The Harmon Family

Just for fun!

2010-05-01T13:51:00.001-08:00

This was on a show the other night and I died laughing!

Kade Matix Harmon

2010-03-06T21:13:00.008-09:00

Our baby was born on March 1st, 2010, 9:03 am. He weighed 7 pounds 13 ounces and is 21 inches long. We named him Kade Matix Harmon, although it took us several hours to figure out what exactly his name was going to be. We are so excited to have him and were so excited that we have 3 boys! I still can't believe how outnumbered I am, I was so sure he was going to be a girl. Dane and Ty think they knew all along that he was a boy, but that's just because that's what they wanted him to be.

After a few days at the hospital we are very happy to be home and just taking it easy. We've had lots of great family and friends come visit and bring delicious meals. It's been so nice to get rested up and not worry about cooking. Actually I haven't had to worry about much of anything. My mom and dad took great care of Dane and Ty while we were at the hospital and since we've been home Lee has taken care of everything. He's done laundry, dishes, cleaned the house, and been spending a lot of time with Dane and Ty. The only bad thing is that Lee got sick this week and so he hasn't been able to love and kiss on Kade. He's kept his distance pretty good and I know it's killing him. He's such a baby lover, so it's sad that he's got a nasty cold. Even with the sickness he's been super dad and a super husband!Dane and Ty are absolutely loving their new baby brother. They are so wonderful with him and always love to hold him and help burp him. They are great helpers with fetching diapers and they are the sanitizer police! They make sure everyone who hold Kade is sanitized, they take it very serious. They are trying to be such good helpers for me too. This morning I woke up about an hour after the rest of the family. I asked Dane to get me a little orange for breakfast. I heard him rummaging around in the kitchen and soon he brought me a little bowl with an orange, grapes, and he made me some chocolate milk, my favorite. It was so cute and I could tell he was so proud of himself for thinking it. Then this afternoon he and Ty were outside playing and they decided to shovel our walkway and all around our cars. Then they went and shoveled my grandma & grandpa's walk.

As for Kade, he's been a wonderful baby! He loves to eat and loves to sleep. I've been up with him no more 2 times each night so I can't complain at all, I just hope he keeps up this nice schedule. I am loving having him around, he's so soft and cuddly and smells so good, I can't get enough of him. I was a little nervous to get back in to baby mode, but am loving everything about it!

Ice Fishing!

2010-01-31T08:29:00.005-09:00

Winter in Alaska is beautiful and this year we've found our family's favorite way of enjoying the outdoors is to go ice fishing. Lee is crazy about fishing, he will go anywhere, anytime. It doesn't really matter to him if he catches anything, he just likes getting out. In mid-December he had knee surgery, which eliminated a lot of other winter activities like snowboarding, hiking, sledding, etc. Being hugely pregnant, I can't do any of those either, so for this winter it's ice fishing every week!

Dane and Ty love it. Mostly they just play in the snow, but they have both caught fish completely on their own.

We've tried a lot of different lakes; Finger, Irene, Long Lake, Seventeen Mile, Echo, Kepler, and Lake Louise.
After Thanksgiving we loaded up and headed to the cabin at Lake Louise. We got up there in the dark, which was pretty scary, but lucky for us the moon was out and we didn't even need to break out the GPS to find the cabin.

The boys in the hut. Dane and Ty don't even stay in the hut, they spend all their time rolling around in the snow outside.

Some New Pictures!

2009-11-02T17:06:00.003-09:00

We are so lucky that Lori takes such great pictures and has such great prices! We just got these today so I thought I'd post them before I put it off another 3 months.
We've been busy the past month moving and getting settled in our new place, my Grandparents basement. We've been doing a lot of fixing up and it's been fun to make little improvements here and there. We still have a few things on the list, but mostly we are moved in, organized, and settled.
Dane started Kindergarten the end of August and loves it. He catches the bus every morning and I pick him up at 2. He's a great little student and takes his school work very seriously. He was a dinosaur for Halloween, he's a little obsessed with dinosaurs lately.
Ty is in Preschool and loves it. He was a tiger for Halloween and it fit his little personality perfectly. He's a little wrestler and loves animals like crazy. We are watching Richard and Lori's dog while they are in Japan and Ty is in heaven. He plays with her outside in the cold everyday for as long as I will let him.
Lee has been busy working in Anchorage and has been sick a lot. Finally we got him into the doctor and he has a sinus infection, no fun.
I have been just doing regular mom things and working on basement projects. For those of you who haven't heard, we're expecting number 3 on 3-3. That's our 3rd baby on March 3rd. We didn't find out what it is, so be ready for the surprise!

