Pioneer Day Festivities

Yesterday we made our way over to the mall to pick up some clothes for Brooke that Monica got online in a really good sale.  Shipping to the store was free-er than shipping to our house, so we went to pick them up, and they had baby sunglasses right at the register!  Brooke didn't seem to mind wearing them either!

Last Sunday we decided to make some homemade butter to be like the Pioneers!  It was quite fun.  I'm guessing I've done this, or something like it, before, but I definitely don't really remember it and it was a lot of fun.

Here we are shaking up our cream into butter in an air conditioned house, just like the pioneers did.

At this point it wasn't quite done, but it looked really good.  It gets really thick like this and is hard to shake, but once you get it to shake a little more it suddenly is butter like we know and love!

While this was going on we had homemade biscuits in the oven.  Typically it feels like forever to wait for things in the oven.  The perk of making butter by hand?  It takes exactly a biscuit baking to make butter, so right as we finished our butter the oven beeped and it was time for biscuits!

Our friendly backyard squirrel watched fondly from just outside the back door.

This week we went though some of our older pictures to see if we had any of Brooke's teeth.  They're pretty hard to capture because she usually sticks her tongue out whenever she opens her mouth this wide.  We got her laughing this week and grabbed a few pics.  This ones a pretty good shot o' those teeth!

And we finally remembered to take a picture of Brooke in her jogging stroller.  On our Saturday run we went out for 6 miles, and she fell asleep along the way!  Here she is back at the car!

 
She seems to really enjoy running with us.  There's only been one time she got unhappy while we were out, and that was on our long run last Saturday, so I was a little afraid she'd get sad before we finished again yesterday.  She took the high road and just went to sleep instead!

I think that's about all the updating for this week.  We've started taking walks on Sunday mornings, and walking through the new neighborhood they're building next to ours.  It's kinda crazy how fast the houses can go up, or at least how fast the outsides do.  One week there's a hole, the next a foundation, and the next it's fully framed!  We also go check out the park every week too.  It'll be nice having a park so close to our house once it's all finished.

Oh!  One more thing.  Yesterday we went to Target and while there we stumbled upon a game called Sushi Go! and it's a super fun game!  We've played it a bunch since, and I'm currently in trouble for taking too long to write this because Monica is waiting to play it with me, so I better go!

Happy Pioneer Day!!

Well, I guess after camping it's only natural to have a slow week.  Slow enough that my camera forgot to take pictures!  Everyone was very tired through the start of the week and not too much happened around the house.  I started working on bringing my 3D printer back up.  I didn't have much time before Brooke woke up and I had to go get her, but all that's left is to level out the printing plate again, and then I can start calibration!  Hopefully I'll be able to get more work on it soon and have something cool to show.

This week Brooke has started talking a whole bunch!  She mostly says things that sound like "dada" which is great cause she's calling for me!  But then when she wakes up in the middle of the night it's not so great... cause she's calling for me...  It's a lot of fun having her talk more.  When she talks it looks like she's chewing air, so hopefully talking will also help her with chewing her food before she swallows!

I also started making a new food pantry yesterday to replace our book shelf.  We need something with doors because Brooke will start moving around soon, and we don't want her emptying off our shelves all the time.  I'll try to remember to take some early on pictures so I have some before shots, but I didn't remember to take pictures of the boards before I started... oops.

We've also been taking Brooke with us running in the morning.  Monica and I are running a 10 K in about a month, and it ended up the easiest way for Monica and I to both train was to run together and bring Brooke!  She seems to enjoy riding in the stroller for the most part.  We've only had one day so far where she got sad and cried a little.  I'll hopefully remember to take a picture of us out running some time this week cause there's really not a good reason I don't already have a picture of it.

This week we let Brooke try eating a lime for the first time!!!  And... she loves it!  No funny faces or anything.  I also tried the lime to make sure it was sour, and it sure was.  We even gave her a fresh lime half and she bit right into it and loved it!  What a crazy baby!  So that didn't end up being near as funny as anticipated.

Well, I think that's about all that happened around here this week.  Hope things are going great for everyone else out there and that you have a great pioneer day!

Naadam and Camping

This week Brooke went camping for the first time!!  She loved it too, though she did have a hard time napping in the tent... too many interesting shadows to try to play with.  Camping comes at the end of the week, so more on that later.

To start the week it was Naadam.  Naadam is one of the big Mongolian holidays.  They have big tournaments for the three manly sports, wrestling, archery and horse back riding.  I believe there is also some independence day/founding of the Mongol empire celebration mixed in with it as well.  When I came home from work Monica had hung up our Mongolian flag!

