Asher’s friend, Cole, turned one a few weeks ago.  He had a big, huge party which we were really looking forward to.  The only problem was that we were all a little rummy from the trip and showed up for the birthday bash 5 hours early!  Meagan, I’ll never forget your sweet, gracious response when we rang your door bell!

The beauty of showing up so early was that Sammie and Asher got some more time together.  These two together crack us up!  Sammie is like a loving mom, and Asher is like a submissive little puppy.  Sammie grabbed Asher’s hand and walked him around the house showing him everything, and told him what to do and what not to do.  Asher listened to her.  All he wanted were some hugs.  And, Meagan and I just took pictures of them being friends.  They’re so cute together!

Happy Birthday, Cole!  We love watching you grow!

Asher is moving on up, and has some upgraded equipment!  First of all, check out his new hat :).  It’s an ingenious creation designed and sewed by my friend, Melissa.  This head strap has been wonderful, especially when we have extra breathing treatments to do with Asher and he’s sitting for a long time.  It keeps his mask snug on his face, it’s comfortable for him, and there’s no fear of cauliflower ears :).  If your child needs to do breathing treatments, and you would be interested in purchasing one of these leave me a comment or send me an email and I’ll hook you up with Melissa!

Asher also got a new vest!  His belly was getting too big, so we upgraded!  He’s getting so big.

Just finished another round of the Tobi!  What a beautiful thing to be done with that for another 28 days!  I think Asher deserves some ice cream!

We had a couple of quick photo shoots with the Olimbs and Great Grandma and Grandpa Hoverson when we were back.  Family is so special!

Olimb fun wagon.  Who wouldn’t think riding around in a wagon attached to a fast lawnmower would be fun!  It was a great afternoon hanging out with family…

Manvel.  Manvel Public School to be exact.  That’s where Jeremy and I first met, in 6th Grade.  And, that’s where our lives together began.  We thought it would be fun while we were back to bring Asher up to the school for a picture.  So crazy that we have a kid now!

We’re just starting to recover from our big trip and getting caught up on life.  So, I’ll probably be posting old photos for about the next year (ha!), but I just want to make sure Asher has these memories in his journal.

We took a pontoon ride while we were at “The Lake” and had a wonderful time.  The pontoon ride around the lake is just something you have to do everyday when you’re there.  It’s the big event of the day, meals and activities are planned around it (it takes about 2 hours), and you can’t not go – that’s really frowned upon and disrespectful to the lake :).  We tootle around the shore of the lake and say “hi” to the fellow boaters and neighbors, check out everyone’s yard, talk about the property that’s for sale, see how high or low the water level is…typical lake talk.  It’s really quite relaxing and beautiful.

A few out of the ordinary memories…

– Asher accidentally dropped (purposely threw!) his sippy cup in the lake – twice. Good thing for beer koozies I guess :).

– Grandma and Grandpa bought him this cute life jacket, but it was pretty much like the Chris Farley “fat guy in a little coat” skit.  He didn’t like it.

-Asher did not fall asleep on the pontoon, his eyes were just closed for the shot.  But, Jeremy looks hot, and the idea of Asher falling asleep on his chest looks so peaceful :).

-When we got back it was time for lunch for Asher, and he wanted to sit next to Super Grandpa.  It was a sweet, quiet time.  They communicated without talking.  Super Grandpa would take drinks out of his cup, and Asher would do the same.  Really sweet.

Asher spent about 4 days at his Grandma and Grandpa Olimb’s house all by himself, while Jeremy and I took a little vacation.  He did so great while we were gone, and loved hanging out with his cousins, and Grandmas and Grandpas.  He even took 3 hour naps, and helped take out the trash.  What a guest!  Thank you so much to the whole Olimb and Hoverson family for watching our peanut while we got away together.

Jeremy and I spent two nights roughin’ it in the Boundary Waters Canoe Country, and a couple of nights dining and lodging in some nice MN hotel rooms.  The roughin’ part was some serious roughin’ in.  It drizzled and rained the entire time we were there.  It was cold and windy, and we felt like we were on a Survivor episode.  Even though we had bad weather, we had a great time together.  I told Jeremy the fact that we could still enjoy our time in the midst of everything just proved our love and friendship for one another.  Here are a few pictures just to show you our camp (we hauled and canoed everything there, and no it wasn’t easy, ha!).  The picture of the fire is the only fire we had the entire time, and that only lasted about 2 hours.  It was so hard to find dry wood, and keep up on the fire in the rain.  We fished for a couple of hours, but it was raining, and we (Jeremy!) only caught one so that didn’t work so well.  Oddly, or perfectly, enough we did see the sunshine for about 20 mins while we were packing up to leave.  It was a nice little treat for us.  Then it clouded over and started raining again, ha!  We were just meant to have bad weather.  But, we sure made some great memories together.  Oh, and I know some of your were wondering about our bathroom facilities, so here it is in all its glory!

The boy is just loving being outside and investigating everything…including our friends flowers – sorry, Carol!  Asher also had his first try of some real Coca-Cola with a big boy cup and straw.  We figured, this is his vacation too :).

We got to go to Dent Days when we were at Super Grandpa’s!  Dent is the little town just a mile away from the lake.  Population – 192.  We were excited to bring Asher to his first parade, and to see how the little town would pull off this major event.  Well they did not disappoint.  Jeremy and I were giggling the whole time at watching Asher freak about collecting his candy, and watching the people in the parade who had been planning for this all year – case in point, check out the Dent Dames :).  It was such a fun memory.  Asher loved dancing in the street, dashing for the candy that was thrown out to him (some people hand delivered it to Asher!), the loud fire trucks, and spending time with family.  It was a great family memory!

So…Asher hates to fly.  Kinda guessed that.  He likes to run and be busy, and flying is sort of against his personality.  We were THOSE people on the plane with the screaming kid.  You know, the people you glance over at and think, “what’s your kid’s problem?!”  Yep, that was us.  And, I totally swear to never do that again to anyone ever, ha!  Jeremy said, “who cares, we’re never going to see these people again.”  Asher has such a good daddy!

But, we made it!  It’s been absolutely beautiful here, and we’ve been spending as much time as we can outside.  That’s been our theme, outside, outside, outside.  It’s been so refreshing, and Asher has been loving running around checking everything out!

And, here’s a little funny story to document…my dad and Jeremy went into the fishhouse (I know I’m throwing all you AZ people for a loop, ha!), and Asher kept walking around with his hands up saying, “where’d he go?” looking for daddy.  He could hear his voice, but he couldn’t see him.  So cute.  But, that’s beside the point :).  The funny part is that my dad invited Asher into the fishhouse and was showing us all of his renovations.  During the open house Jeremy saw Asher going after a bowl full of blue pelets and asked dad, “what’s that?”  My dad said (verbatim), “Ooooohhhh, that’s just poison.”  Totally unemotional.  Jeremy and I were dying laughing…of course, after we rescued our son, ha!