Fun in Fairbanks!

2009-07-21T18:48:00.010-08:00

July is always busy, and this year has been no exception for our family. We have been enjoying the most beautiful weather all summer so we've been trying to take advantage of the warm sunny days and play all we can. This first picture is on a day hike up Arch Angel Valley in Hatcher's Pass. We went with our good friends Ryan and Tisha. Dane and Ty were crazy hikers, most of the time they were trying to run up the trail and we would take turns keeping up with them. In the above picture Ty and I are in an old mine shaft, still filled with ice in July, the water flowing out of it was freezing and you could feel the cool breeze as you walked up to it.

.Lee dangling Ty over some water, this is completely normal.

Our family at a little waterfall.

Dane at Independence Mine viewing point.

We have spent this past week up in Fairbanks staying with Lee. Last weekend we went camping at the Chena river and got the worst night sleep ever thanks to a bunch of Fairbanks wierdos. First we had people invading our camp, even though there is 40 miles of road to pull off of and camp right near the river. For some reason people kept pulling into our campsite, even though we could clearly be seen from the road. Once they got down to our camp that didn't deter many of them from driving right through our camp, one group even unloaded and started swimming in the river. This may not seem strange, but it was, there is so much land up there, and so many open spaces that there was no need to park 10 feet away from us to go for a dip. We decided to settle down about midnight, but apparently that's early for Fairbanks people. We had a truck drive through our camp at 1, it was just driving down the river with a boat and trailer in tow. Then at 2 I woke up to music in the distance. It was thumping pretty loudly and slowly got louder and louder. It was a group of guys floating in a raft down the river with a stereo and by the time they got by our camp it was so incredibly loud their ears are probably permanently damaged. As they floated further down the river we could still hear their music for another 10 minutes or so, they were obviously determined to wake up every camper on the river. The nonsense didn't stop then, we heard a bunch of voices an hour later and looked out of the tent to see 3 guys walking down the river. They kept searching all over and after about 20 minutes started screaming and hollering that they found something! I was so ticked by then. So needless to say, the next day Lee and I were exhausted. Dane and Ty slept through every bit of the nonsense.

Lee teaching the boys to cast with their little fishing pole.

Dane & Ty on a 1959 Polaris, the first year they were built, it was huge, probably 12 feet long. This was at Chena Hot Springs Resort.

Inside the ice palace next to some knights jousing. The detail on this sculpture was amazing!

This is inside the ice palace which is cooled with power from the hotsprings. We didn't go on the energy tour so I won't attempt to explain it, but the whole resort including the ice palace and year round hydroponic greenhouses are powered with thermal energy from the hotsprings.

Inside a real igloo, when you stand right in the center the echo is so awesome.

More of the knights jousting, it was our favorite.

We have spent the rest of the week playing in Fairbanks and North Pole. This is the boys on the train in Alaskaland.

Dane and Ty with a giant stuffed moose at the Santa Claus House.

The boys by the Alaska Pipeline.

We've been having a lot of fun playing in Fairbanks. The boys and I try to stay out of Lee's way during the days so he can work, so we end up playing all day long. Today we spent 4 hours at a park and I still had to pry the boys away. Tomorrow I think we'll hit Alaskaland again and go play by the Chena river, it's been a rough week.

Fun at the Lake!

2009-07-07T09:34:00.007-08:00

We spent the weekend up at my parent's cabin at Lake Louise, a Kenley family tradition since I was little. We've missed several years so it was fun to finally be back and spend time with everyone on the beach. We have found what we think is the only beach in Alaska, lots of sand, and beautiful weather, this time anyway. Most of this story will be told in pictures!Dane & Ty playing in the sand.
Dane, Ty, Andy, & even Daisy all went on this tube for rides, they absolutely loved it. I rode with them on their first ride and when we got back they saying, that was amazing, that was incredible, we weren't even scared one bit!

