Idaho

This weekend we went for a little drive to Sandpoint Idaho. It's a little over an hour away. It takes us so long to gather everything to take on a day trip like this, we always forget something. This time it was a drink for Ethan, and oh yeah...the gas. I don't know how Eric didn't notice, but we were on empty when we left. We had just passed Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, just passed civilization, just passed all the gas stations, when Eric noticed the gas light was on. "how long has that been on?" he asks, like I would have noticed and just decided not to tell him. We know our car can go at least forty minutes with the gas light on (we learned that in the middle of nowhere Nebraska.) but it could have been on when we started the car for all we knew. There was nothing as far as we could see, and of course Ethan was screaming. He loves to add tension to situations like this. He can sense when we are scared or upset and he tries to one-up us. We just kept on going, and going, and going, and this would be a much more interesting story if we ran out of gas, but luckily we finally saw this:
The best sight in the world: One takes these little signs for granted, but sometimes you just want to kiss them.

We finally made it to Sandpoint. We walked around the shops and found the lake. This is Lake Pend. We felt weird being at a beach in the middle of Idaho, but the water was pleasant, and Ethan loved the little park.

Later we ate lunch at a cute little diner, and I let Ethan have his first fried food. I'm such a bad mom, but they were sweet potato fries, those are good for you right? Anyway, he loved them and he stayed quiet the whole time while Eric and I enjoyed our lunch. Don't worry, I fed him my tomato too.

Ethan's Birthday Presents

We finally got around to opening all of Ethan's birthday presents. He loved them all. It was hard to get him to open the next gift because he didn't want to stop playing with the previous one. Eric insisted on carrying on the Lund tradition of hiding the presents. Ethan didn't seem to notice.

Where are the English instructions?? This is so complicated!

Happy Birthday Ethan!

Yesterday was Ethan's first birthday. I tried to make it special for him... but how do you make it a special day for a baby that already gets everything he wants any day of the year? I don't know. We made a cute turtle cake together, played with balloons and bubbles, and I took him to Toys R Us and let him pick out a ball to take home. I think he had a good day.
Eric didn't get off work until 8:00, so we just had a quick cake eating moment and gave him one toy before I put him to bed. We'll do the rest of the presents today.


Ethan saw this toy at his cousin's house and went crazy, so we got him one for his b-day.


When we went into the bathroom to clean up, I said "Ethan, look at your face, you're all messy!" he looked in the mirror and "AHHH" he freaked out! He started screaming and hanging on to me. I guess a green faced baby is pretty scary to a one year old. Poor thing...


I found this recipe on the Betty Crocker website. It is made completely out of cupcakes.

FYI: if you put a cake on the floor to take a picture of it, don't leave it unattended while putting batteries in the camera. I had to perform Emergency Surgery on this little guy twice. Ethan is fast as lightning I tell you!

Going Swimming!

Hey Ethan, maybe you should clean up your toys before going out...

Eric and Audrey in Spokane!

Here we are-- about as far as you can get from Florida. It's been quite a ride, but we are finally feeling settled here in Washington (although I still have boxes I haven't unpacked). Eric is working at Sacred Heart Medical Center for the year. We really love it here so far. Eric's first month was really laid back, which was nice. We were able to have some fun and explore Spokane a bit. Here are a few things we did:

Strawberry Picking:

There are some farms near us that let you come work in their fields picking their crops for them. Then you pay them for what you take home. How nice of them. :) Sounds like quite the scam when you think about it.

We picked the strawberries this time. We are looking forward to picking apples and pumpkins this fall too. You can even go up there to cut your own Christmas tree. I'm really excited for that.
Ethan loved the strawberries, even though he wasn't allowed to eat them yet. Squishing was more fun anyway.

Downtown Spokane:
Ethan loves feeding ducks. You have to get here early though. We tried to feed the ducks last week, but we got there in the evening and the ducks were full. Too many people feeding them bread I guess. I've never seen a duck refuse to eat.
Ethan didn't really get the idea of feeding the ducks. When I gave him some bread to throw in, he would just pop it in his mouth.
There is an old merry-go-round downtown too. Ethan got a big kick out of it. I have to say I enjoyed it too.

Glacier National Park

Okay, so Glacier National Park isn't exactly in Spokane... more like 4 1/2 hours away, but we went there over 4th of July.
Eric insisted in buying a tent he could stand up in. When you're 6'3" That's quite a lot to ask. So here is our "house tent". It sleeps 9 I think. There was a separate room for Ethan's travel crib too.



Despite all the comforts of home, Ethan still woke us up at the crack of dawn, so we went on a long drive through the park.


It was beautiful. Camping with little Ethan was difficult though. Nature isn't exactly baby proofed. We were glad to come home.