Hurricane Irene

It was quite an eventful week out here in Virginia. First we had an earthquake, and then on Saturday we braced ourselves for hurricane Irene to come barreling up our coast. Luckily for us, it was only a tropical storm since we are a couple hours inland. However, she did do a fair amount of damage, with wind gusts of up to 71 MPH. There were trees knocked over onto roads and houses, and major power outages for about 75% of Richmonders. We went about 78 (miserable) hours without power. The food in our fridge all went bad by the next day, when we were unable to get ice. Luckily, we saved the meat in the freezer and were able to get ice the following day. We had some amazing friends (lucky people WITH power) who had us over so we could escape the heat of our house during the hottest hours of the day. Steve had to go on rotation, so it was just the girls and I left to sweat it out. They hated sleeping in the basement, and most of the time chose not to sleep at all. But, we got through it and are so happy and thankful to have our power back on, and to have come out of this disaster completely unharmed. It really has made me think about all the blessings we have and the things I take for granted everyday, like being able to give my children cold drinks when it's hot. I felt so bad for Capri, she wanted a drink of milk and kept asking and signing for it, pleading with me to give her some milk. All we had that day was warm water, and lukewarm milk. Since she is lactose intolerant, we couldn't give her the milk. It was so sad!
Here are some pictures from the adventure, starting with during the storm. We had our friends, the Healy's come over for dinner. We made breakfast casserole and crepes. They brought some seriously  delicious peach cobbler! We thought it would be fun to hang out, and watch a movie during the storm. Ha. The power went out before they even got to our house. :)

The food. Hey, it's important, right?

 The girls just played through the storm.

 Our partners in crime.

Nothing like a little chess by candlelight. 

The Aftermath:

 This is a tree that fell on a power line and onto our street, blocking it completely. 

 Here is our charming little creek's nasty makeover... I couldn't believe how full it was, or how fast it was moving. 

 Irene completely uprooted this gigantic tree across the street from the entrance to our apartment complex.

During the storm we could hear tree's breaking:

Crazy, huh?

Well, we're hoping that we've seen the worst of the storm season, but I'm a little worried we haven't just yet. Thanks to everyone who offered to let us come stay with them and kept us in their prayers, we really appreciated it. 

New Talents

Camri has loved swimming this year, so we decided it would be fun to sign her up for some swim lessons at our local YMCA. She has loved it! I am a little nervous to tell her today is our last swim lesson. Fortunately, I did sign her up for another round in September. She has been going Mon- Thurs for the last two weeks and is learning so much. She will finally put her face and head in the water, she has learned to kick with a paddle board, and picked up the logistics of swimming. And she's had a ton of fun. Here are some pictures of her last swim lesson.

 They teach the kids about pool safety,  calling 911, and identifying the lifeguard.

 They got out this cute little boat and took the kids for a spin around the pool. They dumped out the older kids and made them swim to safety. Camri did NOT want to get dumped. 

Here is Camri with her swimming instructor, Ariel. Cute, right? 

And Miss Capriel:

She has discovered a certain knack for climbing. Mostly on tables and our entertainment center. Gotta love her. 

Here she is on my craft table, unspooling a ton of my ribbon all over the floor. Lovely. 

New Family Pictures

While we were in Utah, my amazingly talented friend Cortney (of Cortney Heintz Photography)  took some pictures for us. As always, she did a beautiful job. She even got Camri to smile! Thanks again, Cort. You are the best! 

Earthquake!

While I am sure everyone knows about/has blogged about the recent earthquake to hit Richmond, I wanted to post about it for posterity's sake.  We make our blog into a book each year so that I don't have to use the hundreds of dollars worth of scrapbooking materials I have. :)


On Tuesday August 23rd, around 1:51 p.m. a 15 second tremor measuring a 5.8 on the Richter scale hit Richmond. I was in the kitchen cleaning, Camri was watching "Dora", and Capri was sleeping upstairs when I noticed the windows and ground started shaking. I was wondering what kind of craziness our maintenance men were up to and chalked it up to construction error of some sort. I ran to  the window, and when I saw no sign of construction, I finally put 2 and 2 together. It was an earthquake. I have never been in any kind of natural disaster, so I grabbed Camri and we stood in the doorway. It seemed that it was getting stronger, so I told Camri to stay in the doorway while I ran up to get Capri. Shortly after that, it stopped. It was eerily still. I think I was still in disbelief. I heard my neighbors outside, so I went out to confirm that I wasn't in some sort of physchosis, and that the ground had in fact been moving. Everyone was astounded. Apparently the East coast hasn't seen an earthquake of this magnitude for 115 years. It was felt all along the east coast from New York to S. Carolina. The scariest part was that  I couldn't get a hold of Steve at school for a minute, but then he finally got through to my phone and we were able to talk. The damage was very minimal, I don't think it did anything to our house, except scare the daylights out of me! Camri was irritated she had to stop watching "Dora" to stand in the doorway while Mommy hyperventilated, and Capri slept through it. 
Later that night at around 8 p.m. we felt an aftershock that was a 4.2. We have had several other, smaller aftershocks the last couple of days too. Talk about crazy! It has me all shook up and thinking about what I would do if I were home alone with the girls and something major happened. We are just so grateful that it was minimally damaging, and that no one was hurt. It does get you thinking about what we need to be doing to be prepared!  

Temple Pictures are Ready!

Hey everyone, my Salt Lake Temple pictures of officially DONE! I am really happy with the way they've turned out! Not that you can really mess up pictures of such a beautiful building...

For prices and all the other pictures, check out my photo blog! (The link is on the sidebar at the top)

Or if your feelin' lazy just click Here!

Oh, What Do We Do In the Summertime?

