Our California Weekend

Steve, Anna and I spent a glorious four day weekend at Grandma and Grandpa's over Memorial Day and had a fabulous time. What is better than going in Grandma's back pantry and looking at all of the magical and exotic things in there? If that doesn't make you feel like little kid again, I don't know what would. Also, how come their house smells so good? It's not like it smells like food or cleaning supplies or anything specific, it just smells really good and it always has smelled the same. I guess the best way to describe it is that it smells like "home." I wish I could bottle it up and spray it all over my own house, especially since it currently mostly smells like poopy diapers. Anyway, here are a few pictures of our trip, including one that seems to be a family tradition of Grandma and Grandpa on their couch with yet another great grandchild. Props to Honey for pretty much the cutest baby bathing suit of all time.

P.S. If you can't tell from these pictures, Anna is starting to get some chub (which I am so happy about), however, the chub seems to increase in equal proportion to fussiness (which I am not so happy about).

Please Pray for Chris

I heard from Ruben and Mom that they got home from the ER this morning at 2:00am. Chris's roommate called them at about 10pm saying that they were taking him to the hospital. Apparently he had been he had been throwing up for three days and last night he was not lucid and he was unable to walk. He was dehydrated and they gave him meds and fluids. His sugar count was 1200 (which is really high). They are going back in the morning and will know more and wanted the family to know. You can call them on their cell if you are so inclined, however, since they are retired they don't like to be bothered before 10 am :).

The Latest from Virginia

Life has been a little crazy the last month, we have managed to keep very busy. Greg only has a few weeks left of his program and then after some time off he will be stationed on the USS Roosevelt, an aircraft carrier out of Norfolk. It will be in port until the end of the year getting worked on, but Greg will join it's crew and start work the middle of July. I think he is looking forward to some time off, he has had a million projects and presentations to do the last few months in addition to his regular workload and is in need of some downtime!

Two days ago, Ollie tried to scare us to death by escaping out of the back gate (in pj's and bare feet) and going somewhere more fun like the neighborhood park where someone luckily found him before any harm could come his way. I was just a LITTLE hysterical, but he is fine and we are now taking every precaution to make sure he stays in the house. He is a very clever 18 month old and so cute (most of the time).

We just got a salt water fish tank. I never knew that Greg had always wanted one until last week when he started talking about it and bought one all within a few days. Elena is almost as obsessed with it as Greg; we went to pick out fish last night and she has already named them. floaty, name-it, and scar. These are just "starter" fish, you can guess what that implies. Hopefully they'll live long healthy lives in our tank!

Elena likes to talk about how she has "mommy hair" and is always insisting that she is little while you are really big. She isn't fooled by "big girl" talk. She is always telling us to "be happy" and not sad so I'm passing it on! I think she thinks sad is the same thing as tired, which I always am (pregnancy induced), so that could have something to do with it. I'm not going to lie and say I love being pregnant, but I do love having a sweet new baby and look forward to that!

Love, em

Nascar Lovers

Amber sent a report of their white trash trip, I mean their trip to the Nascar race over Memorial Day weekend...sounds like they had a great time and the pictures of Maggie in her earmuffs are adorable!

We had a great time on our trip to North Carolina. We arrived onThursday and went to qualifying for the Coca Cola 600 that night.
Friday we travelled a couple of hours to Asheville to go the Biltmore Estate. The house was really cool and so were the gardens. Asheville was one of Matt's areas on his mission. Saturday we spent most of the day at the track watching practice and qualifying for the Busch race that night. Sunday, Mom Ruben and Matt went to church in a really nice ward in Kannapolis, which is close to where the races were. I stayed back at the hotel with Maggie...she was still asleep when church started. We went to the race at about 4:00 and didn't get back to our hotel room until about 1:30 am. There were approximately 160,000 people at the race which made for a parking nightmare. We had a really good time and even Mom said she thought the race was fun. For the Saturday night race we sat in the general section of fans and most of them were pretty drunk. Sunday we sat in the family section and things were much calmer. As you can imagine the people watching was great, I tried to get mom to wear a tank top and short shorts so we could fit in, but she wouldn't do it. You can see in one of the pictures that Matt bought one of Carl Edward's pit crew shirts and he wore that to the Busch race. Ruben got one also. Maggie was a big hit at the races. People thought she was so cute in her ear muffs. Quite a few people actually took her picture. She didn't seem to mind the ear coverings and was a great baby for the trip. We had a great time and I personally can't wait to go to my next race.

