Death of the "Bean"

Well, after much pestering from my mother-in-law, I am finally posting the death of the bean.
Indy and his "Bean" prior to death of Bean

I decided to be socially acceptable, and get Indy attatched to a teddy bear. I got tired of the exasperated looks and "tsk-tsks" from people when they saw Indy with his beloved "bean" in his mouth as he waddled around. And Bean was always getting lost, or peed on, or dug in the sandbox, and then I couldn't separate it from Indy's mouth to wash the nasties off. So, a few weeks ago, I sewed it to a bear. A very cute bear, I might add.
For hours Indy screamed, thrashing the bear around by the Bean, trying to rip his precious Bean off. He came crying to me because his Bean was stuck. The he did his usual scream, thrash, throw himself backwards off a chair onto the tile/roll/tantrum, which literally lasted for well over 3 hours. I think I started Blues Clues to calm him down. He did not take a nap that day.
By night time he was so tired he went down with the bear-bean. He now loves his affectionate pair, "Teddy and Bean," and doesn't sleep with the nasty rag in his mouth anymore. He also carries around a cute bear rather than a nasty rag. And Bean? I haven't even needed to wash it lately. No mud, oatmeal, or pee on it yet.

We can fly!!

We attended a "fish fry" Halloween costume party on Friday night with our friends who just got back from fishing in Alaska. And for those of you who are curious, I actually tried the fish and enjoyed it! The one I liked was the Wasabi flavored halibut. Too bad if you don't go fishing in Alaska halibut costs like $13 a pound.

I was excited to "actually" dress up for something. Sure, Ben and I have dressed up before, but we've always been lame things like hippies or farmers. Our Ninja turtle costumes were a flop and Ben hates dressing up as Hogwarts people (although I love being Luna Lovegood).So this year we dressed up as the peter pan clan. Indy was peter pan and Ben was John and I was Wendy and Fisher was Michael. Although you can't tell what we were dressed up as (other than Indy) at least Ben looks funny! Each costume cost $3 or less, and with a little sewing and sewing reconstruction, we had costumes! Now if only we had candy...Here is the next generation of pro climbers

Indy or Indie?

So here is something I've been wondering of late... Indy or Indie? When Ben and I decided on this name, we talked about it. I voted for Indie and Ben voted for Indy. I thought Indy was girly and Ben thought Indie was too emo. And since I was big and pregnant and didn't really care anyways, Indy it was. But lately I've been wondering, should we switch to Indie? It seems so much more... hard-core/naturesque and hippie that it makes me happy. Indy/ie will be learning to write his own name soon, so now the debate goes on. What do you think? Indy or Indie?

I stink at blogging

I think I suck at this blogging thing. It involves too much "remembering" and "laptop time" for me to reasonably do it. I always forget I even have a blog until I see my blog link listed on someone else's blog, with the date of my last update being months ago. Oops. Maybe pictures of my kids just aren't as exciting to me as they used to be...

Well, other than running a "sure I'll watch your kid" babysitting co-op, here are our recent adventures:

POTTY TRAINING:
went well and Indy WAS fully potty trained- no accidents for about a week. Until his cousin came over for a week. Then he got busy playing and un-potty-trained himself. Sort-of.

And yes, Indy is eating peanut-butter bread while sitting on the pot. At least it's whole-wheat bread, right?


POCATELLO PUMP:
I think rather than have "local" and "non-local" categories, they should have a "Rexburg" and "everyone else" categories, cuz the Rexburg climbers keep smashing everyone else. Great job to Heather H. and Justin, who slaughtered both categories. Ben did excellent as well, beat his goal score, and took 3rd for the 3rd year in a row.


Boys:

Well, boys will be boys I guess!

Fisher smiling

Indy devouring an ice-cream at Maple Canyon

The Wall:
Ben took this one on himself. It was a little hole, which could have been patched. But Ben was curious about all the sand behind our wall. So he ripped the hole thing off. Thankfully, the new wall is much more stable, thanks to Ben's work and Tom and Justin's expertise.


Mammut Pro Bouldering Comp:
We got to help judge the pre-qualifiers and talk to the pro climbers up-close and personal. It was a BLAST. Dean did a great job of throwing a climbing party (although we never saw him...)

Ben and I at the comp
Ben always asks me why all of us girl climbers go ga-ga for Chris Sharma. Look at him climb. Need I say more?


Another Race:
I competed in the Rush triathlon, just 2 1/2 months after I got the "ok" to start exercising after my c-section. I knew I wouldn't be fast, or competition to anyone really, but I wanted to prove to myself again that having a child doesn't need to disable all of my hopes and dreams and my body. I went slow, did okay, and ended up being 3rd in my age category (out of like 7) which I though was pretty funny. Here's a pic of the award ceremony:
Why am I so short? I always forget that I am.
Thanks to Steph, Joe and Mychelle, and Ben for coming out to support. My friends Beth, Jennifer, and Sherry also did great!



Climbing with Aysha:
I got to meet up with my best friend from high school and go climbing with her in Maple Canyon. We had a blast, and it brought back memories from the good old days at Hangar 18.


What Ben does with sleeping babies:
I don't need to say anything more.

Well, one day I will update this blog again, but that's enough for now!

For sale by owner

Yep, that's right, we finally nailed the for sale sign up.It's a pretty cute house in the winter, eh? (see and winter brings out my Canadian side)
So if you know anyone who might be interested, have them check out our house blog:
www.138RexburgIdaho.blogspot.com. Thanks!!


Yep, that's

Our Anniversary... not a disaster.

