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Paige is PREGNANT!

It's true! Bryce and CJ went with Paige to the doctor today, and here's the proof. That highlighted blob of white lines on this ultrasound is our little baby, six weeks old! We even got to see the heartbeat too, which was really neat. So the countdown to chaos is less than 9 months away, March 16th, but we couldn't be happier!!

Here is the happy family the morning Paige took the pregnancy test

BEAUTIFUL SEATTLE

We all flew out to Seattle this weekend. Yes, I said flew. It was a wonderful flight...only 35 minutes in the air, compared to the 4 1/2 hours on the road when we drive. Friday was a little chilly for Paige's taste, but Saturday and Sunday were gorgeous! Here's a quick recap of the weekend:

- Friday July 18: wake up at 3:45 AM to get ready to catch a 6:35 AM flight. Barely make it to the airport on time, but everything turned out fine. After some catnaps, Bryce joined his dad and his two brothers, Tyler and Cameron, in a golf tournament for charity. So that meant shopping with the girls (and CJ :). Paige, CJ, Bryce's mom, and his sister, Kelsey, killed the sales at the Nordstrom Anniversary sale. We all met up for dinner and a relaxing night in.

CJ was so exhausted from flying and shopping, this is how he fell asleep in the car on our way home from Nordstom in downtown Bellevue

- Saturday July 19: Paige, Bryce, and CJ went with Bryce's mom to check out some birthday toys for CJ and then to get a journal and temple recommend holder for Cameron, who leaves on his mission August 6th. Then we all went to the Seattle temple to attend Cameron's endowment session (minus CJ and Kelsey). Unfortunately, Bryce forgot his recommend and when they tried to find his recommend electronically by looking up his birth date and current ward, they couldn't even find his records (his birth date is wrong on his records and even though we tried to get it fixed last week, it still hasn't gone through). So Bryce didn't actually get to attend the session, which they held for him for 15 minutes before finally starting, but he went back to his parents' and got his recommend and they actually let him meet us in the Celestial room. It was a wonderful surprise, especially for Paige! After the session, we went out to eat at Maggiano's and headed home around 10:45 PM.

- Sunday July 20: Cameron gave a wonderful farewell speech, which made us all cry (yes, Cam, it was "epic" :), and since church was at 9:00 AM, we all came home and took a nap afterward. Then we had fondue for dinner and dessert, played Bump (which Paige actually won a game), and enjoyed one another's company the rest of the night.

CJ and his Uncle Cam, the missionary

- Monday July 21: left at 7:45 AM to catch our 9:05 AM flight back to Spokane...

UH-OH SPAGHETTI-O

Here's a series of pictures that show pretty much CJ's entire first experience eating spaghetti. He goes from barely touching the stuff, to sucking on noodles, to wanting to share with us...then the floor, and ends with a happy grin (though he barely ate any of it :).

click on the grid to enlarge the pics

OUR NEW PLACE...with furniture

SUMMER SOFTBALL

Bryce has been playing on a city league softball team this summer, made up of mainly guys from law school. It's been lots of fun - double headers once a week for the last nine weeks - and this last weekend was the championship. Unfortunately, our team didn't win their last game to send them to the championship, but that's okay...it was a Sunday and so we would have forfeited anyway. Here's the team...and one of their many cheerleaders :)

Top L-R: Gage Arnold, Ben Summerhays, Adam Snell, Beau Juassi; Bottom L-R: Nate Anderson, Dave Lewendowski, Chris Holland, Taylor North, Nick Lemon, and Bryce; (not pictured: Tyson Dobbs, Shay Wells, Ryan Ellersick, Ritchie ?)

Can you see how into the game CJ is?!

FEEDING THE DUCKS

We've been wanting to go to Manito Park and feed the ducks for a few weeks now, so we thought we'd take advantage of one of Bryce's last free days before he started his internship and head on over. It was THE most BEAUTIFUL day...the only draw back was that the ducks are kinda sick of bread by this time in the summer, so there weren't nearly as many ducks as when CJ and Paige went last Fall. But it was still fun, nonetheless :)

Can you tell this poor duck has a deformity? :(

CJ feeding the ducks...with a little help from his Daddy (not a very big turn out, as you can see)

IT'S HERE...FINALLY!!

For those of you who don't know what this is, it's our new AC unit! It took over 8 hours for Accuflow to install it, but it was so worth it! Now it would have been nice if our apartment had just had AC when we moved in, like we were told, but we're just grateful to have it now. Heatwave, do your best!

DEFENDER OF JUSTICE...

Bryce got an internship yesterday! Yea! Anyone who knows us, knows that we have been praying for Bryce to get an internship so that he can have some experience for his resume (all in order to help him get an internship for next summer), and of course, life experience as well. And yesterday, our prayers were answered. Bryce starts Monday morning working for the Spokane County Public Defender's Office. We'll keep you posted...