Papa's Big Day

Here are some pictures from the temple the day Ruben was endowed. The thing that strikes me most about these pictures is how absolutely miserable Honey looks. It's sad really.

Three Little Punkins

Bridget and I channeled our inner Ann and Honey last weekend and threw the babies in the car, left our husbands behind and headed for St. George. Amber and the kids met us there where we spent a fun weekend celebrating Mother's Day by basically holding, feeding and changing babies and not much else. Ruben went to the temple for the first time on Monday and we had lunch afterward and that was about the only planned event of the weekend. We did a little photo shoot of the three newest cousins and they all performed admirably...the accompanying pictures are a few of the results!

Chef Chelsea

Chelsea sent this picture of the cake that she made for Hope's birthday- a culinary masterpiece that speaks for itself- way to go Chelsea! It's definitely the first of it's kind in our family- at least as far as I've seen. Just so you know Miss Chelsea- you start doing things like this and people start expecting things... can't wait to have you here when Seth and Porter's birthdays roll around- I get first dibs!

Florida

We just returned on Monday from a very nice trip to Florida...well, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina & (finally!) North Carolina. We went out there to meet many of Morgan's family members to enjoy a few days in the sunshine at Disneyworld. Many of you know that I was petrified about having to fly all that way with Porter and Seth, and I am very happy to report that it was completely non-horrific. In fact- they did absolutely wonderful! You would've been so proud! Anyway, we had such a nice time- they had several new rides since we were there last, including a couple of awesome roller coasters- so that was fun! Anyway, it really couldn't have been a more pleasant time... Unless of course you count the fact that we had a minor set back in the form of lost luggage. So there we were at the baggage claim- here comes Seths car seat- here's our pack & play, then arrives Porters suitcase....anything else? Nope. We sat there for an hour thinking that surely the bag that contained Morgan, Seth & my every piece of luggage could not be lost- but it was. I have to admit though- both Morgan and I were very calm about it. I had managed to bring along my make-up case, our toothbrushes, and our phone chargers in our carry-ons, so really we were only lacking clothes, and shampoo etc. It showed up the next day while we were at disneyworld. We were in Orlando for 4 days, and on the fifth day we drove up the coast through the aforementioned states to arrive finally in North Carolina. We went there to visit sites (pictured sites include the Atlantic Beach on the outer banks, and Duke chapel at Duke University)and to see some old friends from my mission days. The nicest part of the trip was that Morgan's parents had some geneaologying (that's a word- right??) to do right on the N.C. & South Carolina borders, so they drove up- did their business and then drove up to Raleigh and flew home with us!! They will never know how nice that made it for us. They sat with Porter- we had Seth and the rest is history.

St. George Here We Come!

Lots of us will be in St. George this weekend celebrating Mother's Day. Bridget and I are going down on Saturday and staying through Tuesday (our husbands are staying behind), Amber is coming up with the kids for the weekend and Beth and John will be there, too. Beth and John were smart and beat us all to the punch and tagged Honey and Papa's casita, so Amber is staying at Jen's while Bridget and I will be basking in the luxury of the Crystal Inn. We have a pool and a Tony Roma's. I don't necessarily like Tony Roma's but that's about as fancy as it gets when it comes to lodging in St. George. We might let you come hang out with us there if you're really really nice.

P.S. Anna is four weeks old today. She also now weighs 9 lbs even. I cried all morning.

Anna's Newborn Photos

Here are some of our favorite shots from Anna's newborn photos. She looks all peaceful but in reality she was pretty fussy the whole time...she pooped on Steve and peed on me during the shoot. And obviously I have figured out how to add more than five photos to a post!!!

Spidey 3 Review

Chelsea sent in a review of of Spider Man 3! Thanks Chels!

For family home evening last night we all went to see Spiderman 3.
Andrew was his usual perfect self, and slept thru 3/4s of the movie. I
hadn't planned on going to see the newest Spidey flick (I didn't
really enjoy the first 2), and honestly I wouldn't have missed
anything by staying home! But I didn't want to be a downer on the FHE
plans.

