Dragons, Books, and Games

A few weeks ago Cameron and I were over at Jeff and Sarah's for dinner and Ethan came up-stairs carrying a dragon costume. Immediately Claire came running at him and was all excited and Sarah informed us that she LOVES this costume. We didn't quite understand what she meant by that, but we soon found out. Claire attached Ethan with hugs and wouldn't let go of the tail or any other part of the costume she could get a hold of. She chased him around the living room just kept attacking him. It was SO cute. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera so I didn't get any of it captured on film. Well, we went over to my Jeff's yesterday again and I made sure and brought my camera with me. We pulled out the dragon costume and sure enough, Claire went crazy over it again. So here it is all on video.



After a while Ethan got hot and tired of acting like a dragon and so Claire put it on. Here are a few pictures of the mischief she got into.

I think there is a law written somewhere that says if you are a grandpa you have to read books to your grandchildren. My dad is ALWAYS reading books to my nieces and nephews and this trip is no exception. I captured a cute picture of him reading to them. Even Claire was very into it.
Andrew loves to play Checkers, or as he calls it "C.H." Since he got so good at that Jeff taught him how to play Chess, which he calls "C.A." Every time we go over he wants to play one or the other. Since my parents are in town Cameron got a little break from playing because my mom so willingly played checkers with him (Andrew won).

Family Reunions

Every year (I think) there is a Chandler Family Reunion, it's all my grandpa's brothers and his sister and their offspring. So a lot of people I don't know. It's usually in Idaho somewhere since that's where my grandpa grew up and this year it was in Rigby, a very exciting place, let me tell you. :)

Well me and Cameron, Jared and Ruth, and Jeff and his family along with my dad made the 3 hour trip up to Rigby and had a good time. It was fun to talk to people we see once a year and don't know. Not a lot of my cousins were there because we are all getting together at my grandparents on Sunday.

I actually enjoyed myself a whole lot more than I thought I would. I have to give credit to Jeff's kids for making it entertaining, never a dull moment with them. We caravanned up there and when we pulled into the parking lot of probably the only park in the entire city of Rigby (pop. 3,200 I think...) I started laughing. Ethan was wearing his cowboy boots, cowboy vest, and cowboy hat. Apparently he wouldn't take them off upon leaving the house. :)
Every year at these reunions they have an auction. Basically people just bring things they don't want anymore with some exceptions of some brand new items. The last few years I have won a few things: a tub of licorice and a smoothie maker. This year they had two auctions, one for kids, and one for adults. We had 6 tickets in each and ended up winning one of those blow-up swimming pools for like 2 year olds from the kids’ auction. At first we were sad we didn't get anything better (like the mag lights, the set of Harry Potter books, the tub of licorice...) but then we realized that my nephew Andrew was standing next to the guy calling names and staring at him almost willing him to say "ANDREW CHANDLER". We overheard the girl handing out prizes say that there were only 3 kids prizes left. So my dad sneakily asked the guy calling names to call Andrew's name and give him the pool we had won. Oh man, Andrew's face was priceless when he won! I wish I had gotten a picture of it because wow :) But I do have a picture of him waiting for his name to be called and that is almost as good.
After the reunion we went to my Uncle David and Aunt Chris' house down the road. They had a toy wooden gun that Ethan found upon arrival and for the hour or so we were there he was walking around saying to anyone in his path "STICK 'EM UP!" It was so cute :) My aunt also had one of those pin things that you can put like your hand or face in and it takes that shape...I have no idea what they are called. But Andrew discovered it and spent about half an hour putting all sorts of different objects and body parts on it. He thought it was pretty cool.

Key Bank Implosion

A few weeks ago they imploded the Key Bank Tower in downtown Salt Lake. Cameron had to work early that morning so he got it all on camera. It's pretty crazy that something that big can be gone SO fast. And considering the size of the building the pile of ruble it made is pretty small.

