Fun photos from a silly day

The boys, being especially silly and wanting to pose for a camera, any camera!

Only missing one little boys feet. But he wouldn't have cooperated!

"Anakin" Severson

("The Anakin from the lava one", this is who he told me he was posing as)

Testing, Testing 123 and Ansel Singing

We were trying to see if we could load video from my digital camera to this blog and Ansel was more than happy to provide the footage for testing! Ansel loves singing, his favorites are Ring Around the Rosies, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, Follow the Prophet, and Book of Mormon Stories. Just watch these! If there was ever proof, that there is a difference between boys and girls, just watch Ansel sing these songs!! My favorite is the banging "rhythm" to Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star!!

Ring Around the Rosies

Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star

Rooster Rock Park and the AANR, parents beware. . . .

Today was such a warm sunny day, that after church we decided to go for a drive/walk up in the gorge (25 minute drive). We randomly chose Rooster Rock State Park, mainly because we have seen the sign for it a million times and had never gone there before. It is this beautiful park right on the Columbia River marshlands. It is really long and has many things like trails, frisbee golf courses, picnic areas and boat launches. It seemed to cater to everyone. (little did we know how far that "catering to everyone" went).

A couple of pretty views from the drive there:

Mt. Hood

Looking up the Columbia Gorge

We got out of the car and Joe wanted to go check out the Frisbee Golf Course, I wanted to go down to the river and walk along it. We compromised, we went through the frisbee golf course and found a way down to the river.

On the way we passed this building, where one wall, warmed by the sun, was COVERED with box elder bugs. It reminded me of growing up in Utah.

A Frisbee golf "goal":

What if you over threw and it went into the water?! Last time I checked frisbee's are a lot more money than a golf ball!!

Kaelan and I:

He really, really liked riding in the backpack. He used my hair as his "reigns" and would pat me on the head. He thought it was great fun. So did I.

It took a while to find a way down, that wasn't jumping off a 50 ft cliff of sand and trees, but finally we did. Within about 30 seconds of climbing down the steep hillside, Joe delivered the first shock. "Cami, there is a naked man just over there" He whispered into my ear. My eyes whip over to where he had jestured to. "Don't look!!" He says fiercely!! Too late. Besides, I just had to see! Sure enough, there was a man in his mid 50's strolling down a trail, buck NAKED, just as if it were the most normal thing in the world! He even had his arms folded. We hid in the small copse of trees waiting for him to venture further on, while at the same time trying to interest the boys in something else, so they wouldn't see the weirdo. Just didn't want to go there. This is supposed to be a Sunday walk after all!!

Soon he is gone from sight, and so we venture out onto the trail (in the opposite direction, of course). We try a few trails, through the marshlands, trying to get to the beach of the river, but were unsuccessful. We keep going down river looking for trails out. As we come back out from a dead end, low and behold ANOTHER naked man is strolling along a trail. AHHHH. I tell the boys to wait for dad and I keep a lookout, to see when all is clear. Joe teased me mercilessly for being the one to do this. "Why didn't you let me do that? You just wanted to see the naked men!!" Hahahaha! Yeah, right. I love looking at naked old wrinkly men! I was about to go out there and confront the sickos and tell them to get out of the park, there were children here!! I knew they didn't have any weapons. . . .hehehe, I could see that! No place hidden on them! I was about to get a stick and whip their soft pudgy bare bottoms back to the parking lot!

Not 5 minutes later, here comes another one. SHEESH?!? What is up with this place. Joe and I start to speculate about this park and its dark underbelly. Is this some secret rendevous for crazy homos or something? Suddenly our nice sunday stroll is a nice sunday jog for the parking lot. If only we knew where it was, or how close! In the meantime, the boys are have a great time, totally oblivious to the goings on around them. We pass a main trail to the river and see some parasurfers coming back from the river. They are talking and laughing, about what, you can probably guess. One guy says "Last time I was here, there was one in a button up shirt and tie and nice slick business shoes and NOTHING in between! Guess he just wanted easy access!" They all laugh! Joe and I look at each other, "people know about this pnenomena?!?"

Finally we come to some steep stairs leading up to the parking lot. Up we go. At the top is the trail head marker and info board. On it there is a plaque that reads "clothing optional beach" Approved by the AANR (American Association for Nudist Recreation)! Joe and I start laughing!! Because we went through the disc golf course, we never saw the sign and thus, walked unsuspecting into a nudist beach! This park is HUGE, and we just happened to randomly pick the part of it reserved for nudists!! Talk about your unique Sunday education!

By the way, the rest of the park was totally normal. Much to our relief. But this day will not soon be forgotten!!

Here are some pics of the adventure:

(Sorry, no old nude guy photos!)

The boys are their antics:

Ansel loved the trails . Aren't they beautiful? Well, if you take the old naked guys out of your mind, they are.!!

On the trail the boys used sticks to draw in the sand. They spent most of their time with their heads down looking at the sand, making it very easy for us to evade the naked guys, with out them even noticing!!

Levi and his "artist" stick in the sunset.

