Our little Adrenaline Junky

Bryant is definitely turning out to be the adrenaline junky in our family. This boy isn't afraid of anything! He is so physically agile at 4 years old that he get bored with things that other kids his age are doing.

Take for example the pool. Last weekend we went to our local neighborhood pool. Here's what most kids his age are doing at the pool:

Laying around and relaxing in the shallow water!

Or maybe, at best, they're doing this:

Standing under the waterfall!

But NOOOOOooooo... Bryant doesn't want to do what the other 4 year olds are doing. He not only wants to jump in the "Deep End" of the pool... but he wants to run and jump as far as he can:

And then... here's the doozy. He decided he's bored jumping off the edge. He decides he's going to go down this... by himself:

See him coming out the slide chute by the water?

Of course I was in the pool monitoring him when he went down the slide... but still... There were 12 year olds who were too scared to go down the slide! Remember, he's only 3 1/2 feet tall... he doesn't even weigh 40 lbs! He is ALL BOY!... and a real pistol at that.

I think Zac and I are going to have our hands full. He'll probably be wanting to skydive for his 5th birthday at this rate!

Bryant gets Jiggy

Since I don't really have anything else to post... I'll give you this cute video of Bryant, Karsyn and Cooper dancing and singing in our tent. They didn't know I was watching. Karsyn had them practicing their dancing for Suzi and Austin's wedding.

I can tell you one thing for sure... Bry doesn't get his dance moves from his mom. I'm a fairly good dancer... Bryant's moves look more like Zac's... Kinda zombie-ish. :) Maybe one of these days I'll get a video of Zac "dancing"... then you can see what I'm talking about first hand!


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Enjoy!

Pink is for Girls!

I took Bryant to get fitted for his tuxedo last night. He's the ring bearer in my sister, Suzi's, wedding.

He was EXCELLENT while the ladies measured him... he loved the attention (he is a real ladies man). He was even a good sport when they wanted to try the black jacket on over his favorite Batman shirt... but when they brought the vest out for him to try on... he audibly groaned.

He gave me that "I can't believe this" look and said very definitely "PINK IS FOR GIRLS!" With some convincing that Uncle Austin, Uncle Travis, Dad and Grandpa were all going be wearing pink too, Bryant willingly put on the vest.








Keep your fingers crossed that he's as cooperative next month on the big day.

Just because there are no trees... doesn't mean we can't camp!

We decided we needed to get away... we needed to regroup... we needed to do a family activity. So we decided to take a very "last minute" camping trip this weekend.

Due to lack of planning, we had to camp fairly close to home. We traveled about 60 miles outside of town to a local camp ground (I'm not posting the name of the camp ground for privacy reasons).

Now, I know I've said before we don't have many trees. Since I grew up in Oregon I'm use to lots and lots of green dense trees. But, none of that is here. Y es... this what we saw 59 of the 60 miles on the way to the camp ground...

Basically it's all desert and sage brush. We even saw lots of tumbleweeds coming down the highway. But alas, we found some grass and some trees. Our little "man made oasis" in the middle of nowhere. We pitched our tent and made ourselves a happy little home.
We kept ourselves busy doing lots of activities. One of favorites is fishing. We love this campground because it has a plethora of fish for the kids to catch. Bryant caught over 50 fish! Basically ever other cast he caught a fish. It was super fun to watch him. Zac even bought him an Ugly Stick (a good brand of fishing pole) that's not a "baby" pole. Bryant learned to flip the bale and cast himself this weekend. My little guy is growing up so fast...

Can you tell we were serious about fishing? Look at all those poles!

Zac and Bryant with the first catch of the night. A small mouth bass.

Bryant and his friend, Cooper, discussing their fishing strategy.

Now, I'll fill you in on another secret about why we chose this particular camp ground. It's famous for the giant 7-8 feet sturgeon fish. It's Zac's goal to catch a sturgeon at least once. Every time we've been camping there, someone has gotten a sturgeon... but never Zac. Hopefully this will be his summer.

This is what a sturgeon looks like. It takes hours to reel them in. It usually take 3-4 men to pick the fish up. Bryant thinks they are sharks. All I know is that they are UGLY!

