Brooke's New Room!

Hello everyone!  I hope everything is going terrific for all of you!  We had a good week here.  Winry is starting to get more and more difficult to keep a bow on, as you can plainly see.  Usually she pulls it down into an eye patch to be a pirate, but this time she wanted to have a real big mustache!  Look at that joy of pretend facial hair!

I go through Monica's pictures each week to see if there's anything I need to grab for the blog, and I found this.  I really don't know what the story is, but maybe Monica will add it here => (Interesting because Alex was when I took this! Brooke fell asleep while we were out running.... All of us were out running...) when she proof reads this post.

The time finally came this past week for Winry to start eating solids!  She's been watching us closely as we've been eating dinner, etc. the past few weeks, so we figured we'd let her have a try.  We started with rice cereal, but she was pretty fussy the two nights we gave her that so we don't think it goes well with her stomach.  We've been doing bananas for the past few days since and she's been LOVING it!  I think we're on to a new food tomorrow, but I don't know if/what we picked yet.

Also from the archives of Monica comes this picture of Winry with a pony tail sticking straight up out of her head!  This has not become a daily thing, but more of an experiment I would guess as it wasn't like this when I got home and I haven't seen it since.

We've spent a bunch of time this past week getting Brooke's new room ready!  Originally the plan was to wait until the basement is finished, but since the basement is going super slow (I just never seem to have time to get down there) we moved a bunch of stuff into our room and into the garage and got Brooke moved in!  Tonight is her first night sleeping in there, and it will be Winry's first night in her own room too!  Now she might not wake us up all night long kicking down on her mattress!  One can hope, right?  Anyway, Brooke's been loving her new room and I think it's great for her to have some space to play.  We're going flamingo style in her room, and Brooke is very excited.  Also, I know the title made it seem like you'd get to see more of her room... I'll try to remember to get some pictures of it for next week :).

Jelly even helped us get everything ready by doing things like checking the stability of Brooke's new dresser by jumping on and off of it over and over.  She love's to lay on Brooke's dresser!

This past week when I was getting ready for work one morning I heard some loud  talking outside and then a bunch of bangs.  Turns out the SWAT team was raiding a neighbor's house.  We looked to see if we could find a police report about it, but nothing has really come out yet.  We're guessing it was a drug house, but hopefully some information is released soon!  Anyway, that was a little bit of a surprise!

On Friday afternoon we went to Costco and it was samples galore!  The best one you ask?  Definitely the Octopus Salad!  Ok, not really...  I couldn't believe this was 1) a product at Costco 2) a sample.  I did try a piece, and I thought it was gross.  It wasn't actually the octopus though (or at least I think) but instead whatever the liquid that turned it into a "salad" that I didn't like.

Saturday morning we headed to the zoo!  Monica's friend Katie met us there too!  We had a lot of fun.  I was trying to get a picture of the Okapi with it's tongue out.  They have tongues like giraffes, but every picture I took had not tongue...  Dang.

While there it eventually become time for Winry to eat, and we happened to be by the "how far can you jump" spot.  Brooke had a great time hopping across over and over!  I gave it a try a few times and I'm still just shy of 9 feet...  I'll get it some day though.  It was interesting to see all the people that stopped by and tried it out.  It was mostly kids, but you'd have the occasional parent who wanted to give it a try, just to chicken out at the start line and just jump a foot or two and pretend like they were playing with their kid.  Not so random parent, I saw the look of determination in your eye when you walked up to the line!

Anyway, we had a lot of fun jumping, and then this parade of animals came by!  I have never seen these animal costumes before, but they were really cool!  I don't know if it's a traveling thing or if they'll be at our zoo to stay.  They walked past us and a little later we caught up to them stopped in an opening for people to take pictures with them.  I asked Brooke, but she said she didn't want to.

The animals above stopped at the entrance to the monkeys, so we made a loop through.  The monkeys are pretty cool right now because the orangutans and the gorillas both have babies. 

We eventually got to the flamingos, which at some point became Brooke's favorite animal, and so we took a picture with them!  This was basically the last thing we stopped to see.  We also saw the grizzly bear on our way out of the zoo, and they were the best they've ever been!  They were both out walking around the whole time we were there!  All in all everyone had a fantastic zoo day, and I think we'll have to go again soon!

