Hancock Campout

After the Petersen Campout we headed south to Arizona for a little Hancock get together. We headed up to the Cabin in Alpine for a little fun. Amber surprised us with t-shirts with the Hancock name, year, our name, and our number according to when we joined the Hancock family. Above is a picture of everyone that joined us in the mountains.
We loaded up the 4-wheeler for the trip and Brindi was again hard to get away from it. Between her and Taryn, I think one of them was always on the 4-wheeler. Gotta love those girls with adventure.
We also did some hiking during the trip. One hike we did get a little sidetracked and ended up spending some time fixing the road by filling in the pot holes with rocks. The little ones loved being able to help.

The area and family cabin is one of the favorite places for the Hancocks. It is absolutely beautiful in the mountains. Elk, wolves, pine trees, and green pasture abound. It was truly amazing being up there.

We also brought the horses to do a little riding. Celeste and I got to go on a pretty long ride up in the mountains by ourselves and everyone got a chance to ride a lot while we were there. Brindi even rode for a little bit. I think it will be a slow process warming up to horses for that girl.

We also had some tinfoil dinners, smores, banana boats, and other goodies. The two top right pictures are some of our favorites of our sad children. All the little ones seemed to play well with each other on the beds, under the tables and anywhere they could find a place to laugh.

Thanks to Bryant's love for the dog, Brindi decided she should like the dog also. However with the combination of Torque and Jag both being licking dogs, the first thing she would as grab his mouth so he could not lick her. Jag was a really good sport letting the kids do what they want to him.

Above is a combination of pictures including smelling trees (they actually smell like vanilla or chocolate and other smells, very weird). The girls visiting and my cute wife in the out house.

Our last adventure of the weekend was heading down to the lake on our way home to play in the water. Celeste's dad has two kayaks he brought. Brindi wanted to always be in the kayak but as soon as we backed away from the shore she wanted out. She is our little cautious girl. But what did you expect with her being Celeste and my kid? I had to keep distracting her with the ducks telling her we were going to get the ducks. It was the end of a great vacation.

Petersen Campout

We headed out west and our first stop was in Utah were we headed out to Oak City Canyon for the Petersen Campout. This is one of the funnest family get togethers we have each year. As you can see from above we spend a lot of time on the 4-wheelers and Brindi managed to swindle almost everyone into giving her a ride.
One day we hiked to the summit. There are some great views of both sides of the mountain including yuba dam. You can see how great of a hiker Brindi is as she trys to sleep on my head. She did make a good effort hiking with Robert and Kari. You can also see my sister Chelsea and John taking a leisurly stroll up the trail and of course my cute parents. At the top we got a family picture and the main picture is all the Lovells at the top of the summit.

These pictures are of our time in the tent. Brindi loved playing inside the tent and would keep telling Celeste and I to go away. I think it is because she kept looking and finding candy and gatorade that I was trying to hide in the tent. She is such a funny girl.
We also spent a lot time sitting around playing games and just visiting. We also had our annual night of singing around the camp fire.
The kids loved playing together. JaCee and Lexi were great watching and playing with Brindi. One of Brindi's favorite things was playing in the stream. It was hard to keep her out of it.

The two good looking folks above is the reason for all the madness that happens every year. It is always a highlight when we get to spend time with our Grandpa and Grandma Petersen. I love hearing my grandpas testimony every year and the love he has for his wife and all his posterity. The one picture is of the grandchildren in attendance and the other is of the great grandchildren.

Working Cattle

While in Leamington, we were able to work a few cattle which Celeste and I both love to do. Our little girl on the other hand did not as you can tell from the picture above. She was not a fan of the ear marking, ear tagging, shots, and especially the branding. Basically anything that made the calves bellow made her upset. Nonetheless, Celeste and I enjoyed ourselves.

Park and Recreation Month

July is the National Park and Recreation Month. The National Recreation and Park Association (NRPA) has began a new initiative to promote leisure programs through social media. The initiative is to take pictures of our leisure pursuits to show others how we recreate and to find out how others recreate. The picture above is of us at the ball fields for our summer co-ed softball league. How do you recreate? Leave a comment and let us know.