The boys after their first ride!
Daisy fell asleep on the beach with a soda in her hands. Grandpa carefully slid it away from her but she woke up immediately screaming for her pop!
Ty with his favorite people, Devin & Sadie on the Banana boat.
To celebrate the 4th we decided to have a sand sculpture contest. Rachel, Megan, Sara, and Hanna created this, the Titanic, complete with iceberg and little tiny Kate and Jack with arms spread at the bow, you can't see that on the picture.
Calvin, Devin, and Sadie created this, try to figure it out before I tell you what it is....
An evolution of Micheal Jackson's nose.
And then we have the winning team, consisting of Keith, Carese, Annie, and myself, a festive watermelon & glass of lemonade. The pictures really don't do this masterpiece justice.
Lee was able to go fishing a few times. Dane, Ty, Grandpa, and I went with him once, but the boat battery died, so we didn't get much fishing in.
A few pictures of our new cabin game "speed puzzling". We use a 60 piece puzzle and time ourselves putting it together. Fastest time gets the title of "The Puzzler". Many battled for the title, but in the end it was really a competition between Careese and I. In the end I beat her out with a record time of 2 minutes 56 seconds. We also started a team puzzling game this time with a harder 100 piece puzzle. Keith and Careese have that title.
This was our first Fourth at the new cabin. We had to turn some of this ground into an acceptable fire pit area. It was no easy task. We hauled lot of rock and gravel up from the lake and Dad, Kevin, and Lee built us an amazing fire pit. I decided to put a before and after picture so everyone can appreciate the transformation.Dad flew his plane up to the cabin and I got to fly with him. The drive is 2 1/2 hours and the flight is only 1 hour. It was nice to have a quick trip up there. We saw tons for mountain sheep and caribou. All the kids loved getting little rides in the airplane and loved landing and taking off on the lake.

And that was our trip, we had a great time and can't wait to go back when Melissa and James get up here!

Goodbye to June...already?

2009-06-30T22:28:00.012-08:00

I can't believe how fast this month has flown by, in a few more hours it will by July! We've been busy having a lot of fun thi s month. Last week we drove up to Fairbanks to spend the week with Lee. We stayed in his hotel room wi th him, which is really more the size of an apartment. We played during the days w hile he worked, and then played some more in the evenings when he was done. It was like a little vacation for the boys and I, no co oking, no cleaning, just relaxing and finding fun things to do. Lee took us to a pump track he rides in Fairbanks and Dane just loved it. He's such a dare devil on his bike, he was riding it way faster and better than I could. Ty gave up after a minute and hopped off his bike and ju st started pushing it up and down the little hills. We found a little trail by the hotel that leads back to a lake and had fun exploring and throwing lots of rocks in the lake. We found some other fun attractions in Fairbanks, but we'll definitely have to go back because we didn't have enough time or sunshine to do all we wanted to do.
This is a picture of our family at the Mayor's Midnight Sun Half Marathon. Rita, Lori, Marci (my aunt), and Amy Abbott, my friend all ran the race two weeks ago. It was lots of fun, I can say that now that it's over. I didn't remember how many hills are on that course, it was more challenging than I remember, or maybe I am just getting old. It was Rita's first long race, a year ago she would have sworn never to do anything like that, in fact Lori and I have been bugging her for 9 years to run with us, finally she cracked and started running and is really really good at it. It was really fun to all run the race together!
On our way up to Fairbanks Ty decided to color all over himself, I have no idea why. Speaking of Ty, today the boys and I were making bread and I wanted to make a Jalepeno cheese braid. The boys helped me and we got it all together after some squ ishing and shaping I looked at it and said, "well that looks pretty good". Ty looked at it with a "not so sure" look and said "I think it looks like frap." I had to ask him to repeat because I wasn't completely sure he said that, but sure enough, he thought it looked like crap!

Last weekend we built on a new level to Dane & Ty's tree house. They spend hours in it playing house, dog, spaceship, etc.

Ty watering the flowers.
Today we spend the afternoon at my aunt Kay's house. She had a hot tub that she keeps warm for an Alaskan version of an outdoor swimming pool. The kids all love it and never want to leave her house!
Daisy really did love it, this picture wouldn't lead anyone to believe that though.