There was a really bad hail storm this past week.  It missed both the building I work in and our house, so Monica and I didn't see it but I heard up to tennis ball size hail.  The sister missionaries in our ward were not as lucky as we were...  Their car has a bunch of dents, and the windshield had to be fixed!  They said one of the elder's cars actually got a hole all the way through it, and I saw some pictures of cars at work who's back windows got punched all the way through!  It was a fierce storm!

This morning we went on a family walk over to the park.  We were going to get everyone out, but when we got there |Winry seemed like she was falling asleep, so she stayed in the stroller and Monica pushed her around while I chased Brooke all around.  We had a blast, and I guess Brooke's new thing is jumping.

Church today was great!  In priesthood we were talking about Lehi's dream, and I really liked Brother Bell's comment about likening the scriptures to ourselves.  He said that we typically do a good job of likening the scriptures of prophets and heroes doing great things to ourselves, but do we ever liken the scriptures of Laman and Lemuel murmuring to ourselves?  How often do we act like the "wicked" in the scriptures?  Do we try to learn from their mistakes, do we look for ways we can avoid the same pit falls that they stumbled into?  I'll be honest, I haven't had much time to think about it yet, but I thought it was a good insight into trying to get more out of scripture study.  I know the scriptures are the word of God, and that we can truly come to know Him and Jesus Christ through sincere study of the scriptures.  I encourage everyone to study daily, and to liken the scriptures to your life in order to gain a deeper understanding of the messages being taught.  In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Trip to Utah and Father's Day

Hello everyone!  Oh boy did I pick a bad week to miss posting, there is a lot to cover here.  I guess most of it really is from last week when we were out in Utah, but still, I feel like I've got a long ways to go.  While we were in Utah we headed to my Aunt Alyson's house on Monday night for FHE and went swimming!  It was a blast, and it was the first time for Brooke to go swimming with floaties (at least with me) and she even swam around a little on her own!

Being summer it was naturally Popsicle time Monday morning!  Everyone had gone to the park that morning and needed a treat to cool off!

I think Brooke loves popsicles...

The park they went to was pretty cool.  It had a little zip line at it that you could ride on.  I think Brooke really liked it.  Sadly I wasn't there as I was working back at my parents house, but when everyone got home they told me about how fun it was!

While out at my parents house I started going through old pictures and scanning ones with me in them.  I back up all my pictures on Google Photos, but I don't really having anything from before 2005-ish time frame, so I wanted to scan some pictures while we were out there.  I got through a lot (7 photo albums I think), but I know there are a lot more somewhere and I'm hoping to find them sometime on a future trip.  Here's an old family photo!

And here I am as a tee ball all star!  These are pictures I haven't found dates for yet, so they're still up by all my new pictures until I approximate a year and month and get them closer to when they were taken.

As mentioned, Monday night was FHE at Alyson's house!  Before we swam we all got together to have some pizza and pass around babies!  Look how happy everyone is!

Brooke had a lot of fun swimming with her cousins in the pool!  Jonathan and Cameron are a lot braver/willing to take risks than Brooke, but Brooke never cried so they did a great job not being too extreme for her!

While at my parents' house Brooke got to start sleeping in a big girl bed!  She loved it, and once we put her in she would stay in it until we got her in the morning.  She hasn't been back in a crib since, and not until the last few days has she gotten out of bed on her own.

Since both mine and Monica's parents live within an hour of each other we split our week between families.  On Wednesday we headed down to spend time with Monica's family.  While we were there Brooke even helped clean!

On Thursday we had Audrey's (Brooke's cousin) birthday party!  It was unicorn themed, complete with a rainbow to go under when you went from room to room!  Brooke had a lot of fun at the party.  There was pin the horn on the unicorn, and making glitter bottles, and decorating cookies!  Lots of fun!  I'm so glad we were invited and in town so we could attend!

Thursday afternoon Monica's friend Christine came down to visit from Idaho and we headed to the paleontology museum at BYU.  I had never been there before, and while it isn't huge, it was awesome!  We even got to take a family picture under this skeleton.  It's probably related to a giraffe somehow, so this fits in with my pictures from Cheyenne Mountain Zoo!

