The Curse of the Mommy!

When Riley and I were in the bathroom the other day as I was doing my hair he had started to play with the toilet paper so I decided to help him out a little bit and wrap his head up like a mummy. Except Riley calls it a mommy. I hope that isn't a reflection on me. Hmmm...

I thought it was almost April

Driving home from work this morning, this is the sight I was greated with as soon as I got into Santaquin boundaries. The funny thing about it was that it was not snowing anywhere else but in Santaquin. When I left work in Provo, it was raining lightly. That rain cleared up by the time I hit Spanish Fork which was nice and clear if just a little wet. By the time I got to Payson it was raining lightly again but it didn't turn to snow until after I had passed the second Payson exit. In my mind I imagined the snow starting as soon as the freeway passed into Santaquin boundries though I cannot be sure it was that exact. But the minute it turned to snow, it had everything covered; the roads, the ground, everything. When I pulled into my cul-de-sac I was overcome with the desire to take a picture of some of the trees in my neighborhood so at 0530 in the morning I went tramping around snapping pictures of my neighbors houses. I'm sure if anyone saw me they would have thought I was crazy but this is the result. Look and laugh, all you people enjoying the true spring and pity those of us who have switched from wearing shorts and sunscreen at the beginning of the week (seriously, I got a nice burn on my face from trying to help put Riley's playset together last weekend - which is not quite finished and has been delayed until the weather cooperates) to having to pull sweaters back out of winter storage. Brrr. It's cold out here. - Heather

Riley's Birthday

St. Patrick's day has come and gone. And with it Riley's third birthday. I can't believe how big he is getting. Three years has flown by faster than I c0uld ever have imagined. It is so fun to watch him grow up and getting to experience things for the first time through his eyes. For example, the afternoon of his birthday, we went with Momma Lynn, Grandpa Brad, Annie, Casey, Zach and Austin up to the Farm at Thanksgiving point. Riley had the most wonderful time getting to see so many farm animals, getting to feed a few and even riding on a pony. He absolutely loves whenever he gets to be around Zach and Austin. He lights up whenever he sees them and follows them around in heaven getting to be one of the boys. They are so good with him too. On the way home, we stopped to pick up his play set (his birthday present from me and Reed, which he has not stopped talking about. We are setting it up this Saturday but Riley asks every 20 minutes if we can set it up now.) In Casey's truck on the way home Zach and Austin fell asleep and Riley just sat between them grinning like the big kid he was looking back and forth at them just happy to be there. That evening Reed's family came over once Reed was home from work and we had cake and ice cream and opened some presents. Riley got a remote control car that he absolutely loves and chases Duke around the house with it. The next day was the cherry on top of the cake. Momma Lynn and Grandpa Brad took us to Disney on Ice. The incredibles took a family vacation to disneyland with the normal amount of potential end of the world chaos that seems to always follow a family of superheroes. Riley loved it. And he has asked several times since then if we can go again to 'disney ice'. It was a great birthday, over too quickly but filled with some great memories. - Heather

It's Someone's Birthday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ADAM! WE LOVE YOU SO MUCH! RILEY AND I MADE YOU THIS SIGN TODAY SO THAT WE COULD WISH YOU HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I HOPE YOU HAVE AN ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL AND FANTASTIC BIRTHDAY! IF YOU HAVE NOTICED THAT I AM EXCLAMATION POINT CRAZY IT IS ONLY BECAUSE THAT IS HOW MUCH I WISH FOR YOU TO HAVE A GREAT BIRTHDAY!
LOVE YOU! - HEATHER, REED, RILEY

The Fun of Being a Kid

We spent the afternoon playing in the park just up the street from Momma Lynn's house. Riley had the best time. It is finally starting to be warm enough that we can add outside activities back to our routine. Here he is trying to climb all over, mimicking some of the bigger kids at the park. This was about as high as he could go without making Mommy nervous. Fortunately he still listens to me, so he climbed down when I asked him to.

Here he is going down the twisty-tube slide. This was the one he would not go down last summer. This year, we got out there and he eyed it for a minute, then seeing other kids go down and come out okay he decided he needed to try it. It wasn't long before he was going down on his tummy, having the time of his life. He would squeal happily half way down then use his hands to stop himself. Then he would call out, "Where's Riley?" And he wouldn't go again until either Reed or myself would go "I don't know. Where did he go?" Then he would come out the bottom with a big grin on his face. If you look closely at this one you can see his hair starting to stand up from all the accumulated static he built up from crawling all over. Whenever he would touch us we would feel a small shock of static electricity.