Fishing Trip: Prince William Sound

2009-06-10T23:03:00.006-08:00

Last weekend we were able to go on a fishing trip with my dad, Rachel, Calvin, and our family. We headed out of Whittier to the Prince William Sound. That's the place that you always see on commercials of cruise ships next to glaciers. We went in my Dad's new boat and had an amazing time. We launched the boat friday night and found a place to lower our shrimp pots. After baiting them up and setting them down we went back to the harbor to pick up Lee who flew in from Fairbanks that evening. After picking Lee up we decided to check the pots. It hadn't been very long, but we decided to check them anyway just in case. We were so surprised to pull up pots that were full! We collected 90 monster size shrimp and then lowered the pots to sit overnight. As we started pulling away, Dad looked back and saw the bouey (however you spell it), dragging behind us. We had run over the rope and twisted it around in the motor. We ended up having to cut the rope and we thought for sure we had ruined the pots, or lost them by dragging them in the mud. That night we drove for an hour or so and found a nice little cove to spend the night in. We slept in the boat under the bow, the boys loved that! I didn't wake up all night, slept like a baby.
On Saturday we got up and started fishing for halibut. We ended up catching 3 small ones, a red snapper, and few other assorted rock fish. Dad also caught a ling cod by the tail, but we couldn't keep it yet. We spent the day fishing and sight seeing. We lucked out and saw a whale, dolphins, and otters, but I couldn't get any good pictures of those with my little camera.
On our way back to the shrimp pots we saw a boat with some guys waving for help. Turns out it was our good friends and neighbors from Palmer, the Hillis'. They had run out of gas and somehow we were the first boat in the whole ocean to come across them. We shared some gas with them and were on our way.
When we checked the shrimp pots again we had another 85 shrimp for a total of 175! That's the most we've ever caught and we hadn't lost any pots! On the way back to the dock we were hit high seas. We were bouncing up and down for over an hour. Overall it was an amazing trip. Dane and Ty loved it!
We enjoyed fresh shrimp and halibut on Sunday and Monday night, it was delicious!

Spring in Alaska

2009-05-28T22:57:00.003-08:00

Our Buddy Bryce is a huge fan of large fires.

Dane and Ty were a bunch of Goobers and loved the camping like crazy. Dane rode his bike around like a mad man. He is so daring and surprisingly good on that bike.

We had the trusty ol Trooper out for the weekend. It is sure nice to load camping gear up for the weekend and not be completely stuffed in a car, we actually have room for the gear and the kids.

Amy and her babies hanging out with Tara and here cute little one. It was kind of nice to hang around the camp fire and not worry about anything at all for a while.

Ty and Dane go nuts when its time to get into the sleeping bags. They get a crazy burst of energy and just go wild in the little tent and it takes a while to get them in their bags. That night the boys slept pretty good until Amy got so cold that she pulled Ty out of his bag and used him as a heater in her sleeping bag,... poor kid!

2009-03-31T23:26:00.002-08:00

The other day I turned on my camera to show Lee some pictures I had recently taken. When I started flipping through the pictures there were a lot that I didn't recognize, watch the slideshow and you'll soon figure out, as I did, exactly what happened.Oh, and the disclaimer, Lori and I were upstairs helping Rachel and friends make corsages for prom. These kids were happily playing downstairs!
Sad to say, these pictures are better than half of the ones I take, Lee will agree.

Amazing Pictures!

2009-03-31T23:25:00.001-08:00

Winter Fun

2009-03-22T21:15:00.009-08:00

We had a lot of fun on Saturday! Lee was home for just 1 day so we packed it full of adventures. Lee went up to Hatchers Pass, a mountain pass up the road, and snowboarded with our friend Ryan. Lee just got his snowboard so it was the first run on it. He came home beaming, he had so much fun. Some friends hauled them up a mountain on snowmachines and they boarded down.

After they got down we loaded up and went ice fishing at Echo lake. Dane and Ty, especially Ty have been talking about ice fishing all winter and we finally broke down and got an auger so we could go. It was great fun. The boys loved it and even made little snow jails to keep the dead fish in. Dane was loving being outside and even though his cheeks were red as apples, insisted that he was not cold. Then he accidentally scooped ice out of a hole with his glove. We had to take his glove off because it was completely soaked. We put his hand in an extra glove liner with a hat over it. Soon, he had both off and was just playing away. We finally had to call it quits after it started getting colder and snowing on us. Dane would have stayed out all day if we had let him. Oh, and we did catch fish, there are just no pictures of us with fish cause our battery died.

These pictures aren't of the weekend, but of Lee's second home in Ketchican. He flies there every Monday morning, works for the week and then comes home Friday night. It's been hard having him gone so much, but he's working really hard and is seeing a different part of Alaska. His hotel is right on a pier and he even has clients come to see him in their boats. They just tie up to the dock. He's been loving the fresh Alaskan seafood and makes me jealous each night when he tells me what he got to eat, especially the king crab. Dane and Ty are the ones that make sure we have fun things planned for the weekends when he's home. We already have next Saturday all figured out.

I also should mention, Dane had his birthday last month, 5 already! I haven't posted for a while obviously, but he did have fun, it was a "CARS" birthday, lots of little friends, and lots of fun. I took a year off of making a character cake because the kitchen at my mom's house where we're staying was torn out for a remodel. Dane was sad at first, but didn't care after he tasted the rainbow chip frosting!

