Trip to Canada

After our trip to Billings we headed up to Lethbridge to visit my parents. As you can tell we are really enjoying living closer to family. We got up there on Thursday night.

Friday - On Friday morning we all got packed up and we went to Waterton National Park. I remember spending many happy days in that park growing up and I wanted to visit it again. As we drove the weather was cloudy and rainy but luckily it cleared up by the time we got into the park. We went and sat by Waterton lake and ate lunch. When we finished with our lunch we decided to let the boys throw rocks in the lake. Apparently they weren't satisfied with that and they both ended up wading and swimming in the lake. I thought they were pretty brave, since the water was chilly.

Alan wading in the lake and showing us a rock he is going to throw.

Conner went swimming. As he started to wade out farther and farther, we just took all of his clothes off and let him go. He waded out to his waist once, but then he fell face first into the water and Reed and to go pull him out. That didn't stop him from wanting to go out again though.

Such a cute little boy

After that we all went over to Cameron falls and took pictures (for some reason I can't find those pictures) and enjoyed the scenery. Then we all went up to Cameron Lake. We rented a row boat and we all had fun taking turns trying to row. I know it looks easy, but it isn't. We did more than one unintentional circle in the middle of the lake. After that we went back to the town site and everyone got ice cream. It was a very fun day.

Saturday - On Saturday morning Reed and I went to the temple while my parents watched the boys. When we came back we went to the air show. The theme of the show was "The Russians are coming". Some of the highlights were watching a pretend dog fight between 2 Russian planes and 1 Canadian plane, watching a lady stand on top of the plane while it was flying and the finale was watching the Snowbirds. It was neat to watch the Snowbirds fly in formation - it was almost scary how close they got to each other.

The announcer said that in some formations the planes were less than 3 feet from each other.

Below is a picture of 4 of the snowbirds flying at each other from different directions. At the last second they would flip onto their sides and skim by the other planes. It looked like they were going to crash until they rotated at the last second.

Alan standing by one of the planes that was on display.

Alan had fun going down some big inflatable slides that they had there.

It was a hot afternoon but my brother Reed got us seats in the VIP section so we had some shade which was really nice.

The result of spending an exciting afternoon watching the airshow and being out in the sun - both boys fell asleep on the way home.

That night my brother Reed and his girlfriend Jodie came over for a bar-be-que. They recently got a little beagle puppy named Ace. Ace is very cute and friendly - maybe a little over friendly sometimes. Both of the boys were a little afraid of him.

Conner meeting Ace

Alan meeting Ace

Conner helping Grandpa Pitcher mow the grass

Sunday - We went out to Hillspring to see my cousin Nick speak in church before he goes on his mission. It was so fun to see my aunts, uncles and cousins. That afternoon we headed back home. It was a great trip.

Trip to Billings

Just so you know I posted the pictures in backwards order, starting at the end of our trip and going on to the beginning. Also this is a LONG post. A couple of weekends ago we went to Billings to visit Reed's parents and see Ken (Reed's brother) and his 4 kids. It was really good to see them and let the kids get acquainted with their cousins (Ken and Shelly live in Ohio and we hadn't seen their kids for 2 1/2 years).

Monday: Bishop Hansen kindly invited us to go boating with his family on Monday afternoon. We had a blast!! Reed and Alan were the first ones out on the lake. Reed took Alan tubing for his first time. I wish I could say Alan enjoyed it but that would be a lie. The whole time they were being pulled behind the tube Alan was telling Reed he didn't want to get wet and he wanted to get back on the boat. When the boat stopped both Alan and Reed got dumped into the water. Alan came back up screaming and crying but he settled down once we got him in the boat. Bishop Hansen saved the day by letting Alan help steer the boat - Alan was thrilled and he talked about that the most. On the way home he told us how he helped "steer the ship".

Before we started going.

After that Reed went for a tube ride and I went skiing. It felt great to get up on skis again, although I could tell I was out of practice.

Caden, Kailyn, Alan and Jordan throwing rocks into the water.

Sunday: We went to church in the afternoon. That evening we took the kids to feed some chickens. While we were there the kids enjoyed playing on the farm equipment.

l to r: Conner, Caden, Alan, Jordan, Kailyn. Everyone sitting in the shovel of a backhoe.

