The perfect playground for Boys

Recently our street hase been getting new curbs and gutters. We woke up one morning to find the perfect playground for boys. A huge pile of dirt and gravel. What more could a little boy want? A big pile to climb on, lots of rocks to throw and a great place to get dirty. By the time it is all used up we will have had many hours of pure bliss spent on this pile of dirt.
Safety first at our house. Bridger rarely does anything without his bicycle helmet,
it is by his own choice, he likes to wear it.

We (Carter) have eaten our fair share of these rocks. I think he may actually have pica (a strong desire to eat non-nutritive substances)

I'm the king of the mountain!!!!! We just hose them off at the end of the day. They have had a great time.

How Carter got his name

This is Ben posting.
When Mona and I were engaged, I told her that we were going to name all of our children after names in Wyoming. She did not disagree, and we still got married, so I took that as she agreed. Bridger is named after Fort Bridger, which is a nice little town and has a lot of historical value in the West and among Mormons (although Jim Bridger was not exactly nice to the Mormon pioneers). Anyway, when our next cute little boy came along, I suggested Carter. There is a Carter Wyoming and Carter is a very nice name.

So, when we were in Wyoming on vacation Mona wanted to go to Carter, Wyoming to take some pictures to make a collage for him. I was a little nervous because I know about Carter, Wyoming, and let's just say, it was a very important town in my valley, but not so much anymore. And it may be a place that only a mother could love.This is what western Wyoming looks like driving to Carter. As we got closer Mona was getting nervous also. It was looking a little desolate.



Well, here it is. Mona's first words were "We named him after this?????? What were we thinking, I mean, what were you thinking????". I know, not much to look at, but I still think it is a nice name.

Our Gardens

We have two gardens this year, one at our house and the other is at a community garden plot. Now that things are really growing we are feeling a little like Joseph that was sold into Egypt. In Genesis it talks about how Joseph was interpreting Pharaoh's dream, where there was a bunch of really good corn and some corn that was "blasted by the east wind."


This picture is the corn plot that we planted at our house. Poor little guy. One lone stock with one little ear of corn. I sure hope it tastes good.

This is our garden at the community garden. It is about 30 X 30 feet, and we planted most of it in corn. When we left on vacation it was about 3 feet tall. When we came back two weeks later it was about 8 feet tall. It is almost ready to pick. If we can just keep the raccoons and sand hill cranes our of it we will have delicious corn to eat all winter long.

The 2nd week of our vacation

After we spent a beautiful week in Bear Lake, we headed off to Wyoming to spend some time with Ben's Family. These are some random pictures of our activities.
This in not a family tradition, but it could become one in the future. We wovened some homemade speed boats to race down the irrigation ditch close to Ben's parents house. It started out as a race, but quickly turned into wading in the ditch, then to a small water fight. You can't water fight for too long in Wyoming, it is way too cold.

When we had Ben's parents to ourselves, we went to the mountains to a lake called State Line Dam. It is right on the border of Utah and Wyoming, thus appropriately called State Line Dam. We cooked hot dogs and marshmellows and had a great time. Bridger caught his first fish that day...he was very excited, but did not want to touch it. Mona had to take a picture of the clouds, they were spectacular.

Carter and his first smore

There is an irrigation canal just down the hill from Ben's parents house that is full of fish. Ben use to go fishing there as a youngster, so he had to try his hand a few times while we were there. Not too bad. He says he can catch fish off the freeway. He did catch a fish by hand once, we were all there to witness it, but we still think that the fish are about as safe as they would be in their mothers arms when he is around. We had a great time!!!

Bear Lake

Johnson Family Reunion
We stayed in this cabin.Yep. All of us. It was a FULL house

Carter spent the week eating sand. He was the happiest kid...until it came out the other end. OUCH! Still didn't stop him though.

Lots of playing, lots of eating, lots of swimming, lots of kayaking,

some golfing, some boating, waterskiing, tubing and LOTS of fun.

And, a little sleep too.

We also star gazed, had a talent show, family birthday party where everyone celebrated a birthday, ate LOTS of delicious shakes AND a rodeo. Yee haw!

Thanks family for a great week.

Carter Cole 1 Year Stats

Carter's 1 year stats:

23 pounds, 14 ounces (still ONLY 61%... how do people carry larger 1 year olds!!)

31.25 inches tall (85%) and

head circumference was 47.5 cm (77%)

He is cruising the furniture very well, but not quite walking. He learned to do stairs on vacation- still mastering going down without falls. He enjoys playing more and more with big brother, no words yet but has made up several sign language motions/ gang signals that he uses all the time and I have no idea what they mean. He won't do the ones that I teach him. He just had his 4th and much needed haircut. He FINALLY is sleeping 11 hours at night and his mommy is still his favorite thing in the world. He is still really cuddly with most people-well, everyone except aunts, uncles and grandparents.

He has had a rough week; he has had hand-foot and mouth disease, received 5 vaccinations, his 7th tooth erupted and 8 appears to be on its way too. And, we are weaning and trying to switch to cows milk....he is not a big fan nor is his stomach. Other than that, he is enjoying being 1.