On Saturday, Jared and I got to go on a real date.  It was SO much fun.  We went to breakfast at Mama Steve's Pancake House.  We thought it would be one of those crazy white trash restaurants that are basically empty.  We were wrong.  The entire parking lot was full on Sat. morning, but we got a seat, and the food was really good.  Then, we went canoeing at Wallermill.  It was one of our most fun dates ever.  At first I was in the back and in charge of steering, but I got fired pretty quickly.  Jared banked the canoe and made me change places with him.  After I had been in the front for  few minutes, I realized that if I pulled the oar out of the water too quickly, I could splash Jared.  So I tried it, but I was a little overzealous and soaked him.  I spent the rest of the ride waiting for him to get me back, but he was nice and never did.  Or maybe he was just chicken.  Hee Hee  All in all it was a great week-end that made me see how much Jared loves our family and how much he sacrifices for us.  I love him so much!!!!

Fun Thursday with Hayley and Nora

Luke and his new friend Emmiline (sp?), Hayley's little girl

Nora, Hayley, and I went to Jamestown today.  We had originally planned to go to Yorktown as I STILL have never been there.  But it was raining all day, so we decided to go to Jamestown instead.  There is an inside museum there, although all these pictures were taken outside during a short break from the rain.  As soon as we were done with these pictures, it started raining hard again, and we had to run to the car in the rain with Luke crying because he was hungry and his loser mom forgot his bottle!  Needless to say, Luke was happy to get home.

I fell in love with a totem pole.  It's not nearly as cuddly as Jared, and it wouldn't talk about its feelings AT ALL (what a man!), but it WAS tall, dark, and handsome.  Just kidding!

Luke and I in one of the Native American huts.  Very cool except for the dead animals hanging on the wall.  Those were a little bit creepy.

Luke and I outside in the Native American village.  Luke was so happy to be outside!

Hayley with Emmeline and Nora with Samuel.  We're in between the museum and the Native American village.  It was so fun to talk to them.  These moments are what make being a stay-at-home mom so much fun!

BATH TIME!!!

Luke loves playing in the bath!  In fact, he likes it so much that he sometimes gets multiple baths in a day.  When Luke is whiny and irritable, I try two things first: bottle, nap.  If those things don't work, I have two more choices that ALWAYS make him happy: outside, bath.  When it's raining, I stick him in the bath.

Luke loves sucking on the wash cloth.  It's the only other way (besides the water bottle) that we can get him to drink water.  That's my hand on the faucet.  Luke loves crawling around the tub, but he's not always good at watching where his head goes.

The Absolute Cutest 9 month Wilkerson! He's the only 9 month Wilkerson right? I didn't offend anyone?

Luke at Waller Mill staring at the ducks.  

Waller Mill park is one of my all-time favorite places in Williamsburg.  On Saturday, Jared and I went jogging there with Luke.  Luke loves watching the ducks there, and I love the shaded trails.  The picture on the left is of the paved bike path that I jog on with Luke in the jogging stroller.  Jared prefers the rough trails back past the picnic areas.  The picture above is of the reservoir at Waller Mill where the ducks are.  You can barely see them in this picture because I didn't have the big zoom lens on the camera.  Anyway, you can rent rowboats, paddle boats, or canoes down by the lake.  Jared and I really want to do it, but we'll have to rope someone into watching Luke while we canoe some Saturday because neither of us think bringing Luke would be a good idea.

Luke doesn't like a sippy cup or drinking water out of a regular cup, but we got inventive!  Look at the way we got Luke to drink some water!  He loves it.

Kelly and Elizabeth organized a craft day at the church on Friday.  We got together with our kids to make noise makers and paper snakes.  I mostly talked with other moms and tried to help a few kids of parents with more than one child.  My hands were free because Luke was just sleeping (see above)  When he finally did wake up, I took him out to let him play, but he was pretty clingy.  I think he was overwhelmed by how much was going on.