Disneyland!

2009-01-20T15:59:00.001-09:00

Christmas Celebrations

2008-12-18T23:45:00.004-09:00

We have spent the month of December celebrating in all sorts of ways. I think the best way to share our experiences is through pictures, so here's a little picture diary of our last 2 weeks.

This is "Joseph the Shepherd". Last Sunday Dane's preschool performed a little nativity play at the church. They let all the little brothers and sisters dress up too. Dane was insistent on being a donkey and Ty a Shepherd. As they were all getting in costumes the little boy who was supposed to be Joseph decided he wanted to be a donkey too, so we needed a new Joseph. Ty looked somewhat the part, but when asked if he would be Joseph he refused because he was supposed to be a shepherd. We fixed the situation by asking him if he would be Joseph the shepherd and he thought that was a pretty good idea. Their little play was so cute, all the kids were adorable. Mary was holding the doll Jesus through the play and Ty thought the manger was a chair so he tried to sit on it and fell over, then he jumped up and ran off. I wish I had gotten a few better pictures. These are a few picures of Gingerbread house decorating at Grannie's house. I had to keep the boys from putting 10 pounds of candyon the house, and in their mouths.

Last week we went to the Library to see Santa. We waited in line for about an hour. When we finally got to him Ty was busting at the seams and ran and jumped onto his lap. They loved seeing him and even got really cool toys from Santa, an older man in town who makes these wooden toys all year, then gives them out to kids at Christmas. This year he made dogs that you pull with a string and they have hinges so they wiggle as they move along. Make sure to check out how cute the toy is in the picture, it's so nice of him to do that, all the kids there were so excited to get a toy early.

Dane told Santa that he wanted a big remote control truck, but really anything Santa decided would be good for him.Lee took this picture the other day from the living room, we get such a gorgeous view everyday!

Lee is working on remodeling one of the bathrooms in the house and Dane and Ty stepped in to help with the demolition. They are such hard workers!

North To Alaska!

2008-12-09T21:12:00.007-09:00

That's right, we moved to Alaska for all who haven't heard yet. As you can tell, we are not very good bloggers and we let a lot happen in our lives before we write about it. Our recent move to Alaska happened really fast. We sold our home in Nibley the end of August and moved into a small apartment in Logan while we transitioned and were deciding where we were headed. We contemplated moving to Portland, Oregon for a while, or to Alaska, or staying in Logan, and even considered Star Valley, Wyoming. Lee was ready to do something a little different for work and was looking into several options when he came upon some opportunities in Alaska. The week before Halloween he flew to Alaska for some job interviews and came home with 3 solid offers. We were really excited about 2 of them and after some contemplation, he accepted a job with The Berry Company in their advertisement and marketing department. The company wanted him in 2 weeks so we decided to pack up and move as soon as we could. We were also trying to leave before it got any colder and the roads got worse. We packed up everything we own, got a trailer, and were on the road 8 days after deciding to move. It was a lot harder to leave Logan than we expected. We have so many great friends there and incredible family. Lee and I both cried a lot that week as we had to say goodbyes, but we're hopeful for what lies ahead, and excited to give Alaska a try for a while.

The route we took to Alaska is about 3200 miles and we were hoping to make the drive in less than a week. We made it about 400 miles the first day and ended up on the side of the road with an oil leak. Thanks to Lee's handy iphone we found a mechanic right away, spent the night in a motel and were on the road the next day. We made it to Portland that night and stayed with our good friends Nick and Michelle. Portland is so beautiful, it made us want to stay for a while. Our next leg of the journey ended up being from Portland to Quesnel, Canada where we found ourselves broken down again. This time it was the same problem, but much worse. We checked into a motel again and found a mechanic on Monday morning. By that evening he had determined that if we were going to make it to Alaska we would need a new transmission, and that would have to be ordered from Vancouver. When the part came a few days later it was defective and a new one had to be ordered. We spent 7 days in that little town holed up in a little motel. It was a little crazy but we tried to make it fun, we went swimming in the pool everyday, went for walks around town, played games, went to a movie, and even discovered some delicious local cuisine. Our favorite was the poutine which is fries with mozzarella cheese and brown gravy. It is apparently very popular in Canada and a yummy little snack.

