Clayton!

So this is a post about Clayton, if you couldn't tell by the title.  Clayton is a wonderful brother. He loves to entertain Brody and be the big brother. Brody follows him everywhere and wants to do everything that he does. And he loves to do what mom and dad are doing. He is so proud of himself when he is independent.  So what made me decide to write this post is that for the last two days he has been building a Lego set that he got for Christmas. He has been doing it all by himself, it is a set for 8-14 year olds, which is impressive for a proud mom. The funny thing is, that the Lego set was in the top of his closet. When I asked him how he got it his response was Clayton in a nutshell..."My hands, my super strength (picture him flexing now), my ability to not get hurt, my awesome climbing, oh and my dresser."  He has comments like that all the time. He keeps me on my toes. Clay is very observant and always knows what is going on, and is ALWAYS listening. Something we have learned the hard way for sure.  He loves to find solutions to any problem, and I love how simple things are for him. He has such an innocent way of looking at things. He is very proud of himself whenever he has come up with said solution. On a less serious side, he loves to be a tease. Tricking mom is his favorite thing, he never laughs harder than when he has "got me". He loves to hide fake spiders, or tell me something is happening that isn't. He is really sweet and sensitive with kids, he's the one that I always ask to take care of any kids that I want to be sure to feel included. He loves everyone and everyone loves him.  He always brings me flowers, when we are out hiking, walking or even if he finds one outside. I try to take pictures of them all because they are usually the ones that don't last long. But I love every one of them!!

We love our Clayton more than anything!

Our new pet!

We have worms! Apparently they are very good for your gardens, well their castings (aka worm poop).  This is Ryan's project, as you can imagine I don't really do worms.  So you feed them your scraps and a little newspaper and other stuff and they eat it and their castings are great fertilizer for your garden.  They are a very easy pet as far as pets go.  They sit in a little bin in the corner of the kitchen and do nothing.  And I pretend that there is nothing in there.  It works most of the time.  We went to get them Memorial weekend and the lady let us pick them out of her bins with her.  The boys absolutely loved it! They had a great time picking through the dirt to find all the worms, it was a boys best treasure hunt.  Here are a few pictures of us introducing them to their new home.

 

Brandan and Sarah came!!!

So we have now been here for four weeks. And last week Brandan and Sarah came to visit. They are moving to Tillamook, OR- which is only 4 hrs away! We are so excited that they are so close it will be really nice to have family close for those holidays that don't have enough time or funding to get to Utah.  They came to visit for the weekend and we played a little and relaxed a lot. It was fun to just hang out and catch up. It was great to be able to see them and just have it be us. We got to know Kaiya and had so much fun doing it.  So there are a few pictures of us but mostly it was just hanging out and having fun and I didn't get too many.  But with blogging in mind I did take some because it is a must now :).

 Playing in the backyard. Kaiya's favorite was the garden. But she also loved to play in the water, and was always trying to keep up with the boys.

 Dinner at a hibachi grill. The kids love to watch the fire and I love to watch their faces. To be awed by something so simple; I love the innocence.

 The next day we went downtown and walked around the sculpture park. It was a beautiful day and we all had fun checking out the sites.  Then we reparked the cars and headed to the pier to get some food and the water.

 Kaiya held Clays hand while we walked and at times tried to pull him in with her. She and he both loved it and it was sooo cute to see them having fun together.

 Dinner at Red Robin on the water. It was so much fun. To sit on the water we had to sit at separate tables but it was worth the view.  And half way through our meal there was something going on with sail boats, they all showed up at the exact same time and all sailed the same way. It was cool to see all of them all together.

The next day we took them to the beach.  It is the same one that we have pictures of before; with the river flowing into the water.  Ryan and the boys love to divert the water and start a new river. They do it every time and it is so much fun... every time.

 Kaiya was more interested in running around in the water. She is soo adorable. It was great fun for everyone to play and hang out.

 While we were playing there was a barge that passed by, and made big waves so we all ended up out in the water with the kids who love big waves!

It started to get late and so we headed home. This is the farthest in the water they got, they were soaked and then we headed home.  Brandan and Sarah headed to their new home the next day and we were sad to see them leave.  However, we are excited to see them again on the 4th of July at their place!

Lena Lake

The boys have been asking to go camping since we got here. Washington=camping.  So we went camping this last weekend.  It was beautiful. Perfect weather and beautiful scenery. We headed out on Friday after Ryan got done with work. We did not start on the trail until 6 and it was a 3.25 mile hike in.  The boys did great. They were troopers and they were really excited to be hiking.  Brody loves to hike, its really all he talks about when we are going to go camping. It has to include hiking. Clay is our professional hiker. He even carried his own pack in this time, it had water, snacks and his jacket and he was so proud of himself for doing it. We are really excited for when they can carry a little more of their own stuff. It will greatly reduce the amount on our backs.

 Getting started! It was beautiful weather, sunny but not too warm and a fun hike in.

 Crossing one of the bridges on our way up.

 Our new tent. It is a floorless tent, which makes it very light. I am having a hard time getting used to the idea that any bug or creature can potentially get into my tent and that the number of spiders that I may eat could potentially double. But it is worth it so we could carry less weight.

 Lena Lake, in the Olympic National Forrest. It was freezing cold water, but absolutely beautiful.

 Doing what we love the most. I carried a book in to read. Brody is playing in the dirt and throwing rocks into the water. One of his favorite things to do.

Clay loves to climb on everything and anything that he can.  And really he does for the most part. 

 

 The boys decided to play in the water, and since we packed really light and they only had one outfit. They had to get in their skivies to do it.  The water hurt to stand in for more than a second so I don't know how they do it. Ryan jumped in and the boys waded around and played a bit.

 This tree was in our campsite. Brody gives you a scope of how huge it is.  He loves to talk about the huge trees!

 

 Exploring.  We found that there are a lot of campsites on both sides of the lake. We wanted to check them out for when we come back another time. There were some great sites and a ton of trees. Clay like to climb on all of them, and has incredible balance to run up and down them. Because we took a picture of Clay, Brody wanted one too. This is his "take my picture Dad" pose.

 Proof that Ryan was there :) he was taking the pictures most of the time.  We forgot the camera so we had to take them all with our phones and his takes better pictures than mine.

 Brody tripped. But mom loves the excuse to get hugs and loves from my boys. They are pretty tough most of the time.

 Sorry the pictures are a little out of order. We woke up on Sunday to fog down around the lake. You could not see the other side when we first woke up, but the sun started to break through. Which made for awesome pictures.  It was so fun to see.  It was thick and you could see it when it was around us, we really looked like we were in a thick cloud.

 On our way out there were clam and oyster shops all along the road, because it is along the Sound. So we decided to stop and get Dad some. -He is really the only one that likes them.  Clay liked the cooked ones, but here is his reaction to the uncooked.

We found this on the way home as well.  We have a Creek!  Who knew! It is always fun to find things like that. Especially because Purdy is not a name that is very popular.