All about me and my family
We just got Wessers’ portraits back from his preschool session. Of course, we basically forgot that it was picture day, so his outfit is a little haphazard, but it helps you see how cute he is, even when we aren’t trying 🙂
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| From 2009 school portraits |
I think we’re all ready for the fall around here. The weather has been very comfortable (perfect) the last few days, Collin has been playing soccer, the boys have started school, and we’re in September. Can’t believe it’s already September and we’re heading out of another summer.
Owen had a great 7th birthday party. We had just a family party at a local bounce house where Aubrey had some free passes, so it was just the boys and us and a pizza. We had a party room all to ourselves and it was so easy and inexpensive. Owen was desperate for a few certain Lego sets, so he was thrilled to get the one he wanted, plus one more! I guess we couldn’t resist.
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| From Owen's birthday and first day of school |
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| From Owen's birthday and first day of school |
And, of course Collin and Owen started school at the end of August. Our school had previously been on a year-round calendar for the last two years, but they switched it back to traditional, which we think is good since they get a nice summer break.
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| From Owen's birthday and first day of school |
And here’s a funny story that Aubrey passed along to me: Wesley is a very focused kid when he is drawing pictures. He draws with precision and can literally draw for hours. Today he was using Owen’s Captain Underpants book to draw pictures of Captain Underpants and the Giant Turd monster. Owen said, “Why is Wesley always just looking at the drawing section of the book?”, and Aubrey said, “It’s OK, Wesley really likes to draw.” And Wesley said, “I’m a great artist!”
Another thing that’s been fun lately has been going to the lake for boating. Our whole family was invited out with another family, then I’ve gone out with just the guys a couple times at 6 in the morning. The lake is perfectly quiet and still, making for some really beautiful scenery and great wakeboarding on glass. I’m not that great, but I’m good at going for enough air each time that I usually crash, which for me is the only way to prove you’re trying to get better!
Here’s a few shots of me messing around on a wakeboard:
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| From Jordan Lake in the morning, August 2009 |
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| From Jordan Lake in the morning, August 2009 |
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| From Jordan Lake in the morning, August 2009 |
And here’s my favorite shot that I took of my friend John slaloming:
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| From Jordan Lake in the morning, August 2009 |
And here’s the best part of going to the lake with family lately: Aubrey has really liked going, which means she thinks it would be cool if we got a boat. So, we’re kind of planning ahead for it, thinking maybe a few years out when we’ve saved up and our youngest kids could handle the trip without much hassle. We figure it would be a great activity for the whole family and the lake is so close and the water is so perfect for much of the year. Woo hoo. Come visit us in 3-4 years and we’ll take you to the lake!
Oh, and Aubrey is almost 17 weeks!
I’ll get to the news first: We’re having another baby! Aubrey is 13 weeks along, and baby #5 is due around February 13, 2010! We’re obviously very excited. It was fun for Aubrey to surprise all of our family in person during our trip. Aubrey made a cute t-shirt that said “bun in the oven” and she walked into the room wearing it. For some others, we had Wesley spread the word and he did it very cute, saying, “I have a surprise for you! We’re having another baby!” then running away while they processed what he had just said. Fun stuff. I’m very happy! And yes, I would be happy with either a girl or a boy 🙂
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| From 2009 Bear Lake Packham Family reunion trip |
We got back late last night after a very bumpy ride from SLC to RDU and a long and tiring but very fun vacation to Idaho and Utah. We spent the first week on the eastern shore of Bear Lake on the Idaho side, where we rented a huge 7,000 sq. ft. house that easily accomodated all 26 of us (11 adults and 15 kids).
Here’s a shot of all of us in the t-shirts that I designed:
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| From 2009 Bear Lake Packham Family reunion trip |
It was pretty posh with a climbing wall, ping-pong table, movie theatre and all the luxury accoutrements and styling of an upscale lodge cabin. My mom and all my siblings were there along with all the grandkids.