Brooke even took a picture with Camden sitting on a dinosaur leg bone!

Winry got eaten by this giant alligator like thing!

But she wasn't enough food, so Brooke got eaten too!

We even found a dinosaur egg to point at!  It was pretty impressive just how much stuff they have there.  Some things are the actual bones, etc. and others are copies made from the originals.

After a few days sleeping on a boring old mattress at Gram's house Brooke wanted to upgrade to the tent she kept seeing!  She got so excited the first time she got in!  She did a great job sleeping in there too, and not letting her excitement keep her awake.  Also, because I'm just remembering right now, I'm pretty sure that Brooke had no accidents over night while we were out in Utah, and we even got up one night to use the potty!

Here we are getting ready to go visit campus on Friday.

We headed to the BYU Store and got a picture with Cosmo on his bench.  We did a bunch of looking around, but we couldn't find the things we were looking for there.  We did find some pizza bagels and the world's best chocolate milk though, so we got them to take with us while we walked around campus!

After walking around campus for a while it was time to go to the MOA for lunch.  We of course stopped by the stuffed cougars on the way, and Brooke also noticed the deer (look on the left, behind the rock wall)!  She was even more excited for the deer and instead of yelling "GO COUGARS" she kept yelling "GOOOO REINDEER!!!"

The MOA had this cool art exhibit going on right outside the cafe!  It was a lot of string in all colors to make a rainbow!  After we had lunch we went to visit my old professor, Dr. Wirthlin and see how things were going in the lab!  It was a lot of fun to be back and see how things are going.  Also, they're building a new engineering building that will attach to the Clyde, and we got to see the outside of that.  It opens later this year, so we weren't able to walk through it, but that gives us something cool to look forward to next time we visit!

Saturday was Jack's baptism.  It was great!  He seemed really excited!  At the baptism Jack and all his cousins got up and sang "I am a Child of God!"  The day before they had practiced it and I asked Brooke to sing louder so that we could hear her with everyone else.  She did an amazing job, and I (and everyone else) LOVED the musical number!

On Saturday night Ron (Monica's dad) got us tickets to go see the Circus.  There was one that had set up for about a week or so in Provo, and we got to go opening night!  On the way, Brooke was unsure, but once we got there and she saw it she loved it! And Winry loved it and even took a nap for a while during it!

Here we all are as a family!

Sunday morning we headed back for home.  We stopped in Parachute to go to church on the way, and there was a TON of traffic on I-70 for about the last 150 miles of the drive.  A lot of people head out to the mountains from Denver every weekend it would seem.  Google put together a pretty nice slideshow/video of the whole trip too! 

When we got home Brooke was done with sleeping in a crib, so we pulled out her mattress.  Obviously a mattress alone would not be enough, and fortunately I have a teepee!  It fits just perfectly around her mattress too!

One day this past week when I got home Brooke was putting on Monica's pumping bra.  I don't think anything I write could top the video, so we'll just leave it there.

Today Brooke wanted to wear her Easter dress, and Winry is just getting big enough to wear her matching one!  We headed down to Colorado Springs to go to our friend, Trisha's baby Isabel's baby blessing.  We were able to make it back in time for second hour in our ward where I had to teach.  It was great that everything worked out just right, and it was fun to get to see the Klatts again.

For Father's Day Brooke got me this awesome shirt!

We also grabbed some 5 month pictures of Winry today (she hit 5 months 6 days ago)!  What a cutie!  I love this little girl so much!  She is so great and brings so much joy to our lives!

And, I can ALWAYS make her smile!

Phew, that was a lot!  Thanks for sticking with me through it all!  I hope everyone had a great week (or two...), and thanks for stopping by and catching up with us!  Have a great week!

Ragnar 2018

Hey all!  We had a great week!  We headed out to Utah to run Ragnar with my family!  Here we are all at the end, once we were able to smile again!  Really I had a lot of fun, and I think everyone else did too!

We drove out for Ragnar on Thursday.  We left at 3:30 in the  morning to let the kids sleep for as much as possible.  Winry basically slept the entire time we were in the car, and Brooke did awesome!  She got to use the tablet and watch movies while we drove, and even wore her kitty head phones!

We had the joy of waiting on the freeway for 30 minutes due to a rolled semi truck.  We didn't know what was going on, but we got there pretty close to after it happened as we were only 15-20 cars back in line.

