Lately

On Easter Sunday my grandpa Ashbocker passed away. He had been sick for a while, but his death still came sooner than I expected. He loved to fish, and I imagine he's already found a perfect fishing hole in Heaven.

So me and Mason got to take a surprise trip to Idaho. We're really sad that grandpa is gone, but I'm positive he's much more comfortable now than he had been in a very long time. It was really nice to get to see everyone together. I have an amazing family. Though it was sad at times, the week went by way too fast. Mason is already missing his cousins, and having so much space to play in outside. The other day I caught him staring at a picture of Gracie on the fridge. She is such a good "little mama" and she spent a lot of time playing with him. I didn't take many pics, but I've got one of him in the tub with Bekah and one eating ice cream. (We definitely got our fill of sweets)

Today we went to the zoo. Oddly, he was more interested in riding in the stroller than looking at the animals (That NEVER happens). He played on the toys for a little bit, and I got a few pics of him riding the train.

He loves his sunglasses. He likes to wear his...and mine. When you put them on him he says, "Hey," in a Fonzie sort of voice.

In this pic he's saying, "choo choo," while making the train conductor hand motion.

Easter

Our Easter was fairly uneventful. We didn't end up making it to any Easter egg hunts, so Mason will have to wait until next year.

Mason got those sunglasses in his basket. After he got them, he left them on to eat his candy and watch Mickey Mouse.

18 Month Pics

My friend Katie took some 18 month pics of Mason. There are kind of a lot I'm going to post so our moms can tell me which ones they want. If you don't want to see that many cute pics of my favorite little boy...stop scrolling :)

At the Park

We went to frontier park by the bayfront campus today to play while we were waiting for Mike to get out of class. Mason was SUPER brave. He was climbing all over the big kid toys, and even went down the big slide by himself. He climbed up to it 3 times by himself before Mike got there, so then I had to document. I was pretty proud...and only a little scared of him falling off the side. Most of the time Mason has no fear, but for some reason he won't even climb up to the slide in the McDonald's toys. Maybe he liked this one because he didn't have to climb through tunnels? Whatever the reason, I was impressed.

The second video is of him swinging. If you listen close at the end you can hear him saying "woo hoo."

Sand Castle Pics

Here are the pics from our sand castle attempt...

Sand Castle

This morning we ventured out to the lake to attempt to build a sand castle. It was rainy, but it wasn't too cold and I thought the rain might help the sand stick together better anyway. I got a few videos of Mason playing in the sand. Sorry if you get bored watching them. I'm posting mostly for our moms :)

I took the last video as we were trying to leave. Mason wasn't quite done playing, so we let him run wild a little bit more before we made him get back in the car. He was storming through the big puddle swinging that stick around like a club...kind of reminded me of a viking. But, this video was the best I could get because of course he wouldn't do it anymore once I turned the camera back on.

Shopping + Zoo

This week my cousin Alexis came to visit. She is one of my oldest besties (old meaning we've always been friends even though we've always lived a million miles apart). We were also roommates for one of the years that we overlapped at BYU. She works for an airline, but unfortunately her branch will be closing soon so she's taking as many trips as she can before then to take full advantage of her awesome flight benefits. She was only here a couple of days, but we fit in as much fun stuff as we could.
We went to Grove City to hit the outlets. We got some awesome deals on new summer things for our boys (who quickly became pals. XJ is only 3 months old, but Mason loved him. Mason cried all the way home after we dropped them off at the airport.) Mason was probably the best shopper that he's EVER been. He also got to play on the toys before we came home. All in all it was a very productive day.

This morning, Mason was a pancake monster. He's getting pretty good at eating by himself, but likes to put food in his hair for some reason.

We also went to the zoo. Mason liked it much more than when we took him last year. He was actually interested in the animals, and growled at everything regardless of what kind of animal it was.

We had so much fun having Alexis visit. Our weather is awesome, so who wants to come next?