See how happy I am? This was a great anniversary. Ben decided to surprise me, and he sure did! First we went to Toucano's, I Brazilian restaurant with all-you-can-eat meat and chicken hearts and other great things. I had to excuse myself while Ben ate the chicken hearts. If you know me, I am NOT a big meat person, and big hunks of meat make me feel queasy. So you can tell how thrilled I was by the big meat...

Then Ben said we had to be somewhere by a certain time. So we raced there. We stopped at some ampitheater, and I figured it had to be a concert. I REALLY REALLY hoped it was a Jack Johnson concert, but I had guessed that a week before and Ben had gotten mad at me since he said if I thought it was that I'd be disappointed by what it really was. So I tried not to guess that, and as we're walking up to the concert arena I kept guessing names of bands we like.

It wasn't until I saw the merchandise booths that I found it was a Jack Johnson concert! I was so excited! Ben and I got his newest cd, Jack Johnson tee-shirts, and relaxed on the grass with cheese and crackers.

The concert was a blast! We stood and danced and sang along the whole time. Jack didn't do any commentary really, but he did stop in the middle of a song because some had said something disturbing. A man had yelled "I want my wife to have your baby!" and Jack hit a wrong chord, and he said it kept running through his mind. He (jokingly) asked to see the guys wife, and told her she was a "lovely lady" before restarting the song.

All in all, it was a great anniversary!

Ben has been DYING for me to blog and brag about this anniversary. Why would a husband desire that so much? Maybe that's because of the stories I tell about the previous anniversaries. Curious? Well, if so, we'll start with the first anniversary...

Our 1st anniversary my parents came and stayed out our house for the weekend. It fell on a Saturday, the Saturday of the Rush triathlon, so Ben was gone all weekend. At least my parents were there to celebrate.

We decided to something a few days later. Ben surprised me with a trip to the "Bar J Wranglers." The show and dinner were awesome. We were then going to camp at Jenny's Lake and hike the 8 miles around it in the morning. It wasn't until about 10pm (still at the show) that we realized we had forgotten our bags that had the tent, sleeping bag, water, camera, food, etc. You know, just the basics. We decided, hey we're hard core, let's tough it out anyway. Keep in mind that Indy is just 6 weeks old, and on this trip with us.

So we ran to K-MArt and bought a sleeping bag. We parked on a side street in Jackson, in front of someone's house, and slept in the back of the car. If they were curious who it was, they could have looked out the window, the light in the car was on every two hours while I nursed.

A view of Jenny's Lake

We hiked around the lake with a diaper bag, filled with water. We took turns between carrying Indy in the one-shoulder snuggli and carrying the one-shoulder diaper bag. Needless to say, after about 6 miles we had rigged the diaper bag around our waist and were carrying Indy outside of the snuggli. Anniversary #1.

Hmmm... On to Anniversary #2:

We concluded the whole "bring your kid with you" on your anniversary was just a plain bad idea. So this time we left Indy, and went on a 3-day backpacking trip (again, a few days after the RUSH triathlon, which fell on our anniversary). We were going to hike from Jenny's Lake (why do we keep picking that spot?!) through Cascade canyon, Hurricane pass, and start through fox creek, take a trail to summit Fossil Peak, and come down the other side and out through Darby Canyon. That's what we were supposed to do.

By the way, we had just found out that I was pregnant a week before. We hadn't told anyone, but we mentioned it on our filming Which is how my mother-in-law knew months before anyone else.

The first day was great. We made it all the way to Alaska Basin, covering over 10 of our 20 miles total. We figured, hey, the next two days will be a piece of cake! While I was cooking our dinner at Alaska Basin, our camping neighbors yelled "Bear!" I was good safe distance from the tent (I am a bear-ophobe.) I look, and coming up the grassy hill towards me, is a black bear! I back slowly away from my stove (stupidly carrying my food with me,) and call to Ben for support.

Ben whips out our video camera, filming how close to the tent the bear comes. He has the bear mace, and his helpless pregnant wife is alone with the food. Catching this on film takes top priority. I love dramatizing this part.

Anyway, the bear actually went to our neighbors tent and then left. We saw him again in the morning, but only at a distance.

Day two it rained. Poured. All day. And we covered about 8 miles. And got lost.

Really it was the 3rd day that we got lost. The trail to summit Fossil Peak didn't exist. I wasn't feeling well (morning sickness) and didn't really feel like bushwhacking. So we kept going through fox creek. Except the trail disappeared. And Ben found some bear mace, and thought, Free bear mace! and picked it up. Little did we know it had been used, and got on Ben's hands, face, and in his eyes. He cried for a few hours, and for some reason seemed bitter when I whipped out the camera to catch it on film.

Then we decided (using our GPS and topo maps) that we could bushwhack to an unknown road, and take that in. (We had already gone like an extra 6 miles more than what we expected). So we did. Excpet the unknown road was really the parking lot of some explosive company, and as we were hiking there was all this rubble and warning signs about explosives. Once we got onto some real roads, we called family to let them know why they hadn't heard from us earlier like planned. We came across an old man on a four-wheeler, and were trying to convince him to give us a ride to our car, when our 3rd black bear came up onto the road, not 20ft from us. The man's dog hopped out of the 4-wheeler, and chased it off of the road, which was neat. So we ended up getting a ride back to the car, and all was well.

All 3 have been great, just the first 2 were a little more "eventful" than most! Thank you Ben for great anniversaries!

A new blog for me

Updates are coming... the pictures are on the computer, so I am one step closer. Summer is just too crazy for things like this!!

Anyway, I started up a simple blog to help sell a few of the things I like to sew. Check it out if you get the chance. Thanks!

http://sweetbabysomethings.blogspot.com/