We rejoin the Spidey cast as Peter/Spiderman picks up his ticket to
sit in the front row for Mary Janes Broadway debut, and of course
Harry/New Goblin is also present, but sitting in a much more expensive
seat. Snaggletooth then proceeds to sing, yes you read correctly, she
sings, and its not bad! So the stage is set, and cheesiness ensues!
The first ridiculous plot point is the black gooey thread that comes
down from space in a meteor, Peter and MJ just happen to be hanging
out on a web in the park when the meteor strikes, they don't notice
the flying ball of fire, and some of the black goo jumps on to Peters
scooter as they leave the park. The first fight sequence, between
Peter and Harry, while not cheesy or silly, did make me feel a bit
sick to my stomach because it was all over the place! I ended up
closing my eyes for part of it cause I didn't want to wake Andrew up
by puking on him! Harry ends up with a head injury, and forgets all
about his vow to avenge his fathers death, and everyone goes back to
being friends, at least for the time being. This renewed friendship
results in a cheesy and predictable love triangle. We also have the
appearance of the Sandman, who accidentally falls into a scientific
experiment and turns to sand, which for some reason gives him the
ability to return to human form, and control the wind! In the
meantime, the black thready goo, has managed to make itself into a
spidey suit, and the new black suit has some mystical power that
increases sexual prowess and aggression. Which brings us to the low
point of the movie, this increase in supposed sexiness, has Peter
thinking he's hot stuff, and that everyone wants a piece of him, he
proceeds to dance his way around New York, complete with spins,
slides, pelvic thrusts, and a few too many wink and gun motions! Which
culminates with Peter performing a dance number in a jazz bar in order
to exact revenge on MJ, because she broke his heart!
The high point of the movie was the scene in the French restaurant,
complete with a French Maitre 'd. We all thought this bit was quite
funny, but I'm also a little bit perplexed, since this movie wasn't a
comedy, did the writers just get lucky? or was it meant to be funny?
The plot point of this scene is quite serious, and advances the
storyline, so I found this part to be both humorous and confusing!
In the end, good triumphs over evil, past misdeeds are forgiven, Aunt
May gives sterling words of advice, and life lessons are learned!
Overall, it was entertaining. But I don't think it is worth the money
to go see it in theatres, wait til its in the Red Box! And its also 2
hours and 40 minutes long! So if you have enough spare time, and you
feel like sitting in the dark with a 100 strangers, one of which will
be a very excited 10 year old boy who will kick you seat every time
there is some action on the screen, than go waste your money, but for
breastfeeding mom's of small babies, stay home and watch reruns of
Desperate Housewives!

Doesn't This Kid Ever Smile?

John and Beth, what are you doing to make your child so miserable? It's such a chore to get this kid to give even hint that he MIGHT smile. I think you should take him to a doctor to see what's wrong with him as he's clearly not thriving or developing properly.

P.S. Someone needs to review Spider Man 3 for the blog. I'm not going to haul my kid and a diaper bag to the theater unless it's really worth it...plus, any movie with Snaggletooth, I mean Kristen Dunst, needs to be reviewed because she's definitely not a draw, more like a drawback.

Anna's Blessing - July 29th

We checked with the bishop yesterday and we can do Anna's blessing the weekend of Kurt's wedding, so hopefully everyone will be able to come. Our ward is at 9 am and Steve's parents will be serving brunch for the whole family after Sacrament meeting at their new house in Orem. I'm very excited but cry everytime I think about it so I can only imagine what a wreck I will be that day! However emotional I will be, I take solace in the fact that Steve will be 100 times worse :).

For Reals....

Papa got his temple recommend last night and will be receiving his endowment on Monday, May 14th in the St. George temple. Everyone is invited. I talked to Honey last night and she said that they think they will get sealed up here around the same time Kurt gets married since everyone will be here, but they're not sure yet. This is really amazing...we are all incredibly excited and proud of him!!!

Master Bridget

Here are some pictures from Bridget's graduation last week. She officially is something like a MS CRD, or something. Congratulations Bridget! You may want to clarify what you actually are now in the comments :).

Bridget and Ben were nice enough to take me home after the ceremony (Scott had to get back to work), but we didn't quite make it because we got a flat tire. There was some huge metal implement with prongs stuck in the right front tire - Ben had fun trying to get it out and fix the flat in his nice clothes.