Camping adventure

We decided to venture out on our very first camping adventure with Naomi over the weekend. We forgot the camera so there are no pictures to accompany this blog post. I'm deeply sorry.

Well we headed out with Chelsea, Daniel, Benson, Kimber and McKay, and a young couple from our ward, the Bullocks.
We went to Mink Lake which is out past Stony Plain (west of the city). It was an alright campground to begin with, but there were definitely not enough trees around each site. There was not enough privacy by far.
Benson was super excited to camping for his first time... although I think that sleeping in a tent at his great grandma's cabin counts, but Chelsea and Daniel don't count that.
He was very excited to be making smores. But you know he was freaking out a little when his marshmallow was turning brown in the fire. We had to explain that that is what happens when you roast marshmallows. The only other time he has had smores, was at my mom's house and the marshmallows were heated in the microwave. It was so cute!!!

Naomi had fun I think. She did not want to go to bed at bedtime though. She is used to her bedroom which is pretty dark, and much quieter. Just a few sites a way was some people consuming a great amount of alcohol, and they had their car radio up about as loud as it would go I assume. So after listening to her cry for half an hour we got her up and she came and sat around the fire with us adults. Around 10 we tried again to put her to bed since it was now darker. She finally gave in after about 20-25 minutes of crying. The music finally shut off around 11. We decided to head to bed around 11:30. Well Naomi being the lite sleeper that she is woke up as we filed into the tent. I grabbed her and tried to nurse to sleep between Aric and I. This is when the funniest thing happened. Aric was trying to give us a bit of space, when he disappeared off the edge of the bed!!! We have one of the air mattresses that is on it's own bed. So he went off the edge about a foot and a half to the ground. His sleeping bag combined with the cover of the air mattress equaled very slippery!! I had to control my desired to laugh, to ask if he was alright. Apparently Chelsea and Daniel on the other side of the tent were laughing (but keeping it very quiet). "Did he fall off the bed?" they were whispering to each other.
Anyway Naomi would not calm down so for the sake of the rest of the camp, I took Naomi and myself into the van to sleep. It was a lot quieter in there and she fell asleep in her car seat in about 7 minutes. Now for me to get comfortable and try to sleep. I was in the seat with her which does not give much for leg room or laying down. I wedged my feet between the door and the front seat and tried to sleep. Naomi is very much a stomach sleeper so anytime she tried to roll to her stomach she would wake up and freak out. So most of the night she slept on me... in that middle row, very uncomfortable.

Around 4 in the morning I saw a body emerge from the tent and disappear. Then about 10 minutes later I notice the fire burning pretty small. I sneak out of the van and go see who it is. Aric is sitting there playing a game on his phone. Apparently he had not slept at all due to noise from nearby campsites. Our friends with the music had turned their music back at some point apparently. And another site was having a laughing attack. So I convinced him to come into the can for a bit as it was quiet in there. He stayed in there until Naomi woke up for good around 7. He went to the tent to try to catch a few z's. That didn't last long though as we were all starting to wake up and life was starting at the campground. Well needless to say we did not really enjoy that campground and we won't be going back there. We will look for something a bit more secluded next time.

Over all I think we all had a fun time... minus the sleeping situation. I know I only got about an hour and a half collectively that night. I think we might try sleeping in the tent in the backyard to see if we can get her used to going to bed in a tent.

Well that's it for this post everyone. Nice to see people are reading this blog. I know it really just to check on Naomi :-)

Mirror, mirror on the wall

Hello all.
We are back. We went down to Calgary for the weekend for our niece Eliza Jane Iverson Harker. Boy is she a cutie. When we got home I realized I had not taken one photo of her! Sorry everyone.
Well they have a little rocking chair for Eliza and Naomi just loved it! Here she is chillin the chair.

Later we decided to take some photos of her in the tree. By the time I got the camera this is what we got.

Ready to go to church
A couple of days ago I decided to bring out a mirror for Naomi to play with and the following photos are a few of the photos of her enjoying her new "friend"




She just loves to play with mirrors. You would think that she was the most self centered child eh? But you know it really is the cutest thing to watch her play with the mirror image.

Summer bliss

We are enjoying our summer very much. Naomi's tooth is coming nicely. My prediction is that our little girl will be needing the braces when she is a little older. If you look closely in this pic you can see her tooth :)

As soon as her tooth popped through we got her some toothpaste and we have started on our brushing routines.

