The Latest

The past month has been full of family and fun!! First, Wyatt and I headed to Lake Powell with my family at the beginning of July. We had a great time with everyone. It wasn't too hot and Wyatt loved all the attention he got from the people and the new dogs around. It was so great to be with family for a whole week and enjoy the sunshine. We played games, ate lots of food, wakeboarded, tubed etc. We had a fun little floaty for Wyatt to go in and he loved to splash in the water with grandpa and grandma. We also had a little baby pool for him that was nice for just a quick cool down. I am so glad we got to go and we had a blast. Thanks to my family for having us and we will miss you all until next time we see them.

After Lake Powell, Farrell came to visit us. We started in Norfolk for a day or two while Kevin was on a rotation. We intended to do something fun down there, but I managed to get a flat tire and had to spend the next day for a few hours in Walmart getting it fixed. After all that we were just ready to get home. It was great to have Farrell around; she helped us do something we have needed help doing for a long time- clean out our attic and office- for good! It took us a few days, but we did it. We had so much junk up in our attic! We ended up throwing so much away and also had a yard sale where we made like $80. It felt so good to finally get that done and it had been so nice ever since. Wyatt had fun playing with Grandma Farrell and we had a pretty low key relaxing week. We went out to eat a lot and went shopping for a new cook book so I can be a better cook!! It was great having her in town and we will miss her until Christmas.

All decked out in our Helm Family Reunion shirts (sad we had to miss it), but the shirts are pretty cute. They say "Helm's Angels"- very clever.

After all of that excitement we had some days of rest. Then we decided we should go out to southwest VA to check it out. Kevin knows some people down there and he has been down there for a MOM project and has been wanting to check it out more and take me there. The mission of the trip was basically "see if Sam can live out there". The main place we looked is called Big Stone Gap- it was beautiful out there, green like Richmond, but much more hilly, mountainous and rocky which was a cool change. There were a lot of small towns out there, but it honestly wasn't as small and isolated and "hillbilly" as I thought it was going to be. Everyone out there was really nice and they have Walmart, restaurants, fast food, grocery stores etc, honestly I couldn't think of much you would miss. It is about an hour from a pretty large airport and a few pretty large cities so it really isn't bad. Kevin talked to some dentists who are wanting to retire and it looks like we could get a pretty sweet setup out there. Kevin will have to do more research, but it is looking promising. It is a beautiful area and we could have a nice lifestyle. Oh, I almost forgot, it's close to a couple large lakes which is a plus. We didn't get a whole lot of pictures, but the ones we do have are of a monument called natural tunnel. It is this huge tunnel and it's naturally made by water, but a train now runs through it. It was pretty cool, but honestly the coolest (and scariest) part was you take a chair lift to get up and down (or you can hike). It was a lot of fun and it allowed us to see some of the beauty of the area.

Kevin started back to school on Monday and I have been busy with our machines. Wyatt is getting so big- he is almost 10 months old, which is so close to a year, it's too weird. He is really wanting to move more now, but still doesn't prefer his stomach. He would rather stand and hold on to something. Today he was standing and balancing by himself for a few seconds. We think he is just going to walk and never crawl. He will scoot around on his butt on the hardwood floors in the living room to get around. He is more and more wanting to have what we have and do what we do. He grabs at everything he can and whines to see if we will give him things we have. He is still a very happy and sociable baby. He loves to laugh and play peekaboo. His other favorite thing to do is clap, we say his favorite show is Wheel of Fortune because we will turn it on and he will hear the clapping and he will start smiling and clapping. It's so funny. He is finally getting a tooth or two (9 months) and he actually bit his tongue the other day and it was bleeding; I guess he's not used to them being there. He loves all food pretty much and loves dogs too- he squeals when he sees one. He is also still a good napper and sleeper. He is the best baby ever and we have been so lucky. I might have said this before, but we have had many comments saying that he looks like the gerber baby- maybe we need to send in his picture.