Trip to Yellowstone

In July we went to Yellowstone National Park - a place Brandon hasn't been to yet. We drove to Old Faithful and the Fountain Paint Pot geysers, and Brandon thought they were really cool. It felt good to walk through some of the steam, as the day was a little cool. We stayed at West Yellowstone, where we had a pool, hot tub, and a playground for Brandon to be entertained on.

We had to keep a close eye on Brandon, since he wanted to go off the walkway to where the guysers were bubbling up.

We stopped for a couple animal crossings - this elk was much bigger than the photo shows...

When Old Faithful blew, Brandon wasn't too impressed - maybe he was distracted with the Twizzler he was munching on.

His buddy Isaac showed up, and life was just great!

We had some fun afternoons in the pool, where he got to try out some of his new toys.

We also took a trip to the Bear and Wolf Discover center, and they had this huge stuffed bear inside the gift shop, we had to take a picture.

Brandon is 3!

It's hard to believe, but Brandon is now 3 years old! I remember when he was just a few months old, trying to crawl. Now he's able to run around and get into almost anything. We took some pictures of his party and it's evident he enjoyed his cake:

Here's the cake... blow out the candles,


How wonderful, it's ready to eat!

Ummm... so good!

Brandon's Growing Up

My bad for not posting in several months. In the meantime, Brandon has been continuing to grow and showing us his personality. On of the most pronounced traits lately has been him changing the subject if he doesn't like what you're talking about - typically he starts talking about cookies if confronted with unpleasant topics like aplogizing or having to go to bed. We're currently working on him not pushing or hitting other people - I don't think he understands that it hurts other kids (or parents) when he's physically overbearing. He's also very passionate about something he wants to do, whether it's playing with cars, being outside, or going somewhere. He really likes going places, anywhere to be exact. He's also really good about sharing his toys with other kids when they come over to play. And in the last several months, he's really taken to heart manners, even saying excuse me when his mommy burps at the table. I'm so glad he's growing up to be a good kid - even if he tests us sometimes. It's a reminder to us that we have to be consistent when teaching him.

Hmmm... M&Ms

For Christmas, he got some die-cast cars from the movie "Cars" - he was pretty happy and content for a while.

Brandon's being silly here with my toothbrush and toothpaste. Typically he screams when we brush his teeth at night. I have to admit though, he's getting better at letting me brush his teeth (as opposed to Zenna doing it all the time)

Trip to Europe

Brandon has been a busy boy lately. So busy that he's been skipping many of his naps and staying awake the full day. All I can say is that he's probably becoming like his dad, always going and going.

He's starting to put phrases together, and it's cute to hear him say them. For example, if I make him crack up with some weird facial expressions, he blurts out "funny guy!".

Just a couple weeks ago we came back from our trip to Europe, where we spent two weeks - Germany, Switzerland, Hungary, Italy, and a drive through Austria were all included. Brandon did really well on all the travel, even sitting in his airline seat for 9 hours on the way home. We all slept really good the day after we got back. Since there's so many places we saw and went to, I'll just post pictures below with descriptions.

Our first stop was Heidelberg, Germany and Brandon loved the place. We couldn't put him down much because he'd want to go into every store we'd let him and play with all the cute things.

He found a dog to play with in Schweitzengen, another little german town, and this was when Zenna reminded me that he needs a dog...

We spent a few days in Switzerland, and it's a pretty amazing place. There are villages built on the sides of mountains, one of which we visited here - The views are breathtaking.

We took a little stop on our way to Garmisch, where this valley vista opened up for us. Switzerland is a beautiful place. Brandon behaved so well on this drive.

When we arrived in Hungary, Brandon was eager to get out and play... this tub allowed that nicely. Those floor tiles in the bathroom were quite slippery, Brandon fell once.

Once we got to my grandparents, he found more toys to play with...

We also saw my dad, and on the couch are four generations of Krauss.

We didn't ride the trains as much as we hoped, but when we did, Brandon always got excited.

Our last stop was Venice, and Brandon did really good for most of the walking. And having an ice cream cone to start out the trip didn't hurt either.

After 2 weeks, we all felt like this. The plane on the way home didn't have video screens in the seats, so Brandon couldn't watch movies like on the way to Europe. Either way, he had enough stimulation for a while.