We also had Huushuur for dinner!  The ones we made are stuffed with meat or mashed potatoes, and then fried.  They were delicious!

We also had our own mini Naadam for FHE!  We started with the horse race since it was almost time for Brooke to go to bed.  She did a good job rolling the die on her own and she even won the race!  And to the victor go the toes!

Or I guess really a gold medal.  Brooke promptly bit her medal to ensure it was indeed made of gold when she received it.

On Tuesday I believe we tried out the pizza oven again, and the results were spectacular!  Two big improvements, we didn't make the crust as thin, and we used corn meal to keep it from sticking to the metal paddle thing.  It was amazing!

The work week was a little bit crazy.  We went to youth conference on Thursday night, and I worked a bunch of longs days to try to avoid having to use vacation hours.  The week kinda blurred by.

It was nice to go camping again.  I don't think I've been camping in quite a while, and it was very nice.  It was also pretty great to be able to see the sky so clearly out in nature, and it was almost a full moon so it was pretty bright at night too.  I could walk around without a flashlight most of the time.

On Friday we hiked up Mt Quandary, which is a 14er.  The youth had a great time, and it was very pretty on the hike.

I took this photo sphere at the top.  This picture isn't great, but I couldn't figure out how to get the real thing in here... sorry.

And here's me at the top!

Here's Brooke and Monica in the tent!  Brooke slept in her little bear outfit and it kept her all nice and toasty!  The first night we didn't use it and wrapped her in a lot of blankets.  The second night we used the suit.  It was a much better choice.

Brooke had plenty of time to play with Monica in the tent while I was on the hike.  Really she was probably supposed to be taking a nap, but as I mentioned before she did not do well with naps in the tent.

And here she is in the morning, loving camping life!

We even got to spend time playing together!  She sure loves a little toss now and then!

She sat in this chair happily playing with a water bottle while we packed up when it was time to go home.

And here we are, in the wild!

All in all youth conference was a great experience.  The youth all seemed to have a lot of fun, and we had good devotionals and spiritual moments, and the food was fantastic!

I hope everyone is having a superb week!  Till next time!

Independence Day

Happy 4th of July!!!  We had a great week out here.  Look how festive Brooke was!  And she's even standing up sometimes!

Over last weekend I think we ate some form of BBQ almost every dinner.  We went through that whole big tupperware of potato salad in a single weekend.  It just went with everything we were eating, like ribs!

On Monday morning we went for a run as a family, and then went to our ward 4th of July pancake breakfast.  While we were there Brooke got to try out the swings and she loved it!  Unfortunately she seems to be able to recognize cameras for what they are and does her best to stop smiling and laughing whenever she feels a camera is out, but she loved it!

We also played a few rounds of Water Works.  This game was so close! But Monica beat me in the end... again.

We also made some strawberry lemonade over the weekend and had extra that we froze into popsicles.  Brooke really likes popsicles.  We have to be careful that she doesn't bite off a big piece, but it's probably one of her favorite things to eat.

Then we had a camp fire to roast up some dinner.  How else do you make dinner on the 4th of July?  I really like having fires in our back yard.  We decided to try to do it at lease once a month.

And here we are!  Oh yeah, for those of you who don't recognize me I got a hair cut.  Funny story about that.  Monica cut my hair while Brooke was taking a nap.  I got enough hair cut off that Brooke didn't recognize me when she woke up and she cried when I came and picked her up!

Well, that brings us up to this work week.  The week was good, and we made good progress on testing out our flight hardware.  We're a little bottle necked because there are many things we only have one of so we all have to share them.  I think we got through all our needed milestones this past week though.

Saturday was super chore day!  I spent a lot of time out in the yard trying to get things cleaned up.  Last week I sprayed some weed killer on the rocks that surround our back lawn, and this week all the grass is dead!  It looks so much better.  Also, our front patch of lawn where the bushes used to be is almost ready to be mowed.  It didn't grow in quite as thick as I had hoped, but possibly I under-seeded it.  There are a lot of weeds sharing the space as well.  The grass is almost long enough that I can start doing something about the weeds, and then I'll reseed it and keep getting the grass thicker and thicker!

I also spent time in our garden area.  We never quite got around to planting our garden this year, but plenty of things were growing anyway.  Here's a before picture of the garden.  As I was pulling weeds that thing jumped out at me!