Luke and I at Colonial Williamsburg

Luke and I go to Colonial Williamsburg a couple of times each week to walk around.  Luke loves being outside and going for walks, and CW is shaded, pretty, and safe.  Sometimes we meet up with friends, and sometimes I just walk around with him by myself.  This picture was taken yesterday.  The ones on the side were taken today when Luke and I went by ourselves.  We walked around for almost 2 hours.  We had a picnic and went to see the jail.  I usually go into one new attraction each visit.  I would do more, but I have to get Luke out of the stroller, and he doesn't really like being carried around.  Now that he moves pretty well, he wants to be put down so he can crawl and stand.  I just wanted you to see where we live and a little of what Luke and I love to do.

Last week, we had some interesting things happen with our neighbor downstairs.  Monday night, I did a workout video which, in retrospect, is a stupid thing to do when you live on the second floor.  When Jared got home there was a note from our neighbor asking us to be quieter.  I felt really bad because I probably had been making a lot of noise.  But the note said she had been woken up "on several occasions."  Jared and I couldn't figure that out, but all the same I took candy down on Tuesday and apologized for the work out video.  Then, on Wednesday, I baby sat for a friend.  Her daughter and Luke were playing in the living room and kitchen walking around and playing with toys.  Well at 1:15 in the afternoon, I got a knock at the door: our downstairs neighbor asking us to be quiet because she wasn't feeling well.  I was so shocked.  Luke had been crawling around and the girl was just watching a movie and playing with dolls.  Does she want us to stay in one spot all day so that she can take a 1:00 nap?  Luckily we haven't heard from her again because I don't think I'll be very nice if she comes up here again, and she definitely won't be getting any more candy from us.

On Friday, Jared and I went to Nora and Adam's to begin season 4 of The Office.  For those of you who watch, I seriously almost died during the Rabies Run episode.  I thought it was one of the funniest episodes I'd ever seen (until Jared borrowed disk 2 and I saw the episode where they are making a commercial.)

On Saturday Jared, Luke, and I drove up to Norfolk to meet with Edward and spend a morning with him before he left for Iraq.  (For Stacy's family: Edward is Jared's older brother who is in the Air National Guard and has been given a 60 day assignment in Iraq.)  We went to breakfast at ihop, and then we went to see the warship Wisconsin.  The boat was really big, but most of the really cool stuff wasn't on the main deck (which is where we could go).  Still, we got to see what a bunk is like.  We all came to the conclusion that tall people should NOT choose to go into the navy as they would never fit into the bunks.  Later that day, we went to a picnic for the J. Reuben Clark law society which is basically a Mormon club.  We only stayed for about 10 minutes because Luke was screaming and I was carsick from stop and go traffic on the way back from Norfolk.

On Sunday Jared invited some single friends over for dinner.  I learned a couple of things throughout the evening: 

1.  I'm good at looking at ingredients when making a shopping list but not so good at looking at the QUANTITY of those ingredients.  For example, I wanted to make "no-fuss baked ravioli" from the Kraft food and family magazine.  It calls for 2 packages of frozen cheese ravioli.  So I bought 2.  When I made it, something wasn't right.  Jared looked at the quantity: 2 bags of ravioli, 10 oz. each.  Oops!  I bought 2 bags of ravioli 25 oz. each.  We still have 2 tupperwares full in the fridge, and it's Thursday.

2.  Apparently, card games/board games are a weird Mormon family thing.  We tried to play Yahtzee with his friends, and 10 (no..5) minutes into it, it was obvious that they weren't having so much fun.  So, Jared and I were wondering...why do Mormons play games so much?  We were brainstorming reasons why.  a.  We have big families, so we have to do cheap things and cards are cheap.  b.  We often play on Sundays.  We can't go anywhere on Sunday, and you can play games at home.  c.  We spend more time with our families than normal.  d.  We're weird.  

