A Few Random, but Good, Pictures

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Cameron -- oh yes, this will come back to haunt him.




This is Dylan, when once upon an Easter morn, he got hold of the dye tablets for our eggs. Once he realized it wasn't candy, of course he was quite upset.



Cameron had the right idea for how to spend a warm afternoon on the beach - kicked back, chillin' in the shade, with a bottle. Of choice beverage. Appropriate for his age.




Nate: "Hey, don't blame me! I go to work all day while these impressionable boys stay home with their mother."






Yes, Brenda did get Nate to wear purple. He makes purple look good.







The newest addition to the family. Dylan: "Hey! It's our blue van!"




... permanent press... delicates... "cutest boys" setting...









Nate after trimming the verge at the neighbor's house. No, that's not his leg hair sticking through his socks.




Brenda is very adept at avoiding the camera's lens side, but Nate vows he will work to fix that in the near future.

Light-speed travel is possible--- but only with children

Nate has decided that all theories about light-speed travel are trash. Only two have merit: The first, create an enormous self-serve line, i.e. at the "self checkout" counter at the grocery store, or at an ATM. The reason this theory holds water is based on the space-time anomaly that the person just in front of you is always slower than you. Since this is true for every person in line, by the time the last person in line makes it through, they should be traveling at the speed of light.

The second involves a room of two- and three-year olds, all running around in a circle. The combined energy (sound, motion, heat, and stress energy radiating from their parents) will accelerate all of the toys randomly thrown around the room to faster-than-light speed. The downside would be that all people, structures, and toys within a city block radius would be annihilated. In the name of scientific progress, we'll step up to the plate for this.

On a lighter note, Nate finally broke his personal best 1.5 mile run time today, with 9 minutes and 30 seconds. All he needs to max out the PRT scale for the Air Force is three more pushups in 60 seconds.

Dylan and Cameron are going as strong as ever. They feed off each other, but not in a cannibalistic Amazon jungle way. Cameron imitates some of the screaming noises that Dylan makes, and Dylan tries to copy everything Cameron does. That makes Cameron really happy, so he gets even louder! It's great for a laugh now and again, as long as it's not at 9:00 at night, when Dylan has broken into Cameron's room and is making sleep time impossible.

Brenda is planning a girls night out with some friends from the ward here. Nate was surprised to hear they want to go to a Greek restaurant in Monterey. (Brenda? Trying strange, new foods?) At Nate's class picnic she was able to sample several traditional Arabic dishes, like hummus, falafal, and some salads. (Don't forget the baklava!) Nate was too sick to enjoy any of them, he actually went home early, which was an ordeal of itself. Nothing in the military happens easily.

Long days, short nights

Well, we're finally settling into a different sort of pattern here at the Evans home, and all in all ... it's not one that we're fond of. Nate gets up in the morning between 5:00-6:00, depending on the day of the week, and normally gets home at 6:00 or 6:30 in the evening. Of course, as soon as they see their daddy, Dylan and Cameron go bonkers and hound him until he's sapped of whatever energy he had left over from school and PT. (He loves the attention anyway!) Cameron, thank goodness, is asleep fairly early, and Dylan usually lets Mom and Dad have an hour or so to themselves before they fall asleep standing up. Lately, Cameron has been waking up with his Dad, and chatting away until Mom gets him out of his crib. Dylan will sometimes wake up even earlier, and try to climb in bed with Mom and Dad. This, of course, doesn't work - since Dylan likes to see how much abuse his dad's kidneys and back can take before they give out, or before he's kicked out into his own bed again.

Nate's classes are going well, his grades are good enough that mandatory study hall isn't an issue. Unfortunately, with afternoon PT scheduled three times per week, he still doesn't get to come home right after class. He's taken to a program called Shorestorming, which is a short 2.5+ mile run on the beach instead of formation PT (which he despises most of the time). He's trying to get in even better shape, including getting his 1.5 mile run time down to 9:30 (it's at 9:50 right now).

Bren is keeping her sanity (barely) at home with the boys. Dylan really knows how to push buttons, and does everything he can possibly do to aggravate his parents. He's getting big too, which means even louder screaming, even bigger diapers, and he can throw things harder all the time. Cameron is getting very talkative (he says "da da", "ma ma", "ba ba" and "oo!", his newest favorite noise), and he definitely lets us know when he's not happy. Cameron worships the ground Dylan walks on, and follows him everywhere, even though he gets hit in the head with random toys often, and Dylan likes to try and use him as a seat. Dad's not worried - he thinks Cameron will learn what he has to do to hold his own pretty quickly. Especially once he learns to walk, and has free hands to fight back. Good thing we have health insurance.

We had portraits of the kids done a few months ago, they turned out great! We'll get one of them up here on the blog, and hopefully we'll get some hard copy pictures out to family and friends.