Here's Bryant standing by a sturgeon pole. You can't tell how ginormous the pole is in this picture... but just think of the pole you would need to catch that 7 ft fish.

So the rest of the time we just entertained ourselves visiting with friends, making smores, etc. Bryant rode his scooter with Karsyn and Cooper. We also took them to the "beach" to cool off in the water. You'll find those pictures below:

And then the trip had to come to an end. We were all sad to leave... but Bryant had a total meltdown. He loves camping and didn't want to even get in the car. Gee... look below, can you tell by the look on his face?

I'm Taking a Few Days Off!

Dedicated to my dear friend Katie...

My friend, Katie, has been going through some tough emotional times. I don't want to invade her privacy so I won't go into details but several things came to a climax recently which caused me to think of Katie and my friendship. We have been friends for several years. We've been through a lot of great times and some bad times. Through everything though, we have remained friends. I wanted to write this blog about friendship... and Katie... and why I define her as one of my best friends. Perhaps she can read this when she's feeling down and know that I love her and cherish her friendship...

What is a friend?

This was actually harder to define than I thought it would be. To get started, I checked the dictionary that stated a friend is "a person who knows and likes another, a person who favours and supports and a person who belongs to the same side or group."

By those definitions I have hundreds, maybe thousands, of friends, but I truly believe it goes beyond these definitions. A friend must do much more than "like you." To me, a friend is someone who knows all about you and likes you anyway. Being a friend means more than recognizing that no one is perfect, it means accepting it.

I, like most people, have many flaws. A friend not only tolerate these weaknesses but also loves me because of them. A friend either helps me see weakness myself without dwelling on them or helps me to overcome some of these weaknesses. A friend is someone who doesn't ask you to change but helps you to grow. A true friend is one who helps you see the truth, even if it hurts. This doesn’t mean we can go around stabbing our friends with hurtful words. Rather, it means being up front with friends about important issues, raising gentle questions with tact and love.

Another important quality a friend should demonstrate is loyalty. This means standing by you when the going gets a little rough, not just in the good times. It means standing up for you at all times, not letting others demean you, and never taking advantage of you or treating you badly.

Being supportive is yet another important quality in a friendship. This means cheering for you when things go your way, and being there during the bad times when they don't. Good friends allow you to make mistakes that you can learn from and forgive you for them.
Real friendships don’t just happen, and they aren’t maintenance free.

Loyalty, support, honesty and acceptance are so important to me that I would rather have 5 friends that fit my definition as opposed to 1000 "friends" that fit the dictionary definition.

Katie... know you're loved, appreciated and a wonderful friend to me. -Jenny

Oh, How I Love Thee!

I love all photos... but especially photos of Bryant. My office is covered with pictures of Bryant. I love to surround myself with his pictures because they make me happy.

Sometimes when I'm with Bryant, it all I can do to not hug him to death. Sometimes my heart just feels like it's going to explode because I love him so much. I think its safe to say I not only love him... but I'm in love with him. When I pick him up from school my heart races. When he does something cute I want to tell everyone. When he put his arms around me and says, "Mom you're so pretty. I love you" it makes me want to cry. And even when he's naughty I still think he's pretty darn cute.

Does everybody feel this way about their kids? Sometimes when I look at Bryant I am amazed. I wonder if I'm overly enthralled with him since...

• I've always love kids and have always wanted to be a mom
• I chose to give my first baby up for adoption 16 years ago
• I waited a long time to finally become a parent
• I was almost 30 when I had Bryant... we waited a long time for him
• We've had a hard time having another child, so Bryant is probably going to be our only child

Bryant is getting more and more independent each day. Sometimes I'm amazed that he still need me and wants me. I see how he explores the world around him and rarely looks back. Four is such a fun age. He has so much personality and every once-in-awhile I catch a glimpse of the boy and man he'll one day be. He's kind, compassionate, funny, confident, independent and mischievous. His carefree spirit makes it easy for him to fit into any crowd. He's going to be a real lady killer one day.

But for now, he's pretty good about letting me still hug and snuggle with him... but I know the day is probably coming where it's not going to be "cool" to hug mom anymore. Until then, I think I'll continue to hold him tight until he yells "mom let go, I can't breath."