New Addition

Meet the latest addition to the Isom household, the SportsArt Elliptical E82:

We compliment ourselves for some creative neighborhood bonding opportunities we created while allowing the neighbors to help us figure out how the heck to get this thing in our house. I should have taken pictures of that process, as it was probably the most amusing thing I've seen all week (amusing is probably not the word Ryan would use). While it seemed like a great idea to get an elliptical, once we got it in the house we almost wondered what in the world we were thinking. Our house had actually started to look decent - until the 7 foot elliptical machine entered the living room. It pretty much overpowers everything else in the house. But I was ever so excited to get on and use it after three months of not exercising. The plan is to get a Blockbuster membership and enjoy movies and exercising all through the freezing winter months and not even have to leave the house. At least we have no excuse now (and we're never short of excuses not to exercise). It's certainly not like you can pretend like you forgot it was there.

Cash and I went to the zoo for the first time here with Melanie and Harrison. Cash had only been once when he was 4 months old and I'm pretty sure he didn't look at one animal. He looked at a few more this time, although he was still just more interested in watching all the other little kids.

We found a great little neighborhood wading pool nearby and went with some friends the other day. We were excited to find one so close. Plus they're free, so it's a great way to wear Cash out in the afternoon.

Cash loves the tv. During one diaper escape this week I went into the living room and found that he had turned on the tv and was intently watching some daytime soap opera like this:

It's been fun watching Cash with his new walking skills. It's hours of entertainment now just walking from one room to the next, carrying objects from here to there. He's getting pretty good.

We went to dinner at a neighbor's house the other night and I was a little interested to see how Cash would react to them having a cat, since he's never really been around animals. At first he was scared of the cat, but then later we found he had wandered into the kitchen and was trying to feed it:

I was impressed that he knew what to do. It got even better later when he tried to pick the cat up by the ear.

A few weeks ago in church, one of the counsellors in the bishopric approached me and asked my name, and then asked about my husband (who hadn't been to church since the first week we moved in). I said he would be here the last Sunday in July, and the counsellor said, "Oh, for sure?" I said yes, and he said, "Great. Will you two speak that Sunday?" I felt so tricked! Well, Ryan was post-call Saturday (meaning already tired), then we hung out with friends that night, then of course he was up late writing his talk. :) He's going to start trying to do some cornea harvesting from organ donors, and he got the first call to go out and train with a guy to do it at midnight Saturday night/Sunday morning, and then didn't get back until 3am (and still hadn't finished his talk, of course). So when Sunday morning rolled around, we were totally exhausted and weren't sure we could pull it off, or even fake it, but we managed to make it to church, and even on time. Well my suspicions proved somewhat correct - it didn't all come off totally polished. I went first, then when I got back down to our bench after giving my talk, Ryan handed me Cash - who had had a serious diaper capacity malfunction. There was poop oozing out his pants and up his back - and of course, all over Ryan's suit coat. Well, suit coat removed, and Cash and I precariously on our way to the bathroom, Ryan made it to the pulpit and started introducing himself, then went to start into his talk - only to realize he'd taken up my talk, so he had to go back down and get his talk while everyone waited. Ah, the comedy.... Perhaps we should get more sleep next time. Oh well, at least the talks went over well.

Other than that, we're really looking forward to next week when August starts and Ryan has a different rotation where there will be NO WEEKENDS and NO CALL!!!

I'll leave you now with possibly my favorite part of summer: