Carpet Scritching

If you spend much time around Asher you'll soon discover that he likes to "scritch" things (he's been doing this for months and months!). He feels the different textures and listens to the different sounds. Sometimes he'll even have one hand on one thing (like the carpet) and one hand on something else (like the couch) and he'll compare the two! It's so cute, he'll look back and forth as he scritches like he's trying to figure out which one he likes better, or like he's listening to the different sounds he's making. So, here is a picture of him scritching the carpet. He does this one the most. He must really like our carpet!

Oh, I almost forgot...

...to include our time whitewater rafting! It was so much fun! We had 3 rafts full (18 people total) of Frandsens and we rafted down the Gallatin river. I had to laugh at these pictures the company took because they make it look like we were getting clobbered! When in reality, these rapids weren't really all that hard. :-) We did have fun, but were a little disappointed that it wasn't more challenging. So...anyone up for a rafting trip on the Colorado?! :-)
(Oh, and we got to do this all because Nana D GRACIOUSLY babysat all 3 grandkids (Asher and Lanae as well as cousin Brylan who is 2 1/2!) while us parents along with Papa Tim went to play. She definitely had her hands full. Thanks Nana D!!)

In case you couldn't tell, Paeter and I are the people occupying the 2 middle seats on the raft.

Frandsen Reunion

This post is actually a continuation of the previous post about our vacation to Montana.... So, after we spent about a day (one afternoon, and the next morning) in Yellowstone, we drove over to near Big Sky, Montana to go to our family reunion! It was really nice to see everybody (most of whom I'd met 6 years ago at the last reunion) and get reaquainted a bit. But, it was especially great to see Paeter's sister, Jhannea and her family as well as Nana D and Papa Tim! (They've been gone for the past 6-7 weeks up north, visiting family.)

I just had to include this picture because this is what Asher does when he sees I'm about to take a picture. He's anticipating the flash. He'll see the little red light turn on and then he closes his eyes. I forgot to wait for that this time, and accidentally took the picture while his eyes were closed. Normally, I remember to wait until he opens his eyes again.



And here are the members of the "Tim Frandsen Family" who were there (Jon and Karyne couldn't make it because they were in Italy!! We missed you!). Yes, I have my eyes closed. What can I say, like mother like son??

Here are Asher and cousin Lanae. They are about 9 1/2 weeks apart, and they had fun "playing" together (that's in quotes because they didn't really play WITH each other, they just mostly played NEAR each other).

We all had a fun time, but isn't it funny how you have to recover from a vacation? I think I get to sleep more at home when I'm not on vacation, than I did while on our trip (and I don't get to sleep much at home between work and Asher!). Oh well, it was still very fun and very much needed to have time away from work!! Oh, and in case you're wondering Asher did VERY well on the the plane and all the driving around we did. (he had his moments, of course, but don't we all?) I'm so proud of him!

Yellowstone National Park

I haven't had a chance to post in a while because we were out of town on VACATION! It was much needed, and as has been the case with our previous 3 vacations, I got sick! So, I'm now finally recovered from our vacation. We flew up to Billings, Montana and rented a vehicle to drive to Gardiner, MT to stay for 2 nights while we visited Yellowstone National Park. It was my first time there, and since Paeter's not much of an outdoorsman or sightseer (as most of you know!) I thought this might be my only chance to see the place! :-) It was HUGE and BEAUTIFUL! We didn't have the time to stop at very many of the attractions, but just driving around inside the park was amazing. There were snowcapped mountains, and rolling hills with trees and a river running near the road most of the time. It was so nice to be somewhere cool and green! Here are a few pictures that we took along the way (in no particular order).


Here's Paeter and Asher at Mammoth Hot Springs. I was a little confused at the name, because there really weren't very many "springs." It was mostly this white ground built up in terraces with a tiny steaming trickle of water here and there. Maybe we didn't go to the right place. It was still nice to see, but confusing to me. I didn't do a whole lot of research before we went, so there are probably a lot of things that I missed and history that I could have learned, but we just didn't have the time to go into all that stuff.

Here we are at "Lower Falls" (you can see the waterfall waaaaaay in the background). It was very beautiful, but at the end of the day, Asher was VERY tired and half asleep when we took this picture. This was our last stop of the day so we could get Asher home to bed. (And, Mandy, that's my ERGO carrier!)




Here is the view from the deck of our hotel. Each room had a door out to it's own deck, where you can take in the beautiful view and hear the rushing river below.

Of course one of our stops HAD to be "Old Faithful." And it was just that! It went off very close to the predicted time that it would. It erupts approximately every 92 minutes. Very fun to see in person!

Yumm! Spaghetti!

Asher has finally widened his food choices. So far he likes spaghetti (which he is eating in the pictures below)--it took him a few tries to keep the noodles in his mouth (we use macaroni noodles in our spaghetti) but he does eat them now--, sloppy joe, cheerios, vanilla yogurt (peach flavored is still questionable at this point), bread/toast, smoothies, apple juice...oh, I can't forget, those Gerber sweet potato puffs! He LOVES those! We tried some cheese today, and so far that's hit and miss--we'll see....