Matt brought his boat and we borrowed my uncle Brad’s two jet skis, so we spent every day down on the lake in the water. The water, by the way was crystal clear and bright blue, and was shallow for about 100 yards, making it easy for the kids to play in the water. I made a few runs on the wake board — I was feeling pretty comfortable and even got air a few times (right before face-planting usually). Boats are fun. Maybe in a few years it would be a fun pasttime for my family with all the lakes around Apex.
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| From 2009 Bear Lake Packham Family reunion trip |
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| From 2009 Bear Lake Packham Family reunion trip |
Grady wants to go out to the boat:
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| From 2009 Bear Lake Packham Family reunion trip |
We also had a fun bingo game with prizes, outdoor olympics, morning calisthenics, karaoke and talent show, pinata, ping-pong tournament (Drew was “run-around” champion. I was traditional champ.), a surprise impromptu birthday cake for me (OK, it was a stack of creme puffs) and lots and lots and lots of food. And we had a lot of food. Did I mention food?
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| From 2009 Bear Lake Packham Family reunion trip |
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| From 2009 Bear Lake Packham Family reunion trip |
We went to Garden City during the Raspberry Days festival and got the famous Bear Lake raspberry shakes.
After a full week at Bear Lake, everyone took off and we drove straight down to Park City (on my 36th birthday) and went to the Olympic Park and Museum and training center. We watched the US National aerial acrobatics ski tream training on the aerial ramps in the pool. That was very cool. Then Collin, Owen, and I rode the alpine slide before heading out.
We spent the rest of the 2nd week staying with Beth and Bryce in Pleasant Grove, in Bryce’s parents’ basement. It was relaxed and we made some fun day trips from there.
We took the kids up to “hike the Y” and they were troopers, as the temperature started soaring and it was very steep and dry and long, especially for our poor little 4-year-old Wesley who hiked in his Crocs with no socks. Owen seemed to be feeling the effects of the altitude (6200 feet at the top of the Y) and the heat the most, and I carried Grady up and down the whole way. Hopefully they will have good memories of the event. Afterwards we took them to the BYU Bookstore for some school gear and the Cougar Eat as an early BYU recruiting trip. We’re pretty sure Collin would hardly consider any other school. Nice.
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| From 2009 Bear Lake Packham Family reunion trip |
I also got to go golfing with Bryce, which was fun, and we had FHE with Aubrey’s grandma Smith, where Grady knocked his front tooth back. Aubrey pushed it back in place and it seems to be doing fine.
We also spent time visiting one of Aubrey’s friends from college, more time with Grandma Packham, and a picnic in American Fork canyon where we were lucky to get free rides on a zip line that is set up for church camps.
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| From 2009 Bear Lake Packham Family reunion trip |
Other highlights for our family:
2 bloody noses, 2 hornet stings, 2 bad blisters, 1 pinata crushed, 1 tooth knocked back (on 2-year-old), 1 legitimate lost tooth (6-year-old), one Y mountain climbed, 9 zip line rides, 2 alpine slide runs
Here’s a link to all of my photos from the vacation:
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| 2009 Bear Lake Packham Family reunion trip |
The kids have been fascinated by the Golden Gate Bridge ever since we took our trip to San Francisco in May for Laura’s wedding (Aubrey’s younger sister). Aubrey and I were fascinated for quite some time by the wedding officiator’s gray dreads that fell to the ground before he wrapped them around his waist twice. All in all, it was a beautiful wedding at an old German retreat on a hillside among old redwoods in Muir Woods, north of San Francisco.
We stayed at a mission style home down at Stinson Beach with all of Aubrey’s family and had a great time. We spent a morning at a wide open beautiful beach playing games in the sand and running around.
Much of the day was spent at Laura’s wedding, where it was fun to see Owen embrace his role as ring bearer and even spend the afternoon dancing with the flower girl. They were quite the cute pair.
