A campout to remember

The second weekend of September we decided to go camping as a family. We have been wanting to all summer and it hadn't happened for one reason or another. Conner had never been camping so it would be his first experience. We drove about an hour from our house and stopped at a nice campground called Many Pines. I immediately started a fire and started roasting hot dogs for dinner with the boys. Reed found a large pile of dead branches and he started to chop them up for firewood with his new hatchet. After a few minutes I heard Reed say "I think I just ended our camping trip". I turned around to see him staring at his hand while blood ran down his hand. On closer examination I noticed that there was a deep cut on the back of his hand between his thumb and forefinger. I put the boys at the table with some food (hoping they would not notice what we were doing) and then I grabbed our baby wipes and put pressure on the wound. We debated whether or not to go to the emergency room (mostly for the cut and partly because it had been 15 years since his last tetanus shot) and Reed decided he would lay down for a few minutes and see how he felt. After laying down with his hand elevated the bleeding had almost stopped so we decided to stay. Luckily Reed had thought to bring our big first aid kit and I had thought to bring Tylenol. After we bandaged his hand we had dinner and put up the tent. Then we sat around the fire and roasted smores. Alan was thrilled with the whole experience and Conner did so-so. He fell down a lot (the ground was quite uneven) and he wanted to be very independent around the fire but I wanted him to stay back so he wasn't very happy about that.

(sorry the pic is fuzzy, our camera wasn't working while we were camping so we didn't get any authentic pictures)

I had forgotten how cold the mountains could be at night in September. Reed and I zipped our sleeping bags together and put Conner between us. Alan had his own sleeping bag. Neither Reed or I could get very comfortable so we didn't sleep well. Alan ended up in our sleeping bag at 2 or 3 am as well so it was pretty crowded. To top it all off I was awake at 2 am to hear some wild howling (not sure if it was wolves or coyotes) which completely woke me up until 4 or 4:30 am. On the bright side the boys slept pretty well and there was no crying (always a plus, Alan's first camping experience was a nightmare of crying in the middle of very quiet mountain nights with lots of people in tents around us to hear him). The next morning we were up bright and early so we made another fire to keep warm, had some breakfast and packed up. We stopped to do a short hike on the way home. All in all it was a memorable experience but I wouldn't classify it as fun.

This Old House

The answer to how old our house is: 123 years old, so Brenda guessed closest. Yeah, when I said old, I meant old. Luckily it has had many updates so hopefully we won't have too many problems. Here is a brief history lesson. We found out that our city was founded in 1883 and our house was built in 1886. Imagine all the people who have lived in it. Electricity didn't even come to the city until the 1890's. We are going to close on the house next Friday so then we will officially be home owners.

Conner's first haircut

I finally buckled down and cut Conner's hair for the first time. It was plenty long. Conner is 16 1/2 months old in the pictures.
Long, long hair. His hair is very light blonde so I didn't want to cut it too short or it would look like he was bald.
Conner was pretty patient. It helped that we had just bought a new movie so he kind of zoned out while watching it. There was one time though that he jerked his head while I was cutting his bangs...that patch of bangs is shorter than the rest but you can't really tell while his hair is all tussled.
After the hair cut.

Buying a house

We have been looking at buying a house for a little while and we finally found one that we both like that was in our price range. We have settled on the price but we are waiting to hear back whether they agreed to make the repairs that we requested. The above picture is of the back of the house and the picture below is of the front of the house.
The house has 3 bedrooms on the top floor along with a full bath. The main floor has the kitchen, living room, dining room and a half bath. Our laundry will be in the basement. When we went to look at the house Alan and Conner were with us and in one of the bedrooms they have this funny little nook. Alan ran in there and said "Look mom, a little house for little people". Below is a picture of them in the "little house".
The house is OLD. Anyone think they can guess exactly how old? I bet you can't! If you already know then you can't guess. I will post the answer after I see some guesses.

Last visit of the Summer

At the end of August I traveled with the boys over to Billings to visit family. My sister in laws, Shelly and Jackie were their with their kids. Here are some pictures of what we did.

We went to the zoo. It was kind of small but still fun. The boys were very interested in feeding the animals.

One of the mornings we went to ride horses. I loved that. The boys were kind of nervous though, especially Alan. He didn't want anything to do with the horses. I finally convinced him to sit on one while I kept a hand on him and Shelly held the reins. He wanted off as soon as he was on. Conner did a little better - he sat in front of me while I rode around for awhile. Below is a picture of Shelly with her son Caden.

Alan was much more interested in all of the equipment that they had around.