Anyone else's thoughts on the board game culture?

3.  Just for me:  I don't have much to talk about with a bunch of law students who aren't girls.  What's the big deal about college football anyway???

4.  You can watch tv with a cable even if you don't have cable tv.  It's the cable connection that lets you get regular channels.  Jared and I really, REALLY wish someone had told us that before his friend Bob FINALLY told us on Sunday.  I didn't watch ANY Olympic events because it's hard to watch on the computer with Luke around and we "didn't get any channels" before that.  I can't remember if I wrote about when Luke chewed on the remote and bit the reset button.  Well, if I already wrote about it, I will repeat myself.  Since he hit the reset button, the tv kept trying to reset itself and just kept scanning and scanning for channels.  Since we didn't have anything, it just kept scanning and we couldn't do ANYTHING.  So Jared bought an antennae for the tv so that we could pick up a channel (basically pure fuzz that vaguely made shapes of people) Jared watched our fuzzy tv in the evening so he could get the football scores (Until he got the digital converter box that ended up not making the fuzz clearer but instead made it so that we didn't even get fuzzy people.  We got nothing.)  And all that time, all we really needed was a cable that cost 6 bucks.  Jared's taking the converter box back to the store tomorrow.  I don't know if we can return the antennae because Luke bent it.

Luke's New Crib

I was really excited 2 weeks ago to brag about Luke's new bed.  Well, I thought you'd like to see a picture.  Luke's bed.  Luke sleeping with his favorite bear in his bed.

Scroll down to get our new land line number.  We'll be canceling Sprint this week!

Luke's new favorite food may be Cheerios.  He does manage to get quite a few into his mouth, but the rest of them end up here!

Another report from the Virginia Wilkersons:

While there was a little bit of hype about Hurricane Hanna, all we experienced was a medium rain and some wind.  The worst we had to do was take the star off our front door so that it wouldn't scratch the paint from banging the door in the wind.  Oh, and pay too much for an overly nice flashlight I bought at Wal-mart in an attempt to be prepared.  When I went to Wal-mart on Friday, all the cheap flashlights and D batteries were sold out as were the battery operated lanterns and the cheap brands of bottled water.  So I had to buy the 20 dollar flashlight that is heavy enough to use as a club.  

Saturday and Sunday we had stake conference.  Jared got to listen on Saturday while I spent most of the time watching Luke, and I got to listen on Sunday while Jared took care of Luke.  The talks were really good.

Now, here's what individually is going on.

Luke:  Luke got a new bed this week!  He finally has a crib!  He actually got it because I ruined his pack and play by trying to wash it.  I warped the boards in the pad.  And washing it didn't really get out the pee smell that I was trying to get out in the first place.  Luke seems to really like his new bed, and Jared and I are excited that this week Luke went to sleep without being rocked EVERY SINGLE NIGHT and for every nap.  Luke continues to pull himself up on things.  We went to a birthday party on Friday night, and Luke was using strangers' pant legs to stand up.  It was all innocent until he bit someone's knee.  He still topples over a lot so he has lots of bruises and bangs on his forehead.  Oh, the rough life of a baby!

Jared:  Jared started his fellowship jobs.  He works in the law library on Monday nights and he works in the office for students with disabilities twice a week.  His first job was actually to do some computer programming for the office.  He didn't really know what he was doing, but he figured it out pretty quickly.  If it had been me, I would have gone insane.  My boss would have walked in an hour into my job to find me sobbing and a hole in the computer screen where I got so mad I punched a hole in it.  (Okay, he'd probably find the computer fine and me sobbing with a broken hand because I'd tried to punch a hole in the computer screen).  Anyway, Jared seems to like his jobs okay.  His classes are getting better and better.  His civil procedure was his least favorite, and while it may still be his least favorite, he likes it a lot better than he used to.  He says his teacher doesn't pore over each case and rehash the same ideas over and over.  Most of what goes on during the day seems a little bit confusing to me.  Lots of hypothetical situations and bizarre cases.  He'll have to explain all of that.  Jared has been playing basketball at the church 2-3 times a week.  He rarely played basketball in Utah, but he really likes it here.

