Are we there yet?!?

So, many of you have probably been wondering what the Crows have been up to lately: We have a lot of ground to cover, so here we go. Speaking of ground covering:

More snow! That's right - we had three snow storms here this winter (I for one blame George Bush and global warming!). There was just enough snow to make a tiny snow man (lower right in front of the truck).

Once the ground thawed out, Ken raced in the St. Patrick’s Day Triathlon on March 17th in Keller, Tx which is about 30 minutes west from us. He trained really well for it and had a lot of fun. There were about 320 racers involved and Ken came in 90^th overall. He was 13^th overall in the swimming portion of the race. His hard work paid off and his biggest fan now wants to be just like dad.

In March, we went and visited the Rolfsons down in Houston. We all had a great time, and were especially blessed to have some quality time with Erin before she passed away. The drive down wasn’t too exciting (see Carter’s lack of excitement, although he did point out every cow by yelling “moo!”), but once we got there we had a blast:

The first couple of days, Cameron and Wesley just played and played with their cousins Sam and Alex – they had a ton of fun in “the jungle” in their backyard, cleaning out the leaves in the swimming pool, and riding bikes around in the cul-de-sac.

Then it was off to Galveston, with a slight detour to an alligator park just south of Houston. We saw quite a few alligators, and had one close encounter when one climbed up so close to the trail we could not pass. Wesley freaked out, so we said a prayer and Ken threw rocks and sticks at it from a distance (much to the dismay of his wife) until it finally went back in the water. It worked and we were able to get past. As soon as we were a safe distance down the path, the alligator started heading back up on the trail. We were very grateful that none of our children become alligator food.

Notice how this 9-foot 'gator looks like it's waiting for our kids to walk by the trail so he can have a snack - how rude!

The boys loved the beach in Galveston. Digging a pit in the sand seemed to be the preferred activity. All passers by were quite impressed with our work. When asked what he was digging for, Wesley promptly responded, “Gold”. After digging for an hour or so Cameron declared, “This is hard work digging to China”. Carter loved the birds and would run after them saying, “Caw! Caw!”. Even now, whenever he sees a bird he calls it a “caw, caw.”

We also got to drive our car onto a ferry boat and sail to a nearby island. It was a nice little ride especially since it was free and we saw a dolphin swimming in the water.

Unfortunately, we had to make a second trip down to Houston to attend Erin Rolfson’s funeral. She passed away only 1 week and two days after giving birth to Kennedy Erin Rolfson and only two weeks from when we had been visiting them in Houston. It was quite shocking for us.

The funeral was beautiful and full of the spirit. We were reminded of the eternal nature of our spirits and comforted in knowing that Erin’s spirit is still alive. We are so grateful for Jesus Christ and His Atonement. We know we will see Erin again and that she will be reunited with her family again. It was, of course, nice to see family and feel the support and love from everyone.

Ken raaced in another triathlon on May 5 at the University of North Texas in Denton, Tx only about 20 minutes north of our home. A friend of ours in the ward, Ryan Stimpson, raced along with Ken. Wendy and Tina (Ryan’s wife) went to the race to support and cheer their husbands to a victory.

About 175 participants were in the race. Ken took 51^st overall and was 3^rd overall in the swimming portion of the race. He is steadily improving and plans to continue to train and race until he can successfully compete in an Iron Man distance triathlon. This will take a year or so, but he is on the right track.

Some holiday cheer, then on to the new year!

Since our last post, many things happened to our family. We had Christmas, it snowed, BYU tromped Oregon in Vegas, Wesley turned six, and much more. But first things first: Go Cougars!


Anyhow, Wendy's parents flew down from Utah to be with us on Christmas, so it was special - it was Dave's only Christmas out of Utah since his mission, and Dorothy's first Christmas away ever, so we feel privileged, and the boys loved it! But we don't know if they'll be back since Dave caught the flu, which turned into pneumonia. It was probably more fun for us than them, but we hope they'll be back again.


We spent our traditional Christmas Eve at my parents' house, where we read from Luke 2, sing, and re-enact the Christmas story.




We spent Christmas morning at our house, and what do you think the kids did after they opened all of their presents? They started playing with our five-year-old laundry basket. Of course!


We welcomed in the new year without much fanfare - I think we were all asleep by about 10 P.M., but the new year brought new surprises. First, the snow we mentioned was just a skiff really, but it's Texas so we'll take it! It may not have been much snow, but there was plenty of cold to go with it!


Carter went out and played for a few minutes, and his hands were frozen! So I put him in my coat like a kangaroo, and he put his tiny hands under my arms, and they warmed up pretty quickly. I think we both enjoyed it.


Then it was Wesley's birthday. Cameron and Carter had as much fun as they would have on their own birthday.

Ring in the holidays

It's hard to believe another year is drawing to a close, and we will bid it farewell with many fond memories. 2006 gave us something to remember it by, however - snow in Texas during November! The boys were very excited, but unfortunately, it was just a skiff on the grass, and it was too dry to pack and make snowballs or snowmen, but we had fun in it anyhow.