Ok, ok, I still haven't mastered the before and after picture process.  I've got the after down pretty well, but I struggle with the before.  So in place of an actual before picture I went online and found this picture which is a pretty good representation of what it looked like before I started.

And here's that same area when I was done!  I think the hardest part of the whole clean up part was chipping that house down into a fence!

After all that I was quite tired.  It was a very hot day, and I was tired and sunburned!  I ended up taking Brooke for a walk around the block while Monica was grocery shopping.  Brooke went down for a nap as Monica was leaving, but she woke up a cool 30 minutes later and wouldn't go back to sleep.  I eventually took her for a walk and she enjoyed that, but my sunburns did not!

Last night Monica and I watched Wall-E.  It had been a while since either of us had seen it and it was really good, although, Monica only made it through the first half of the movie (which is typical) even though we started it at 7:30(which is an hour earlier than usual)!  We had a lot of fun and decided we probably need to watch movies a little more often.

Monica and I have started a tradition of making Sunday morning brunch while Brooke takes her first nap in the morning!  Unfortunately her first nap wasn't very long, but her second one is still going.  At least we got one good nap this morning.  Anyway, Monica and I made... pastries for brunch today.  They were very good!

And dessert!

Well, that brings you up to the present.  We're currently waiting for Brooke to wake up so we can head to church.  I hope everyone had a great weekend and a wonderful Independence day!

THREE WEEKS!!!

Oh my I have slipped so far!  We traveled out to Utah and were there over the past two weekends, I took a computer so I could still write my blog while we were out there, and yet, I never did.  So I guess we'll have to do a little catching up.  Brooke's happy about that!

I don't really know a story to go with this other than I like her short sleeve hoody.

So for any of you who think we just took off to Utah for vacation it is important to know that Ragnar was a few weeks back, and that's really what was getting us out there in the first place.

It's always easy to look excited before you've started running.  For those of you who don't know Ragnar is a 200-ish mile relay race.  You have 12 people on your team, 6 people in 2 vans.  For the relay van 1 has each runner run a segment of the course, then they hand off to van 2 and get a few hours to relax before van 2 hands the slap bracelet back.  This continues for about 36 hours (for our team) with each person running 3 times.  In total you may run anywhere from 10 miles to 21 across your 3 runs (guess which end I was on...).

Here is Alyson starting us out.  Again, easy to look excited 20 feet into your first run.

At my first exchange I tried to hand off the bracelet to Andrew.  I hit the bracelet on his wrist, but it didn't twist up, and I was finishing quite fast, so I had to turn around to pass off the bracelet!

Here's a picture in the middle of the night.

And finally our team at the finish!  Phew!  Another year, another Ragnar in the books.  Really I do enjoy Ragnar, it's a lot of fun and a great way to spend time with family.  It's definitely something I look forward to each Summer.

Once Ragnar was over it was back to home to shower and relax. After that we went and hung out with Monica's family for the next few days, unfortunately I didn't get a single picture!  Brooke got to meet so many new family members she never knew, and mostly got along with. Here's her with Cameron who is only a month apart from her.

We also went out to Sweet's candy company for a tour, and some free candy samples.

And we headed to Alyson's house for some swimming!

Brooke sure liked getting dressed up in her swimming clothes.

Unfortunately she did not enjoy swimming.  We got her in the water and she promptly got all fussy and it was a very different experience than when we went to the rec center.

We also took a moment to grab a family picture, representing our favorite women's lacrosse team.

The week we were out there just so happened to be Monica's friend Ashley's wedding!  And of course, who else would she be marrying but Tyler who grew up in my neighborhood!  I was friends with Tyler's older brother Travis, who was my age, but small world that we both knew them!  We were even nice enough to give my mom a ride to the reception, since she was invited too!

And we snagged another picture together here, though Brooke was a bit less cooperative.

On the way home we stopped at Little America to feed Brooke, and I grabbed a picture of this sign.

As well as our appropriately sized parking spot!  I'm not sure Corolla's were the intended car when these lines were painted.

During this last week Brooke learned a new trick, and seemed a bit confused when she managed to collapse her play mat.

And while out in Utah, Monica and I went through my parents game closet to organize/clean it up.  We brought home a few games that we wanted that my parents had duplicates of, as well as a few they didn't... :)  One of our favorites was Water Works!  It's a really fun game where you try to lay a pipe line, but you can play leaks on each other's pipes that must be fixed before you can continue.

Good times indeed.  Well, there's a quick recap of what's been going on the last three weeks.  Now that we're back home I should be posting a bit more regularly.  Have a great week everyone!!