trip to Salem

Quick recap:
We spent Thursday and Friday with Josh's Aunt Debbie who was in town for a conference. I think we may have set a record by visiting Salem, MA and NOT going to one of the many witch museums. We went to the National Park Service visitors' center first. Both kids loved the model ships. Afterwards, we walked down the harbor and saw the Friendship, a reconstruction of a 171-ft three-masted Salem East Indiaman built in 1797. Harrison thought it was cool and wanted to go on board (unfortunately we missed the tour). The highlight of our visit though was...throwing rocks into the ocean. I think Harrison (and Josh) spent an hour doing just that. Maybe next time we'll actually hit a few of the museums. Unfortunately the only pictures Josh took of Aunt Debbie were from her backside and since I like her, I thought I would omit them :) (I stand corrected, Josh found one that proves we really did see her; we aren't so desperate to see family that we are starting to make up stories and believing our own delusions).

Josh's sister, Bonnie, will be flying in on Wednesday and staying with us for the next month. We are really excited and I am sure Harrison and Ellie will do their best to show off by being extra loud and extra wild.

Last Sunday we attended Stake Conference and I brought a maze book my mom gave Harrison this Summer. When she initially gave it to him, he just scribbled in it so I put it away until now. He pulled it out of the diaper bag and proceeded to do half the book (about 50 mazes) with almost near perfect accuracy. For the record, some of those mazes were not easy! He would study the image before starting and you could see how he was working it out in his head before he put the pen to paper. Josh thinks this is a sign of his ability to master chess and started chess lessons with Harrison about a week ago.

Ellie is in the "get into everything" stage. I don't remember it being this bad with Harrison but it probably was. She takes everything out of the drawers in the bathroom, one-by-one (as I stand behind her and put them back in the drawer one-by-one while yelling for Josh to come get her).

She cracked me up today. I was finishing up my talk for church today on the computer and realized I hadn't heard Ellie for a little while. I turned around and she was laying on the floor with a diaper under her bum waiting for a diaper change. If only I could teach her to change her own diaper I'd have it made...