We had such a great summer with Whitney Spear, Drew's sister. Brooklyn misses everything about her, including dancing in the rain. Drew misses playing slap jack and watching scare tactics with her late at night. Riley misses giving her fives and then touching pointer fingers together. Stephanie misses Whitney because she brings sanity to our crazy house. (i.e. helping silly string Drew when he gets out of line.) We love you Whitdawg!
We woke up early today and went to the Frontier days parade. Whitney walked in it pulling a handcart. Riley danced to the bands and waved at all the horses. Brooklyn held her ears for the most part, but did let them out enough to get a sucker in her mouth. There was a lot of horses, this is Wyoming, and a lot of old fashioned cars.
One of our favorite things to do as a family is wrestle. So Drew's sister, Whitney, who is living with us this summer, took this picture of us. We are so blessed to have each other.
We celebrated the 24th of July at a church stake activity. It was all you could eat scones, watermelon, and homemade rootbeer. (And boy did we eat all we could!) Stephanie had about 6 scones, Riley had at least 5 pieces of watermelon, and Drew kept going back for more drinks. Brooklyn spent the whole time in the volleyball sand pit.
Riley is growing more and more each day. Her new trick is climbing onto the couch and walking across the whole length and back. Needless to say it scares Stephanie half to death. And yet Riley just smiles.
We had a great time during Frontier Days in good ole' Cheyenne, Wyoming. We took a school bus ride to the carnival. Drew won two stuffed animals for the girls. Brooklyn rode a fun car ride. And to top it all off Stephanie and Whitney shared a funnel cake. Delicious!
Riley is one year old! We can't believe it. She has just been the greatest little girl and has really spoiled us as parents. We love her so much! Drew's family was in town for the occasion and it was great to have others around. Steph made some delicious lasagna for lunch and we got to follow that up with some great birthday cake and ice cream. We gave Riley her first bite of cake and first bite of ice cream and she absolutely loved it, of course! She smiled and ate until all of the food was gone. Grandma JJ gave Riley some cool sunglasses and her first backpack. She walked around like she was all grown up.
On Friday afternoon we drove to Denver and we stayed at the Crystal Inn by the airport. We had the hotel pick up Whitney from the airport in the morning and bring her to the hotel. Friday night we went out to eat, Brooklyn went swimming, and we just stayed up late hanging out with the kids. On Saturday morning after we had Whit with us again, we drove to the temple and Steph and I ran in and did about an hour worth of initiatory's. We then drove to Six Flags and spent the next 8 hours there. We had a great time, going here and there and trying to squeeze as much fun into one day as possible. Brooklyn had a blast and Riley was a trooper as well. Somehow I stayed awake long enough to drive us back home after the long day. It was a great trip.
Brooklyn graduated from preschool! Well...since she has a late birthday she will actually go to preschool again next year, but they still had her graduate. I guess you could say that she was at the top of her class. At the end of every year they perform placement tests to make sure the kids are ready for kindergarten. Even though Brooklyn isn't going for two more years, they tested her anyway and she scored the best out of everyone. The only thing the teachers wanted to see improvement on was her understanding of rhyming. (Nothing that a little Dr. Seuss can't handle!)
Steph is 26! Whitney and I stayed up late the night before and decorated the dining room with pink streamers and set a place for her at the table. I left her a note that said that there were french toast sticks and toaster strudles for her in the freezer. I brought Arby's for lunch and then we went to Applebee's for dinner. We even survived the embarrassment of having the waiters sing happy birthday, just so Steph could get a ice cream sundae! Instead of going to a movie, Steph wanted to be home to watch the American Idol finale. (Which was a disappointment!) Steph's two presents were a fireproof lock box to keep important documents and precious keepsakes in, and she also got a new bedding set. She says she feels like a queen every time she walks into the bedroom now. We love you Steph!
Ummm... I had no clue that we were moving to tornado territory. Ooops! This morning at work we started hearing reports of a big tornado that ripped through Windsor, Colorado which is located about 50 miles south of us. One person died and about 100 homes were destroyed. (4th picture) The next thing we heard was that the tornadoes were headed our way. It started getting really nasty around 2:30pm and the tornado sirens in town started going off. We tried to alert everyone at the hotel and make sure that everyone was as safe as possible. I called the girls at home and told them to make a safe area on the landing of the stairs in the middle of the house and so they hunkered down for about an hour. (1st picture) The tornado hit the community college here in town which is about 2.5 miles from our house. Things cleared and I went home. Around 7:00 it started to get nasty again and turned really ugly quick. Again, the sirens went off and I got online to see that another tornado was headed our way. We again got comfortable on the stairs and read the updated posts online. This time the tornado touched down at a Flying J gas station that is right across the street from my hotel! At around 8pm they lifted all alerts and warnings and things cleared up again. In Laramie, which is 35 miles to the west, a high school, Walmart, and several homes got hit. Here in Cheyenne, several semis were flipped over (pictures 2&5), we got a couple inches of hail, and some houses got damaged as well. We are glad to be safe after things were quite scary for a while.
It was a beautiful day today! We decided to take advantage of it and go to the park. We played Bocce ball and tried to teach Brooklyn lessons about winning. As you can see by the picture of her sulking in defeat, the lessons did not completely land. (She got better as the day went on.) After that Drew & Whit went jogging while Steph and the kids played at the playground. It was so nice that we even got a little sun-burned. Poor little Riley and her cute red cheeks! We hope that the bad weather is gone for good and that we can enjoy many more days like today.
Riley just loves bathtime! She stays in there and wrestles with Brooklyn and then plays until she gets cold. When that happens, she stands up and puts her arms out like she is ready to go. She loves getting her body and hair washed and is so cute when she gets out and has a fuzzy head.
So , Riley loves to eat. (Wonder where she got that from!?!) She hums while she chews and is the noisiest eater you will ever see. Her favorite foods include: peas, carrots, rice crispies, rice chex, and crackers.
She isn't walking quite yet, but is still on the go-go-go. There is a little play area at the mall here and she loves to climb all over everything. She tries to climb up the steps and fly down the slide. Sometimes we think that we have two 4-year olds!
After six years, Steph finally convinced me to give the "Swivel Sweeper" a try. Brooklyn has fallen in love with it and wants to help out every chance she can. I'll have to admit, it is a pretty useful tool and does a good job picking up everything that Brooklyn and Riley put down.
Green everywhere, even in our pancakes! Stephanie loves to give Brooklyn any reason to celebrate a holiday and Brooklyn eats it up. Riley just loves eating pancakes, as you can tell by the look of pure joy on her face.
Riley does not want to hold still. Can you blame her? She has to keep up with Brooklyn! We got her a push toy and she loves using it to get from point A to point B. She is standing up more by herself and it is just a matter of time before she is running circles around us!
Brooklyn had a great time at her preschool Easter party. She has just jumped right in and made lots of friends. We did our first annual Spear Family easter egg hunt on Saturday. Since the kids are still trying to kick their colds we held the hunt in our living room. Drew hid 48 eggs and the girls went wild. It was a lot of fun. Afterwards we dyed eggs in the kitchen. Today Steph made deviled eggs for a snack after church. Drew gave a talk in Church today on the Atonement and it went real well.