One of the evenings Mom and Dad Bassett watched all of the kids while Shelly, Jackie and I went out to eat at the Olive Garden. It was so nice to go out to eat without the kids and get caught up with them. I wish we all lived closer so that we could do that more often. We stayed up late most nights talking as well. Reed came out to join us Friday night. We set up the tents Saturday night and the older kids slept out there. Alan was in heaven but poor Conner was sick with a fever so he didn't get to camp out.

On Sunday we had a big group over for dinner. There was Mom and Dad Bassett, our family, Shelly with her 4 kids, Jackie with her 2 kids, Austin and Mindy, Russ with 2 of his kids, Grandma and Grandpa Walker and Great Grandma Walker. After dinner we took some pictures.
A five generation shot with: Conner (16 months), Reed (his dad), Grandma Bassett, Great Grandma Walker, and Great-Great Grandma Walker.

On the Bassett side of the family there were 8 boys born within about 3 1/2 years (no girls were born during that time) Below are all of them except Breven.

Bottom row: Reed, Austin (Reed's brother), Russ (Reed's brother) and Dad Bassett
Top Row: Conner, Alan, James, Baer, Boyce, Caden and Chase

Here is a cute pic of all the grandkids that were present (we are missing 5 in the picture).
Back row l-r: James, Boyce, Jordan
Front row l-r: Baer, Kailyn, Kelcie, Chase, Caden, Alan, Conner
It was so nice to visit with family and let our kids get acquainted. As we were leaving Alan said: "Mom, Caden is my best friend". He was sad to leave all of his friends behind. Thanks to Shelly and Jackie for travelling such long distances to visit.

Whoop Up Days

Towards the end of August I took the boys up to Canada to visit my parents. After some hassle at the border I made it up there in time to see my two best friends from high school (and before) and their kids. We took our kids to the park and let them play while we got kind of caught up and then our parents offered to watch the kids while we went out to a restaurant for dessert. Then we finished getting caught up. It was so nice to talk with them.

While we were up north we also got to visit with my cousin Janae and her kids. Her triplet girls and Alan are close in age but they took a little while to warm up before they would play together. My mom and I also took the boys to pick strawberries at a U-pick farm. The sun was hot and the berries were few but we got enough to make some freezer jam and then of course to eat some. One of the evenings I got to go to my cousin's wife's baby shower. Renae had a cute little boy and I got to visit with some of my cousins and aunts.

On Friday my Dad and I took the boys to Whoop-up Days. That is the local fair in Lethbridge. It was a hot afternoon but we enjoyed ourselves anyway. Both of the boys liked the rides although Conner was too young to ride on most of them.

Conner and I on the Merry-Go-Round. Conner was so excited when I sat him up there - he kept patting the horse and smiling ear-to-ear. Then the ride actually started. His smile disappeared and was replaced by a very worried look. I stood beside him the whole time but as the ride went around and he saw Grandpa he held his arms out like "get me off here". He didn't cry at all, for which I am grateful. When the ride stopped his smile came back and he patted the horse again.

Alan riding one of the rides. He really enjoyed most of the rides, even the crazy boat ride that he went on with Grandpa. The only ones that he wouldn't do were the big slides. He walked all the way to the top of a big slide with a rug to sit on but when he got to the top he sent the rug down the slide and then started walking back down the stairs. Grandpa went up to try to get him to slide down but he wouldn't.

At the end of the afternoon we went to visit the petting zoo. Alan and Conner were both a little intimidated by all those animals - they didn't want to get too close.

Then we found the bunny cage. They both thought the rabbits were great - probably because the rabbits were so much smaller than them.

Reed rode up with some friends on Friday night and then next day we went to the temple. Then we came home and helped put the finishing touches on the underground sprinkler system. That night we played seven-up with Reed (my brother) and Jodie. Ah, good times!!!

Sunday was my parents anniversary and we got to hear my mom give a talk in church about maintaining a strong marriage. It was a fun and productive trip.

Conner's 15 month check up

In the picture below I let Conner eat spaghetti by himself and then he fed himself yogurt and then he fed himself icecream, and then he had a bath! I took Conner in for his 15 month well child check up in August. He is a healthy little boy. My favorite part of the check up was when the doctor handed Conner a book. Conner grabbed it, snuggled back on my lap, opened it and started pointing at the pictures and jabbering. The doctor said "Looks like he's familiar with books" and then she turned the page on her clipboard. It was like, Oh I don't need to talk about that with them. Conner did pretty good although he was not pleased when the doc tried to look in his mouth - he screamed bloody murder when she finally pried his jaws open.
Here are his stats:
Weight: 22lbs 6 oz. (20th percentile)
Height: 32 1/2 inches (85th percentile)

So his percentiles are getting a little closer together, which is good.