A little something for Chase and Autism

As many of you might know, my sister Kelly's little boy Chase has Autism. She sent me this e-mail about a walk that her family is participating in to raise money for autism research. I thought I would share it in case anyone wanted to help sponsor her, if you can't sponsor her I know that any prayers and thoughts are also very much appreciated! :)

Dear Family and Friends,

We can't believe that it's been 9 months since Chase was diagnosed with autism. Chase will be 3 on Saturday. He is a sweet little boy full of love! He loves baths, teletubbies, popcorn, trains, small green balls and most of all to be hugged! When we look back one year we remember all the uncertainty we faced. One year later we are full of hope. Chase has come so far. We are so blessed to have wonderful support from family and friends! We are also blessed to have found wonderful therapists and educators who work so hard on Chase's behalf. Each tiny bit of progress is a triumph! We are very hopeful that Chase will live a full and rich life. We have certainly embarked upon a lifelong journey.

In addition to giving you a little update on Chase, we wanted to let you know about our latest endeavor. Since autism impacts every aspect of our lives, we are excited to do something proactive towards finding a cure! Along with many of the people from our local autism support group, our family will participate in the "Autism Speaks: Walk Now for Autism" on August 25th in Sumner. Last year (before we were involved) our team, The Puzzle Solvers, was one of the top earning teams in the region. We're hoping to do this again this year! Next week we will be having a garage sale in which all of the money will go towards our fundraising efforts. We are also asking anyone that can to sponsor us. If you would like to help us out in any little way, you can go to our team's walk page at www.autismwalk.org/goto/puzzlesolvers and click on Kelly's name. You will be taken to our page (with the cute picture of Chase) and you can sponsor us with the click of a mouse! If you'd rather not pledge over the computer, you can always send us a check directly.
Our address is:
14927 Terra View St. SE
Yelm, WA 98597

If you are not able to sponsor us at this time, please do not feel bad! Please know that your love and support of Chase and our family mean the world to us! As we said before, we are so blessed with such wonderful support.

Sincerely,
Kelly & Chris Warren

Other highlights

Here are a few other fun things we did while in Washington:

On Wednesday night the boys watched all the kids and my mom took me, Carie, Kelly, and Ruth to get pedicures! I had never had one so it was quite the tret! It was so much fun, especially watching Kelly squirm in her seat when they tickled her feet :) After the pedicures we did some shopping and then out to eat. It was TONS of fun!! I love being with my mom and sisters.

Thursday before we went to Burfoot Park we went to the Olympia Farmer's Market and picked up some delicous fresh apples and apricots. After the park we went back to Carie's and had a fun BBQ.

Friday morning Cameron got to play 18 holes of golf with Chris and loved it! The rest of that day was spent relaxing until that evening when we had another delicous BBQ at my parents and celebrated Chase's 3rd birthday. Cameron's parents got there that night and we took them to the Capitol and around downtown Olympia and out to ice-cream...mmmm... :)

Saturday morning we went to breakfast with Cameron's parents and then met up with my brother-in-law Craig at the hospital where he works and he did an ultrasound to see if he could tell the gender of our baby. But I was barely 16 weeks, so it was pushing it. After about 30 minutes of looking around he determined that he is 75% sure that it's a girl...lol, so take that for what it's worth. Our real ultrasound is on Sept 7th so we should know 100% what it is then :) He also did a little surgery on Cameron's face, well I guess it wasn't really surgery, he just removed his mole. It was pretty gross to watch, but Cameron has been wanting it removed for a long time, so he wasn't sad to see it go at all :) After we were done at the hospital we helped set up for the reception and then enjoyed it. It was fun to see a lot of friends that I hadn't seen in a long time, and of course the food was great :)

Sadly we had to head home early Sunday morning. It was a wonderful trip but WAY too short.

Wedding Reception

Since the main reason for our trip home was for Jared and Ruth's wedding reception here are some pictures from it. I thought the decorations turned out beautiful so I had to post some of them :)

Laura at 8 months and me at 4 months. Even though you can't tell, I promise there's a bump!
The happy couple.
Cameron and Me
Ruth had a very long veil and Rylee was helping her by holding it.