When we finally got back on the road our Trooper was running great and we were ready to leave our little Canadian home. We drove til late in the night then stopped and slept in the Trooper with the seats all folded down. Even though it was below freezing we stayed pretty warm and were on the road again early the next morning. The next day was our most eventful on the road, we saw so much wildlife. We saw a wolf, moose, caribou, elk, deer, coyotes, and buffalo. It was scary to come around a corner or down hills and see a herd of caribou in the road. The buffalo were all out at night and they were really hard to see, so we had to keep our eyes peeled for their glowing eyes. I have to add that that day we had the worst roads we encountered as well, it was snowing and blowing and in a few places we couldn't even see the road.

Our final two days of the trip were a lot less scary. My parents were worried about us and very anxious for our arrival so they drove 12 hours to Whitehorse, Canada to meet us. We were very happy to see familiar faces and we switched the trailer to the back of my dad's big truck and cruised home to Palmer. Oh- and my parents took Dane and Ty in their truck so Lee and I had a peaceful 12 hour drive home.

All in all the trip was very memorable. We had a lot of fun, a lot of scares, and lots of good laughs. Dane and Ty were so good, they watched plenty of movies and we distracted them from the drive with lots of fun treats and a few new toys.

We made it to Alaska 2 days before Thanksgiving, over a week later than we had planned, but we made it safely and in one piece. Lee and I have traveled that road several times, but it's totally different in the winter and with kids!

Now we're working on settling in to Alaska life. It's very cold here with lots of snow. We are staying with my parents for now in their basement and the boys love being around "PaPa Chuck" and "Wha" as Ty calls them. They also love being around their cousins Andy, Daisy, and Avery. We have spent a lot of time outside sledding, actually mostly Dane, he usually stays outside playing for an hour or two after everyone else has already come in. The other day he said "I wish it could be winter all the time". I told him he was in the right place then. Dane started preschool last week and is really excited about his part in their nativity performance. He chose to be the donkey!

Because of our car trouble, we missed the training for Lee's job, the next one starts in January so for the month of December he is working/playing at the Sportsman's Warehouse. He talks with people about camping, fishing, and hunting all day and is learning all the Alaska hot spots and secrets. He is loving it so much he wants to keep working there part time after his other job starts just for the fun of it and for the discount.

I have signed up to substitute teach and am working on getting my Alaska Teachers Certificate. I have my first job this Friday and plan to work just 1 day each week.

So that's our update! I know we didn't even get to tell a lot of our friends that we were moving, and we certainly didn't get to see everyone before we took off, but we love all of you and hope we get some visitors here in Alaska! We also plan on making it back to Logan once a year to visit!

Ty in the Trooper, we put headphones on the boys for their movies. Then Lee and I were able to listen to books on tape.This is our beautiful motel room!A stop somewhere in Canada to get out and stretch.At a park in Canada

It was difficult to get good pictures of the wildlife, but this is small herd of caribou.

Our trusty, or not so trusty rig!

Can you see the buffalo? We saw well over 100 that night in the dark like this, right on the road and to the side of it!

A postcard view of Teslin Lake in Canada!

Quickie!

2008-09-29T22:02:00.004-08:00

Okay, this is just a quick post to try to get back in the swing of things. We just moved and have gone without the internet for a month and so we are finally getting reconnected. I have just been getting caught up with everyone else's news and figured I better post something. It's getting quite late, so for tonight I'm just going to post a picture or two. We'll write the news later.

Ty hanging on the door, his new time out spot.

Dane going hunting for night crawlers with Lee.

Dane and Ty Driving a semi.

Dane & Ty Chaos

2008-06-27T15:18:00.006-08:00

Well it has been a little while since I have posted anything here, but I still guarantee that its much better than if Amy was still in charge of this thing. Some of you have posted comments on my previous entries, but I don't have some of your emails or blog info to add you to our friend list, so anyone who checks this out and we don't have you in our list let me know, because I would like to add all of our friends and family who have blogs as well. Thanks!

Some or most of you may know of our families latest events that have added quite the excitement to our already busy lives. The chaos started with the little punk, Ty. He had been just slightly sick, but became dehydrated and when him, Dane and I went to the store to get him some medicine he had a seizure. It was the scariest thing I have ever witnessed in my entire life. He has never done anything like this and I knew that it was something I was unfamiliar with, so I just started yelling as loud as I could for some help, knowing that someone in the store must have some medical experience. It was quite dramatic and scared myself as well as Dane pretty badly. It ended up with an ambulance ride to the emergency room and really just some Tylenol. It was a febrile seizure which was caused by a dramatic rise in his temperature that his little body could not handle and thus gave all of us quite a scare.

He is doing very well now and is back to his normal, sneaky, punk self. The kid is so funny, I cannot believe it. He really is so sneaky and mischievous that it amazes me. He will punk Dane and get him to the point where he is crying and Ty just keeps bugging the tar out of him. So it is nice to have him healthy and continuing in his menacing ways.

