Saturday

Yesterday was a nice respite from all the stressful days this week. We decided to head to Main Beach in Laguna Beach to enjoy a little surf and each others company. Mike needed to take some pictures for a painting down there so we killed the proverbial two birds. We parked at the studios in the canyon (free parking) and walked down to the beach, stopping on the way at the thrift store. It was no DI. But we had fun at the beach for a little while then headed home so we could listen to the BYU-Wyoming game. Another shutout victory for BYU. It's shaping up to be an interesting season. Go Cougs!

Little Girls

Feels like it's been a while since we posted last. Not much happened this last couple of weeks of note; just the usually things. Go to school, change dirty diapers, play with blocks; you know, the usual. Natalie has started preschool this last week and is loving it. We are doing a co-op preschool with four other kids. The moms take turns every week teaching and hosting at their house. So far it's been a raging success. It's nice for Natalie to get out of the house and experience other kids and other people besides mom. She's a great little girl with an active imagination and developing artistic skills. And this girl loves ice cream and chocolate like nobodies business.

Emily is growing like a weed and weighs twenty pounds (though it feels like more) She starting to pull herself up on the couch, the bed, dad's leg, and pretty much anything else she can grab onto. She especially likes the couch (see video at bottom) but eventually gets too excited and falls over backwards. She is a real go getter and is one determined little bear cub. She's eating her cereal better now; only half the cereal oozes out of the side of her mouth now. And whenever someone asks about where her red hair comes from and we give the scientific explanation, we are usually met with strangely blank stares and confused looks. You can't win.

Mom and dad are busy all the time these days. With school for dad and entertaining the girls all day long for mom, there's not enough time in the day to get everything done. Dad is the 11year old scout leader, and mom is still teaching the primary class. Dad stays busy with schoolwork and working on illustration projects that we have been blessed with.

So we really can't complain. It's warm outside, the beach is 20 min away, our girls are beautiful, BYU is kicking booty, and the Church is still true. Life is good.

Saturday (Part III)

In the evening we celebrated Emily's half-Birthday. It's hard to believe that she is six months old now. The time flies by. To celebrate, we had half a cake, with half a candle. Even the words are only half written on the cake. We sang half the birthday song (though Natalie sang the rest for us) Emily got to try out some rice cereal for the first time as well. We love having Emily in our family. She's such a happy and easy going baby. We did learn yesterday that the red hair gene has to come from both of us. "Red hair appears in people with two copies of a recessive gene on chromosome 16 which causes a change in the MC1R protein." (Wikipedia) So two people that don't have red hair can have a redheaded child. That's where it came from, and now when people ask this question (which is every day) we can give the scientific explanation. Posted are a video of the birthday song and cake, as well as Emily's first attempt at eating with a spoon. Always classic.

Saturday (Part II)

After cleaning house for a while, we headed out to the pool. It's been a while since we've all been so it was great to have a little family time. Natalie is using her water wings and loving it. Emily tried out her new floatie and loved splashing her face with water. Natalie is getting better at swimming and can go from one end of the pool to the other easily now. She still doesn't like getting splashed in the face (but who does?). We ate some dinner there at the side of the pool and enjoyed the weather. It was so warm yesterday, it was nice to jump into the pool and cool off. Emily was being cute after she toweled off. She even let us take a picture of her new tooth, soon to be accompanied by another one.

Saturday (Part I)

Yesterday was a busy day, and thusly needs to be broken down into three parts. In the morning we took Natalie to a babysitter and met up with members of the ward to walk precincts for Proposition 8. We knocked on doors and talked to people until noon, about how they were voting for Prop 8. It's scary the apathy of some people, and it was about even yes and no. Our bishop mentioned that McDonald's had donated a lot of money for the anti-prop8 campaign. Another good reason not to frequent their establishments. Mary found out too when we got home that the ACLU had donated around $1.2 million for the anti-prop 8 campaign as well. Scary times my friends. But while we were out "tracting" we came across a great deal at a garage sale (as well as a chance to talk to people about Prop 8). We got a great hiking backpack to haul Emily around in, as well as a new baby floatie for the pool (our other one has an irreparable hole). We tried both out yesterday and Emily loves them both. Also after tracting we went to Wing Nuts for lunch and got to watch some of the BYU-Washington game. We listened to the last quarter at home on KSL. What a game! Go Cougs!

Labor Day update

So a brief update as well as Labor day activites: Summer is now officially gone and school has begun. The time passes quickly and before you know it Halloween stuff starts showing up in the stores and your days of summer pleasure is past. Mary and the girls are trying to start up preschool again with some other ladies in the ward. Mary's been good about teaching Natalie at home, and Natalie loves to have the social interaction with her friends. Other than that, it's nose to the grindstone as we commence our final scholastic year in Orange County.

As for Labor day, Michael played some sand volleyball with the men from elder's quorum in the morning, and then we headed out to Irvine Regional Park. They have all kinds of stuff to do out there; such as train rides, bike rentals, paddle boats, a zoo, playgrounds, and immense picnic areas with which to enjoy all sorts of outdoor activities. The draw for us of course was the train ride for Natalie. She still loves a good train ride. We got half off so it was a good deal too. Then we took to the water (after a loooong wait) and spent some time in the paddle boats chasing ducks. Our friends the Hardings came out with us to spend the afternoon. Tavia is one of Natalie's closest friends so it was a treat to have her there too. After the festivities we headed to the Hardings's house for BBQ and chit-chat. It was a good day, with not much labor at all.

The train ride

Good looking engineer

Emily gets in on the action too

Waiting our turn