Conner petting the chicken.

This picture was taken right after church, and unfortunately Kailyn was tired. We had noticed that none of the kids were the same age and we wanted to take a picture oldest to youngest.

l to r: Kailyn (5), Jordan (4), Alan (3), Caden (2), Conner (1), Chase (0, actually about 6 months).

Saturday: On Saturday morning we all headed down to the lake and went canoeing. That was a lot of fun. Then it started to get hot so we all went back home for lunch and a rest and then Grandma and Grandpa Bassett brought out their own slip and slide. Their back yard is sloped so we just laid the plastic down and put the hose at the top. They also had a wading pool and they turned some of the sprinklers on. It was a great way to keep everyone cool.

I had fun chasing the kids around. It was so nice to get to know my nieces and nephews. Below I am chasing Kailyn and Jordan.

Alan on the slip and slide

Everyone enjoying the slip and slide.

At first Alan was pretty nervous about sliding down. In the picture below I think he accidently slipped while walking down it. After watching his cousins slide down he eventually started to have fun on it.

Jordan, Kailyn, Alan and Caden, having a splash party in the pool.

Conner enjoying some spray.

Conner wasn't as excited about the slide as the big kids. He did enjoy going down on Mom and Dad's laps though.

Below is a cute picture of Kailyn reading the kids a story. She is an excellent reader and the other kids (and parents) really enjoyed having her read to them.

When the kids weren't canoeing they played a bean bag game.

Ken, Caden, Kailyn, Jordan, and Reed canoeing on the lake.

Grandpa Bassett has a dirt box on his back porch that the kids (especially the boys) loved. It has little construction trucks in it and Alan and Caden spent a lot of time out there making tracks and moving the dirt around.

As you can tell it was a fun weekend. We saw Shelly on Monday evening while we were boating and we will hopefully see more of her and the kids later in August before they have to go home.

Conner walking

Conner is officially walking! He started walking in the 2nd week of July, so he was a little more than 14 months old. It was fun to watch him learn to push himself to a standing position. The first few times he tried he ended up almost doing a somersault - he bent in half at the waist with his head on the ground looking back between his legs.

Our Independence Day

Well, we are mostly settled into our new place. Thanks again to my parents and Reed's parents and my brother, Reed, for the help in getting moved in.
We had a fun and busy 4th of July. We started the day with a ward breakfast which was yummy. Then we went home to let Conner take a short nap, then it was off to the parade. I would say the highlight of the parade was watching the helicopters go over head. They had 2 helicopters that flew over the parade route and they flew quite low. Alan loved it, but Conner started to shake and he would snuggle up close when they flew by. Some of the people in the parade handed out Popsicles, pop, and ice cream sandwiches which was nice because the parade was long and the weather was hot. Alan received a free flag and he loved waving it at all of the people in the parade. After the parade we went home and everyone took a late nap. Then we found a park and bar-b-qued our dinner there. There are some really nice parks here. We got rained out and went to Dairy Queen to have an icecream cone and wait out the storm. After that we headed home and lit off a few small fireworks with Alan. As you can see from the picture below, he really liked lighting the fireworks.
Just as we were finishing our fireworks Mother Nature decided to give everyone and show and we took cover and watched the lighning and pounding rain. The rain let off in time for us to watch the city's fireworks. We let Alan stay up and watch the city's fireworks with us, while Conner went to bed. We just took our chairs to the back of our apartment building and watched from there, rather than going down to the river. All in all it was a fun day!

Nebraska's Send Off

The night before we left Nebraska we had a huge thunderstorm. We were just going to bed and we could look out the window and see almost constant lightning and a constant rumble of thunder. A few minutes later it started to hail and it sounded like all of our windows were going to break in. The hail lasted for 10 minutes or more and they were big hail stones - about the size of a quarter or bigger.
Here is a picture out our front door...it looked like it had snowed. You almost couldn't see our grass.
The next day when we left around 1 in the afternoon there was still hail on the grass. The hail left some small dents in our vehicles and it looked like our garage was hit with a sand blaster.