After everything settled down, a few days later we had some more excitement occur with Dane. He and Ty often go out on the deck to hollar and play with our puppy. Well, Dane had grabbed one of the deck chairs and pulled it up to the rail so he could see better and as he messed around on the chair it slipped away from the rail and sent him headlong over the edge. Amy was a little ways off and watched the entire thing happen as if in slow motion. He fell head first and continued to rotate until landing on his back approximately twelve feet down, on concrete of course. Amy of course could not get to him fast enough, but by the time she did he had already gotten up and was just balling his eyes out. He had put his two front teeth through his tongue and we didn't know what he had done to his back or ribs, so we helped him all we could and decided to watch him really close to know whether we should make another emergency room trip. He ended up being okay, which is incredibly lucky and I cannot believe that he landed on the hard concrete in such a way that the only after effects were some holes in his tongue and some sore ribs. Again we are so lucky that both him and Ty are doing okay and we can continue with our fun summer here in Utah.

Well, I am going to have to post a lot more about our summer so far, because we have been doing a lot of other things and not just dealing with scary accidents. It definitely has been a couple weeks to remember,... or forget I guess. Anyway, I will be sure to go ever a few more things here soon, but I did want to post about these events that have given Amy and I some gray hair.

The Hog e Z o

2008-05-05T15:56:00.009-08:00

The Hog e Z o was what the sign read upon entering the parking lot. Those of you familiar with Salt Lake area can gather that we went to Hogle Zoo. We spent two days down in SLC with Grandpa and Grandma Kenley. They were able to visit us for a few days here in Utah and Amy planned a few activities that none of us had really done before to shake things up a tad. We went to the Dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point the first day and while we were there we watched a 3D dinosaur movie that Ty was not a big fan of, but it was quite funny at first when he was trying to grab the pictures in front of him. Dane thought the Dinosaurs were awesome and was quite loud about sharing it with everyone, (he does have Oberg in him).

That night we stayed at a hotel near downtown Salt Lake, and having Keith's little woman with him made all of us boys sleep in one room and the ladies in the other. It was quite some time before I could fall asleep due to the crazy loud snoring of Dad on the floor, (I don't know why he slept on the floor for half the night). Anyway, at one point I chucked a pillow over in Dad's direction and evidently hit Keith who wasn't asleep either. It rustled Dad enough for him to stop snoring long enough for me to fall asleep, however not too long after I fell asleep did I get a pillow right in the face, so for the rest of the night it was basically a snoring battle between myself and Dad, with Keith and Calvin not getting any sleep. The morning was quite funny in who was trying to blame who, but definitely not the best night of sleep I have ever had.

The next day we went to Hogle Zoo and spent almost the entire day walking back and forth, keeping track of the boys and seeing all kinds of animals. Dane and Ty had a lot of fun and it was great for them to hang out with their Grandpa and Grandma Kenley. All of us rode the little train that goes around a small part of the Zoo and nobody was more excited about that than Dane of course. He even sat in the front seat next to the trains engineer with Calvin.

Calvin was excited as Dane and Ty about the animals and all of the fun stuff he was able to do. He was running from place to place and was super excited, though his face in this picture doesn't show it and is in fact kind of ugly.

A HoStle BloG TaKoveR

2008-04-29T16:40:00.006-08:00

Ty got into my hair goop, (globs allover his head), so I punked it out and he has been obsessed with the glasses, and of course is a stud anyway.

Well, I guess this family blog is going to have to be taken over, because Amy is horrible at it. I have got my other blog that I have posted quite a lot to lately, the link on the top-right will take you right to it. It is filled mostly with experiences that I have of different things that are adventure based and things I do that my boys aren't quite able to yet. I guess this family blog will be where I start to write of those adventures, because this spring already we have done quite a few activities together and plan on doing a whole lot more this summer. I am actually really excited about this summer, because both Dane and Ty are a bit older and a bit more able to get out and do things with Amy and I. Last summer Dane, Ty and myself hiked to the wind caves here in Logan canyon, which I did write about in my blog, it can be found under the adventures link called, "Wind Caves Deluxe", there are some pretty cool pics of the boys on that post. Anyway, most of you that have looked at this family blog have probably given up on it, but from here on out I will be adding posts as we go, so look for more good stuff from the Harmon family in the future. Cheers!

