Jared calls it "skiing"

Before Sammy could walk he taught himself how to ski. As you can see from the video, he'll just push something around on the floor. He uses anything he can get his hands on and that will slide around easily. Then he gets really frustrated when he gets caught up on a bump. Sometimes he'll even push something with both hands--whatever is available. And he entertains us and himself for a long time with it. It is so fun to watch!

Sammy's walking

I can't believe it, but Sammy is walking now! He gets more and more comfortable with it each day. He usually likes to be holding something in his hand, but he CAN do it without. Because Sam is so small and young people don't believe it when we tell them. The other day Jared and I took Sam to an Audubon meeting. This old lady, who first thought Sam was only 3 months, made me prove to her that he could walk. ANYWAY, Sam still prefers crawling because it gets him around faster, but I think he enjoys the smiles he gets when he walks.

5 YEARS!

On August 14th Jared and I had our 5 year wedding anniversary! And Jared had a pretty big surprise in store for me. He took me to Cambria to a place we went to on our honeymoon. To throw me off we drove north on the 101 and then came down to the 1 from the 46. There is a beautiful scenic stop on the way and we stopped to take some pictures. We found this already painted on the rock. It was a fun surprise for both of us to start the weekend off.
We brought Sammy along with us. He was such a good boy and we got lots of attention everywhere we went.
So we drove to Cambria and Jared took me to the same B & B we stayed at on our honeymoon. I was completely surprised! I love surprises and it was so great of Jared to make this so fun for me! The B & B was just how we remembered. We even had the same room. We went out to dinner in town at a very small place and that's where Sammy got all the attention. It was such a small place that it felt like we were having dinner with the whole room, so every time Samuel made a sound everyone seemed to look over and smile back at him. He's always such a crowd pleaser too!
The next day we spent in Cambria. We visited Camp Ocean Pines, where Jared used to work and then drove around some neighborhoods looking at all the cool "Cambria style" houses. Then we went and walked on Moonstone Beach and found some cool rocks to bring home with us. (Sorry Attie, no abalone this time.)
On our drive home Sammy was nice enough to let us take the scenic/long way home. We took a beautiful creek road home. Luckily there was a Linn's bakery that way so we stopped for some Ollaleyberry pie!
It was such a fun weekend. Jared planned such a special trip for me. I feel so luck to have been married to him these 5 years. As well as such a well planned, thoughtful weekend away, he got me another anniversary gift. I don't want to brag, so I'll just say it is so beautiful and sparkley! I can't wait to see what my 10 year anniversary gift will be! (just kidding, honey)

Bear Lake-August '09

I think Samuel was mostly scared of the boat--he always had to be holding on to something. In this picture it's the part of the ski rope that kept flapping in his face while to boat was going.
The water was pretty cold--here is grandma warming him up after he got in for the first time.
group picture--look at that glassy water behind us! We had some great weather while we were there.
This was a fun family picture. The Jared Bigler family doing something they love! Complete with matching wet suits--AAWWHH.
Sam did enjoy splashing, but only from the deck of the boat--he squealed when Jared put him all the way in.
Whoa! NICE cut Dad. Fifty-something and still looking strong!
Jared did good too. He almost jumped across the whole wake this time. You never would have known he'd been away from the sport for two years.
I thought this was a beautiful picture of out Bear Lake. Dad and Jared were going to get the boat out.
Sammy did his part too. When he wasn't sleeping in the boat he was our flag holder.

While we were in Utah at the beginning of August for Baylee's baptism, we also squeezed in a short trip to the lake! WOW--we had such a great time. Raul and Nicky and Olivia came up one day, but other than that it was just my family and my parents up there. So, we got the boat all to ourselves. Thanks Mom and Dad for showing us--especially Sammy--such a good time!

Samuel has become a bad sleeper!

From about two months Samuel was sleeping through the night and napping normally, but now and for the last month or so he has become more and more interested in what I am doing. He doesn't want to miss a thing, so he doesn't nap well and hasn't slept through the night in A LONG time! I've tried a couple of things, but they only work for a few days. I shouldn't complain though, because at least he is a happy guy when he is awake. Here are a couple of old pictures of the funny ways we would find that he had fallen asleep.

A day at the beach

These pictures are from a whilr back--from the end of May. But they are so cute I HAD to blog them. Ashlyn took them all when she showed Sam and me around Ventura. First we went to a small farmers market. Then she took us thrift store shopping. Here we are outside the store. Sam wasn't that interested.
Then we went to the beach and just watched the waves and the surfers for a while.
Sam was having such a good time! He loves the beach, evidently.
Ashlyn and I were getting a lot of attention with our babies. One cute baby is good, but two is better. People were stopping us to say hi to our cute little ones. Most people thought they were twins, even though there were two moms and we were each holding one baby and Aubree is so much smaller than Sam. Oh, well, it was fun to get the attention. The perfect stranger who took THIS picture somehow got the biggest smile out of Sam I have ever seen!
After all that excitement they were pooped so we had a nice quite lunch and drive back to Ojai! Thanks Ashlyn and Aubree for showing us such a good time.

4th of July/Jared's birthday!

We had a really great 4th of July this year. We spent it in Ojai with Jared's family. We went to the Ojai parade, then went to Steven's baptism (Jared got to baptize Steven and I gave a talk) then we had a barbecue for Jared's birthday. Sam really liked the parade with so many interesting things to look at.
He's very patriotic! He loves his flag
We went to the parade with Kris, Austin and Steven.
WHAT A SWEET FACE!
After the barbecue Ashlyn had such a good idea! We just laid out black plastic and made a slip-n-slide! It was super fun to watch AND fun to play on.
There's Jared doing his swan slide--so graceful!
This was my favorite picture of the day! I got a couple of great video too, but I can't figure out how to get it to post.