We've had a couple good investments for summer play. Number one has to be the snow cone maker. We have been making snow cones like crazy around here, trying to beat the heat.

Another good one are these margarita cups. They have the freezable material in the middle, so we pop them in the freezer and they keep our snow cones nice and cold for us. They have also doubled as a toy for our water table.

 Popsicles . Enough said. We buy these babies in bulk.

 Grandma Carolyn bought Capri a water table for her birthday, and as you can see in the next few pictures, she loves to play in it. 

We are doing whatever we can to get through the intense August heat out here. After coming home from Utah, we were all feeling pretty miserable.  We've been making several trips a week to our pool, and to the Childrens Museum of Richmond. Basically, we're just trying to stay cool and waiting for September, when it will (hopefully) cool down, and Camri will be back in school. Hope everyone else is having a great Summer!

Capriel, 15 months

My sweet little girl is already fifteen months old. I can't believe it. I think we are getting into our "terrible two's" a little early with this one. :)

At 15 months Capri is:

A whopping 30 lbs (This explains my sore back and increasingly buff arms.)

Taking one 2 hour nap a day (not long enough, in my opinion.)

Eating well. Seriously. She loves her food. Her favorites are fruit and Cheese. Too bad about the cheese, since we seriously have to limit it or she breaks out into horrible diaper rashes. Still a little lactose sensitive. She can only have Lactose free milk too, poor girl. That stuff smells horrible. 

Causing mischief all day long, with a specialty in tormenting Camri. 

Talking. Mostly "Mommy", "Daddy", "Milk", "Eat", "Doggie", "NO!", "Mine", "Birdie",  "baby", "binkie", "bubbles" "Shoes", "map", "backback", "all done","more",  etc...

Signing like crazy!

 She knows and uses about 25 signs. Her favorite signs are "dog" and "Poop". I know, thats gross. But it is helpful, since her #2's scorch her sensitive bum. 

she is the clown in our family, for sure. She is always doing something to get attention and make us all laugh.  

Like any typical girl, she is obsessed with shoes. She loves to try them on and bring us our shoes. Even when we don't need them. :)

She looks so much like Steve, it's scary. 

 Still loves to give slobbery kisses. And she gives the BEST hugs. 

  She still loves babies. She loves to feed her babies, and even tries to maul actual babies at church. 

She is doing well in nursery. Yes, nursery!! Since Steve is Young Mens Pres. and I'm Primary Pres. they let us take Capri to nursery. Hallelujah! 

Hates the swimming pool. Most unfortunate for her since we spend a few days a week there. 

Loves to play pat-a-cake. She especially loves rolling it. :)

She is such a wonderful addition to our family. I just can't imagine our lives without her. She is so sassy already, I think we might be in trouble with this one! She will let you know what she wants, and what she doesn't. It's so fun to see her independence grow, and see her personality coming out. We love you Caprese!

Poor, Sweet Camri...

The latest drama with Camri: The huge hole in her right maxillary canine. Last Friday, Steve was away on rotations so I thought it would help brighten Camri's spirits to make crepes for breakfast. She was eating away happily when she suddenly stopped to tell me her mouth hurt. I thought she was trying to score some sympathy medicine, but when I looked she did indeed have a huge gaping hole on the inside slope of her tooth. It was huge, and had blood in the middle of it. I tried to be calm, and after an initial gasp I got it together and gave her some tylenol and sent her in the other room so I could call Steve in a panic. He was with a patient so I did the only other thing I could think of to do. I made her an emergency appointment ( more like I begged for an appointment, since their day was full, and they had to squeeze us in) to see the dentists at VCU. We took her in and about 12 residents came in to examine her mouth. They had never seen anything like it before. Camri was really enjoying the attention until they had to fill the hole. They sent us on our way after delivering the heart wrenching news that she would need to be sedated and have a pulpectomy performed. The tooth hasn't given her too much trouble, just a little pain if she eats something tough. Steve and I are sick over the whole matter. I took her to a pediatric dentist on Monday, and he concurs with the original diagnosis. Sooooo, on September 1st Camri will undergo a root canal. Right now we are just trying to  keep her from further damaging the poor little tooth. We think she put her fork through her tooth. It was obviously some kind of trauma, since that is an unlikely place for a cavity to form. And the hole is HUGE. Keep miss Camri in your prayers please. We are hoping the procedure is successful and general anesthesia isn't necessary. 

Temple Pictures

I keep getting questions about prices for my temple pictures, and I'm still working on a few more shots, but when I'm done I will have them all displayed on my photo blog. Hopefully I will have decided on a price by then too. :) If your interested keep checking! I will finish them this week! Thanks everyone! And if you haven't followed my photography blog, you need to!  Check it out: Ashley Clawson Photography 

Fun with Papa Steve and Grandma Coley

We did a lot of fun things when we were with Papa Steve and Grandma Coley. Here we are miniature golfing. 

You can see why Capri won...

 The little cheater would simply put the ball in the hole. 

Camri telling Capri about the finer points of mini golf:

Camri was really excited to have the purple ball

Steve, showing the girls how it's done:

Papa Steve hiding behind Capri:

On Saturday we went to the farmers market in Ogden, and they had this cute little petting zoo for the kids.

 They had goats, horses, pigs, bunnies, chickens and sheep.

 Camri loves to feed the animals

Capri was so excited to see and pet the animals. (The horse looks a bit spooked by her though)

The girls got to see their great grandpa Bob:

The girls enjoyed playing in the pool: Here is Camri catching some air

Capri and G. G.

Papa Steve took us to Lagoon, which Camri loved!

 Camri is a Papa's girl!

Hanging out with Papa and Grandma

We had a lot of fun in Utah, and Camri keeps telling me how much she misses everyone. It's actually quite sad. Every day she prays for us to go back to Utah .