Pumpkin Carving

We went to the pumpkin patch a week ago and decided to carve the pumpkins we bought there. J and I havn't carved pumpkins since we were married but thoroughly enjoyed it. We were actually surprised at how much fun we had carving pumpkins and wondered why in the five years we have been married we have never done it. J was quite handy with the knife. We didn't have any type of pumpkin carving utensils and I was quite surprised at how awesome they turned out. We will definitely be buying some utensils for next year. Here is the evidence. Please excuse how awful I look. Ha.

Can you guess what all of the pictures are?

Pumpkin Patch

We decided this year that we were going to start the tradition of going to a pumpkin patch, picking out our own pumpkins, and then carving them. We wanted to go to one that had a train because we knew Camo would love it. We found one in Canby, Oregon which was perfect because it happened to be on the same street of J's parents. J's parents were conveniently able to go. Camo was super excited knowing that they were going to be there. Camo and J did the train tour while J's parent and I went to find the perfect pumpkin. While on the tour Camo and J saw farm animals. J thinks Camo was a bit scared of the donkey and wasn't super excited about all the animals, but he sure loved riding the train. He still talks about riding choo choo train with daddy.

Family Photo

Isn't that pretty cool?

Tunnel underneath the hay stacks.

Love him.

Chasing the chicken

Handsome man

Getting ready to depart.

My two favorite boys!!

Looking for the train.

Grandma and Camo

We will definitely be doing this again. This was actually my very first experience at a pumpkin patch. They didn't really have those in Texas.:)

Random

Here are some recent pictures of Camo.

He loves his noodles.

Looking Handsome in the bath

I was trying to sleep and he climbed up on the couch with a blanket and put it over us.

We just love him to pieces!!

Summer Update

I can't seem to keep up with this blogging thing.

Here's an update on Camo.

Camo is now 18 months old. He is a talking machine now. He will repeat any word you tell him to. The other day I was washing dishes and he starts yelling my name repeatedly. He will use my name instead of mommy to tell me something. Kind of funny. He also woke up the other morning and said hamburger. J and I both understood, but couldn't figure out where he heard it. I called up my friend who was babysitting for us the night before and sure enough she said they had hamburger for dinner. Another one of his favorites is "Where did so and so go?" He even moves his hands and shrugs his shoulders when he says it. He loves food. It's very difficult get any food out without him begging for it. You would think he would be bigger because of the amount of food he consumes, but not true. We have a shrimp on our hands. I think he just broke the 24 pound mark. Camo still sleeps really well in the night. We put him down at 8 and he usually sleeps until 7 or 8. He naps horrifically though. He loves to swim. My friend just let me have her floaties and he loves them. He can be free and swim wherever he wants. He kicks his legs and dunks his head under the water. He also recently just learned how to lift his legs up and float on his back. He also loves to play with balls. He can dribble, catch, throw, hit a ball of a tee, shoot a basket, and kick a ball. We are hoping he will be athletic. Now onto potty training. I need some advice. Today at the kids club, Camo told the girl, "I pooped." She checked him and he wasn't poopy. He then ran to the corner and about five minutes later she checked him and he was poopy. Do you think he is ready to be potty trained?

J Update
Still in Chiropractic school. He is busy busy busy. Between working in clinics, going to classes, being the Young Men's President, helping a friend with photography, going to sports med events, being a father, being a husband, being a friend, it seems he never really has time for himself. I am so blessed to have such a dedicated husband. When he is given an assignment he gives his everything. He will be done with classes next month and is hoping to get some experience working with another chiropractor for the fall. He then graduates in December. Woo hoo! Now onto finding a real job.

T Update
I'm still personal training at Bally's. Camo really enjoys playing in the kids club while I work. I am working about 20 hours a week and it's just enough to help support J a little bit through school. I love working with people and hope to be able to continue encouraging people to be healthy the rest of my life. When I am not working, I enjoy going to the pool with Camo. Nothing new and exciting with me. J and I are getting excited to go to Seattle here in a couple weeks. We will spend a couple nights in a hotel downtown. We are going to a Mariners game and then doing the city center pass which includes going to the space needle, zoo, museums and a few other fun places. It will be fun to get away just the two of us, but we will definitely miss our Camo!!

Sorry pictures to come. I need to start taking more pictures.