Another highlight of the trip was our big excursion out to Alcatraz Island via the ferry. We explored the prison, and the boys even got into one of the cells, which was quite exciting for them. I was lucky enough to get locked into one of the solitary confinement cells, which was entirely pitch black inside. Very eerie, and I couldn’t imagine staying sane in that thing for the week or more that prisoners would spend in there. It was also cool to be out on the prison yard and recognize some of the places from lots of classic movies.
We strolled along the Embarcadero where we watched some street performers and bought a $6 sci-fi looking painting of the SF skyline with several moons and planets floating in the sky. They do the paintings in like 5 minutes using spray paint. I never thought I’d buy one of those, but there I was. The kids love it.
And, of course, we found a sour dough bread shop and had clam chowder in a bread bowl. Delicious, as always.
We had plans to do more stuff in the city, but the kids were pooped so we just headed down to Gilroy and dropped in on our old friends, Dave and Marcie Richards. The next day we went to church at our old ward in Gilroy and saw lots of friends from when we lived there over six years ago. We barbecued in the afternoon with the Hales, the Zollingers, and the Richards. It was great to see everyone and we felt a bit nostalgiac for Gilroy, but all in all it solidified for us that we made the right move in coming to NC.
Here are a few pics:
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| From San Francisco Trip, 2009 |
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| From San Francisco Trip, 2009 |
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| From San Francisco Trip, 2009 |
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| From San Francisco Trip, 2009 |
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| From San Francisco Trip, 2009 |
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| From San Francisco Trip, 2009 |
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| From San Francisco Trip, 2009 |
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| From San Francisco Trip, 2009 |
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| From San Francisco Trip, 2009 |
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| From San Francisco Trip, 2009 |
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| From San Francisco Trip, 2009 |
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| From San Francisco Trip, 2009 |
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| From San Francisco Trip, 2009 |
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| San Francisco Trip, 2009 |
The boys were looking good in their white shirts and ties for Easter. It was a beautiful day and we were lucky to get them to stand still for a few minutes for a photo that will probably be classic to them years from now:
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| From Easter 2009 |
After spending Christmas week at home vegging out and just relaxing around the house, we were ready to get out, but weren’t quite sure where to go. Then we remembered that we had always wanted to go to the USS North Carolina battleship memorial down in Wilmington. So we booked a hotel in Carolina Beach for a couple of nights and headed down.
The battleship was very, very cool. The scale of the parts was amazing, from the links on the anchor chains to the 16-inch gun barrels. And the interior of the ship was cool too. The kids loved exploring. Collin started getting anxious when it seemed like we were going in circles down in the underbelly. Perhaps its a sign that he won’t be joining the Navy.
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| From Bald Head Island and Carolina Beach Trip |
The next morning we enjoyed a beautiful sunrise from our hotel room:
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| From Bald Head Island and Carolina Beach Trip |
Then we headed over to Bald Head Island via ferry. On the island there are no cars, so we walked up to Old Baldy Lighthouse and climbed to the top.
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| From Bald Head Island and Carolina Beach Trip |
Then we rented a golf cart and toured around the island, stopping at a few remote and beautiful beaches. It was a gorgeous, sunny, warm day.
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| From Bald Head Island and Carolina Beach Trip |
One scary thing was when Owen fell out of the back of the golf cart while we were doing about 12 mph (top speed) and rolled a couple times. He seemed dazed but only came out of it with a few decent abrasions. He’s a tough kid.
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| From Bald Head Island and Carolina Beach Trip |
A few other recent highlights:
Aubrey’s 31st birthday:
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| From Fall 2008 |
Wesley’s 4th birthday:
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| From Fall 2008 |
Halloween:
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| From Fall 2008 |
And even more scarier Halloweeeen!!! Bwah-hah-haahaa:
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| From Fall 2008 |
Collin’s 8th birthday and flag football party:
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| From Fall 2008 |
Collin’s baptism:
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| From Fall 2008 |
Seth Packham's Blog 