Me and Aubrey
Rylee was dancing around in Ruth's wedding shoes.
Chris and Madisyn dancing :)
Luke was being SO helpful by pouring the water...he only made a little mess :) Luckly the reception was over before he discovered the water bowl.
Me and Heather

Me and my sister Kelly
Me and my sister Carie
Jared found this mustache in his tux...and he put it on...kind of wierd.
Sisters: Carie, me, and Kelly
We had a fun time catching up with Laura and Logan since we haven't seen them in so long!

Fun Times

Cameron's parents drove over from Richland on Friday night and were able to stay until Saturday afternoon. It was lots of fun to see them.

Luke was Cameron's little shadow the entire time we were there, all he wanted to do was be next to him. It was pretty cute. Here they are making silly faces for the camera :)
Every time I go home or see Chandler he won't let me take a picture of him, and if I do happen to catch him looking my way he is usually glaring. But we figured out that if we showed him the picture we took he would let me take as many as I wanted, actually, he wanted me to keep taking them, I probably got 15 of him just smiling away. It was so cute.
We celebrated Chase's 3rd birthday while we were home. He is such an adorable little boy. Full of smiles and giggles. Here he is enjoying his cupcake :)
Aubrey played a bunch of songs for me and Cameron while we were there. I was so impressed. She is only 6 and has so many songs memorized and some of them are long too. Madisyn also played some songs on the piano for us (sadly, no pictures) and she is getting very good at that too.
This is a little out of order, but here is Chase opening his presents, he got a Curious George Train and LOVED it.

Burfoot Park

We just got back from our trip to Washington and I have TONS of pictures, and since I think they are all cute and worth sharing I will probably end up putting most of them on here :)

On Thursday we went to Burfoot Park in Olympia, on the Puget Sound, with Carie and Kelly and their kids, my mom, and Jared and Ruth. It was lots of fun. When we first arrived the kids ran to the beach ahead of us and then came running back yelling "There are dead sharks everywhere!!!!" We all thought they were joking, but sure enough, there were dead sharks everywhere. It was the wierdest thing. It stunk pretty bad but luckily they were up higher on the shore so we could still enjoy the water a little bit. Even though it wasn't a very warm day the kids still enjoyed walking in the water and skipping rocks.



The beautiful "hike" to the beach.

Aubrey and Rylee were on a hunt to find as many sand dollars as they possibly could. Between the two of them they probably collected 50 of them. There were pretty sad when they were only aloud to take 2 home each.
Chandler ran in the water fully dressed, tennis shoes and all. It was only a matter of time before he fell in. But he certainly enjoyed it until he was soaking wet.

Heart Beat

Are you surprised that I am posting this and not Jamie? This is my second post, and it is a good one. Today we got to hear our little baby's heart beat. It isn't what I expected it to sound like. I thought we would hear the heart beat thru a stethoscope, but instead the doc put a miniature ultrasound looking thingy on Jamie's stomach, and the sound came out of a speaker. It was beating about 160 bpm, and I've heard that the higher the heart beat the more likely it is to be a girl. I expected it to sound more like the heart beat on Dark Side Of The Moon, like a thump thump. We still don't know what we're having. We will find out on September 7th, so keep your cell phones ready parents.

Elevators

I work in a building with 28 floors in it. They have two sets of six elevators to take people where they need to go, one set goes from the main floor to the 14th floor and the second set goes from the main floor and skips 2 through 13 and goes from 14 to 28. Well this morning I get to work and walk to my elevators and all six of them are open but four of them have their lights off. I thought to myself "Wow, is no one at work today? I don't even have to wait for the elevators to get here. This is a miracle." (I usually have to wait a minute or two for them to get there). But then I go to push the up button and I realize there is a note on it that says "These elevators are under maintenace. Do Not Use!" Okay I don't know whoes genuise idea it was to do maintenance on ALL 6 elevators at once, but that is NOT smart. Half the building uses those elevators to get to their offices. It was pretty entertaining watching people try to figure out how they were going to get to their floor. I ended up taking the other elevators to the 14th floor and walked down the stairs to my floor, 9. So needless to say I made it to my desk, but 15 minutes late. I guess tomorrow I will make sure to bring my tennis shoes in case this happens again, because walking in heels was not fun. And from now on I will not take my elevator rides for granted.