Suavie Island Half Marathon

Well I actually ran another race. This wasn't a full marathon, it was just a half. I felt much better after this race than I did when I ran my marathon so maybe half marathons are my thing. I was really prepared for this race. I did all my runs in my training faithfully. I was even able to get them in while I was on vacation in Utah. I woke up this morning at 4:30 a.m. and had my breakfast that I had to force down. It's definitely hard to eat something that early in the morning. I knew I had to do it 2 hours before the race started. I had a piece of toast with peanut butter, apple, and banana. I stayed away from the energy gels this year because when I had one in my marathon I had a very upset stomach the first 6 miles. So as I started the race I felt great I was really trying to keep my first 2 miles at an 8:30 pace. I was feeling great until my hard running coach for the day, Nicole, comes riding up next to me on her bike. She was supposed to do this race but was injured. It was so nice of her to come and still support all her running friends. She told me I needed to start keeping my pace under 8 minute miles. So I picked it up and started going a little under 8 minute miles for the next 4 miles. At about mile 7 I started to pick it up to more like 7:30 t0 7:45 minute miles and was still feeling pretty good. Then at about mile 10 I started to feel a little stomach pain. Luckily there was shade for about a half of mile at that point because it really saved me. I feel that I was developing a bit of heat exhaustion. For the last two miles I started to go back up to 8 minute miles but still kept it under. I knew that I gave it everything I had because as I was crossing the finish line I puked. I hope that wasn't too much information, but it shows how much I truly was pushing it. I finished at 1 hour 43 minutes. I beat my goal time by 2 minutes which I was extremely happy about. Thank you to my friend Valerie for running this race with me and doing a lot of training runs with me to prepare. Also thank you to my friend Nicole who pushed me throughout the entire race. I don't think I would have done it as fast without her. Overall it was a great experience and I could see myself doing many more HALF marathons in the future. Enjoy the pictures. Ignore the huge smudge of mascara on my face. J say's I should like I just ran a race so I am not too worried about the smudge.

Me and Valerie

Camo and Jackson-He loved the wagon

Valerie, Nicole, and I

Camo dancing

I finished!!

I wasn't kidding when I said I felt sick

Camo cheering for me

Almost to the finish line.

It's Been a Long Time

Camo with friends

15 months old

I have been such a bad blogger lately. I think a lot has to do with the fact that I have been extremely busy at work. It's no excuse. I will just catch you up to speed with what we have been doing lately.

I will first talk about the most important person in our family, little Camo. I guess he is not little anymore. He just turned 15 months old!! I don't take nearly as many pictures of him now than when he was a baby which is crazy because he gets cuter and cuter as he gets older. Camo is walking everywhere now. He loves to go outside and will go pull on the door handle to go out. His vocabulary is growing so much every day. He can now say socks, shoes, banana, bye bye, apple, baby, Jesus, basketball, snack, cheese, cheerios, blankie, balloon, milk, water and many other words that I just can't think of right now. He points to his nose, eyes, mouth, belly. He makes lots of animal noises like snake, bear, dog, sheep, cat. If you ask him if he went poop he will make a grunting noise. Camo's favorite food right now is bananas just like his dad He also loves drinking water just like his mom. I have never even given him juice because he just loves water so much.

Now I'll update you on J. He is keeping busy with school. I can't believe he is getting so close to graduating. He will be finished with school in December. He keeps telling me how scary it is because he has been going to school his whole life and now he has to look for a job. We still don't know where we are going to end up, but we will be doing a lot of fasting, praying, and going to the temple in the next 8 months to get some direction. J also just started another season of softball tonight. It's good to see him get out and do something he loves.

Hopefully you don't get bored listening to what I have been up to lately. Work is keeping me really busy. I am still a personal trainer at Bally's. I have been so blessed to be able to bring Camo to the kids club with me while I work. The girls that work in there are so amazing and they take such good care of Camo. I love my job and love to see the transformations that my clients go through. I have also been training for a half marathon coming up on July 4th. I am actually motivated to get a good time. My goal would be to complete the half in under 8 minute miles. Another exciting thing happening in my family is my little sister is getting married in June!! She is the last of all of my six siblings to get married. I am so proud of her and who she has become. She just graduated from BYU in Public Health. She is going to look so beautiful in her wedding dress. Love you Shalis!!

My Beautiful Sister

My Talking Boy

Camo has always been a talker. He is almost 14 months and I can't believe all the words he is saying. He was late in crawling and is barely starting to walk, but at least he talks. I wonder who he gets that from. Okay I guess I do kind of talk a lot. Anyway I wanted to just write some of the words he has been saying. Camo's favorite word right now is ball. If we read him a book, which he can say as well, he will point to a ball and say it. He say's milk, which can get annoying because he asks for it every 5 minutes. He can say mama, dada, bubble, thank you, bath, moo, ruff ruff, baby, book, ball, milk. He saw his reflection in the window today and pointed and said baby. It was adorable. Another funny thing he does is always crosses his ankles, the reasoning for the one picture.

We also just got rid of the binky which he recently learned to say as well. I gave it to him a lot while on my vacation in Utah because he was really sick. It has been a hard last few days, but I think he has finally forgotten about it. It feels good to just break him from that habit. I also just recently stopped nursing which is kind of sad, but also very nice. Camo is turning into a big boy now!! We just love our little Camo.