4th of July

Happy 4th of July. We missed being around family this year but I think we made the most of it and found several fun things to do here in Missouri. We started off Saturday by heading down to Old St. Charles for the parade. We chose this one because we were told they throw candy. The pictures above are of Brindi as we strolled through the park. She loved wearing her shades and thought she was so cool. The parade started around 10:00 and we were towards the front which we figured would help with our candy effort. Brindi is still scared of loud noises so she didn't care much for the fire engines but once she saw the floats throwing candy she seemed to have forgotten all about the noise.
This is a play by play of the picture above. The middle pictures are of various floats. As you can see from the first two pictures we started out modestly with a little bit of candy. The third picture is of Brindi looking at me as she says "More dadda more." After gathering a good share of candy she decided to take a break. However, as she sat in her stroller she continued to give us orders as she pointed to candy on the road that she expected us to pick up for her. We guess she didn't think we were doing a good job so she decided to get out and get the candy herself as you can see in the first two bottom pictures. The last picture of her in the stroller shows how much candy she had gathered. She was quite proud of herself. The final picture shows the areas favorite thing to throw...can you guess what it was? It was like Mardi Gras all over...well without the flashing of course.

This is a cute video showing Brindi's patriotic spirit as she waves the American flag as the floats drive by.
In the afternoon we headed out to O'Fallon where we volunteered to help with the holiday festivities. We were assigned to the inflatables, which was perfect for Brindi. Brindi had a blast in all the bounce houses and slides as you can see from above. The inflatables were part of the Free section for the festivities.
Also part of the Free section of the festivities were crafts, which Brindi created a Miss USA crown; free slim; children games like hula hoop and sack races; and the black drawing paper that covered the entire baseball fence. Brindi's favorite thing to do was to watch the Ultimate Air Dog competition as dogs were judged on how far they could jump into a swimming pool. We had dogs from all over the Midwest from Wisconsin to Georgia and everywhere in between. After our shift we all were treated to a free meal and as you can see Brindi did not hesitate to dig into the free ice cream sandwiches. Afterwards we strolled through all the vendors and on our way out Brindi was able to swindle someone into giving her a free pair of green sunglasses.

O'Fallon is famous around here for bringing in big name artists for free concerts during Independence Day. This year they had scheduled Chuck Wicks and Darryl Worley for Saturday. We didn't stay late enough to hear Darryl Worley but as you can see from the video Brindi liked Chuck Wicks just fine.


On Sunday we tried to do a couple fireworks of our own but again Brindi did not like anything with loud noises. We couldn't even get her to hold a sparkler. Maybe next year. The only thing she did like were the black growing snake tablets. After Brindi went to sleep we headed out back and sat on the deck and watched the hundreds of little firework shows going on around our neighborhood. Missouri obviously does not have laws similar to Arizona or Utah. Everything combined it was a pretty amazing firework show we enjoyed.

Blogging Paradise Vs. The REAL World

Amber and I were talking yesterday about blogs and how EVERYDAY seems to be paradise in everyone else's world, except ours, I guess that's the great things about blogs, they make us focus on the good right? Well for the past two months this is truly what a typical day at our house looks like (well minus the potty training that started this week)!

5:30-6:30 TRY to drag myself out of bed to go running(Only happens when my friend Rachel is around) And think why in the heck do I even care...I'm going to gain 25 lbs either way...and no Joe, I promise your wife isn't getting wider by the day,your eyes must be watering from lack of sleep(Thanks to Brindi invading our bed every night.)

6:30-7:00- My two awesome/hansome, but sometimes CRAZY little boys show up, ages 4 and 6.

7:00-12:00ish....(Honestly who keeps track of time?)

