Cornelius Chronicles

At long last we finally found a good dentist who will see Rebekah. (It's tough finding a family practice dentist who will see kids under 5.) On Tuesday, Bekah made the big trip to visit the dentist for the very first time. She was a bit nervous, but Rebekah was very brave. She told me she wouldn't talk to anyone, and she held true to her word, but she didn't cry or become uncooperative. She did everything the hygienist and the dentist asked. She was probably the most quiet and obedient patient they had ever seen. At the end Rebekah had sparkling clean teeth, no cavities, a new princess toothbrush and a cool bouncy ball. She did fabulously and I am very proud of her. Go Dentist! ...Of course, I think all the stress made her a bit goofy afterward. ;>D

This weekend we had a fun trip to the beach. The kids always love a trip to the beach and this time Xavier really got into the fun. He enjoyed himself much more this trip than he did the last. He was crawling (army crawling still) and walking (with assistance) across the wet sand, squishing his fingers in the super saturated sand between the beach and the waves, bouncing in the surf, jumping in the water and eating lots of sand, seaweed and seashells. He was one very happy boy. Bekah and Loyd enjoyed exploring the beach and walking out toward the horizon with their daddy. They discovered the joys of digging for tiny sand crabs and Dustin got stung in the leg and pinched on the pinkey finger by unknown sea creatures. Everyone was sand encrusted and tired by lunch time. No one died and a great time was had by all. Bekah diligently digging for sea shells to add to her collection and trying to catch an elusive sand crab. Loyd working hard to fill his bucket so he can dump it out ag...

The kids have been having quite a dramatic week and Loyd has been kind enough to instigate it for us. On Monday, I walked into the kitchen to find Loyd had gotten into the fridge, again, and had gotten the watermelon out. He was happily eating his stolen treat with Xavier crawling on the ground begging him to share. Out of the kindness of his heart Loyd passed a piece of watermelon down to his little brother to taste because, as Loyd explained, "Xavier is starving." Later in the week Dustin was working on cutting and hanging drywall in our bathroom. Loyd was supervising the work in the garage to make sure it was done right. While Dustin was picking up a large piece of dry wall and turning it around it scraped Loyd' knee slightly. Loyd immediately burst into tears and came running into the house to find me and show me his boo-boo. When I asked Loyd what happened he explained, "Dad's killing me!" Finally, on Friday Loyd was having a busy wiggly day. To...

Believe it or not, this is actually progress on our bathroom remodel. This week we received our new shower base and a great plumber replaced all the old pipes in the bathroom. Now Dustin can cement the base in place and begin putting up the wall boards and tile. Yea! I may get my master bathroom finished inside a year yet! With a bathroom remodel comes some pretty awesome big boxes. The box the shower base came in has come in handy as a great toy. So far it has been used as a bed, a hiding spot, and... An awesome speedway raceway. Lookout Lighting McQueen; we're coming for the Dinoco cup next year! Meanwhile, as the house has been a wreck, the water has been turned off and the bathroom has been under serious construction Xavier has taken this opportunity to learn to pull himself into sitting, kneeling and standing positions. He has learned to push furniture around the house and has found a renewed enthusiasm for dragging himself around the house in a never ending search ...

Ah, to finally sit down and write the longest blog entry of the year. How I dread, I mean look forward to this giant entry each year. We have so much fun and do so many things visiting our wonderful family and friends each summer that it feels a bit daunting trying to record it all in a single blog entry. Oh well, I'll give it a try. Hopefully I don't bore anyone too much. If you get sick of reading you can just skip through and look at the pictures. That's what I do when I get board reading someone else's blog. The pictures are the real fun of the post anyway. Our drive out to Utah this year was certainly an adventure in and of itself. We packed food, snacks, and drinks for two days, clothes and toys for three weeks, and three small children and two adults into our amazing Toyota Camry. It was a bit snug, but with some Tetras skills and a lot of patience we got all of it shoehorned in. I don't think there is anything that car can't do. The kids were...