La Jolla Aquarium

Its always fun to have visitors because it gets us out somewhere new. Our friends from Utah met us in La Jolla for a day at the Aquarium! We had so much fun saying "ooooo" and "woah" at all the sea creatures. The tide pools and other hands on things were great too esp. for the kids! Natalie and Tanner spent more time with the toys than the fish which made me laugh, but my favorite line of the day was when Tanner corrected another child looking at the lobsters. The child called it a crab and Tanner said, "that's not a crab its a mobster." Very funny! Another thing that is fun is watching the fish get fed. We watched a few tanks go wild when employees dropped shrimp in. Pretty cool, but I must say the sharks were disappointing since they were so small. oh well- we had fun!

Sweet Natalie

We were relaxing this fine Sunday afternoon after church and Natalie was playing with her stuffed bear in the living room. We noticed though that she would take the bear over to the couch, kneel with him, and help him to say a prayer. She would say, "thank you our friends, thank you our food, name of Jesus Christ amen!" She did this repeatedly and we managed to take a picture of her teaching her bear to pray. Makes my heart all warm inside.

Notice the folding of the bear's arms..

Belly watch 2007

So we haven't had any pictures of Mary lately with her ever increasing belly. She says she thinks she felt the baby move today. Exciting stuff! She thinks she's getting too big too soon and the doctor said she's right on track, but what does the doc know right? You look great Mom!

Coming soon! Find out whether its going to be a girl or boy! Vote now on the poll on the right! Be the first on you block! Golly gee whizzers!

Hidden Cove

It's getting cooler but it's still nice to head out to the beach and check out the tide pools. Unfortunately the camera's batteries died while we were taking pics. These are the only two we got. The tide pools are great though with tons of mussels, shells, crabs, urchins, and other cool stuff. You could spend all day out there just looking.

Norman Rockwell

Norman Rockwell is by far my favorite artist of all time. I remember seeing this painting one time on the back of one of my merit badge books when I was a scout. I remember staring at it and thinking it was pretty much the coolest painting I had ever seen. I haven't been able to find this painting ( I guess I didn't try hard enough) until this week. I have been doing research for my MFA and have been looking at a lot of Rockwell's stuff. (I read his autobiography and recommend to everyone. Great Stuff!) I came across that painting I saw so many years ago. I just wanted to share it with y'all (you can take the boy out of Wyoming but you can't take the Wyoming out of the boy). This image hardly does the painting justice though. Enjoy!

Natalie the funny girl

Soooo, Natalie is pretty much the funniest girl we know and she does things everyday that make us laugh. Here are a few of things she does:

-She loves to climb into things (as you can see in the photos below; she had pulled all her toys out of her closet and climbed into her diaper box).
-She loves to put towels on her head and run around saying , "I'm a pioneer!"
-She loves to line up her stuffed animals, pull all the kitchen towels out and put them on her animals and says, "They're all hiding." (and the animals are not few)
-At dinner she likes to emphatically say, "I'm a hungry man!"
-She always likes to ask, "Whats he sez?" or "What's his name" (this is mostly to anyone or anything she doesn't know)
-Today she had mom's book of bird watching and was looking at it; she was asking all their names and what they "sez". Well inside the front cover is just a picture of a bird with no name or description. She asked mom what his name was of course and she said "I think it's a mockingbird." To which Natalie replied, "No that one is John." (where does she learn this?!?)
-The other day mom and dad were on the computer looking at art for one of his class and discussing artistic things. Natalie, who was in her room came running out and said , "What you talking about?" We told her we were just talking about art. She said, "Well it sounded funny" and ran back into her room.
-She loves to put all the pillows in the house on the couch and get up there with all her animals and say that she's in boat.
-We don't know where she picked it up but she always says, "Just Kidding!" and waves her hand at you and rocks her head back with her eyes closed (you have to see it to appreciate it)
-Mom said something at dinner and Natalie looked at her and closed her eyes and nodded knowingly and said "I know mom." (that I know she picked up from mom)
-She likes to teach her stuffed animal to be potty trained. We go into the bathroom and there's a stuffed animal sitting on the potty. (It kind of weirds dad out sometimes)

Anyways, there are many more things that Natalie does to keep our day bright. She can say a prayer now and loves to go to Nursery. She and mom are learning a lot of number and letters and Quantum Physics. She loves to play with marbles and with her toy cars (these used to be dad's toys when he was growing up) and playing with her stuffed animals. And she loves talking to grandma and grandpa on the computer (She told grandpa the other day when we were on the phone, "Get on your computer Grandpa!" ) We're still learning manners :)

