July Adventures

Allen is doing pretty well and has made great strides in the past week.  He went to the doctor a couple of weeks ago and hasn't grown much in the past 3 months or started walking yet but in the last week he's learned a few new things.  He's been to nursery twice now at church and is now trying to walk on his own!  Dad was on the floor playing with Allen one evening after work and Mom was on the couch.  Allen got up and tried to balance and get ready to walk to Mom before he fell.  It was then quickly made into a game to walk back and forth between Mom and Dad, and we played that game for about 30 minutes that evening.  Since then he's tried to  walk and follow Dad when he leaves the room, has figured out mostly how to stand up by himself and will take up to 4 or 5 steps by himself.  All since 6 days ago.  He'll be running soon and then we'll never be able to catch him.

We also noticed this really cool thing he does now.  During our evening family prayers he'll kneel down with Mom and Dad and fold his arms.  More like he'll lace his fingers together during prayer but it's pretty darn close to folding his arms.

July 4th

Allen had his second July 4th celebration this year although this is the only one he probably actually experienced and knew (kindof) what was going on.  It rained the entire day so we were pretty wet but the fireworks went off and we had a great time.  There were supposed to be all sorts of booths, just like you'd expect in a small town celebration, but the rain drove everyone away except for a couple of places.  We still had a pretty good time listening to the live band and being outside, even though it was rainy.  We found a spot we were going to watch the fireworks from and where we wouldn't get rained on and a bunch of people joined us in that spot under the overhang.  We ended up leaving (4 smokers in the entry-way of a business that didn't want to stand in the rain) but found a better spot right under the fireworks.

The spot was in a parking lot right next to where they shot the fireworks off.  There was another car to the right of us for a little while and then he all of a sudden got kicked out of that spot for some unknown reason by a guy in a 4-wheeler.  Turns out the fire department needed to be there, so we eneded up right next to the fire truck!  It was pretty awesome.  About the time the fireworks were supposed to go off we wondering if they were going to wait a few minutes (because of a huge downpour at the moment) but we heard over their radio "Fire away!"  A couple seconds later were the first fireworks.  haha  So cool!

"Fire Away!"

This is were Allen learned "Boom!"

"Boom!"

Waterfall

We've been to this waterfall before but we decided to make a trip back and play around a bit.  While mom was at girl's camp for a couple days Allen was babysat by someone in the ward so we watched her little boy.  We had been thinking of going back to play around some more and thought this was a great opportunity to wear out the kid some.  We had a great time wading around in the river above the waterfall and exploring a little bit.

Pool

Allen absolutely loves being outside and we were finally able to go and get him a little pool.  He loves it!  Dad likes it too.  haha  Allen really likes having someone to play with in the pool so Dad jumped in and splashed around with him once.  It'll happen again, it's really nice on hot days.