We stopped at Little America to get ice cream and Brooke got to see a dinosaur.  She was really excited, but wouldn't get any closer than this.

We made it out safely, and all in all things went great!  We got to spend some time with my family, and just a little after bed time I headed out with the Ragnar team to go sleep at a friends house close to the starting line (we started at 5 am).  On the way to the race we passed the Wells Fargo horse semi!  That was pretty cool to see.

Friday morning at 5 am we started Ragnar!  Things were not very organized at the start, so there was a bit of waiting and some pleasant, very cold rain.  Luckily we had some umbrellas with us!  The race started a little late (we were in the first wave to leave) and actually ended up starting at 5:06 in the morning.  This year was definitely the year of the floss.  It was just the thing to do.

I was runner 5, so it was a while until my turn to run.  My first run was up Avon Pass, which was 8.8 miles and up about 1500 feet.  It was basically uphill the whole way.  The rain that morning made parts of the road very muddy, which almost pulled my shoes off a few times and got a nice rock in my shoe as well!  I ran past a few cows about 3 feet away that were not fenced in.  As I approached they snapped their heads up and looked at me, but fortunately went back to eating!  Also, as you can see in this picture it is a pretty run... and thankfully for this picture I know that now too! ;)

Some time later when we were back in the car we found that I had picked up friend!  I had a caterpillar on my shoulder!

One of the exchanges was next to a horse pen (actually, I saw a lot of horses, cows, goats, etc. on Ragnar), so I grabbed a picture to send to Brooke.  I wanted it to look like I was touching the horse... and I guess this does... Not quite exactly where I planned.

While I was out running Winry was playing with her cousin William, and I got this picture!  So cute!

My second run I pushed pretty hard.  It was 3.9 miles and I finished with a 7:48/mile pace.  Not bad for 9 months of plantar fasciitis!

We headed to the next exchange for some sleep, and we always bring some cots to sleep on.  The nice thing about cots is that you can set them up on rocks, so we don't have to worry about having a space on the grass to sleep!  I'm the farthest cot.

The Ragnar slap bracelet/baton makes for some nice makeshift sunglasses when in a pinch.  Also, as mentioned before, this Ragnar was the year of the floss, which even included some instruction.  I already included the team picture at the top from after the race.  I think everyone had a great time, and we even finished almost 3 hours before our predicted time!  Great job team!

Brooke was super excited to see me when I got back and told me that she had missed me very much while I was gone!  I got her and Winry Ragnar shirts at the finish line, and she was so excited to wear it today!  I should have gotten a picture, and I would go grab one now, but the kids are asleep... Hopefully I remember to grab a picture next time they're wearing them.

Today Brooke was drinking some milk and found another cup on the table and this happened... oops, got her cup stuck!  Fortunately Monica was able to get it out so we didn't have to lose all that milk! Also you may notice the spoon in Brooke's cup....she had to "scoop the milk"!

Oh hey, look at that!  I did actually have a picture of the girls in their Ragnar shirts!  Brooke wanted to hold Winry today!

Today at church in Elder's quorum we had a lesson about how all members of the body (and church) are needed!  It was really great to hear some personal stories of people trying to uplift one another and help everyone to feel needed.  One person shared a story about getting to know a neighbor who has been inactive for a long time, and shared about attending his mothers funeral and talking with him.  His friend introduced him to people as a "ward member" and started having a gospel discussion with him!  It was a great story, but I especially liked what he shared at the start.  He talked about how he always found it inspirational to hear other people share stories of ministering to each other, and going out of their way to help lift and bless each others lives, and because of the positive influence others stories have on him, he wanted to share his story.  I agree!  I think it is great to hear stories of how people have reached out to bless those around them.  There were several stories shared today and they were all great!  I enjoyed them so much that at one point when they mentioned someone needed help with sprinklers tomorrow night I even thought "I want to go help!".. but I don't actually know where they were talking about... and I won't be around to go...  But the point is I was inspired!  I encourage everyone to be willing to reach out and bless the lives of those around you!  I know that our efforts can make significant differences in the lives of those we come in contact with.  We need to always be seeking for opportunities to help our fellow man.  I share this in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.