Summer Time

It's the middle of September and we're realizing that summer's just about over. We did a lot of hiking in June and July around Ogden, and we'll try to go a few more times. Brandon has enjoyed the excursions and here are a few shots from our outings,

He found a beetle on the trail to the Mt Timpanogas Cave, and it really piqued his curiosity. Here's a video of him following it to some rocks:

The next few pictures we took while hiking near Wheeler Creek in Ogden Canyon.

This year we were able to grow a garden in our backyard, and it's amazing how much we got from it. We planted tomatoes, peppers, strawberries, and all kinds of herbs. We are still getting boxes of tomatoes every week, and we cannot can fast enough. Like us though, Brandon likes to eat the cherry tomatoes straight from the vine. In some cases, he'll go for the large ones, like in grandma's garden:

I'll leave you with this picture of our wonderful garden that just refuses to quit,

Chicago Trip & 2nd Birthday

I meant to blog in July to keep every one up to date at least once a month - oh well. Brandon has turned 2 years old in May. We're not sure where the transition happened from baby to big boy, but Brandon still wants to be treated like he's a baby. Sometimes he climbs into his old reclining bouncer and says "I'm bebe!". Or he wants to get into the stroller instead of the Radio Flyer wagon, so can still get bundled up like when he was younger. And of course, he still loves to have his mommy hold him, and be around him as much as possible - the word "mommy" gets exercised a lot around our house.

At least now we are much better aware of his needs and are able to communicate with him. He can tell us when he pooed in his diaper and needs a change, or if he's thirsty and needs a drink, or if he wants to go outside and play with the neighbor kids. Zenna and I are trying to also set good examples for him as we deal with everyday situations, so that he can have good manners from the get-go. It's sometimes hard when you see other kids mistreat each other and then telling Brandon that he can't do the same to other kids. I sometimes wish other parents were a little more involved in their kids' lives.

A lot of things have happened this summer so far that I haven't covered in previous blogs, so I'll try to catch up today. Since I was in Florida on a different postflight trip until the 1st of June, I missed Brandon's 2nd birthday. They had a celebration in Idaho, and then when I came back, we celebrated a second time. Brandon doesn't care what the reason is for eating cake, the more the better. So Zenna made him a yummy brownie cake with 2 candles in it. He was determined to eat the whole thing.

He got some clothes with the Cars theme and Wall-E on DVD, and a little Thomas train engine. He had a good day - although we still don't think he understands what Birthdays are all about.

A few days after I came home we also went to Chicago to visit my brother Ervin. We spent 3 days out there and it was a lot of fun. Brandon tried to absorb everything. Here are some pictures,
All right, new toys to play with!

We stopped at a hot dog place downtown, tasted better than any place at the airports.

And Brandon had to have an ice cream cone, of course.We ate at the Signature Cafe on the 95th, in the John Hancock Center. The views were great!

This place is so cool, I don't want to leave!

Travels to Florida

Back in April, I went down to Florida for part of the postflight disassembly of the last shuttle flight's boosters. Since it was only for a little longer than a week, I took Zenna and Brandon with me. Right before the trip, Zenna got him atravel bag, since every time we've traveled, he's wanted to pull one of our bags around. It worked and he was so happy to pull his own little "Cars" luggage around!

This was the second time they came out, and this time it seemed Brandon enjoyed it better than the time he was there last year. Of course the beach is where we went first and Brandon had fun running back and forth among the waves.
The Easter bunny was here in Florida as well and we happened to catch him in one of the local parks.

A few days after arriving, we went to Walt Disney World in Orlando, and saw the Magic Kingdom. The park is huge and we weren't able to see everything. We think Brandon may have been overstimulated as well. But we still had fun. We stayed until late night to see the fireworks shows. We didn't get back to Port Canaveral until about 1 am. Here are some pictures from our visit:


We took a ride on a river paddle-boat about noon and Brandon thought it was fascinating with the big paddle wheel pushing the boat along. Along the way, he made a new friend:


Then the daily celebration parade came by with all kinds of floats. Brandon wanted to go with the Disney animals on the floats, but sadly he had to stay with us.


And of course we had to get a picture in front of the castle.

The next few days we spent going to the beach and having fun. I even borrowed a boogie board from the postflight office and let Brandon have fun with it.