Brooks and I were a Ma and Pa for our stake pioneer trek at the beginning of June. It was our stake and the Topeka, Kansas stake combined. We had a great experience and learned so much from it! It was extremely hard to leave Spencer, but he was well taken care of and we are so thankful for Tiffani and her boys!
Here is our family at the very beginning, as you can see they were all still clean and healthy. Half of our family was from Omaha, and the other half from Topeka.
Here we are on the second day. The mud was miserable. Brooks and I were wise on the second day to put on our ponchos before it started raining too hard. We were very lucky though to have clear skies at night so we didn't have to sleep and cook in the rain. Both days it quit raining as soon as we came into camp.
This is our "Hurray! We're done picture!" Notice all the wet shoes and socks. It felt good to get those off!
The last night we had some square dancing and then some modern line dancing.
This is a dance off between the two stakes with the line dance "Foot Loose" They have different versions of the dance so they split up to have a dance off. Apparently I should live in Topeka because I know their version of the dance. 
Here's the whole crew again and a picture of our tent. The guys did a great job making a tent out of our cart and tarps.
I learned a lot about being a parent and realized I have a lot to learn before I have teenagers. It actually made me really nervous to have teenagers, but I guess I have plenty of time to prepare. I also realized that you have to teach those kids with the spirit because several times I wondered if they were hearing anything I was saying, and I knew that the only way they were going to get anything out of it was if the Spirit spoke to them, not me! It seemed like they had a great experience though. Brooks and I also learned that we need a bit more practice with our dutch oven cooking! We had a few meals that were quite disappointing. The cobbler didn't cook thoroughly and our eggs, hash brown breakfast didn't turn out at all. Poor kids, but we made through without starving.
Here is our family at the very beginning, as you can see they were all still clean and healthy. Half of our family was from Omaha, and the other half from Topeka.
Here we are on the second day. The mud was miserable. Brooks and I were wise on the second day to put on our ponchos before it started raining too hard. We were very lucky though to have clear skies at night so we didn't have to sleep and cook in the rain. Both days it quit raining as soon as we came into camp.
This is our "Hurray! We're done picture!" Notice all the wet shoes and socks. It felt good to get those off!
The last night we had some square dancing and then some modern line dancing.
This is a dance off between the two stakes with the line dance "Foot Loose" They have different versions of the dance so they split up to have a dance off. Apparently I should live in Topeka because I know their version of the dance. Here's the whole crew again and a picture of our tent. The guys did a great job making a tent out of our cart and tarps.
I learned a lot about being a parent and realized I have a lot to learn before I have teenagers. It actually made me really nervous to have teenagers, but I guess I have plenty of time to prepare. I also realized that you have to teach those kids with the spirit because several times I wondered if they were hearing anything I was saying, and I knew that the only way they were going to get anything out of it was if the Spirit spoke to them, not me! It seemed like they had a great experience though. Brooks and I also learned that we need a bit more practice with our dutch oven cooking! We had a few meals that were quite disappointing. The cobbler didn't cook thoroughly and our eggs, hash brown breakfast didn't turn out at all. Poor kids, but we made through without starving. 
Spencer is getting so big he can even wash his hair by himself! :)
I was getting so excited to take Spencer to Kiddie Kandids for his one year picture until I realized there are NO Kiddie Kandids in Nebraska. I guess we'll just have to wait till we go to Utah next month. So we had our own photo shoot and caught the preciousness of our little boy!
I grabbed my camera to capture the moment and got a few shots. Then Brooks told him to smile for the camera. Spencer turned to me and put on this big smile. I took a few pictures and each time Brooks would tell Spencer to smile he'd put on a big grin. (Who would have known these were staged smiles?)
After a few pictures and some laughs we put the camera away. Spencer stuck out his hand wanting more. We pulled the camera back out and shots some more pictures of his beautiful smile. When we starting telling him to "Say Cheese!" he laughed and laughed. It was so funny!
but we made it through that tooth and are now on the third one this month! He'll have five teeth total when this one comes in!
After the first tooth Spencer got the croup and an ear infection. It is never fun to be sick, but even worse when you are a baby, they really worked him over this time in the doctors office with breathing treatment, oxygen counter (the thing they put on their foot to calculate the oxygen in their blood), steroids, and antibiotics. It wouldn't be so bad to someone like me, but for a baby it was quite overwhelming. He made it through all the medicine and is doing much better now. 
Spencer has a new favorite toys. We got this small slide from a garage sale thanks to Tiffani for watching out for us. It is perfect for Spencer! He still hasn't figured out how to climb up the ladder by himself, but he loves going down over and over and over.