On the August long weekend here in Edmonton, there is a Heritage festival held, and we headed down to Hawrelak Park. We got ourselves some riisi pirakka from the Finnish booth (which was my favorite part, I won't lie.) Outside of the Scandinavian booth they always have a viking ship. So we had to get a picture of Naomi and Aric being attacked by the viking.

Nordic carving.

Braving the crowds.

Ok so i just had to share some of these pictures because Naomi is just so darn cute and photogenic.

So Chelsea, Daniel and the kids have officially moved back to Edmonton. We took the 2 older kids one afternoon so that they could get some quality unpacking and setting up done. This is what ensued... Naomi's favorite playground.

Again just toooooo cute!

Mom... which one should I use? I'm just confused.

She just loves to relax with the headphones. She was pretty happy just laying there listening.

So one day Naomi was resisting pretty hard her nap time. She cried for probably about half an hour before she fell asleep. She kept sleeping and we needed to go out so I had to wake her up. I opened the door and found her on all 4's "asleep".

I was surprised that the flash had not woken her up. So I decided to take a front photo of her face. When I took the photo I noticed that her eyes were open. She looked so sad it about crushed me.

Aric had a wrestling match with Naomi on our bed and I think she got him pinned pretty good.
We took Chelsea and the kids to the splash park we went to with Aric's school. Benson and Kimber loved it!!! Naomi and McKay had their moments of joy and not so much joyous moments.

Naomi and Aric enjoying the water.

I really don't know if this is a good face or a bad face.
(Check out the booger coming from her nose)

Kimber enjoying the water too

McKay playing in the trough

Chelsea and Benson looking so intense

Peek-a-boo!

Aric decided that dress Naomi in one of his shirts

So we decided to give Naomi her first pig tails. They ended up looking more like devil horns... but she made them so adorable

Well Aric is officially employed. He went and signed his contract on Monday, and now we can just wait the paycheck. He has been in a few days to the new school to set up his class room, and get some things in order for him. We have gone and Naomi loves the new room. She was all over the place, exploring all the nooks and crannies. Getting into all the cupboards the cubby holes. I'm sure we will have fun going to visit daddy at work.
Well that is it folks. That is all that we have for you this week. Leave a comment and let me know that this actually be read. Thanks.

We have the tooth! The whole tooth! And nothing but the tooth!!!

Ladies and gentlemen... it has happened. Naomi finally has a tooth that is coming in. It broke through today...yay! It is the bottom left front for those who are interested. We don't have a picture yet, but we will try to catch a photo of it soon. We saw the gums turning white... then this afternoon we felt it.
She is growing way too fast.
Just a short one today to update you all.

We're back!!!

So we are back from vacation. I'm sorry that it has taken so long to go through the photos and choose JUST 51 out of the over 800 that we took. So we will take you through our trip via photos.
We started our trip on Friday July 1st. Aric was asked to organize and prepare the breakfast for our wards Canada Day shin-dig. He did a wonderful job too.
As soon as we could, we hopped int he car to begin our 3 week road trip with our good friends the Palsky's. ( They joint he story once we get to Utah.)

So we hopped int he car and drove as far as Lethbridge, to spend the night with Grandma Wutzke. Then the next morning we got back in the car and drove to Idaho Falls. We didn't ant to push Naomi's good mood with too much driving. We decided to splurge a little and get ourselves ad hotel right on the falls. We got a nice room that overlooked the falls, and were happy to be done driving for the day. All was good until Aric went to give Naomi a bath, and take a shower himself. Then he found that there was almost zero water pressure. Anyway our room was switched to an even nicer room... with a great view for the temple. As seen here

Naomi had a "fantastic" first night. While I was up consoling her I decided to open the door and snap a beautiful night shot of the temple. Unfortunately I didn't have my tripod handy so it's a bit blurry when in a bigger size.

On Sunday we went to church at the stake center next to the temple. man can I say that I didn't really like that ward. No one said hi to us. Granted we weren't there for very long as Naomi was a restless little thing. So right after the sacrament we headed out to Utah.
In Utah we first stayed at my good friend (twin separated by birth) Rachel Perkins house in Sandy. On July 4th we head to Orem to see the parade and spend the rest of the day at Rachel's parents (Jerry and Lynn Perkins) house. Oh good times. I miss spending my summers with them.

Naomi and I at the parade

I'm pretty sure this was the highlight of the parade for Aric!

This was the most interesting thing I saw at the parade. Captain America?