• Today, we spent atleast 45 minutes arguing about who was bigger and fighting because both of them wanted to be the biggest, the argument then moved into "I'm running away just so you can't boss me around because you are younger than me". The arguement comes inside at this point and turns into..."don't touch my couch, don't touch my room" (Yes, I found out today that my front room is now claimed by a 6 year old, I guess that's why I've given up trying to keep it clean).
• This is all mingled with the random screams from Brindi because some one is touching one of her toys or she is trying to grab one of their toys...What can I say, my house knows how to share!(Through it all these are my responses, "Boys please take it outside or down stairs", "Don't jump on my nice couches", "Don't run on the carpet with those muddy feet", "If you can't say something nice don't say anything at all"...and the list goes on and on...and I'm realizing my worst nightmare has come true I am telling my kids everything my mom used to say that I SWORE I would never would...)
• Along with a load of laundry to wash Brindi's "accident" elmo/Abby underwear...after 2 or 3 lets go sit on the potty, nothing happens, we walk out the room, Brindi walks to the kitchen and all of a sudden she has a gallon of pee rushing down her legs...All I can say is at least she is poop trained right?(That's the blogging paradise syndrome coming out :), I will admit I can't be too upset since all our accidents have been mostly on the tile...
• I load the three kids(I know parents with 5-7 kids are thinking this girl doesn't have a clue...and you are completely right I don't....and I am happy in my apparent ignorance, can't you tell). We head down the street for a girls camp meeting, as I hear, "I'm not buckled up" and "Hey, you're going the wrong way" and I'm thinking, "man, I can't even get the kids in the car correctly and apparently I need directions from a 6 year old who can't even see out the window of the car". Anyway, we make it to the sister's house for the camp meeting...where my daughter cries pretty much the entire time we are there, all because I wouldn't give her any gum (thinking back...I'm wondering why in the heck I just didn't give it to her). This same angel of a child of mine proceeds to pee ALL over the wood floor, and yep you guess it, RIGHT after I got done taking her to go potty.
• We make it out the door to head home from the meeting, but not without walking out with someone elses keys and no cell phone. I get the boys loaded, but now after making herself at home, Brindi has decided she doesn't want to go, so the smart mother that I am tries to out think her. I get in the car with the boys, and start to drive away, but does my daughter care, oh no, she waves bye and walks towards the front do to go back in....I don't know why she can't just listen...but for Brindi it's always on her time table( And some how she still owns my heart)

I'm telling you the days just gets better and better...but I'll spare you the rest of the story, full of more accidents (one in the middle of daddy's softball game), Transfer fights, homework/class, and of course dinner leftovers(I'll admit it,I don't have dinner ready on the table as soon as Joe gets home...this is the real world, not blogging paradise remember). Well here is the moral of my story... I've come to the conclusion...No matter how much the other stuff (mentioned above) tries to sneak in and run my life, I don't think I could ever give up this crazy life our little family lives! So, I guess the paradise blogging syndrome is a good thing, because we really do have a great life, even if we're not constantly vacationing to exoctic places or trying to figure out how to spend millions! Well I hope you all had a good chuckle at our REAL life expense.

Brindi's Question

We are exctied to announce we are pregnant! We are 13 weeks along and will be expecting our newest member of the family the first week of January. So Brindi wants to know...what do you think, Girl or Boy? (Please excuse the dirty face, wild hair, and dirty shirt) She is quite hilarious when it comes to the baby. When we went in for the ultrasound she looked at the monitor and said "baby, baby" and was insistant on carrying one of the pictures around most of the day. Now when we ask her where the baby is, she points to my stomach and then points to hers and tells me she has a baby in her tummy too. It's amazing to Joe and I how she seems to naturally know how to take care of her babies, I can say she is a girl through and through in every aspect except wanting to keep clean/do her hair. I hope her desire to take care of babies translates into a easy transition of being the big sister!

