California

To say we had a good time on our trip last month to California would be an understatement! We loved seeing all our family. We were spoiled by Doug's grandparents, Mamal and Papal. Beckham LOVED their house and couldn't get enough of their swing in the living room and the rocking horse. 

 We went to Oceanside to visit my old roommate Whitney and her cute family. She has two boys and one on the way. This was Beckham's first time at the beach and he did really good. Once he fell all the way in the water he was cold and done, but until that point he enjoyed it. 

 Beckham fits right in with Whitney's blonde boys

 He did pretty good on the car trip thanks to lots of different forms of entertainment. I think our longest stretch of crying was only 30 minutes or so... not too bad. 

We went to LA's children museum for a morning and we were all entertained thoroughly. They had really cute things for the kids to dress up as. I tried so hard to get some good pictures of Beckham, but he was literally running the entire time. He had such a great time. 

Doug had an equally good time playing the kids water flow thing

For sure his favorite thing was this little shopping cart. He filled it FULL  and ran around the whole bottom floor for over 45 minutes. It would tip over on him occasionally and he would quickly fill it back up and keep running around. 

While not paying attention to our little backseat passenger he got a sharpie and colored all over his eyelid and on his face. I know, we are awesome parents :)

It was so great to visit with Mamal and Papal. What kind and wonderful people they are. Beckham absolutely loved them. I loved the new dinosaur decoration on their wall. It cracked me up. Mamal didn't like the dinosaur's red eye, so she cut an eye out of a magazine and covered it up. I love them so much!

Duck Creek Halloween

We just got back from a wonderful weekend at Duck Creek. We ate delicious food and relaxed. On Saturday the little village had a trunk or treat and Beckham got loaded up on candy. Beckham was an old man and I loved seeing all the other costumes the little kids had. 

 My dad put the men to work cutting up wood and Beckham enjoyed just sitting there and watching. I told him to enjoy it for as long as he can, because he isn't going to be able to do that forever being a member of the Beck family. 

 Beckham's little cousin Camden was a gnome and I thought he was adorable!

Little Soldier

My dad took out a tour of the West Desert a few weeks ago and took me along as his assistant tour guide. It was a bus full of 65 years and older people. They were all very nice. I never knew there was anything to see in the west desert of Utah, but I actually had a great time learning more about our wonderful pioneers. My dad is a never-ending fountain of interesting stories and I love hearing more about our history. 

We stopped in at a little gift shop and they had Union and Confederate hats. I thought Beckham would eventually love to use it as dress-up soldiers, so we got him a union one. I think he looks so cute in it!

Wicked

 Doug got tickets to Wicked for his birthday and we got to go a couple of weeks ago. He had seen the show before, but it was my first time. We had a great time at it. We ate at Cheesecake Factory and were stuffed by the time we got to the show. 

I saw this lady at the intermission and I thought she was the actual actress from the show. I soon learned I was wrong, she was just a very big fan. 

Summer Happenings

Today I finally felt some relief from the heat and it made me happy, but also a little sad. I have enjoyed summers, but I welcome the cool breezes! Here are some pictures of our summer. I felt like summer went really fast this year. I can't believe we are already into the second week of September now. 

 I think Beckham looks so cute when he is all dressed up for church. Such a stud!

 We went to Bear Lake for the Sommer's family reunion and had a fantastic time. We went on a nice hike...up a dirt road. I tried tying Beckham to my back because we didn't have a baby carrier, but it only worked for 10 minutes. So we put him on our shoulders, but that got old pretty quick too. Thankfully Uncle Shane headed back to the house early and took Beckham along with him. 

 When we got back this is how we found him...sipping on some soda. He was happy as a clam!

 I LOVE putting a bunch of babies in the bath tub. I think it is so cute. Poor Lily was the only girl, but a great sport. 

 Enjoyed lots of vegies

 We loved having lots of family in town. Beckham really enjoyed all his cousins. I love his face in this picture...like nothings going on, with all the chaos around him.

 And lastly, we placed sod in our backyard and it looks amazing. I will have to take an after picture to show it off. So lush and green! Doug worked like a little horse pulling a chain-link fence around to level the ground. We were so thankful for all those that came to help us lay it. We have wonderful family and friends. 

Sprinkler System

Doug and I finally decided it was time to install a sprinkler system in our yard. We have hose-watered the past 3 years and were ready for a change. We both knew it would be a lot of work, but we didn't realize how much work it would really take. 

 We dug our stop-and-waste hole by hand and that took us 8 hours. it was 4.5 feet deep and 4.5 feet wide. Basically we should be in the book/movie holes. What's a little depressing is that once we got down to our main water line we realized it needed to be replaced. When the guy came to replace it he had to dig a hole just like ours, but with his mini-excavator it only took him about 15 minutes. 

 We also tore up our back yard and next week we will be putting sod. We are so excited for this part to be done so we can really enjoy our backyard. 

 We had our trenches hired out and I am so glad we did because there are a ton of rocks where we live. Beckham hated the trenches because it was impossible for him to get over. 

 My nemesis was our driveway that we had to dig under to place pipe. Doug and I worked on digging under it for over two hours, then decided to just pay our trencher to dig under it. Well he did, but he didn't make the hole big enough, so the next day when we went to lay the pipe it wouldn't go. So I wasted another two hours working on. It was very frustrating. 

 My amazing brother-in-law Steve who was the master-mind behind it all. We are so thankful for everyone's help. We are so lucky to have our family in the area willing to help us. I can't imagine trying to do everything with just Doug and I. 

Blickenstaffs

We went to the Riverwoods this week and had a great time. Beckham loved the new splash pad. We stopped in at Blickenstaffs after to look around and get a treat. We were all entertained for quite some time. Tons of fun toys to look at and play with. Beckham loved the candy wall and kept trying to steal candy out of it. It was a nice, relaxing evening.