Stacy:  Luke and I went with a friend to Jamestown settlement this week with a friend.  It was really fun!  There is an indian village, a settler's fort, and replicas of the first three ships to bring settlers to Jamestown.  I'm going to make a CD of pictures to send to Franklin where I used to teach.  Anyway, we saw a demonstration of loading guns.  Actually, we heard the guns before we walked into the demonstration.  My friend Nora jumped so high and screamed really loud when the gun went off.  A group of people standing near us all started laughing, and I was snorting and almost...well, you know.  Then we went and found the demonstration to see the end.  We also saw blacksmiths there and a guy making some kind of game board.  Nora knew what it was, but I'd never heard of the game.  

I went with Luke a couple of times to Waller Mill Park to run.  Afterwards  we watched the ducks.  Luke loves to see the ducks.  

We love Virginia!

We have new phone number!

757- 566- 7937

Since I've been home instead of working, I've been getting a lot more calls during the day, and we've gone over cell phone minutes.  As you all know how expensive that can be, we are asking that you please call the house phone.

Thank you!!!!

Don't be fooled by the innocent smile you see below.  This little guy can cause more trouble that you would believe.  Last Thursday, I took him to a BBQ for friends that live in our apartment complex.  It was at a grill over by the basketball court, and there isn't really a good place to put Luke down and let him play.  But since he was fussing so much, I put him down.  Within seconds, he was covered in grass with blades of it sticking out of his mouth.  By the end of an hour, I was at wit's end.  He'd eaten dirt, bugs, and sidewalk chalk.  He'd been passed all around the circle being held by lots of friends and neighbors.  He tried to steal Elizabeth's ice cream.  I gave him some fudge bar (STUPID MOMMY!) which ended up all down his shirt, Elizabeth's husband's hands, and then my shirt (WHITE).  I decided it was time for us to leave and get cleaned up.  While I was buckling him into his stroller, he leaved forward and grabbed a cupcake.  His hands were coated with blue and red frosting.  Before I could get the wipie out to clean them off, he rubbed his hands all over his face, and then all over the stroller.  I'm not exaggerating when I say it took me 2 hours to clean up the mess-- sweeping up the grass in the kitchen and bathroom, vacuuming up the grass in the living room and hallway, bleaching our clothes, bathing Luke, scrubbing down the stroller.  Who knew what was hidden behind that angelic smile?  Are girls this bad?

Brown Eyed Handsome Man...Er..Luke Man that is!

Luke cut two top teeth today.  Strangely enough, they are not his two front teeth, but the teeth on either side of the front two teeth.  He looks a little like a Vampire.  And since he does bite, I'm starting to wonder....

Friday was a big day for Jared and I because we had our first real date since we've had Luke.  We left him with Nora for a couple of hours and had dinner together.  Other than one time in Utah leaving him with our friends Scott and Callie to go to the temple (which doesn't really count as a date) and our trip up to see William and Mary, we haven't gone anywhere together without him.  While we love him a lot, it was awesome!  We went to California Tortilla which is a lot like Cafe Rio or Bajio and then walked around New Town for a little while.  For those of you who know Utah, it's kind of like the Riverwoods shopping center in Orem only bigger.

Just to let everybody know:  Jared's cell phone completely died.  He can't even push buttons.  We don't want to sign a new two year contract with Sprint, and we can't get a good deal on a phone without one.  We'd have to buy a phone at full price, so we're just going to pay the cancellation fee (practically the same price as a new phone!) and get a land line.  We will let you all know our new number as soon as that is set up, and in the mean time, call my phone to get a hold of Jared.  My number is 801-921-3731.  Or you can email Jared.  He checks his email several times each day.