Cannon

This has been a big year for Cannon and I feel like he's really grown up a lot! 

He has grown physically.  He had a growth spurt and is about 45" tall and just under 45lbs.  He loves to climb and do flips on the climbing dome.  Today he figured out how to hang from the bar with just his legs.  He is still an avid swimmer and likes to do different jumps.  He can swim long lengths and tries to see how long he can hold his breath while doing laps.  Sometimes we ride bikes outside, but we are anxiously waiting for cooler weather before we hit the trails. 

For Christmas I got an underwater camera and we've been having lots of fun with it!  I just love how happy Cannon is in the water!

Selfie!

Cannon and Dyson love to swim together!

He is really into Legos and Star Wars right now and our Lego collection is slowly growing.  He likes to build his own creations, which he saves on a shelf in the playroom, and also enjoys the kits to build cars and Star Wars ships.  He spends hours everyday building with Legos.  One night after dinner he spent three hours just building Legos!

Ryan has read him four of the Star Wars books.  I was pretty impressed that he could listen to hundreds and hundreds of pages without any pictures. He has not seen the movies, but he knows everything about Star Wars! Right now they are reading the first Harry Potter book and only have two chapters left.  Ryan reads to him before bed when he is home.  Sometimes during the day he and I will read our own chapter books.  So far we have read The Boxcar Children, Charlotte's Web (twice), and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  We started reading the Wizard of Oz when we were at my mom's house.  He was really into it, so I'll probably end up buying it.  We aren't always reading chapter books.  He still very much enjoys ALL of his picture books, even his baby board books. 

Cannon is also really into games!  His favorites are: go-fish, war, slap-jack, Battleship, Trouble, Enchanted Forest, and Austinopoly (the Austin version of Monopoly).  I think we play war at least once a day. 

The biggest change for us is that he started school!  We are doing a mix of homeschool and private.  Monday, Wednesday, and Friday we do our homeschool and Tuesday and Thursday he goes to St. Thomas.  Tuesday is a half day and Thursday he stays until 2:30.  This was one of the best choices we have made!  We debated on different schooling options for him once we left Florida, but I feel like we made the right decision and I have no regrets. He LOVES school and only has positive things to say when I pick him up.  He is so happy and that makes me happy. 

Homeschool is also fun.  There is definitely a learning curve to it, for both of us, but we're getting the hang of it.  I am doing project-based homeschooling and it is working out well.  I bought a book for $10, read it, and started to implement the principles.  I love that there is no curriculum to buy since Cannon is leading his learning.  Right now he is wild about space!  He is so inquisitive and he came up with 10 thoughtful questions about space and astronauts.   We checked out books from the library and have watched a couple videos online.  He has figured out answers to lots of his questions and has added more.  We even took a field trip to NASA last week which was so cool!  I got him a large cork board so that he can pin up his questions, pictures, and plans.  Right now he wants to make an astronaut suit for his project.  I am amazed at his creativity and solutions.

I am very excited about this school year!  I can already tell that it's going to be a great year and that we will both be learning a lot.

First day of school last year compared to this year.  And he's wearing the same shirt.

First day of homeschool!  He wanted a picture of me too. 

Some of his work

NASA!  They are working on Orion and we got to see some people working and testing!

Some pictures Cannon took at NASA

Here are some other pictures for fun. 

Blue loves her new toy - a teddy bear with a squeaker.

We've been able to spend more time with Aunt Shae!  Cannon loves Shae's boyfriend, Dave, and they make up songs together on the guitar. 

Sometimes we watch my friend's 2.5 year old son and we always have fun with him!

FHE s'mores with some friends

Utah Trip

We went to Utah the first week of August and it was so much fun!  And the weather was fantastic -- a variety of cooler and warmer temps, rain showers and sunshine. 

Our flight was delayed so we didn't get to my mom's house until 2:30am!  So we spent Saturday relaxing and enjoying the backyard.  Saturday night I went out with my friends Heather, Stacey, and Madelyn!  I really needed that time!

Sunday was my mom's birthday and we had a little party and dinner for her with the family. 

 

Juliann and her boyfriend Jeff

 

 

My mom took off the whole week, but Ryan actually had to do some audits that week so he wasn't really with us much during the day.  And my dad was able to be with us the whole week too!  He has recovered a lot from his heart attack, but he still has a long way to go.  He's still playful with the kids, but he can't be to physical and do things like wrestle with Cannon.  Cannon has been missing him so much and it was good for them to be together. 

I took the kids to Storm Mountain Park one day.  Cannon loves that park because he can roll down the big hill!  We also went to Sugarhouse Park and went swimming at White Towers. 

We spent time up Millcreek Canyon.  We played hide and seek and had a picnic lunch.

 

My dad was being funny and they were laughing at him!

