Busy couple weeks around here...

We have been pretty lame about blogging lately so thought I would do an update with some of what has been going on.

Last weekend Sarah and I went to see our nephew and niece Jacob and Michelle Sirrine in a dance festival. There were 2500 youth from the church involved in it, and was very fun to see. It involved 12 of the church stakes and we were pretty bummed that it didn't come up north as far as us. Sarah would have LOVED to be involved in it. There is quite a bit more information on it at the Sirrine's blog - http://sirrinefamily.blogspot.com/2008/07/dance-festival-2008.html but pictures weren't supposed to be taken inside so I don't have any. But it was very fun to see so many of the youth of the church come together for something like that. It was held at the Tacoma Dome and was free of charge for anyone to come see. It was also a fun chance for a quick visit with my mom, niece Tara, Aunt Glenna, Adrienne, and niece Madi.

I am not sure where Pam got this picture from, but I am borrowing it from her. :) It gives a good example of how many youth were down there dancing on a couple of the group dances.

We also had a new baby born into our extended family in the past week. Our niece Linda and her husband welcomed little Tyler Joseph Aguirre into their family. While we have not been down to Oregon to see him yet, it is pretty nice to have blogs to see all the cute pictures of him. http://marioandlindaaguirre.blogspot.com/2008/07/welcome-tyler-joseph.html

With little Tyler born, that leaves our nephew Chris and his wife Cat's baby due in the next 10 days. Then it is OUR turn. This has sent me into a little bit of a panic, even though I know I still have some time. It is seeming more and more real now. I have spent the last couple weeks trying to be sure I had everything together for when this little guy makes his appearance. You would think someone that has 3 kids would have plenty of baby stuff, but when we started looking, we realized we had either passed down things, or gotten rid of all our baby stuff. With 7 years between our last 2 children, I wasn't so worried about keeping anything, and anyone with kids knows that baby stuff takes up soooooo much room.


We now have a dresser with baby clothes all ready, a diaper bag, diapers, a bed for the baby, a car seat, and a stroller. Are we forgetting anything? Last weekend we also went to Southcenter mall and I found the cutest little outfit and blanket for him to come home in. I feel much more at peace knowing that at least we are prepared - all except a name................. Hopefully that will come soon.

Today I took Ben to our weekly playgroup with kids from the ward. Recently the playgroup has gotten much smaller with quite a few people having other commitments, but really, it is still a lot of fun for Ben and my favorite day of the week to get out of the house. We went down to Dash Point Park to play. Once we got down there, the tide was so far out, the kids were able to go play in the sand and water. It didn't take us long to peel off the layers of clothes and realize that less was better when playing in sand.

You can't see in this picture, but we had been searching for crabs under the rocks and the only one we could find was about the size of a ladybug and pure white. Ben was holding it for about a half second before he tossed it to the ground in disgust.

Weird enough, there was someone down there with a pet rabbit he and his daughter were showing to our playgroup. It was the most calm rabbit I have ever seen. Any rabbit that lets a whole group of 2 years old hold it without even trying to get away has some issues. Ben really liked holding the rabbit - although that does not mean we would ever get one!