Jose and the Policeman

I think I mentioned in an earlier post that we had done a puppet show. Here's the puppet show that we did at the Lloyd family reunion. Jason attacked us a couple of times so it's a little rough around the edges.


Puppet Show from Benjamin Lloyd on Vimeo.

Motocicleta

Perhaps the only down side to moving to our new apartment has been the fact that my 2.9 mile commute one way to work is now about 8 miles through heavily trafficked streets. I like to ride my bike to work but 16 miles every day in a notoriously wet climate? Come on. I know that you’re asking yourself right now “How in the world did Benj convince Melinda to let him buy a motorcycle?” It all started with an electric bike.One morning as I was perusing craigslist I found an electric bike that was for sale for $100. We decided to hop in the car and go check it out.

Before arriving, like any good craigslister, I had decided that I would have a limit and that limit would be no more than $80. I didn’t want it bad enough that I would pay a penny more. After checking the bike out, seeing that it was in almost new condition, I decided that I would go for it and asked the woman if she would take $80 for the bike. I’m still not sure what happened but somehow she convinced me or I convinced her to let me have it for free. As you might expect I was pretty excited. I thought that if I could ride a normal bike almost 6 miles a day then surely with my electric bike I could do three times that. Well. . . call me opportunistic but I decided to sell the bike and almost danced away after selling it for $400.

Now, $400 goes a long way to buying a used motorcycle and I must have caught Melinda in a weak moment because she didn’t put up too much fight at all. Ok, I confess, I haven’t taken motorcycle training yet and I don’t really even know how to ride a motorcycle but it sure feels cool to be a biker. I’m scheduled for training at the end of the month and then I can get endorsed and so in about a month’s time I should be bad to the bone. Insert mental image of the biker from Raising Arizona. Ride on lil’ buddy, ride on.



Motocicleta from Benjamin Lloyd on Vimeo.

CHEESE!

Many of you have seen Jason saying cheese and trying to "smile" for the camera. I use the term smile lightly because his face usually does not resemble a smile at all.





Today we worked on his "cheese." I will give you a play by play through pictures. I think we are making some improvements!

As a side note, yes he is missing his front tooth.... he had an accident at the park by our house... it just popped right out :-(

Jason's new love






A couple of days ago Jason and I were playing in his room and he starting demanding that we played with his toys under a blanket. He kept saying he was in a house with his toys, but it was hard to keep the blanket over our heads! I decided we needed to build him a house and since we have tons of boxes in our garage left over from our move, we made a house! Jason loved helping me paint the outside of the house and still keeps his crayons in his house to color the inside. He loves his house so much that now every time he sees it he says "oh my house!" and runs up to it and kisses it. I will add a picture of him doing it as proof. Gotta love cardboard boxes and the hours of fun it creates.

Busy month of August

August has been a fun month for us. We moved, had family visit us here, had two family reunions, and a wedding. We moved into our new place the beginning of the month. We really love our new apartment. We could not have done it without the help of Benj's family that came here to help. Thanks again! Jason is having fun in our new backyard. When we moved in it was nothing but weeds, but we have been working hard and plan on planting grass this weekend.

The Murdock family went to Cape Meares, Oregon and stayed in a beach house. It was so fun to get everyone together. We played at the beach, flew kites, went crabbing, hiked to a lighthouse, and cooked smores. Jason loves his cousins, especially Reece. He now calls any little boy Reece, even pictures of himself. I love my family!



Benj's brother James rode the train into Portland and spent a couple of days with us here. We had fun at the Chinese Garden and playing video games (well at least the boys did).

The next week we drove to Waldport, Oregon for the Lloyd reunion. We had another wonderful time at the coast again. This time we were a little more prepared for the cold weather and water on the Oregon coast and brought wet suits. We had a lot of fun body surfing and looking out and seeing sea lions right on front of us. We also went crabbing again and actually caught some crabs that were big enough to keep. The Lloyd's had a Iron Chef pizza making contest for dinner one night and Benj's brother made a crab artichoke pizza that was actually really good! We also had a talent show at the reunion. We had people sing, stand up comedy from a nephew, dancing, and a puppet show from us. It was a lot of fun. I will have to add some pictures of the puppets we made later. I am pretty proud of our puppets :-). I love my in law family!



Later that same week we drove up to the Tri-Cities. James went through the temple on Friday morning. It is always wonderful to go through the temple with someone for the first time and with family. Saturday Benj's other brother Josh got married to Krista. It was a beautiful wedding and a fabulous dinner after. Krista looked beautiful and Josh looked very happy.

OUR NEW BLOG!


Stayed tuned. I am in the progress of starting this so we have a place where friends and family can check out what we are up to. I love looking at my friends and families sites so I thought I would start sharing too.

Baby Tai

Links I Love

Mormon Channel