 

Nana dared to cross the river

The water was ice cold!

Time at Mimi's house.

We had a picnic lunch in the backyard

They love to push each other on the neighbor's swing!

And lots of time playing in the backyard. 

They gathered logs from Nana's backyard and made a campfire.

Since we couldn't have a real fire, we did sparklers instead.

Kennedi and Bella

Then Thursday night we headed South for the Rees family reunion.  But first we stopped in Provo to see our good friends the Longs!

The reunion was in Mapleton at this huge 20,000 sq/ft home!  It had everything: indoor pool, indoor racquet ball court and gym; outside there was a tennis court, sandbox, huge playhouse, horseshoe pit, and lots of nice grass for playing!  Cannon found some older cousins, Jeff and Amber's boys, and hung out with them.  He even slept with all the older kids in the bunk bed room, which really surprised Ryan and me!  It was great to see the family and be together. 

 

 

Cannon wanted to use my camera to take some pictures.  On the last day I asked if he would take some pictures of the things he wanted to remember.  Here are the pictures he took:

The bell

The ladder inside the playhouse

A view of the tennis court from the playhouse balcony

The reunion ended on Saturday and we headed for the airport Saturday night. Our flight was delayed and then cancelled!  We ended up going to Phoenix for the night and staying in a hotel.  We made it back to Austin Sunday afternoon and back to our house Monday night. 

One last story.  On Wednesday night Ryan and I went to the Jordan River Temple.  It was a great date!  We had planned on meeting his friends downtown at a restaurant called Valter's Osteria.  It's a newer place and apparently it's hard to get into.  We were lucky and we pretty much got the last table at the end of the night.  We were waiting for our table in the front entry with some other people and Ryan went up to the hostess desk to check in.  Then Valter himself came over to the small group next to me and started to shake their hands.  He reached across to shake my hand and asked if I was with the group.  I said no and all four people turned to look at me and say no as well, including James Franco!  I had been standing next to him for at least 10 minutes and didn't even know it!  Ha, I didn't want to be in their group anyway!  We finally got seated and then spent the next two hours eating a multi-course dinner with the most delicious Italian food I have ever had in my life! It was pretty late when we were leaving and there were just a few people left.  Valter was at a table eating with some of the staff.  Ryan thanked him for the meal and then he gave us both a hug!  What a night!

Franklin Drive-Thru Safari

Yesterday Ryan took the day off from work.  We decided to check out Franklin drive-thru safari in Franklin, which is about 40 minutes from our house.  I have to say that it was one of our favorite days ever and I haven't heard Cannon laugh that hard in a long time!

First we did the drive-thru part.  They had all sorts of different animals: deer, camel, emu, ostriches, pigs, longhorns, buffalo, ducks, geese, llamas, donkeys, and some other type that I didn't recognize.  They give you a bucket of food and some smaller cups to feed the animals.  Some animals were a little more timid, like the deer, and they preferred you throwing some food onto the ground.  But others were not shy about putting their whole heads into the car!  We were excited about the camels, but the breath of one camel stunk up the whole car!  And after we would drive ahead a bit, he would follow us.  Several times we would all be looking out Ryan's window and then all of a sudden there would be a huge camel head in front of my face!  Cannon thought it was hilarious!

Cannon wasn't sure about feeding them directly.  This picture makes me laugh because I think it was an ostrich beak coming towards him. 

 

 

Nothing like a big buffalo head coming into your front seat!

Baby ostriches! 

Then we walked around the area to see some of the other animals they have fenced in, like the baby camels, wart hogs, monkeys, lemurs, birds, kangaroos and wallabies, a large snake, and one giraffe. 

We were all laughing at this guy just hanging out.

 

 

Then we did the petting zoo which had goats, sheep, chickens and baby chicks, baby alpacas and baby llamas, calves, and pigs. 

 

We loved holding this baby goat!

And then he started eating my shirt.

 

And then we went into the baby room to hold some baby animals: wart hogs, lemurs, monkeys, and an otter. 

 

 

 

The little monkey wearing a diaper is a capuchin monkey.  He just wanted to cuddle, which was fine with me! There were two other lighter colored monkeys, a brother and sister, and boy were they curious and playful!  As soon as we walked into the room one of them jumped on Ryan's back!  And they would chase each other and jump around.  Cannon kept laughing at them so hard!  The boy one kept teasing the lemurs and pulling his tail.  The guy with us said the lemurs are kind of like cats.  They don't like to be carried around, but they will let you hold them and they like to be pet.  The otter kept laying on Ryan's shoe.  He was very sweet and liked his belly rubbed.  The wart hogs kept picking on him though. 

 

It was so special for us to be able to hold these animals!  We had such a fun day and will definitely go back another time when it's not so hot.