked darling!

Sammy thinks it is funny to bite daddy. My first defense is to just rub him with scruff and make him giggle. The problem with this method is he thinks we are playing a game – if I bite Daddy he’ll tickle me.

So I had to resort to biting back! That seemed to do the trick. It is like a game of mercy. I think he finally realized that this is not a game he would win
The lodge had an LDS sacrament service at 7pm. It was a nice testimony meeting.
Yellowstone – Day 4, Road trip home
Alas, the quick trip had to come to an end. We went to see a couple more sites on the way out, and then started the journey home. On the way to Yellowstone we went through Jackson Hole and up through the south entrance, so on the way home we decided to go through the West entrance and come home through Idaho. The West entrance road had quite a lot of wildlife so that was fun. We saw herds of elk, moose, had a bison cut us off when he crossed the road, saw a bald eagle in his nest, and smashed zillions of bugs.

Here is our last little hike around steamboat geyser:
Sammy thinks Cody is cool. And Nicole is too!

And our final stop was for one last waterfall:


On the road again!

We stopped at Craigo’s in Rexburg for some buffet lunch. It was excellent and we were glad we got the referral from the Grunigs.

Well the trip was lots of fun! We only wish we had more time to do more hikes and see more sites and even take our bikes to do some of those rides. We’ll definitely have to do it again!

Yellowstone Conspiracy!
Heather had a running joke with us that the geysers have died and are run by machine and pipe. Old Faithful has a guy down below the surface opening up a valve and then closing it. We found some evidence supporting this claim:

Pipes! So why would pipes be run right through the middle of nowhere!!

A shovel! If these holes appeared naturally, why the shovel?! We performed a quick carbon dating test (we looked at the rust) and it appears to match the date of the appearance of the holes!! Aha!

Thanks Heather for keeping it fun.