Mind Games

Brindi is becoming too smart for her own good and is learning how to use past situations to her own advantage. For example, Brindi is in a climbing stage and steps and climbs on about anything. Occasionally in church she will step on my scriptures or lesson manual or the hymn book and we immediatly tell her no, sometimes scold her which sometimes results in us taking her out in the foyer depending on how she reacted to the scolding. Well today in church we were sitting and listening to the talks and we were getting close to the end of the meeting. Brindi, feeling its time to go, proceeds to pick up the hymn book place it on the ground and tries to step on the book. We quickly lift her to her seat, tell her no and place the book back. Brindi again gets off the seat, grabs the book, sets it on the ground, opens it and then very slowly while looking at me, as if to say "what are you going to do about it" proceeds to try and step on the book again. So I grab her and lift her to my lap and hold her. At this point she points to the door next to us and says "uh...outside." Now I do not know about you but I am convinced her whole purpose for stepping on the book was for us to punish her by taking her out in the foyer, which I think is what she wanted to do anyways. And so it begins. The mind games and psychology of raising our child, and were not even to the teenager years.

Fip Fops

Were not sure where she picked it up, but one day Brindi starting asking for Fif Fops. We didn't understand her for quite a while but we put two and two together when she kept trying to put on our flip flops. She didn't have a pair of her own but always wanted to wear some. She would prefer to wear ours instead of her own shoes. Below are the pictures of her hinting that she wanted a pair of her own.

This pair is actually Brindi's but she will not be in them until she is at least 3 or 4.

Again wearing her future flip flops.

Wearing Dad's flip flops.

Wearing Mom's flip flops.

When Grammy came out she understood Brindi's hints and quickly went out and bought Brindi her very own flip flops that fit now and not in the future.

What a cute little girl we have and she loves having her own flip flops. We can't remember the last time she wore regular shoes outside of church. Thanks Grammy!

Our Artist

Brindi always needs to be around one of us, so when she disappears and things go really quiet we know she is up to something. The picture to the left is her latest alone and quiet time activity. The canvas...our wall! Luckily Celeste saw this coming a long time ago and bought washable markers. Its a good thing my wife is on top of things.

Memorial Weekend

Over Memorial weekend, Celeste's parents and her little brother flew out to visit. It was going to be the last time we would see Brennon for two years. He is headed out on his mission in the middle of June and because of our schedule we are unable to make to if farewell so they came to us. They were also able to celebrate Brindi's birthday which is always nice to have family around for those type of events.

After Brindi's party, we headed to a bar-b-que for dinner are a friends house. They do this party every year and have a pool, basketball hoop, badmitton court, and then thier tractor lawnmower to pull the kids around. It was a fun get together. Later that night we headed to the Rascals ball game with the free tickets from Lindenwood. We left early but had a great time cheering, eating nachos, and playing the fan games that they do at these small market games.

Sunday we headed over to the St. Charles riverfront. St. Charles was the first capitol of Missouri back in the day. It is also the location where Lewis and Clark started their trek west. At this point of the trip Brindi had forgotten she had parents or just did not care to acknowledge us. It was all about "pop pop" (Grandpa).

Monday we headed up to Nauvoo for the day and did a temple session with Brennon. While in the temple, Sonja and Brindi went throughout the town and visited with the reenactors and got a personal brick. After the temple we grabbed lunch and of course some fudge and then walked around the town and visited the store and family grave site of the Smiths. It was great being able to visit such an important area in our Church's history.

You will have to tilt your head to watch the video, but it was taken when we were in Nauvoo. On Tuesday we headed to the Boone Home to do a little fishing and to walk around the Boonefield Village and throw a couple tomahawks. Celeste's family left later that day. It was a great little vacation and we loved having family visit.

Ever since they left, Brindi has been carrying around a picture of "pop pop" and insists on sleeping with it. Its been a little tough on her having no one but her mom and dad around. She is such a cute girl and loves her family a lot.

Turning Two!

This past week Brindi turned two years old. It is crazy to think how much she has changed in such a short time. We were watching some old videos of her from when we first moved to St Louis and were shocked at how much she has grown and developed. It has been a fun ride being her parents.