It was a really fun day.

Heather

The Fun of Being a Kid Cont...

I was downloading pictures off of my camera today and I found some that I had taken of Riley from when we got back from Las Vegas and were unpacking our suitcase. It just reminds me of how much fun it is to be a kid, with all the spaces and things to explore.

Where did Riley go?

- Heather

Zacs Birthday Bowling Party

For Zacs birthday we all went bowling at "Dukes Lanes" in Spanish Fork














Austin was the high score bowler




















Zac would do his happy dance when ever he rolled the ball.















Riley was just happy to be hanging out with the boys.

The Secret Is Unveiled

Twenty four years ago today, in a galaxy far far away, on a putrid moon that was used as a garbage dump by the inhabitants of the surrounding planets, arose a torrent of unbearably loud and horrific grunting sounds that could be heard blocks past the borders of the lunar hills trailer court. At the source of this blood curdling cry, in a dilapidated double wide, a five breasted, three eyed, alien mother gnashed her countless rows of teeth and, with a hearty push, pooped a gelatinous lump of a baby out of one of her nine blemished space butts. After a short recuperation period and a pack of Newport cigarettes she placed the vile smelling newborn in an unaddressed mail pod and launched it off into space (kind of like in superman but, this planet wasn't being destroyed or anything, that alien bitch just didn't want to take care of her baby). Off into the endless firmament the little one was shot floating aimlessly into the blackness of space. After countless days of sailing through the vast cosmos, the pod steadily approached the blue and green planet known as earth. The perpetual spin of the discarded pod quickly came to an end as it made a turbid and fiery entry into the planet's atmosphere. With the earth's gravity beckoning the pod nearer, it exponentially gained speed, spiralling downwards toward the planet's surface. 3.... 2.... 1.... Impact! With the force of a tidal wave, a thunderous boom radiated outwards as the vessel came to a screeching halt in the back yard of a humble home in the quaint town of santaquin Utah.  The impact and accompanying explosion emitted a blast of radiation that violently shook the unsuspecting walls of the nearby homes. Unfortunately, the radiation caused the families that lived close by to develop mild brain damage as well as some severe physical mutations.  Amidst the slew of the families adversely affected by this tragic event, (ie. the Parsons, the Walkers, the Stranges, the Allens, the Strongs and the Shepherds), there was only one family that was fortunate enough to escape the negative effects of the foreign chemicals released into the air from the crash. Behind several layers of lead based paint, which were usually kind of a tacky color like a peachish pink salmon color, and dense piles of keepsakes and accumulated junk, sat a small attractive family of five known as the Peterson's. After their riveting game of Yahtzee was so rudely interrupted by what would have been an ear piercing blast but due to the muffling effect of the piles of unneeded junk that surrounded them, the noise was reduced to a small yet irritating rumble. With the instincts of the greatest detectives of our time, (Nancy Drew and the Hardy boys), the family, though in the middle of what is still considered to be possibly the most intense Yahtzee game ever played, quickly decided to investigate the faint yet intrusive racket. The family emerged from their home to find the neighborhood in shambles and their once brilliant neighbors gripped by a stupor that would not release its' grasp. The Peterson's studiously explored the wreckage only to find amidst the debris littering their neighbor's lawn a small mangled pod containing a badly injured infant alien baby. Due to the obvious fact that all of the other families in the neighborhood were left unfit to raise a cabbage patch doll, let alone an alien baby, the selfless Peterson family, not unanimously but still by majority, voted and decided to help the poor wounded alien child. At first they were unsure if the baby would survive due to all of the severe cuts, burns and scrapes covering its' body, but slowly the woulds healed. There was an enormous amount of scaring that left the baby looking nothing like the alien race which heartlessly cast it aside. Surprisingly, the deformation and scaring made the baby look identical to a human girl, and a quite attractive one at that. What are the odds? Seriously, an ugly alien baby gets horribly burned, mangled and deformed but the deformations make the baby look like a pretty human girl. That is not likely to happen again. As time passed the effects of the radiation waned and though never completely, the neighbors slowly regained portions of their wits.  The radiation effected each resident of the block differently, some developed physical deformities, (Russ Strong's eye that can see through cheese and Steven Parson's unrelenting libido), while others were effected psychologically (the Stranges), yet there was one family who tragically suffered both physical and mental abnormalities (the Walkers). The radiation entirely destroyed the Smiths home to the south, which became a fertile ground for creepy neighbors to grow marijuana. For the next few weeks there must have been rogue pockets of radiation floating through the air causing minor lapses in judgement. One of the Peterson daughters actually suggested to name the human-esque, yet certainly alien, child orange juice. After a slight pause, to see if she was joking, the remaining four sound members of the family quickly slapped her for seriously suggesting an absolutely horrible name for a child as beautiful as this. When the momentarily retarded daughter regained consciousness, the radiation induced lapse of judgement had passed and the family was ready to announce, that although she was once an ugly alien lump, they were going to adopted her into their family. From that point on her earth name would be Andrea Peterson.