Only in Utah will the missionaries be invited to walk in the parade. There was probably 100 or so walking in it

Cosmo Cougar strutting his stuff

Hanging out with Rachel and Rebekah Perkins at the parade

At the Perkins family home later Aric decided to take on the little boys in a sword fight.

Not sure who ended up winning. If you ask Aric I'm sure he would say he won

Naomi has a real love for swings

That afternoon Aric and I headed to Salt Lake to pick up our friends the Palsky's. They went to Utah with Travis' parents for a family reunion. So when they were done, we picked them up so they could join us on the rest of the trip. We met them at the conference center and brought them back to the Perkins for the rest of the day. Except I snuck for a bit to go and see my mission companion Candice Packer. It was great to catch up with her, and her family too. They are great people.
The plan was to go and watch the fireworks in Lehi, but we decided that Naomi and Jake (Palsky's 4 month old) needed to be put to bed more than we needed to see fireworks.
The next day we headed back to Orem to show Aric, Robin and Travis BYU campus (actually just the Bookstore). I was shocked to find out that none of them had ever been to BYU. Then that night we split the couples up and went our separate ways for the night to visit family. We met up with Aric's aunt Cami and uncle Lee and their son Aaron, for dinner. It was nice to catch up with them. I think next time we need to spend a little more time with them. I feel bad that the last 2 times that we have seen them it has only been for dinner. But dinner is better than nothing.

So the next day we headed up to Park City to stay with my aunt Laureen and uncle Paul for a few days. It was very nice to spend some time with them and my three cousins who live in the area. We hit the outlet mall which is always a blast! Aric actually bought a watch! He hates watches!!. But it looks good on him. Now while were at my aunt and uncles Naomi gt her first fever. The poor thing was so off of her game. She got weirdly cuddly. And actually she started doing the cutest thing. She would crawl over to me and kneel next to me and lay her head and body on my body, and fall asleep. Awe it just melted my heart. The fever lasted about a day and half, poor thing.

Naomi in her new snuggling pose
"Paging Dr. Wutzke"
We took a day and headed back to Salt Lake to take in some of temple square. Aric and I took a tour of the conference center. Aric had never been in it before, but we were both amazed at the size of the building. I was even amazed having seen it before. I just love Temple square. It's amazing how there is such a busy world going on outside the walls of Temple square. But inside it is so serene and calm. We enjoyed talking with the sister missionaries we meet. Aric really enjoyed chatting with the french speaking ones.

Our cute little family

Our next stop on our trip was Burley, Id. We headed up there to spend a couple of days with with Aric's aunt Terra and uncle Kelly. Now that was relaxing. We really didn't do much. Watched a bunch of movies, ate WAY too much, and drove sea-doos on the snake river. That is one of my favorite things to do. man I got on that thing and I was off. I hit the max speed of 65 m/hr in no time flat. What was really neat was that it around 6 that we started playing on the snake river. So there was actually a section of the river that was just full of fish swimming really close to the surface looking for food. Seriously if I had a butterfly net, I could have caught about 20 in one swipe. I don't even like fish, but it was pretty cool to witness.

I told you she was a big swing fan

Another new love of hers is the trampoline

So downstairs Terra and Kelly have a pool/ping pong table. We had some pretty fun games on that. One of my favorites was our "family" game. It was all fun and games until Naomi got one in the eye!!!! Ha ha ha... don't our parents always warn against stuff like that?
My adorable little angel

I found a new way to calm down Naomi while in the car. She is my little Diva :)

She just loves the headphones

Our next stop was Oregon. It was the longest leg of trip with 4 adults and 2 infants in the van. We dealt well with it. We made sure to rotate our seating arrangements often so no one was in the back for too long. It was about a 9.5 hour trip. When we got to Oregon we checked into our hotel. What were we thinking? We had booked a hotel online and booked all 6 of us into the one room because we got such an awesome deal on it. Hahahaha I have never been so cramped. BUT... it was cheap!!! Good thing it was only for 3 nights. That first night was Naomi's worst night of trip so far. She woke a couple of times, and the last time I felt bad for the whole room so I took her out at 11:45 and we walked the halls, checked out the pool, and sat in the lobby until Naomi decided that she was tired and fell asleep on the couch. That happened to be finally at 2:05am. I was exhausted!!! Next day Chelsea and Daniel took us on a walk/hike up to a look out point. It was quite beautiful. WOW... am I out of shape! It's sad really.

