Those summer days

Summer goes by fast. It goes fast when you are a little kid and it seems to go even faster when you're older. Summer was quite busy for us. We had Rudy and Steven visiting for 2 months. Then my parents came out for a bit. Hans got his endowments and then left for his mission. Sam came out for school. Little Bruce (Uncle Bruce Jr.) returned from his mission and resumed schooling. We had a lot of gardening and yard work. Matt was super busy at work. Now that canning season is winding up and things are slowing down I thought I'd catch up on our blog.
Rainer's vocabulary has exploded. He has around 50 words and is learning more each day it seems. He likes to sing the "Do as I'm doing" song. He's getting more and more independent. Fortunately he hasn't learned to say "no" yet but he can express dissatisfaction quite well without it.
Vonn is a great big brother. He loves helping and hugging Rainer. A couple weeks ago he held Rainer's hand while they walked through the store. It was so precious. Vonn continues to amaze me with how rapidly he learns. He is working on writing as well as reading. He writes his name and a few more letters as well as numerals 0-8. He is so eager to go to school. He keeps asking, "Is I 5 yet?"
Here's another portrait of Rainer. It made us laugh when we saw how it turned out. He looks like a model or like he's doing a senior portrait.

Produce

We had quite the harvest this year. The boys and I had to do the majority of it by ourselves as Matt was working overtime and going to school most of the season. The peas did ok but I accidentally planted snap peas in half the rows. I'm not particularly fond of snap peas and they were the ones that did the best. From our trees we got 40 lbs of cherries and 60 lbs of apricots, and that was only the amount we preserved. The muskrats and birds got quite the feast as well. I grew onions and shallots for the first time. I couldn't keep up with the weeds so they are smallish onions and shallots but still tasty. We managed to put away some mullberries in our freezer for winter but not as much as we would have liked. Our peppers did ok but not as great as years past. The beans were basically a wash. Carrots were a bonus as almost all the seeds were washed away by the irrigation water. We were pleasantly surprised to find 3 lbs worth hiding in the weeds. Of course they didn't get thinned so they looked very peculiar. We got around 50 lbs of corn and 100 lbs of tomatoes. Ah, tomato sauce, so good to eat, so annoying to reduce. We bought some peaches 2.75 bushels worth. The plums are about done and we're waiting on the apples from our tree. For some canning milestones: apricot jam, my first ever jam, and applesauce. It was fun having all this produce around. The boys would just nab fruit and chow down. Rainer would eat pretty much anything. Vonn has more discerning tastes (i.e. he's a picky eater) but now I know that he likes pears (unripe), cherries, and plums.

The in-between bits

Messy eater!

In June, we took a trip to Kennecott, the world's largest open pit copper mine. Gigantic dump trucks and two boys; need I say more.

We also went to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple Open House. It was lovely. There was a summer storm when we arrived but when we finished the tour there was a huge rainbow spanning the valley. Vonn calls it the Ogre Mountain Temple. It's cute.

Boys building towers in September. Rainer has some tremendous stacking skills.

Fourth of July fireworks were quite tame this year. Vonn hid in the house. Rainer preferred to be right up with all the action.

Sunglasses from a primary activity. Rainer loves them. He will find them and put them on and just laugh and laugh.


Rainer is experimenting with different media to enhance his creative expression. Mom is not pleased.

The lure of a fan. Why do we buy toys?

The shirtless wonders were spotted on our camping trip with grandma and grandpa Vonn.

Vonn went fishing with his namesake. He caught "3 fish with spots" and, my, were they tasty (even the tails).


Playing with Hans at the lake. This was the only way Rainer would go near the water.

The sand was fun though.


Vonn wants everyone to know that this is him. Since Matt was working so much we didn't get to go camping as a family until later in the summer.


It's not a camping trip unless there's dirt and marshmallows, preferably mixed together.

The "money can" pleases a second generation. Uncle Bruce has this old milk can he would throw his spare change in. As a child we would get to put "one hand in the money can" and pull up as much money as we could. Vonn got a little under $2. I scored $11.64 and a 50-cent piece. Oh yeah! Rainer needs to practice more as he only gets a few cents at a time.

Vonn's new hobby is fishing. Unfortunately neither Matt nor I remember much about angling. We let him practice casting on this trip to the waterfront. Grandpa needs to come out soon and teach us all how to fish.

Cruising in our boat.

Fresh corn on the cob!

Rainer/Vonn Sweater

Here's the sweater I made Rainer. I didn't scrutinize the pattern though and it was only later that I learned that it was not quite Rainer-sized. Vonn was quite pleased when he learned that it would be his sweater for the time being.

I made a few mistakes but I won't tell you about them so you can't see them. I let Vonn pick out the buttons. So he of course chose the little vehicle-shaped ones. Hm. Just so you know they aren't easy to button because they snag. And the colors don't coordinate so well but I figure hey it's his sweater- well Rainer's that is. Rainer approved of the button choice so all is well. It took me only 7 months to make it. The first sweater I made for Vonn took over a year. So I'm getting better, but I'm not as good as my mom who can knit a sweater in 1 week! Yes it's true. She is awesome. And they turn out so much nicer than mine. I aspire to be like my mom.