Sweet Kaelan

Photos overlooking the "infamous" beach

Joe, sliding down the stair railing to the beach. Levi tried it too, but dad had to point out that there was definitely a wrong way for boys to do this, and Levi was doing it the WRONG way. Too funny.

Great day. Lots of memories, even more laughs. Nothing like trying to keep the Sabbath Day holy on a nude beach!!

Can you say irresponsible parents?!?

This friday we had some friends (The Domans- yes the Domans of BYU football lore), and their kids, over for dinner and games. It was a great night, we had a fun time playing games and the kids played upstairs on the Wii and in the bounce house. They were having so much fun that we never saw them once. Finally, after our last game, which took longer than we realized - Yikes it was 11pm, time flies when your having fun- we went upstairs to collect their kids, so they could go, and this is what we found:

The younger boys were all passed out on the floor and couch, and the two older kids- Levi and Makayla were still going strong on the Wii! It was so funny we had to snap a photo.

Here is Makayla watching Levi play My Sims on the Wii. Levi assured me that she also got a turn!

Makayla didn't want to go home. She tried really hard to barter with her mom to stay! I ended up subbing in primary today, and it was her class that I ended up teaching! Too fun. The whole time she kept telling the other kids all about playing at our house. It was really cute.

Wow!!! We have new bedroom furniture!!

This blog is here because my mom really wanted to see pictures of my new furniture! Hi mom!!!

It has been a very long time, well, actually since we have been married (10+ years) that we have been using hand-me-down master bedroom furniture. One week ago, our bedroom furniture consisted of our king size bed, on a cheap metal frame, and a night stand, borrowed from the guest bedroom furniture set. That was it. But that all changed on Wednesday. A couple of weeks ago, we used a bit of our tax return money to buy new furniture - for the first time- from Costco.com. It arrived on Wednesday. I have to tell you, that I am very impressed with Costco.com. They are an great place to buy excellent quality items. There was no shipping cost and they have White Glove delivery service deliver the furniture, set it up and clear away any packaging material. Plus everything you buy from there is guaranteed in a way that only Costco can.

Here is a "before" photo of the room:

The spanish delivery guys setting up the furniture:

(definitely made it hard to get any instructions from them, they ONLY spoke spanish)

Here is the Final product:

The furniture is all English Heirloom, with dovetail joints and ballbearing rails for sliding the drawers out.

The bed is a lot higher than it used to be, kind of have to jump a little to get into bed! :) I love the headboard and footboard.

The nightstand is my favorite! Inside the top drawer it has a charging center for cellphones/ Ipod's etc. SOOOO handy! Also, it has a touch night light that has 4 levels of brightness that shines from underneath the nightstand, so easy to just touch the little metal brad, right under the top drawer, and on comes the light. Really easy to use in the dark!

The most expensive piece was the dresser. It had cedar inside it's drawers and all sorts of fun, usable details. I love the insert for jewelry. So fun.

Now, I get to decorate my room, and I am going to start with some really great curtains!!!

Grandpa Severson comes to town

This little trip happened right before I got pneumonia, two weeks ago, and so it kind of got looked over. However, it was so special that I had to go back and include it. Larry flew up for a long weekend and we spent alot of time hiking/exploring the great outdoors. One of the days Great-grandpa Severson went hiking with us and I was able to get a few fun photos.

Here are the 4 generations of Severson men:

We, accidentally, forgot Kaelan's backpack and so Joe and I switched off carrying him. Joe did it mostly though! Kaelan loved riding on daddy's shoulders!

There was this really cool, new, wooden suspension bridge that bounced when you jumped on it. It spanned a small river, and was part of the hike. The boys loved it.

Ansel loved it so much that he ended up getting hurt from over-zealous jumping, poor sweetheart!

He is so cute, even when he is crying! Some parts of the trail were so muddy, that at one point we all waded into the river to clean off our shoes! So glad that Larry could come up and make memories with us!

How to play on a Spring day

This week was another great spring weather week. We did a lot of things out of doors. Once again we went to the park. The boys rode their scooters there (even Ansel) and Kaelan rode in his stroller. Along the walk behind our house was a clear view of Mt. Hood, so Ansel posed with it in the background, it looks tiny in the photo, so I shot a close up of the mountain so you could see what it looked like.

Beautiful isn't it?! We love the Northwest!!

When we got to the park I didn't see much more than glimpses, here and there, of the big boys. They were having so much fun with their friends. But, Kaelan and I did some swinging. I took some pictures of him, while he tried to poke the camera. He thought it was great fun!

Ansel loved posing for the camera:

Half-way through the play, Levi, Calder and Nathaniel (the boys best friend) wanted me to push them in the tire swing, so Ansel volunteered to hold Kaelan for me. The best part about this was Levi and Calder bragging to Nathaniel how "awesome" their mom was at pushing the tire swing! "Just wait and see, she is awsome at it" I overheard them say. Never thought that I would feel so pleased to hear my swing pushing abilities complimented, but when it comes from my boys it feels like the best compliment ever!

Here are a few more pics from the play:

Look at those baby blues!!