It was pretty cold here (for Texas), so we took advantage of the situation by snuggling up and building a fire at Gram's house (the Normans).


Then there was the Christmas parade. Wesley and Cameron solicited people in the parade to give them candy by holding out their Santa hats and trying to look hungry.




Later that week, Wendy and I were able to play grown-ups by dressing up and having a fun night at my company party. It's such a rarity that we do things like that any more - it was a real treat!

Kids say the darndest things...

Our boys always keep us smiling, and Wendy has been good about writing down the funny things they say and do. Those records are already becoming real family treasures, so we thought we would share a few of them with you.


Wesley:

Out of the blue, Wesley once asked: "Do vampires have pet mosquitoes?"

Once Wesley looked at his toys, and asked "Does it say 'Made in China'?" I told him it did, and he said "Oh my gosh, like all my toys are made in China. Are all the people there Santa's elves or something?"


For family home evening, we were working on saying new things in our prayers, not just repeating the same old ones. So in his next prayer, Wesley prayed "please help us that we won't kill anyone". Fortunately, that prayer has been answered so far.

One night I burped without closing my mouth, and Wesley quickly rebuked me: "Dad, if you keep burping with your mouth open you're going to have to go talk to the bishop".

Out of the blue, Wesley said "Pigs are so lucky!". When I asked him why, he said "Because they get to play in the mud all the time."


Cameron:

We were helping our friends move, and Cameron wanted to go in and play. Wendy explained that there wasn't anything fun inside because all their toys were boxed up, and his friend Logan wasn't even there. Cameron then asked "Is Logan all boxed up?".


Cameron wanted to know exactly how old he was, and Wendy told him he was 3 years and 8 months. He said "Wow. I am two things. That's pretty big for a little guy!"

At dinner, I was going to say the prayer, and Cameron asked "can you say a long one so my biscuit can cool off?". I guess my reputation preceeds me.


Wendy and Cameron were talking about babies and how he really wants to have a sister, and said "Mommy, only boys come out of your tummy, we'll have to go to a different guy's house to get a girl" - Umm, probably no.


We were talking about how animals are useful to us, and he said, "Yeah, chickens give us french fries and pigs give us mud". Guess it's time to visit a real farm.

When we went to a chior concert, Carter would clap with everybody after the numbers were over. When Cameron saw this, he said "Look, Carter thinks he won!"


Carter:

Carter isn't saying much yet, but he still cracks us up. Whenever I'm on the computer, he walks up and pulls my hand off of the mouse, saying "no no no", and he proceeds to move the mouse around and click. I have no idea where he gets this strange affinity for computers from.


On Halloween, Carter would walk up to the houses with his bucket and knock on the door. When the people would open it, he would walk right into their house, hold his bucket out for candy, then turn around when he got something in it, and say "nay new" for thank-you, and walk out. He's a real pro already.

Flashback: Leslie comes to town

We'll probably be mixing in some older pictures in with the next few posts to get caught up. Leslie (Wendy's sister) visited us in the beginning of October for about a week, and brought her son Conner here, and we had a great visit! It was so much fun to have her here with us (and hopefully we didn't scare her away from coming back!).

Carter and Conner are pretty close in age, but Carter always wanted to grab Conner's head, so they didn't always get along super well. In fact, much of the time they were together, it looked something like this:


With poor little Conner crying because of big mean Carter, but I'm sure that will change as time goes on.

One of the neatest things is that a girl in our ward, Anna, was taught the gospel by Leslie when she was on her mission in Poland, and so they were able to get together and catch up. She has a son, Ryan, who was born just a few days after Conner, so it was fun for them to let the kids play together.

The three of them were partners in crime - it's probably good they're not always together :)


They also went with us on our visit to the pumpkin patch, and had a lot of fun!


Some other highlights from the pumpkin patch were:

Wesley learning to balance pumpkins on his head (I'll leave it up to your imagination what happened to this pumpkin seconds after this picture was taken - HINT: also the name of a one-hit wonder band from the 90's):


Cameron getting some pretty serious air on the blow-up slide:


Carter found a fun place to play peek-a-boo from:

Wesley had fun in the giant hay maze:


Then it was off to our town's firestation presentation...


There were demonstrations from all of the city's different service branches:

The guys from the SWAT team let the kids dress up and play with their gear. Wesley got decked out in a full flak-jacket, bulletproof helmet, and MP5 - he's now ready to go to Iraq and settle things down:

They had a team and dogs from search and rescue:


The boys had a great time putting out a fake fire on a dog house with a miniature fire hose:



My personal favorite demonstration was the jaws of life - where they started with a perfecly good junker car, and then just destroyed it:

First the windows were taken out:


Then the doors:


Then the entire top was removed:


Until the final product (Now it's a convertible!):


The entire process took just a few minutes. It was really amazing to me - and to think all this fun and destruction is done in the name of saving lives - can you say career change???

This was all topped off by rides on the giant fire ladder and a police bike, and all the free hot dogs and popcorn you could eat. All around, it was a really great event, and loads of fun for all.