Random Pictures from my Phone

After the non-family reunion up by Bear Lake we stopped in Garden City to eat some lunch and some yummy yummy raspberry shakes...yum (I want one right now.... :D)
Laney and some of the other kids she does Tumbling with.
In Germany they have these AWESOME little carts for kids....I wish they had them here. Maybe the kids would stop climbing on the big carts!!
When we picked Ben up at the airport...we gave him about 5 seconds to re-pack and then we were off to Paris!!! :D
One of the grocery stores in Germany had these cool little compartments in the cart....Ty's little booty was a perfect fit.
We went to the park with my friend from England and they had these spiny things. Ty just wanted to sit in them and have me spin him around. He would close his eyes and I thought he was going to fall asleep. It was pretty funny.
We went to Wheeler Farm and caterpillars kept falling from the trees on me. One of the ones I flicked off Ty picked up and he seriously carried it around forever, just letting crawl up and down his arms.
We went to the Zoo a month or so ago and we couldn't pull Ty away from the sloth. He just stood and watched it for about 10-15 minutes.
Gorilla Laney
Gorillas Ty

Swimming Lessons

Laney did swimming lessons last summer and it was a battle to keep her in the water at first and not freak out. We went swimming a couple of times last summer and she was just terrified of the water and would rather sit on the steps or on the edge. But by the end of last summer she was getting a lot better and actually enjoying herself. So she was quite excited for swimming lessons this year....and so was Ty. It was hard trying to keep him out of the water last year when Laney was swimming and he did fall in on the last day.
This year I couldn't keep Laney above the water long enough to actually tell her something. She was constantly going under the water.
Here she is with one of her teachers doing "big arms".

My little fish. When we went with the kids to the swimming pool she actually practiced kicking off the wall and swimming under the water over to us. She did so good. I was very impressed. She also would go under the water in the deep end and try to reach the bottom...which she did once or twice.
Then there was Ty. Ty has always loved the water and like I said last year he fell in the water during Laney's swimming lessons because he was playing by the water. THIS YEAR, he was so excited to go to swimming lessons and was happy until we go to the pool....and then I couldn't get him even go in the water. He said it was because it was a man who was his teacher....he's never had a problem with that before...but even the next day when it was a girl he freaked out.
So out of 8 classes he was in the water 1 time...and the whole time he was whining and kind of crying. So we'll try again next year. He IS really good at floating on his back though. :D

Tutorial on Catching Crabs - Demonstrated by the Master Joshua

1 - Grab you bucket, your net, and a long string with a clothes pin tied at the end.


2. You get your aunt to grab some muscles out of the water for you and then you grab a rock and break open the muscles so the inside gooey part is exposed.
3. You attach the muscle to the clothes pin and look long and hard into the water until you spot a crab (It takes some training to spot them....:D). Then you drop the string into the water....slowly and carefully.
4. Then you yell for you slow picture taking aunt to grab the net and scope the crab up after you have slowly pulled the crab out of the water.
5. Then you lower the crab into the bucket after you remember that you need water in the bucket.6. Then you catch as many crabs as you want and then release them back into the water when you're done looking at them.
Tak Joshie!!! Jeg er rigtig glad for at du vidste mig hvordan man fanger krabber....Det var rigtig spaendende og nu vil Laney og Ty ogsaa gerne laere at fange krabber. Du maa lige vise dem det naeste gang vi kommer.

My Trip to Denmark

Ben stayed home with the kids while I went to Denmark for 10 days so I could go to a class reunion and celebrate my Grandma's 80th birthday. Here are some pictures of the highlights of the trip. Jumping on the trampoline at Wendy's house with Erin and Joshua (luckily there's not a picture of me jumping...)
Celebrating my Grandma's birthday with the rest of the Gram fam.



Eating brunch at Pia's apartment with the Rasmussen fam.

Hanging out with my little bro Zak!
Finding and picking the biggest strawberries with Joshie, my mom, and Wendy.
Other highlights were....driving up to Denmark with my mom....driving back to Germany with my dad....playing a fun game of soccer with Zak, Erin and Joshua half an hour before I had to leave for the airport (Zak - you're the man).....and most of all spending time with family and friends.

Vi Elsker Vort Land

Charlottenlund
Nyhavn
Nyhavn
Nyhavn - Ben's favorite place.
Vor Frue Kirke
A random yellow house in Copenhagen
A green door in Augustenborg
The walkway around Augustenborg castle
A cool sailboat in Augustenborg
Als Fjord
Egernsund - Flensborg Fjord
Egernsund - Flensborg Fjord

Air Guitar

We were listening to some kids' music and one of the song is our absolute favorite (Tordenskjold). Anyway, when the song is almost over it stops for about 2 seconds and starts again for about 15 seconds with just instrumental jammin'. Laney and Ty were eating lunch and when the music stopped Laney says loudly in a scratchy voice, "Get ready for rock 'n' roll!!" The music then started again and she air guitared it with half closed eyes and teeny bit of head banging.

Then afterwards she tells me, "I think I can play the air guitar now.....see" and then she played a little for me.....! :D

The Bike Experience

So Ben decided that it was time Laney learned to ride her bike without the training wheels. So they practiced a couple of times and set a goal for her to learn within a week. She did pretty good if she was telling Ben something and then when she stopped and started concentrating on riding she would start falling. The funniest was that she was always ready to bail. If the bike started falling a little bit to the side, she immediately had both legs on one side and would jump off...even though Ben was holding on to the bike the whole time. So Ben had a theory of how to help her. He told me on the way home from somewhere that he was going to take the training wheels off Laney's old bike (which is now Ty's) and let her ride on that. When we got home, two minutes after Ben told me this, we saw Laney's little friend riding around on her old bike with no training wheels and doing REALLY well. So having confirmed his theory Ben jumped out of the car and took the training wheels off the little bike, Laney jumped on and off she went. Now she's riding her own bike and doing excellent.

Laney's Birffday

Okay, as usual these are in reverse order...so sorry but I don't want to attempt switching them around... anyway, we had Laney's birthday for her friends after came home from Germany.
We were thinking about having a birthday party at our house with all 10 or so of her little friends. I had it all planned out in my head...i would decorate with big polka dots and stripes and make cute, fun oversized cupcakes and they could have a fun little hot cocoa party.....and Ben would take care of all the activities and I could go around taking pictures.
But when Ben humbly declined the amazing offer of taking care of activites and 10 kids because he doesn't really know what goes on a birthday parties I felt like we needed a different plan. So we diecided that Laney could take a couple of the kids she plays with the most and go to Jungle Jim's.
It was really fun and turned out good. They have fun rides that they kids played on for about an hour and then they served us pizza and drinks. We brought our own cake and plates and such since Laney wanted a Strawberry Shortcake Party.
The kids had a blast.


Here's the Celebrated One's Strawberry Shortcake Cake.
And the birthday table.