A day at the Rennaissance Festival

Saturday we had a fun day with my parents at the Rennaissance Festival. If you have never been to a Rennassiance Festival it is a fair where you can go to experience what "life" was like in medieval times. There are people dressed in costumes of the period, jousts, games, and food that is supposedly similar to what they ate. At this particular Festival they have permanent buildings that have shops in them which give you the feel of walking through a medieval village. It is a lot of fun.

The first thing that we tried was the Jacob's Ladder. It is a challenge for those who choose to spend their money for a chance to win. The object is to climb to the top of a rope ladder that is suspended from one rope at the top and one at the bottom. The trick is to balance on top of the ladder while climbing it. You get three chances. Easier said than done. To prove it was possible the guy collecting money demonstrated the technique and scaled it at least 3 times never once falling while we stood there watching person after person tumble into the hay!

Here Robby tries to give it his best shot. After watching the guy climb it easily a few times I decided to give it a try too. To see how I did you will have to go to our video clip named "Can they climb the Jacob's Ladder?" at http://robertandsharon.com/family/video-index.htm Do you think I made it?

The next thing we tried was the bungee jump! Little Robby had a blast! When he got down, he insisted that Mom had to try it too since she did the Jacob's Ladder with him.

When I got up to the trampoline I told the guy that I was talked into doing this by my son. He said, "In that case, I going to make sure that you fly higher than he did!" Boy, did I ever! To see video of this check out our video clip named "Watch us fly!"

We thought this costume was very unique! I tried to get Little Robby in the picture with the tree guy too, but he refused.

Jenna had fun kicking back in her stroller!

When I was a kid we used to go to the Rennaissance Festival near my home, and the one thing I vividly remember was riding the elephants so I made sure we didn't miss the opportunity!

I must say though, that it wasn't quite as enchanting as it was when I was a kid. The elephant walked in one circle and that was it. Oh well.

Grandma sneaks a hug from Little Robby.

I always knew I had royal blood! Long live the king and queen!

Here is the real princess getting a ride in her royal chariot while catching a beauty nap.

Lessons from a little babe

Jenna has some new philosophies about life. First is, if you find a space that it looks like you might fit in you should try it out. Hence the picture seen here...

I have also found her in a box of printer paper in the office!

Second is, if you have something in your hand that you shouldn't, first act innocent, maybe Mom and Dad won't notice it if you are really cute! If that doesn't work and they come to take it away, squeeze it with all your might and fling your arm about madly, hopefully they won't be able to catch it. Finally, if they manage to catch your hand and pry the precious object out then pull out your biggest pouty face and make them feel mean for taking away your prize!

Taking a Hike

While Sharon was busy with a church youth activity Saturday morning, Roo, Jenna, and I made a run for the border.

Here's Jenna within sight of the fence. Too bad Dad was acting as border patrol.

Jenna gets to meet her first cactus up close and personal. Luckily it played nice with her.

With Jenna's athleticism I wouldn't be surprised to see her climbing many more rocks in the future.

I really like this picture of Robby.

Robby's backpack had everything we needed for our journey - food, water, and eventually Dad's jacket. Going uphill he carried the backpack and I carried Jenna. Coming back down we switched.

(Just kidding.)

Here the three of us are near the top of our hike. Shortly after this Jenna fell asleep in my arms and rode the rest of the way down in style. She woke up when we got to the parking lot.

My Little Mess Maker

Well, Jenna has discovered what fun it is to unload all the cabinets, drawers, shelves, and laundry baskets she finds around the house. Since then I have to be careful about leaving her in a room alone a for more than a minute for fear of what mess I will find when I get back. She even dumped clothes out of one of the drawers that's attached to her crib after her nap the other day (evidently Little Robby had left it slightly open in his haste to get dressed for school). I also have to make sure that all of the bedroom doors stay closed because she like to roam the house looking for good things to make a mess. I must say though, that she is certainly proud of her accomplishments when I find her. I usually get a very big grin from her as she sits in the middle of her disaster.

Here we have Jenna sitting on Dad's lap. Dad took the liberty to show Jenna how the kleenex box works. Brillant idea Dad. Of course, Jenna had lots of fun!

Here Jenna smiles at me after nearly unloading a drawer that she discovered she can open! I had walked to the kitchen to retrieve something, got a phone call that slowed me down a minute, and returned to the bedroom to find her busily removing all the contents of the drawer.

Oops! Did I make this mess?!

But I'm cute, right?!

A Day at the Rock Festival

A couple weekends ago we went as a family to the Arizona Rock and Mineral Festival. We had fun viewing some different minerals under black lights, looking at all sorts of rocks, minerals, and fossils, and eating rock candy.

Little Robby got to try out a metal detector, dig for fossils, and buy a few cool rocks (one of which was a geode that he cracked open at home with Dad's help.)

Here Little Robby digs for "fossils" in the "Rockin' Fossil Dig."

Dad gives in and lets Jenna try some rock candy!

She loved it and kept whining when we wouldn't give her more.

Jenna was sealed to our family!

We are pleased to announce that Jenna was sealed to our family on December 28th in the Dallas Texas Temple. We traveled to Dallas for the sealing so that we could have Robby's whole family in attendance since we were also gathering to attend the open house celebrating his sister Kaci's wedding. It was such a wonderful day! Adoption is such a wonderful miracle! We will forever be grateful to Jenna's birthparents for trusting us to become her eternal parents. She is such a blessing to our family.

Our forever family!

We celebrated with grandparents,...

the family,...

and many friends!

Later on that same day we returned to Robby's parent's house and had Jenna blessed. The only sad part of the day was when we realized that Little Robby was very sick. He told me that at the temple he felt fine, but as we left he told us he was dizzy. We thought he must not have had enough to eat that day, but after the blessing he started acting like he was sick so we took his temperature and found out it was almost 104! Poor guy!

Here is our happy little sweetheart in the beautiful dress that my mother-in-law made for her!

Little Jenna always has a smile to show!

To see more a lot more pictures from our trip go to our family site photo album page and see the "Christmas in Texas 2005" Album. Here's a link to the photo album page: http://www.robertandsharon.com/family/photoalbum.htm

Jenna Plays Peek-a-boo

Christmas is over and I realize that I need to catch up. First of all I figure I will report on Jenna's latest accomplishment. Yesterday when we were at church Robby discovered that Jenna now knows how to play peek-a-boo. Jenna is such a wiggler at church that Robby tries to find as many ways to entertain her quietly as possible. Since I am called to work with the primary children (ages 3-12) I can't bring her with me as she can be a big distraction to the children, so for the two hours after our sacrament meeting, Robby is juggling little Jenna. Yesterday, he tried to put her on the floor to see if she would play quietly at his feet. Not a chance! As soon as she saw the opportunity to crawl away she took off crawling under the pews. What fun the chapel can be for a little baby! Robby tells me that he spends a lot of time standing up and bouncing her to keep her quiet since she can be quite vocal (happy or not). Well, in attempts to find new ways of entertaining her he tried peek-a-boo and she got it! She thought it was great fun holding the blanket over her head while he quietly said "Where's Jenna!" and then reappearing the next instant when he said "Peek-a-boo!" Over and over she would cover and uncover her own face, all the time grinning from ear to ear.

When we came home after church, Robby got Jenna to play the game again to show Little Robby and me. We thought it was so cute that we decided to video tape her. Then she stopped! It was great fun all until the camera was rolling! I think one of the challenges of parenthood is catching those cute moments on film before the novelty has worn off. This time we lost.