The ants go marching...by the hundreds!!!

So a couple weeks ago I had gone over to Dan, the manager of our townhomes and informed him that we had some ants that kept showing up on my kitchen counter every morning. Since the day we moved in there have been mounds of ant hills in the back yard, but they've only attempted to come inside once.

Well this morning I went to the cupboard to get the kids some snacks and when I opened it, to my horror, the shelves were wiggling with little black ants. I bolsterously conveyed my disgust at their audacity to intrude upon my cupboard space, but more so upon my FOOD! They were inside boxes of unopened granola bars, inside the bread bag, in the salt shaker, EVERYWHERE! I quickly started pulling things out and began shaking, pounding, squashing everything that moved. But with each item I attempted to save from the squirming shelves, it only revealed more of the tiny little monster.

I didn't have any bug spray so I resorted to Mr. Clean to take care of my dirty work. After a long fight and at the expense of some banana chips and a half a loaf of bread I finally got all the tiny demons out of my kitchen, but they retaliated because when I went into the bathroom there was an army marching from the window above the shower, around the toilet and under the sink. Luckily I happened to see Dan walking by outside and ran out to tell him to send reinforcements.

The bug guy came a couple hours later and thoroughly fumigated the house and surounding areas with pesticides. I'm still finding ants here and there, but they don't look too healthy. Victory! But sweet Tayden told me as I was celebrating the demise of our unwelcomed visitors that I should just let the ants live cause their black ants not red ants so that means they're nice. I quickly told him that may be so, but no bug in any house I live in will survive if I catch them trying to have a picnic in my cupboards!

Allie is TWO!

Allie Rose Cornwall was born August 1st 2007 at 11:51 a.m. sunny side up and screaming! She didn't stop screaming until she was about 6 months old thanks to collic and acid reflux and then suddenly she got a personality and her personality has only gotten more complicated since.

And now she is TWO! Terrible half the time and the other half adorably captivating. She naturally draws people to her and relishes in the audience. Here are just a few pics of my baby girl who is now not quite so much a baby. She can count to 20 (it gets a little mixed up after 14 though) and she loves to sing! The video at the bottom is Allie on the potty singing all her favorite songs.

WARNING: Extremely Long Post!

It has been a very busy summer. Here are some of the highlights. We've been able to go to our family cabin a few times this year (It's up above Kamas) It was so beautiful and Allie and Tate loved the horses. One day it rained so hard that the Weber river which runs just behind the cabin rose and backed up the septic tank so Alex had to take a shower in about 35 degree pouring rain. He requested I not post those pictures :)


This was one day when Allie actually let me braid her hair and it looked super cute for about ten minutes. She is getting so big!



On the 4th of July we went down on Main street in St. George and watched fireworks. Tate the photographer took this picture of me and Alex. He did a good job. (I just have to say that my Alex is the sweetest, hottest, studliest guy in the whole world! Love you honey!)

Tate and Allie had so much fun running around with glow sticks. Then when the fireworks started Tate suddenly realized that he had to "really" go potty, but he didn't want to miss the fireworks so he wiggled, squirmed, danced and jumped until the fireworks were over. Silly boy.

This was our 4th of July patriotic cake. Alex and the kids decorated it to look like a flag.

Then the most exciting of all was when we drove up to Jackson Hole Wy to run the snake river. All of Alex's family are white water fanatics so I'd been a couple times, but this year my parents came too. This is us on our first run going through 'lunch counter'. For all those who've never been it's MUCH bigger when you're in the boat.

Well the first run was fun and wet, but I had this grand idea to turn a 13 foot self bailer raft from a oar boat to a paddle crew. Everyone agreed and we all grabbed a paddle for the next run. Alex and another guy decided to go in the ducky (an inflatable two man kiack.) So we had three people on each side, including me and my dad, two 11 year old boys sitting in the middle and my brother-in-law Jeremy as paddle captian in back. Well the first thing that happens is a mutany on board. Alex's brothers started arguing over who was in charge which promptly turned into wrestling. It ended quickly when Doug pushed Jeremy into me. We both went in the water, but Jeremy made sure he took Doug and one of his friends with us. It was cold! Luckily I had my spray top on (a jacket that keeps water out and body heat in). I made the critical decision to take off my spray top when I climbed back in the boat so I could dry off.

So after that was all out of their systems we continued on. Now in this particular stretch of river there are two monster rapids: Big Kahoona and Lunch Counter. The lower the water gets the bigger Kahoona gets and the smaller lunch counter gets, but on this run the water was just about int he middle so both rapids were enormous! We psyched ourselves up as we paddled full steam into Kahoona. We hit it perfectly straight too and the first wave swallowed us and spit us back out, but as we decended back down something went wrong. For whatever reason the boat turned just slightly a wave on our left side lifted the front of the boat and flipped it right over! Again Jeremy landed on me only this time it knocked the wind out of me as I fell into the churning water. I waited for the boincy of my life jacket to pull me back up, but I realized that I was getting sucked backwards underneath the waves. So I reached out for something and found Jeremy's life jacket strap. I held on and hoped he was headed to the surface. A moment later I popped out of the water gasping for air just as another wave clobbered us.

Mean while, my dad, Doug and the two boys were underneath the raft when it flipped. They managed to get out, but the one little boy was hysterical and falling out of his life jacket. So my dad and Doug each grabbed a side of him and held onto the boat.

Okay flash back to me. The wave that hit me when I first came up took me away from the boat and Jeremy toward it. I knew that I was suppose to put my feet forward and just ride it out, but the waves were fifteen feet of crushing cold, so cold that your lungs were constricted and you could hardly breath. "Forget it" I thought. I was still holding onto my paddle and started swimming toward the boat. On the way I found a hat and decided I'd rescue it too. I made it to our capsized raft just has we headed into lunch counter.

I set the hat on top of the raft,but I couldn't manage to lift my numb limbs high enough to put my paddle up there too so I had to heod onto it and the raft. If you've ever been flushed down a huge toilet that's what it feels like. We barely had time to take a shallow breath before another wave would hit you, then another and another each one trying to yank your hands from the rope. Finally it spit us out the other side. And it was then I realized that I had to get out of the water. If I had left my spray top on I probably would have been a lot better off, but I didn't and the water started to feel like thousands of burning needles.

My dad and the boys got to Charlie, my father-in-law's boat and the rest of us were trying to swim our raft into the eddie, but when the water began to feel warm and I started getting tired I gave up on the boat and held onto a rope until I made it to the rocks. Everyone siad my lips were a lovely shade of blueish purple and I looked like I was spasming I was shivering so bad. Not to mention I felt sick and couldn't stop burping from all the river water I'd drank, but once I got my spray top back on (which had stayed with the boat) I warmed up quick.

Everyone helped to flip the boat back over and even though I was still shivering I took my paddle and took my place again on our boat and we finished the run. Miraculously we didn't lose any paddles, but the river God's did take my sunglasses, Jeremy's hat, and Doug's hat and sunglasses. My dad's hat, which I had rescued somehow made it.

So despite our near death experience, I am really looking forward to next years trip as are the kids.

Tate and Allie stayed back at camp with my mom while we ran the river. They had fun playing in the dirt and have talked about nothing except when we're going camping next.

Besides the fun of camping they had not one, not two, but three grandma's and two grandpa's all together on this trip. Yeah, they got spoiled!

I was very impressed with how well Allie did with sleeping in a tent. She's a really light sleeper and I was worried never go to sleep, but we had no problems at all. She was one happy camper!

So like I said, we've had a busy summer!