Gone Stale

Wow it's been awhile. I guess we've been too busy making memories to blog about them. Sorry to say but you've missed out on some exciting adventures: Easter, CO poisoning, ER visits, our Florida vacation, many of Rainer's milestones, cute Vonn sayings. Well I'll try to put you up to date. Looking at these pictures from just a couple months ago I realize how much the boys have changed already.
Vonn continues to make progress on his reading. We are working on two consonants together. He loves to go to primary at church. Today he sang in sacrament meeting with the primary for the first time. He was involved in a little sunbeam skirmish during the song but no one was injured and Vonn did not start it. He knew the chorus really well and we're quite proud of him. He continues to astound us with his fantastic memory (i think he gets that from his mom). His new favorite animal has quickly changed from frogs to lobsters. Hot dogs or "hot frogs" as he called them were a favorite meal for awhile until dad vetoed them from our menu. To be fair he only vetoed them because mom wouldn't buy hot dog buns. Who eats hot dogs in buns? We always just had them with pork and beans and if someone really wanted a bun you put them in a piece of bread. Dad did not appreciate those suggestions. Vonn likes having Rudy and Steven out for a visit. Rudy is now the official favorite uncle.
Rainer has grown so much. He walks and talks quite well. He has a huge list of words. The most frequently used are "uh oh" "stuck" "truck" "look" "light" and "milk", of course they sound like "uh oh" "istuck" "uck" "ook" "ight" and "muk". He is newly interested in drawing, climbing on the table, wearing dishcltohs on his head, and running away from mom.

Randomly cute

A picture from April. I just love that hair!

Doing yard work in April.

Vonn helping Dad work on the house in May.

Rainer driving his cheese around in his truck. He was so good at closing the tailgate after loading up the cheese (May).

Florida

We got to go to Florida this spring. The boys were excited to ride the jet. Vonn was entertained for quite awhile with the safety brochures. I was a little nervous when he would point to a picture and ask "what's this?": "Er people getting in crash position.... er trying to sit safe for an emergency," "Uh the plane landing on the water," "the plane landing on a mountain?," "Fire on the plane." Well I tried to tone it down and make it less scary. He didn't seem apprehensive about it. We had a lot of fun. We went to the beach a lot. That little curled up ball is Vonn snoozing. Neither Rainer nor Vonn were keen on the water. They had fun playing in the sand. Rainer hated the rinsing off part though.

We got to go up to Cape Canaveral and see the shuttle. In fact due to mission requirements we got to see 2 shuttles! Thanks to some savvy natives we got the tip on how to view the shuttles without having to fork over a ton of cash. We also saw some crabs at the beach by the Cape.

We had a good time visiting family. We got to be there when Hans received his mission call, an unexpected blessing. We also were there when Little Bruce called home from his mission, so we got to talk to him. We got to see everyone but Mike and his family and Little Bruce. Oh and we stayed in this fancy beachside resort, highly recommended. The inland accomodations were nice too (though they didn't give us breakfast in bed like the beachside hotel). Here's my brothers playing around.
P.S. ok i know everyone swapped photos. Don't think we were holding out on you. We just were busy and haven't gotten around to sending out our batch. one day they may surprise you.

Why we miss Hans

The boys sure had fun with Hans. Though now I no longer wonder why my house was always trashed after Hans left.
The second picture might seem an odd selection for this category but allow me to explain. We'd gone on our first bike ride of the season (note proper safety gear). Hans had gone with and had of course turned our vernal jaunt into a combat training exercise. To top it off, when asked to take a picture for our scrapbook he shot it through his legs so we had to look at his rump. Ah well, we'll always remember it fondly. Not his rump, the bike ride.

Easter

Easter was wonderful. Rainer got his first bite of chocolate and quickly his second, and third, and fourth, and so on. He really likes chocolate. I love this second picture. Vonn got this race car bunny in his basket. It took him awhile to eat it. Rainer followed Vonn around trying to sink his teeth into it. Vonn kept it out of harm's way for a long time until one small slip of attention and... well the second picture was the result. Don't feel too bad for Vonn though. Rainer's Easter candy lasted much longer than Vonn's. Vonn realizezd if Rainer "shared" he could get extra treats. I found him so angelically "sharing" Rainer's Cadbury cream egg. I had to take this last picture of it. He would hold it for Rainer to take a bite and then give himself a bite, back and forth. I figured Rainer didn't really need it and they were sharing so well.

"When I have grown a foot or two"

Crazy huh? At least I think that is Hans in the top picture; if it isn't it's close enough. Does he look like a missionary to you? Well he got his papers all ready; now he just has to finish his interviews with proper ecclesiastical authorities and submit them.