27

Brandon turned 27, so I will take off where I ended last year and say a few more things that I love about him.

His sense of adventure
He is always a good sport

His great smile

Truly an all-American boy.

Happy birthday, again! I look forward to many more. Love you!

Discovery Green with Reed

Today Reed came to visit and we went to Discovery Green park. Since Violet now walks, she had a great time splashing through the fountains. Here are some pics:
All wet with daddy

Being a mommy's girl And one of my favorite pictures of Violet and Reed. Thanks for visiting!

This picture was taken especially for Jennifer, since no one else will really get it. If you ever have a bad day, just remember that I destroyed that ugly print and the frame is going to good use.

This picture is old but hilarious. A few weeks ago I was sitting on the floor and kneading some dough for calzones. I left it for a few minutes and when I got back I found that Violet had pulled it out of the bowl and was chomping into it. Nasty.

Violet walking to Purple

She can't go very far, but she's getting better every day.

Violet and Purple

Violet has a stuffed dinosaur (a T-rex, to be exact) named Purple that was Brandon's when he was a kid. Today Violet was playing with some cardboard chickens when she started feeding them to Purple. She stuck them right in his mouth. I saw this and said, "Good job, Violet! That is exactly the kind of food T-rex would have eaten. He ate the chicken's ancestors."

I see a future as a paleontologist. Or a zookeeper.

Washington 2

I put this picture up just so I could say that I cleaned and chopped every one of these squids here. It was gross.A diver came to our condo and caught some sea creatures for the kids to look at. Violet didn't like the starfish too much.

She tried to step on this one.

On our way out, we stopped at the Space Needle,then camped out at Mt. Rainier. After that, we headed home from 2 crazy, awesome weeks of vacation.

Yet another vacation post: Washington

At BYU I met a ton of people from Washington and they all seemed even more proud of their state than Texans are of Texas. So I've always been curious to know what all the fuss is about. Well, I totally fell in love with Washington when we were there a few weeks ago. The weather was cool, it was very green, and there were enormous blackberries everywhere. I could live there.

We went to Rialto beach and it was very foggy but still beautiful. Violet loved playing with the rocks on the beach. We also stopped at the rain forest, and it was incredibly green and dense. We found some wild raspberries, which made Violet very happy.

Violet was also very happy about all the big trees. I let her crawl under this one and everyone that passed thought it was hilarious.

This last one was taken on Hurricane Ridge at Olympic national park. Who says you have to be in Texas to take bluebonnet picture? (Just kidding; they were a different variety of lupine.)