On our "hike"

 Cheesing it and climbing

 At the "amusement" park

Pretending to be a train. Lincoln is the caboose he tells us. 

Happy 11 years Holly and Preston! I’ve enjoyed your marriage and I’m not even involved!

Good luck on your test this week Lance! We’re praying for you and we know you’ll do great!

Wesley and I watched “Pride and Prejudice” over the last couple of weeks (his idea—really!). He has been pretending to be like Mr. Darcy. Instead of stuttering breathless and romantically on words like “I love-love-love you,” he says things like “Yes-yes-yes let’s have dinner!” My favorite, though, is that he “loves me most fluorescently” or that he’s “fluorescently happy” (as opposed to “incandescently happy”). I love him like a LED. We think we’re funny; I guess that’s why we chose each other!

The library reading program gave free rides at an amusement park for some of the prizes. Since this is not something we would ever be inclined to do and our kids may not get this chance in the future—we decided to check it out. The establishment probably offered a lot of excitement about forty years ago, but now it hangs together primarily on duct tape. Most of the games and rides had broken parts and the workers wore expressions of enduring to the end. Themed as an old Western town, a few shops and buildings scattered around with peeling paint and nervous rabbits dashing around: they were used to the ghost-town feel. We laughed at the emptiness (did we hear echoes?) and the boys loved it. They rode the creaky, sticky carousel twice. “Horse! Horse! NEIGH!” roared Lincoln. “I want come back here again!” shouted Levi. Thank you public library.

A few weeks ago we sat behind a man with a nice voice in church. Wesley looked over at me, “Darin is in Denver!” It took us three months to remember that his freshman roommate has been living here for a year (he’s the one who sang with Wesley at his mission farwell). We did something we rarely do—we looked them up on Facebook and it served us well. We went to their house this week (bless them, they invited us over when they have a two week old baby!); our boys partied together. They moved water from bowls to plastic vases with measuring cups. It’s all fun and games until the brothers dump the all the water on their host…poor kid! Wesley and Darrin enjoyed catching up. His wife and I found oodles to talk about. We wish we had remembered our closeness in proximity earlier. What good people. This is a testament that we need to keep in touch with people better. It’s not that we don’t care!

Yesterday we “hiked” the meadow trail at Lookout Mountain. Levi walked over a mile, scuffing dirt happily, noting the shade, and fully rejoicing in the two doe, a fawn, and four buck we saw. “We scare them! We scare them! Have them come back!” Lincoln rode Wesley’s shoulders most of the way, grabbing evergreens as we went along. We love the mountains. We love that we can be over seven thousand feet high in less than ten minutes. August here is the wind-down of summer. It’s cooling off (I’ve already worn two long-sleeved shirts this week!). This is such a beautiful place. We highly recommend it to anyone, even for passing through.

In our attempts to prepare Lincoln for Joule, we’ve read a ton of waiting-for-baby-type books. Levi loves them. Lincoln pointed to my tummy this week, saying “BABY!” then kissed him. Then: “KICK KICK!” It finally dawned on me that Lincoln has heard me talk about Joule kicking—duh! He doesn’t want to kick the baby, the baby kicks! Levi has started nursing Peter again, this time covering up with his blanket and sitting in a particular position in the chair. I tried to convince him that Peter is too old now. “Peter my baby!” Oh dear. Their good friend is almost a year old; they both affectionately call him “Baby.” Both want to keep him in their sight. At church today, Levi called out “Ezra!” then described his outfit. Lincoln yelled “Zra! Zra!” at random. Ezra responds enthusiastically. It feels good to be loved.

We spent the majority of sacrament meeting with excavators carrying scraps of the program to dump trucks. Perhaps not the most focused activity, but a reverent one.

Lincoln basks in teasing. He puts something in his mouth, then runs to show it to me. He knows how to control his bowels enough to use the potty effectively whenever we sit him there. This also means that he stands in the tub calling “PEEEEE!” and pushing until he streams. We(s) cleaned the tub four times yesterday. Lincoln thinks it’s hilarious. He also knows which toys Levi clings to the most—so he runs directly for those, saying “Vi truck!” or “Vi backpack!” or “Vi --!” He loves riding things and people. Wes acts as a motorcycle occasionally—which they love. He tried to ride Ezra as motorcycle, too. Not as successful a venture. This might have been encouraged by the time we spent watching skid loaders and rollers work on the road. He hugged Levi from behind saying, “RIDE! Ride Vi! Cow! MOOOO!” Everyone cracked up.  Animals and motors really excite him. He found a random picture of a penguin and stared at it all last week. So we found penguin books at the library to his joy this week. We’re learning all sorts of interesting stuff.

Levi will probably marry a Repunzel. He likes me to come close to him at night not for hugs or kisses, but so he can touch my hair. “I like Mom’s hair soo much!” Goofball. He saw Wesley squeeze a zit early in the week. At dinner, he picked up one of his beloved peas, squashed it precisely and announced, “I popping peas like zits!” Hahaha! He also acted out the day in the life of two motorcycle men (named, appropriately, “Levi” and “Lincoln”). They woke up, got ready for school and work, rode to their building (Lincoln holding tightly to Levi’s shoulders from the back), entered the doors with a badge just like Daddy, then sat next to each other and worked on computers. They came home for lunch and a nap. Then they carefully buckled back onto the motorcycle and drove slowly because we left their helmets in Texas, then worked until Dad was done and they all came home together. What a story! I’m impressed.

We leave our cool and colorful Colorado abode on Friday (with Christine and the Wilsons—yay!), we’ll be in Kansas Saturday, stay in Joplin on Sunday, and yes enter our new home on Monday! We’re all excited to begin real life again, but we loved our summer. Aside from wonderful friends and family experiences that we’ve detailed before, Wesley’s professional opportunities have expanded in the connections and collaborations that have started, the skills he’s learned, and the way his mind has stretched. We just feel so grateful that we could be here at this time. Our blessings astound us.