Family Fishing Trip

2008-03-28T09:57:00.000-08:00

Most folks think we are nuts, but on a good warm day, ice fishing can be incredibly fun. This winter Dane and Lee were able to go fishing together a couple of times and had a lot of fun. One Saturday morning we all decided to go on a family fishing outing on the "hard water" as they call it.

We tried to head out early, but with both of the kids and all the gear it took longer than we had hoped, but it made for a nice warm day as we made it to the lake about lunch time. It was a beautiful and sunny day with nearly no one else on the lake, we had it mostly to ourselves. Amy and the boys were able to build snowmen together and have lots of fun.

We even caught a fair amount of fish. Ty, who is usually in love with all animals freaked out when he saw the fish, and was basically scarred to death of them. Dane thinks they are pretty cool and loves to reel the big fish up all by himself. He is pretty good with the two foot long ice poles we use, I thought he was going to lose the pole a few times, but he did good and had a lot of fun. We drilled a few holes around the ice and had to watch the littlest monster, so he did not get too close.

Amy had packed lunch, tons of snacks and we even had hot chocolate that was oh so good right out of the thermos. After lunch and a couple hours of fishing, Ty had about enough of his waddling around. He is such a tiny, little dude that he is overwhelmed by his snow clothes and is quite funny to watch walk around on the ice. Both boys did great and it was super fun to get out and have a little winter adventure with the entire family. We plan on getting an ice hut next year and going a lot more.

Dane's Birthday!

2008-02-02T08:51:00.000-09:00

So I know it's been a long time since I've written. I don't know where the time goes. But I figured everyone would want a full report on the birthday party. Dane has been counting down the days, since 14 days ago to his birthday and it finally came yesterday. He was awake all night coughing the night before so he slept in till 11 o'clock. The poor kid was sick all day and constantly wiping his nose and hacking his lungs out. So at 11:30 he had his birthday breakfast which was a train shaped pancake, his favorite. We spent the day preparing for the party, making pizza, bread sticks, and pasta. Dane specifically wanted pizza and noodles, for the third year in a row. At 6 everyone came over and we played a Thomas beanbag toss game, ate dinner, opened presents, and ate cake. Dane had tons of fun, he loved his train cake and all the presents. We did get the packages from Alaska and I let him open them earlier when Calvin was here because Calvin had to work last night. Today I promised him we would do some activities, as he calls it with all his new art supplies. He finally got a suspension bridge for his train set, and he's really excited about that. And Keith got him some new underwear, which he really needed. Some of his were still size 2/3, a little tight.

Ty loved the party and thought it was for him too. We made little coloring books and notebooks for all the kids and they loved those. Overall it was a success, although he was a little mad that Grandma and Grandpa Kenley weren't home when he tried to call them.
We've been getting a lot of snow lately, we even had to dig our renter out of our driveway yesterday morning cause he got stuck backing out. It's nice to have all the snow though, I won't complain. We found a great sledding hill and we've been going Ice fishing a lot, well mostly Lee, but we all go sometimes and sometimes just Lee and Dane go. Dane even reels them in by himself! Ty hates the fish though. He loves animals, but not fish I guess.
I've been taking a little begining cake decorating class and I'm posting a picture of my first cake. Not too fancy yet, but I'm learning lots of cool things.
I'll go post some pictures now, hope you like them!

Harmons 2007

2007-12-12T22:03:00.001-09:00

Just Getting Started!

2007-12-03T11:36:00.000-09:00

Well, we did it, started a family blog! I'm hoping this will be a good way to keep everyone posted about what's going on in our lives. As well as keep pictures available for everyone who wants to watch our kids grow up, especially those of you who aren't close by.

Our family consists of Lee, Amy, Dane, and Ty Harmon. We live in Nibley, Utah and love it. Dane is 3, almost 4 and is a very smart little kid, sometimes too smart for his own good. He loves trains more than anything, but is happy playing with any toy or any friend. He loves watching Franklin the Turtle and he loves helping in the kitchen. Ty is 18 months and is a very cute little guy. He's learning to talk more everyday and gets very upset when Dane bugs him. For a long time he just say back and took what Dane dished out, but not anymore. He gets really upset now and will just run after Dane and start beating him. Last week they got in a little fight and both came out crying. Dane insisted that Ty bit him, and sure enough the next day Dane had little teeth mark bruises on his arm.
Though they fight, most of the time they get along really well and just love each other. I really like having two boys, it's been fun to watch them grow and learn more and more all the time.

The other day Dane was putting on some sanitizer and said to me, "I just need to put some appetizer on." It was pretty funny, I don't even know how he knows the word appetizer.