Happy Birthday Andrea. I love you even though we adopted you from aliens.

Your human brother,
Adam

Home again, home again....

Well we are back from Las Vegas. It was fun to get away from it all for a while. Happy 30th Rachel! It was so good to get to see her, especially for such an important milestone. Since there was a major snowstorm that was supposed to hit central Utah Friday morning we made a last minute decision to leave Thursday night in the hopes of avoiding it. We got to St. George and found a hotel room with three beds in it all right next to each other. It looked a little like when Snow White finds the beds of the dwarfs all in a long row. It seemed like a good idea. Unfortunately, about 0100 a.m. Andrea and Casey were so hot they got up and went and got another room. If they had stayed just a little while longer, they would have heard me get up and turn the air on because I too, was dying of heat. Fortunately, the hotel didn't charge them for the extra room. In the morning we woke up and did some shopping at the outlet malls. Is anyone else surprised that Riley made out like a bandit and no one else got anything? Yeah, neither am I. We then drove to Tuacahan so Dad could buy some tickets for Air Supply which is coming in concert there. (We expect pictures of that Dad.) Then it was off to Vegas, baby. Once we arrived in Vegas we chilled in the suite for a while. Well, it was more like we all sat around talking and getting to know Scott one of Rachel's friends, while Rachel and Riley chased each other around the suite having a pillow fight. That night we went to dinner at the rain forest cafe. This really cool restaurant with trees and vines and anamatronic animals everywhere. They even had a ceiling that looked like the night sky complete with fiber-optic lights that recreated shooting stars. Very cool. Here is a picture of Rachel and Riley enjoying her birthday cake.


And here is a picture of my little weirdo sucking on a lemon. That's right. It's not an off-colored orange slice or some strange new but tasty fruit. It is the lemon wedge out of Momma Lynn's water glass. He pulled it right out and would suck or lick it. And if he hit an especially sour part his face would crinkle, his entire body would shake a little, then he would dip it in her water glass and lick it again. Where exactly did this child come from?


After dinner we went to see the Circ-de-Sole show Ka. Very cool. Lots of crazy special effects and stunts. Because small children weren't allowed and frankly because we didn't think that even if they were it would be worth the 100$ ticket to have Riley come in and lose interest after 5 minutes and want to crawl all over everything, Momma Lynn skipped the show and took him over to the arcade inside the Excalibur instead. She is an awesome example of selflessness. I only hope one day to live up to the standards she has set as a mother. After the show we all reunited in the lobby of the MGM and watched them feed some lions dinner. It was a great experience. They have a large glass enclosure where they put lion's on display and they had their trainers in there with large hunks of meat. They would walk around and throw chunks of it against the glass so the lions would come up and eat it right in front of the crowd. The next afternoon, we got up and while Momma Lynn, Grandpa Brad and Riley decided to head for home, Rachel, Andrea, Casey, Reed and I stayed and went for a hike at this really cool place called Red Rock. Here is the picture of us at the start of the hike...


Here we are during the hike. No we didn't defy gravity, I am just learning how to post the pictures. Sorry...

And here we are at the end, a little exhausted but very proud of ourselves!


After our hike we rewarded ourselves with lunch at the Cheesecake factory where we met some of Rachel's friends who live in Las Vegas. Then it was off to the airport so Rachel could catch her flight home. Finding ourselves child-free and with another night in the hotel suite Casey, Andrea, Reed and I decided to stay another night and party it up. We went to the Titanic artifact exhibit - something that Reed had been wanting to do for a LONG time. Especially considering he has a small obsession with that disaster. Seriously I think he has watched every discovery channel documentary on that particular subject, even read a few books about it. But it was nice to have him there. He was like our own Titanic historian. He was able to tell us a lot more about the history of it than was just shown on the display cards. After that we did a little gambling and thanks to Casey and his excellent teaching, I won 40 bucks at roulette! Then we headed back to the hotel and got some sleep for our ride home the next morning. An all around excellent vacation. The only thing that made it lacking was not having Adam there for any of it. Next time, bud, we are coming to see you. Be prepared! -Heather