At the look out

Later that day we got the chance to see my aunt Rhonda and uncle Don before they headed up to Canada on their vacation. I haven't seen them IN Oregon for probably over 20 years. It was nice to see them.

Aric, Me, Naomi, Don and Rhonda

Chelsea and Daniel took us on a mini road trip to go some sites from the movie"The Goonies". it was pretty fun. We drove out to Astoria,OR and saw the house that "The Goonies" was filmed at.

Then we headed to the county Jail where the bad guys broke out of at the beginning of the movie.

Then we headed out to Cannon Beach where there was some filming of the movie was done. You may recognize the rocks coming up in some of the next photos.

Chelsea and Kimber at Cannon beach

The famous rock formation

Isn't Benson oh so cute in his dad's sweatshirt?

We tuckered out the little one. Yes she is sleeping with one eye open

Chels and Daniel took into downtown Portland to experience the wonders of Voodoo Donuts. They have the craziest flavors. From Oreo to captain crunch to fruit loops to just about anything you can think of. Of some of them are the size of dinner plates.

After that we sat and enjoyed our donuts. They were oh so tasty!!!! Kimber is shown here liking the last of her donut.

The clan left to right
Tavis (red hat), Robin with Jake, Daniel in blue, Aric, Me and Naomi, Kimber in stroller and Benson playing with the water

After our trip down town on the train (which was Chelsea and the kids first time!!!) we got in the car and headed to Seattle to visit with Aric's sister Casey.
We didn't do much that first night. Went out to eat then relaxed. Day 2 there, we got up really early to catch the ferry to Bremerton where Aric finished high school. We joined Sandy and Herchel Elijah for church. Aric lived with them his final year of high school. So we went to church there and he was able to see some old friends. Then kindly after church Sandy and Herschel had us over for some food and chatting. A buddy of Aric's from school was able to come with his wife to visit as well. Naomi was hit of course!!!

Naomi on her first ferry ride

Casey has 2 really friendly boxers, Sully and Oscar. They were so excited to have company, and they just loved the kids.

Our little tuckered babe

Naomi has found that she loves to pull herself to standing positions and to even jump on couches. She really is getting so big

She would fall asleep on us all the time. She is just so cute awake... and even more while asleep

Casey took the day off of work and took us to Pike Place Market. Always an interesting place. I found a real jewel there this time.So for anyone who has wanted to feel like a Canadian or more like a Canadian. Make sure that you read the back!!!

Our next stop on the tour was In Mission, B.C. to spend a couple of days with my brother and sister-in-law and their kids. The fist night Neko wanted to help out with Naomi's bath time. So she hopped into her bathing suit and and into the tub to help scrub the Gnomster down. It was so cute!

Ian and Sharlene and kids took us out to Harrison Hot Springs for the day. It was beautiful day and location.The town reminded me a lot of Waterton. We got some lunch and ice cream and went for a walk partly around the lake.

Huxley hangin by the lake. I love his hair

He is just so adorable

Smile for the camera Naomi!!

The next day we headed into Stanley Part in Vancouver to meet up with a friend of Travis. What a beautiful park. I like how it has park areas and forest areas. Aric and Naomi got pretty close with that squirrel.

Our trip home was a very long one. It was about 14 or 15 hours. When we rolled into Travis and Robins house at 2:30 am Naomi thought that she had had a great nap.
I sent Aric to sleep on the couch while I stayed in the nursery with the wide awake Naomi. She rolled around my bed for an hour and a half before she finally conked out again. Then she woke early and I was exhausted and just ready to be home... inmy own bed! So I woke Arid up and we decided that we would let the Palsky's sleep and we would empty the car and bring their stuff in for them. Well after I got their child seat out and Naomi's back into place, I stepped out of the van and hit the curb I didn't see and over I went on my ankle. Now at this point I was very tired and now writhing in pain, and soooooooo ready to be home. Once we got home... it was glorious. Our bed was so comfortable!

My beautiful ankle

So now we are trying to get back into normal life. Naomi hasn't been sleeping super well since we got home, so we are trying to ease her back onto the bedtime routine. She is starting to adjust well. We had to quickly baby proof the living room when we got home since she only starting to crawl right before we left. Not she is into absolutely everything!!!! It's crazy how she is changing so fast. Even today she is putting herself up by the board that is covering the dvds and is now starting to pull the dvds off of the higher shelves. I've got to come up with something more inventive. Wish me luck.
Well I think that is enough for now. This definitely the longest post ever!!! But that has caught us up. I hope you enjoyed.