A Weekend in Photos

 

 

 

We had such a good time in Portsmouth; I wish the weekend could have lasted longer. The house we stayed in was beautiful and the city itself was too. We got to visit with some old friends from Utah and enjoyed some awesome BBQ. Even Brendan getting his first bee sting couldn’t spoil the trip. I’m so glad we were able to get in one last little getaway before summer ends.

I’m a Happy Camper

Tomorrow morning we are heading down the coast to Portsmouth, NH for a nice weekend getaway. Chris’s boss owns a house near there and is letting us stay there for the weekend, which is very generous of her. It’s about a 2.5 hour drive from here and I have a stack of books from the library to take with me to read on the way. I’m excited to see a part of New Hampshire we haven’t been to yet and to explore the town. It’s going to be a good weekend. See you on the other side of the weekend!

One Wild and Crazy Dude

Brendan officially starts speech therapy tomorrow! I’m not sure what to expect or how Brendan will respond but I’m looking forward to getting the ball rolling and hearing my crazy guy tell me what’s going on in that head of his. Wish us luck!

Beautiful Day

I love weekends.

We heard about Jericho Lake from some of the locals and decided to check it out yesterday evening. I was shocked at how beautiful and how clean the area was, so we decided to come back today and we spend the first part of the afternoon swimming and enjoying the sun.

Of course there was some rock throwing to begin our adventures. I keep wondering when this love will diminish but it’s still going strong. He stopped every two feet to pick up another rock, sometimes backtracking to find just the right rock to throw. Brendan is very particular about which rocks he selects.

He even managed to find rocks while swimming. There were some really fun big rocks in the water that he loved chucking around.

Here he is showing off his eyebrow knowledge. That’s a new word for him and he loves saying it.

I’m a little bummed by my pictures. I couldn’t tell on my camera display in the bright sun that the pictures were too dark so most of them are unusable. I guess that just means we’ll have to head back soon!

Poor Brendan needs to work on his tan still, although he doesn’t really seem to tan. I think it’s that Polish and Irish blood of his but at least he doesn’t burn. I just love his white belly.

Brendan wore himself out and is now sleeping beautifully. We had a fun time together and can’t wait to go again. Hopefully next time I’ll have better pictures to show!

Things to be Happy About

After having a pity party for myself, my mom reminded me to count my blessings. And she’s right - I have so much in my life to be thankful for. Here is a smattering of them.

Enjoying slurpees on a hot summer day after running around the park all afternoon.

New Converse high tops for Brendan. I love these shoes.

Getting an ice cream cone as a treat for Brendan being such a good boy while running errands.

Going to the library and picking up new books for both me and Brendan.

Brendan let me read him two books in a row. I know it doesn’t sound like much but this is a big deal for him. He loves to read but usually only by himself so the fact that he sat on my lap and let me read to him was super special.

Beans! My bean plants are flourishing and now I need to find some good recipes to use them all. If you have any, let me know!

My one tomato plant that survived is actually going to produce a handful of tomatoes. I don’t think we’ll get more than five or so, but at least we’ll get something for all of our hard work!

Brendan being a big boy and blowing bubbles all by himself. But he’ll always be my baby, no matter what.

Our car being fixed. After one whole week without it, it feels great to have it back. It could have cost us over $2000 to fix but luckily when the timing belt broke, it didn’t damage the engine so we were able to save a lot of money. My father-in-law told Chris that we had a 50% chance of that happening and I’m glad that we were lucky.

Actually, I don’t think it was luck. We were blessed in a major way with that one as we are is so many other things. I’m feeling extra grateful today.

I try not to blog when I’m in a bad mood

So I’ve been absent from here for awhile. Sorry about that but life kind of got in the way for a little bit.

We’ve been busy trying to keep Brendan entertained, which means we’ve had lots of trips to the parks and ice cream stands.

The local library also had a fun activity day at the park and Brendan got two free books, a stuffed dinosaur and a balloon for attending.

He had such a good time even though it was about 90 degrees out at 10:30 in the morning. Ugh. I can’t complain too much though- it’s nice for it to feel like summer for once.

The highlight of Brendan’s week was getting a pair of Sponge Bob pajamas in the mail from his grandma and grandpa. As soon as he opened the package, he had to put them on. He loves them.

Mostly we’ve been dealing with our stupid car and its problems. There is a woman in our ward who doesn’t have a car and her and her teenage daughter needed a ride to a dentist appointment in a town about 40 minutes away (there are dentists much closer to us, so I don’t know why she has to go to one so far away). She asked me to take her and I agreed. It’s nice to do service for people and I generally really enjoy that… unless my car breaks down on the way home. The timing belt broke when we were still about 20 minutes from home. Luckily some of our ward members live not far from where we broke down and they came to our rescue. I am so grateful for them. I don’t know what I would’ve done if they hadn’t been able to come out to help. We had the car towed back to town and now it’s been at the mechanic’s for about 5 days. Hopefully the parts come in today and they can tell us if the engine was damaged when the belt broke. We’re crossing our fingers that this can all get fixed quickly now. It really stinks not having a car.

Brendan also had his speech assessment this past week. It looks like Brendan will need speech therapy and we’ll start that in a few weeks. The speech therapist guessed that Brendan’s speech development was at about the age of 19 to 20 months, so he’s quite a bit behind. We’ve also got to take him for a hearing test just to make sure he doesn’t have any minor hearing problems that may be a factor. I’m looking forward to beginning this process for him and get him some help. The good news is that Brendan loved the speech therapist and tried to get him to jump on my bed with him. I think he’ll have fun while learning some skills to help him. And if he’s happy, I’m happy.