Celeste's parents and brother Brennon were also able to fly out for the weekend and celebrated Brindi's birthday with us. Talk about your day full of Elmo. Brindi was spoiled with a homemade Elmo cake and Elmo cupcakes that Celeste and her friend Tasha made the night before (3 1/2 Hours), Elmo himself, and of course her own cell phone that has Elmo talking. With all the Elmo's and the many of gifts she received she was quite the happy little girl. We want to thank everyone for all the cards and presents.

At It Again

This past weekend we headed to Quincy, IL as Celeste was running the Bridge the Gap to Health Half-Marathon. Again, she asked me to run it with her and again I was bailed out by another friend in the ward. Thank you Rachel. We headed up Friday night and went swimming at the hotel which Brindi had a blast swimming and made it difficult for us to convince her to get out. Early the next morning Celeste and Rachel took off down the road. It was a freezing, windy day but that did not detour them from their goal. Celeste was able to take off 9 minutes from last year's time and took 3rd in her age group. Good job babe!

Birthday Date

I got the best birthday surprise this year! On saturday I came home from my volleyball game with a letter addressed to me. Joe was so sweet and got us great seata to the Cardinals game and he even got a baby sitter. It was such a nice surprise! We had a blast. He even spoiled me more today with breakfast, flowers, sunglasses, Mexican food, and a clean house! Thanks babe for a great day! And thanks everyone for the cards, presents and phone calls!!! It has been a great Birthday!

New Pets

Do you see it? Look close, right next to the brick. It looks like we got more than we bargain for during Easter. Our neighbor almost mowed up a batch of baby bunnies this week and in the process scared them into our yard and under our deck. Now we have these little guys running all over. Brindi loves having them around. I don't mind them as long as they stay out of our garden.

Coach Celeste

This spring Celeste and her friend Rachel volunteered to be the volleyball coaches for the purple team at the YMCA. I think it has been a pretty fun experience for her. My wife is an amazing person for the things she does and time she puts into things such as coaching. Plus, Brindi loves her mom coaching because she gets to go to all the practices and games. That girl loves to be in the gym with a ball. Hopefully that will stick:)

Sport Princess

I stumbled upon this blog a while back but found it again and notice their new marketing plan. They are giving away a free book for advertising their product. The product is Sport Princesses, bringing out the tomboy in all princesses because can't a girl be both. Since Celeste and I consider ourselves sport individuals and hope Brindi will be involved in Sports also we think we will be buying several of the books. The free book is the Soccer Princess which I think is perfect since Celeste played soccer in college and currently this is Brindi's best sport. She is really getting good at kicking the soccer ball around the back yard. However, she does not like to pass the ball:) Anyways, check out the site at http://www.mysportprincess.com and the blog at http://mysportprincess.blogspot.com/

Backpacking w/ Mark Twain

Lindenwood Course. Spring Break. Mark Twain National Forest. Berryman Trail. 24 Miles. 3 Days. Promoting Healthy Lifestyles. I Love My Job!

Easter 2010

We think Brindi enjoyed her first Easter in STL. She had two different egg hunts on Sunday. Her first egg hunt for the day started in the living room, where there were eggs hid throughout the room. Her second egg hunt was at a friends house and was in the front yard. She loved looking searching for eggs but would always stop and want to open the one she had instead of looking for more. I think finally figured it out by the time she found the last one. She did find a couple more eggs later in the week which brought a smile to her face. As you can see from her mouth fulls, she got way too much candy.

We spent Saturday morning decorating eggs with Brindi. We tried the finger painting which comes with gloves but not kid gloves. So by the end of it we were just using our fingers with gloves. Brindi really enjoyed adding all the colors to her eggs and loved showing them off when she was done.

Easter is such a special time for us as we celebrate the resurrection of the Lord. We really enjoyed having conference the same weekend. There were several talks that really stuck out to us and it was amazing being able to listen to our leaders and to be uplifted on such a special day. We are so thankful for the knowledge and understanding we have of the gospel. We truly are blessed.

Peter Cottontail