Michael's Studio

So the end of the summer brought about a change of pace. Michael was painting out in our garage space for the summer while the school finished up their studio spaces for the MFA students. Well we have a lot of stuff in our garage and it came time to move it all to school. It only took two or three trips but we managed to get everything to the new studio space. It's a new one (one of the ones they just finished building) and it's pretty nice. You have to understand the evolution of our studio spaces. Michael used to work in his bedroom since the time he started school at BYU. He lived at the Glenwood where he shared a room and therefore took to doing his art in the living room, kitchen, bathroom, and any other place he could. Then, he moved to a smaller bedroom that he got all to himself. That room was a 10 by 15 room that was insanely packed in tight. Luckily he had a studio space at the school to store and work at. Then he got a bigger room and that was pretty nice for a while. Then when we got married we moved into a two bedroom apartment and split up a 15' x 20' room for both Mary and Michael to work in. So now to have his own space all to himself like he has at school is wonderful. Though, we were going to keep the garage as kind of a make-shift studio space for both of us to work, we ended up having to park the car in there ( I know! imagine using it for what it was designed for!). So here are a few of pictures of the garage setup and the new studio (which by the way, looks much bigger than the pic)

Coke and Mentos

Check this out. These guys have way too much time. They must be LDS though; they found a good use for Coke.

The feeder actually worked!

Natalie and Mom made a hummingbird feeder out of an used liter bottle (grandma would be proud that we recycled it). It's attracted a lot of different kinds of hummingbirds and has been fun to watch these little guys zoom around! I am honestly surprised that it worked! The only problem I have had with it is dripping. No biggy I guess for first timers. Maybe we'll make a fancier one next time with moderations! This could get wild exciting!

Art on the Green

Some more pictures of the Art on the Green live sculpting and painting competition. Here are a few friends met through this competition. Very talented people and we're glad to know them.

This is Jeff Rudolph who always has an encouraging word for his fellow artists. It's always nice to see him and his family at this event. A wonderful sculptor as well. Jeff won first place the first year the competition was run and placed every since.

This is Jim Lynxwiler, who had a rough go at it this year but his persistence paid off. He is a hard working man who puts a lot into his work. This year he came out to the competition sans family just like Michael and worked through most of the night. At around 5:00 in the morning on Saturday he realized his sculpture wasn't working out the way he wanted so basically started over with only about 8 hours left in the competition. We finished a great sculpture of a woman with a kite (the photo doesn't do it justice). After all that, it paid off when he won first place in the professional division. I was jealous because he got one of those really big checks. (where do you cash those in anyways?)




Rudy Gunter, Michael's former art teacher and good friend. He is the man behind pushing for these competitions. A great man and great artist. He is always willing to help everyone out. He was over helping with a few of the painters get mat boards for their watercolor paintings toward the end. You can take the teacher out of the school but you can't take the ..school...uh...out of ...wait, never mind that doesn't work. Thanks Rudy.

Last Weekend

Last weekend Dad went to GR to participate in a painting competition. There were sculptors and 2-d artists alike. We all had 24 hours to complete a work of art started and finished at the competition. It starts at 5:00pm on a Friday and ends 24 hours later on Saturday at 5:00pm. The art is judged and there are awards. It's always a blast, though everyone is walking around like a zombie about the time it finishes on Saturday. Michael did a painting of the Palisades of GR and it turned out pretty good. The pictures here don't do it justice. It's a great place to meet other artists and see some old friends we haven't seen in a while.

"Take my picture mom!"

Natalie's recent most favorite thing to do is bury herself in pillows or blankets and say, "Take my picture!" The novelty wears off after the twentieth time she says does it. Thats okay though, we love to take pictures of our Natalie cause she's so doggone cute!

The Coolest Spider

Natalie is a fan of bugs and things that crawl. This spider was living outside our apartment in the bushes. It sat for about a week in the center of it's web. We think that its a Wasp Spider( genus argiope, species bruennichi). It is pretty big, maybe an inch or two with the legs. You can go here to get more info (mind you it's not for the squeamish or those with arachnophobia). It was interesting to see day after day sitting in it's web. Then one day it transformed into a very common spider: squishdus spiderous (thanks to the gardeners). So sad, Natalie was heartbroken.

More Discovery Museum

More pics of last weeks outing to the Sesame Street exhibit at the Discovery Science museum.

Chance of a Life Time!

Going to the Discovery Science Center in Santa Ana was a blast. Of course seeing "the real" Elmo took Natalie's breath away. She said, "he hugged me!" all day long. Cute! It was really exciting that we got to go with our friends from Provo. They moved to Cali too so we took advantage of a good thing and spent the afternoon together. It doesn't get better than friends, food, and Elmo, right?




This was a soft obstacle course they had for kids and the girls loved it. It's always nice to have an activity to tire them out! Natalie slept for 3 hours after we came home. sweet! Sorry it's a dark video though.