GREENBLUFF FARMS

We headed out to Greenbluff this weekend to pick fresh strawberries (apparently this weekend the strawberries were in their prime). Unfortunately, we got there right as they were closing the patch. But lucky for us, they had a great little diner that we ate lunch at, including a strawberry shake and huckleberry ice cream made from the berries from their farm. They also had some animals to pet (a horse, a baby goat and its mama, some chickens, and two huge dogs that were just roaming free) and a fun version of a sandbox...instead of sand, it was filled with dried peas. CJ had fun while his mom and dad stuffed their faces :)

click on the collage to enlarge it

4th OF JULY

BBQ at the Dobbs' (L-R clockwise): Nate Anderson, Polly Anderson, Ashley Lemon and Brinley North, Nick Lemon, CJ and Bryce, Paige, Brody Dobbs, Misty Wells, Heather Dobbs, Tyson Dobbs, Chelsey and Tayson North, Taylor and Kamryn North, Kamay Lemon

Lookin' patriotic (at least CJ is :)

Hangin' out in some field waiting to watch the fireworks in Coeur d'Alene

The Guys (L-R): Taylor North, Bryce, Tyson Dobbs, Nathan Anderson

The Gals (L-R): Polly Anderson, Heather (and Brody) Dobbs, Chelsey (and Tayson) North, Paige (and CJ), Misty Wells (and Brinley North), Kamryn North

Snuggling up to watch the fireworks

Yes, CJ fell asleep like that :)

CJ's RED EYE

Can you see the red splotch on the inside of CJ's right eye? He woke up Thursday morning with it, and we didn't know where it came from. He didn't seem to be in any pain, and the rest of his eye looked fine, but we called the doctor's just to be safe. They said he probably burst a blood vessel with some sort of added pressure (like sleeping on it wrong), and unless there was fluid seeping from CJ's eye, he should be fine. So don't worry everyone...it looks worse than it is and it should be gone in a few days.

P.S. this pic is also great to see CJ's new smile. Look at all those teeth (you can't tell very well in this picture, but his upper left tooth has actually come in as well)!

BUSY DAY

We went downtown this week with our good friends, Tyson and Heather Dobbs, and their son, Brody. While we were there we:

...rode the carousel. CJ's ridden it before, but I think it might be too fast for him...look at how he rode :)

...walked down to check out the Spokane Falls (the water has really gone down since we were there a few weeks ago)

...and CJ got to ride in his new forward-facing car seat. The pic on the left is when we first put him in...he was content. But as you can tell by the pic on the right, once we started driving, he LOVED it! He was laughing and talking the entire time.

CJ's NEW SWING

FLOWER CHILD

Who knew our son was born in the wrong decade? Thirty years earlier and he would have fit right in with his tye-dye onesie (squash and raspberries sure make a pretty pair...:)

CAN YOU SAY PANIC?!

So after our wonderful night with CJ (see previous post), Thursday morning Paige got a phone call shortly after she woke up. Bryce was golfing and Paige was in her robe feeding CJ breakfast, when low and behold, Pres. Frederickson, from the stake presidency, gave us a call and asked us to speak at Youth Conference...that day...and we needed to leave in about 40 minutes! So after rushing to get ready, and gather some props for our talk, we were off.

We got to Camp Na-bor-lee shortly after 2 PM (it took us about an hour and forty minutes), and started our schpeal at about 3 PM. We were asked to share with the youth our story and how important the temple is in our marriage. So after telling our story to three groups of 16-18 yr olds (probably in too much detail...it's hard to fill 25 minutes when you've had absolutely no time to prep, so we spent a lot of time letting the kids know how we met and got engaged :), we were invited to stay for dinner and their testimony meeting. After a 4 hour testimony meeting - two of which Paige sat in the car with CJ because, remember, he had been up all night, and now, had no naps, so let's just say, he wasn't helping create a reverent mood - we finally headed home and finally walked in the door to our place at 1:30 AM!

Though it was all very last minute and rushed, we were so happy that we went. The Spirit that we felt at that camp, with the amazing youth of our stake, was something that Bryce and I both needed. And it was wonderful to spend time reminding ourselves of our wonderful marriage and the incredible blessings we experience because of the temple. Though we were praised way too much for being there, really, we are the ones who are grateful for the wonderful experience we had.

P.S. Most embarrassing moment in quite some time: after Paige got off the phone with Pres. Frederickson, she gasped, "Oh my gosh!" And low and behold, he heard every bit!

THE "INCIDENT"

Yes, that is CJ sleeping in the hallway (pretty much in the doorway to his bedroom). "Why," you ask? Because on Thursday, CJ woke up at 12:30 AM, and he decided he just wanted to play until 5 AM. Oh, but he didn't want to play by himself. No, that wasn't his plan. So after many frustrating hours, we decided to let him just cry it out. But since his bedroom is practically connected to ours, and for the sake of our neighbor's kids whose room lines up with CJ's, we took him downstairs. And of course, within minutes of walking up those stairs and lying down in bed, he was out. Guess playing during the wee hours of the morning can tucker a little guy out! So in order to not wake him when Bryce went golfing half and hour later, we carried CJ upstairs (and left him in the hallway because the pack-n-play wouldn't fit through the door :), and then conked out!

Our little "incident" spurred us into action and we decided it was time to wean CJ of his nighttime bottle (he was waking up once a night still for a feeding). So starting Friday night, we dealt with an hour of crying and whining, but no bottle. Then twenty minutes on Saturday night. Then just one whine on Sunday night (we're giving him his binkie to soothe him), and low and behold, last night CJ slept all through the night without a sound! Hallelujah! For the first time in 11 months, we can sleep all the way through the night...life is good! Now if we could just get our AC installed like right now things would be marvelous...