The send off from our friends was much better. People in our ward invited us over for dinner for the 4 days or so before we left and we had lots of help with loading up our truck and cleaning our house. We really loved our ward and we miss them a lot.

Update

WARNING: This is a really long post. It has been a while since I have updated and I probably won't do another post for a while so enjoy!

Family Reunion

A couple of weeks ago we headed up to Montana to visit Grandma and Grandpa Bassett. Alan was so excited to go see his grandma and grandpa. As we drove we explained to Alan that we were going to go to the Walker Family reunion first. We told him we would see Great Grandma and Grandpa Walker, and then we would see Grandma and Grandpa Bassett. His response to this: "So, first we will see great walking grandma, and then we will see our plain grandma?" We got a chuckle out of that and so did "great walking grandma" and "plain grandma"

A funny/embarrassing story from the reunion: Alan loves black olives so when we went to have dinner Alan noticed they had a big bowl of olives. I gave him a few and sent him to a table to eat. A few minutes later I couldn't find Alan. Then I hear some giggles and I turn to see Alan walking through the middle of the big circle of chairs. He is holding the big bowl of olives in one hand and shovelling olive after olive into his mouth using the serving spoon.

Garden stuff

We got to help Mom and Dad B. plant their garden. We loved it! I miss having a garden.

Here is a picture of their square foot garden.

Here is Alan digging in their garden with a toy excavator. He and Grandpa built a box full of dirt and rocks for the toys to work in. Alan was in heaven!

Alan poking at a roly poly bug

We got to see the new and improved pond and Alan and Grandma had fun swinging.
Alan got to ride in the Jeep which he loves.
Sick Baby

Poor Conner. When we got to Mom and Dad's place Friday night he didn't sleep well and he woke up with a fever. He also threw up once a night for 3 nights. The fever kept getting worse and worse and he didn't sleep well at night. Reed and Dad gave him a blessing one night and he slept a little better after that. By Monday morning his fever was 104 so I took him to the clinic. I suspected his ears were infected again but I was wrong - his ears were fine. The nurse said it was some kind of viral infection: they couldn't do anything for him. They said to just keep giving him tylenol and water and charged me $100 for the visit. Bah humbug! We delayed our trip to Great Falls for a day but then we took him with us on Tuesday (Mom and Dad kept Alan with them). By Wednesday he was starting to feel a lot better and he slept through the night.

Conner spent a lot of time in his diaper - just lounging around.
The poor baby just didn't have any energy. Here he is snuggling with his doggie on the floor.

Here he is: feeling much better!

Visiting with Russ and Kristie and Family

Yay! We got so see Russ and Kristie and family which means we got to see Gracie! Such a cutie - she has so much hair. It was so fun to see the kids play together.

Here we are playing a game. Boyce just threw the ball but Hudson dodged.

The kids had a sleep over in the basement. Starting at the nearest kid: Alan, Kelcie, Hudson and Boyce.

Hudson, Boyce and Alan playing together outside.
Driver Alan

Alan loves big trucks. The garbage truck driver let Alan sit in the driver seat.

Then grandpa got us a tour of the bus barn. Alan was so excited to see so many buses all together. Then we actually got to take a ride on a bus. When Grandpa first offered to take Alan on the bus Alan said "No, I can't, I'm not six". We have talked about how he has to wait until he starts school to ride a bus. I was surprised that he was a little bit nervous on the ride - not sure why.
Here he is sitting in the driver's seat of the bus.

Then Grandpa took Alan for a ride on the gator. Alan really liked that, although he held onto the side rail pretty tight.

Canoeing

The highlight of the canoe trip was seeing a beaver swim through the water, crawl through a culver and then walk across a lawn into a group of trees

So a ton has happened in the last few weeks. Reed was offered a job in Great Falls, Montana and he accepted it. He will be working as an assistant manager for American General (same company as before). We went up to Montana a couple of weeks ago and looked for a place to live. We found an apartment that is NOT ideal (not even close) but it will work for now. The 2 good things to be said for the apartment are that the rent is cheap and we can get out of our lease if we give a 30 day notice. So next Thursday we are moving...yup this is really fast. We are sad to be leaving our friends and our awesome ward, but we are excited to live closer to both of our families.