Alright, since this month is over and I haven't posted much, I'm going to try to make a long post about all the things that went on this month.

First, as I mentioned we have had lots of company in town. At the beginning of the month, my parents came for a visit with their grandson... and us too I guess. It was great to see them since they only make it back to the states about once a year.
My dad and I went into the city of Boston and got on one of the hop-on tour buses. I didn't even realize they had these in Boston (not thinking of it in tourist terms) but it was a nice trip and we learned alot about the city. We also stopped in the North End, or Little Italy, to get some fresh canolis and gelato. Hmmm, that was good.

All of us, including Ethan, went for a trip to Lexington as well. We made it just in time to watch a demonstration of how a musket was fired. It was quite the process to get it loaded and set-up. And the slug was huge! The man (dressed as a colonist, of course) told us that the point of a mustket was not to be accurate but to have lots of them shooting at the same time.
Ethan was a bit startled when the musket was fired, because he had started getting sleepy around that time, but he didn't cry and we were able to put him into his stroller for a nap while we all had a pinic lunch. It was very nice.

Then, after my parents left, we were visited by Linda and crew including Mia's sister, two brothers, and both their girlfriends. Nathan, who just came back from a mission was being visited by the girl he had dated his freshman year of college. Her name is Shelly. We took everyone into downtown Boston (Ethan's first subway ride) and checked out some of the sights and sites. Ethan started getting very tired, and poor Mia got wiped out during the trip to the Aquarium, so we decided to come home early. After leaving here, they were all headed to Florida after a few days for the rest of their vacation.

On the weekend of my wife's birthday, David and family came to visit. We decided to go canoeing in the Charles river because there is a boat shop near to our house. Unfortunately Ethan didn't like the lifejacket and had to leave after about 10 minutes. I stayed for the boating and he went home with his mom for a nap. The canoeing was fun, we went about 2 miles up river and saw a heron and a hawk, as well as some turtles. It's amazing that wildlife can continue to thrive with the city sprouting up all around it.
Afterwards, the adults were going to head out to dinner, but first we had to pick up my cousin Charity from the airport (or so I thought). After poor Mia waited 3 hours at the airport we were finally able to track down her brother in Utah and find out she wasn't coming until a week later. D'oh.
So, she came home and the four of us ate lukewarm Mexican take-out around our kitchen table while the kids slept in the car. Much more memborable this way :)

And finally, we had a shipment of furniture arrive to our house. This was stuff that my parents weren't able to use since they moved to a smaller house, including a couch, an over-stuffed chair, a rug, some baby toys (why they had them at their old apartment I don't know :P ), and a nice TV. I'll be taking some pictures of the new house to show it all off.

So, as you can see, we have had a busy month. We're looking forward to having a bit of time off... after my cousin stays with us for a week.

The past few weeks have been pretty exciting for us. We had a lot of family come into town. Ethan loves having visitors (even though it makes him more clingy to Mom and Dad afterwards) and he started crawling just before everyone arrived.

Literally about 2 days before people started visiting he finally took his first few actual crawling motions. He had been up on his hands and knees rocking, but never could master moving forward and staying up. Now he goes everywhere, especially if we are going there. He's so cute when he follows after us, or crawls towards us when we come into a room.

I'll write more about all the company later.

We were out in New York this weekend for Nathan's homecoming. I can't believe that his two years are up already. But I remember how quickly my mission went, and I guess it's not so hard to believe after all.

Nathan gave a great homecoming talk about missionary work, testimony, and the power of the Spirit. It made me remember all the feelings I had when I got off my mission. It's amazing to think of all the missionary work that we members could be doing. Sadly, I know that I'm not doing half as much as I could and should.

But, the weekend was fun. We went to Great Escape and I got to relax in a wave pool. Just being in water for the first time this summer made me want to go to the beach very badly. We are planning a trip for the upcoming weekend. I can hardly wait to feel the saltwater.

I love the beach!

I've been reading the latest Harry Potter book, and while I don't want to give anything away here, I plan on writing up my thoughts about it once Mia has finished reading it also. It will be at the reading section of my site. A section I haven't updated in far too long.

I need to get back into the habit of adding things on those pages. I've been reading and writing some interesting stuff lately. It should be available for people that are interested.

We keep thinking that our boy is going to start crawling at any moment. He gets up on his hands and knees, rocks back and forth, gets up onto his toes, and then falls back down and puts his head onto his hands. That final pose is so cute, but I know it means he is frusterated about not going anywhere. We try to encourage him all we can, but on the one hand, it's nice not to have to keep up with him.

At least that's what we keep hearing from parents with kids just older than Ethan.

I was released from my old calling of Marriage and Family firesdie coordinator and called to serve as a primary teacher. I'm teaching the CTR 5 class along with another brother in the ward. The first two weeks (remember this post is being written at the end of July) have been pretty good. The kids are actually good kids, they follow directions pretty well and aren't too rowdy.

Being a primary teacher is not like anything I have done before, and really not something I ever expected to do. But, I have seen our Bishop deliberating with his councillors over callings, and I know that they are guided by the Spirit. I'm sure that I will learn many, many things that I'll be able to pass along to Ethan in this calling.

I wish that I could say I have been good about blogging this month. But really I am cheating and using the date changing function to fill in July. It isn't that we have been all that busy, but just that after working all day and taking care of Ethan at night, then trying to clean the house, well I just get tired.

So, the 4th of July weekend was relaxing. We were alone and we cleaned up the house. It needed some thorough cleaning, and de-junking. We send quite a bit of stuff to the local thrift store and feel pretty good about the rest of the house.
We also had a BBQ with some friends of ours in our small backyard.

Mia worked on the 4th because she was getting paid her normal pay plus the bonus pay for an open shift plus holiday pay. So, since we couldn't do fireworks anyway, it was a good day for her to work.

And of course, the boy was cute as ever. He is 7 months old, and I have been better about getting some pictures of him up.

It is surreal to me that June is over. I can't believe how quickly the year is passing us by. Ethan is nearly 7 months old and before we know it he'll be hitting one year. I can't even imagine him being a year old.

I still feel like it was just yesterday when the hospital sent us home with a pat on the back to take care of this precious little life all on our own. We've made it this far, but as I said, I still feel like this new father who isn't sure what to do with a real child. A child living in our home. All the time. Every day. It is so surreal.

But, when I come home from work, and see him sitting on his blanket, looking up waiting to see me. And then he smiles and gets so excited until I come over and he can give me a big hug and try to eat my shoulder, that's when I remember that it has been 7 months. That's when I realize just how much Ethan loves us and how much I love him.

Our boy just keeps growing and growing. This week, we swear he is on the verge of crawling. He can easily arch himself up with his arms to look at someone standing over him. And in the last few days he has even managed to get up onto his knees, but can't seem to get anywhere after that.

Today he's made great progress pushing himself backwards, but that doesn't help him get to the toys we put just a little out of reach to encourage him to crawl. Well, I'm sure he will get it in good time.

My company launched a new site last Thursday, but I was out before it went live. So I got to see the updates over the weekend from home, but didn't hear the story about it until I came back to work today.

Mostly everything went smoothly. For the size of the change we made to how our site was structured, built, and referenced on the Web, it was pretty smooth. Now we are getting back to prioritizing what needs to be done. And that includes writing a lot of new pages.

This is exciting for me because I want to have a job that is heavy on the writing. I'm getting a better feel for my company's voice and tone, as well as learning about image formats (there are a ton). It's a great learning experience for me. We are both very glad that I was able to find (and get) this job because we feel like we can finally feel more settled where we are. Which is good because our house is getting filled up with stuff and I don't know how we would move it all.