Memorial Day and Parker Days!

It would seem I missed a post last week... and I'm not even sure why.  I guess I just forgot.  Well nearly 2 weeks ago was Memorial Day.  I'm fuzzy on what happened in the morning, but in the afternoon we took Brooke to the park!

Oh, and for breakfast we had German Pancakes!  They were very good, and I really like how the corners rise super out of the dish.  They almost hit the top of the oven.

We weren't at the park long before a storm rolled in, so we decided to head home before we got soaked.

And then we finally got to the campfire I was waiting for!  I did some reading online and it said if you put bricks under the firepit they'd absorb the heat and the lawn wouldn't die.  Well I did that as well as soaking the bricks periodically with the hose, and the lawn was fine!  Mostly I was super excited to roast some hot dogs!

They were very good!  I was not disappointed.  Monica and I had a lot of fun with our fire and we had s'mores for dessert too.  Sadly when I was cleaning up at the end I burnt myself with one of the poker cooker things. :(

It wasn't too bad, but I did keep scratching it with my nail when I'd take my socks off, so it probably got worse with time.

Since Brooke has been pretty good about sitting up Monica put her in the shopping cart, and she loves it!  Just look at that smile!  She was also kicking her legs the whole time.  We later tried to recreate this experience and she did not love it quite as much... but she was also tired and hungry, so she didn't like anything.

Last Saturday, as in 8 days ago, I went out to fix one of our sprinkler lines.  It was not working great last year, but this year I could hear underground where the line was getting pinched.  It took a while to dig up, but I eventually found it.  I hatcheted it out and cut up the line real bad in the process so I had to go replace it, but the sprinklers work like champs now!  So that's good for half of our lawn.

One of the great things about Brooke eating solids is that we can now share our foods with her sometimes, depending on what's in them.  One day we were having a smoothie while Brooke was eating and she had to have some too!

Another day I ran home from work and when I got home I was very hot, so Monica went and got a Popsicle for me.  Brooke really likes popsicles, or at least that flavor!

On Friday we headed over to Parker Days.  It's a big festival they do in Parker each year.  It was pretty cool.  They had lots of booths and tents set up all through the city center and they even had a few mini amusement parks.

We also saw this little snack building.  I don't think I've ever seen it before, but I now wonder if it's always been parked there on Main street and I just never noticed before...

There were 2 mini amusement parks and we walked through the one for little kids.  There was another one with much bigger rides that we could see.  We didn't see anything there that we thought Brooke would enjoy just quite yet though.  Maybe in a year or two.

They also had a really great photo spot!

All in all Parker days was really cool and it's too bad we didn't go last year.  I'm excited for the future when Brooke will be bigger and able to enjoy it more.

Saturday was super chore day!  We did a lot of cleaning, and then Monica left to get a pedicure with Katie and made me clean the rest of the house myself!!  I spent most of the afternoon finishing up my talk and lesson for church today!  What a busy day for us all!

Pizza Oven

Another week has flown by.  The school year is over so I find myself with a little more time as tutoring has finished up for the next few months.  Most of that time is spent trying to keep Brooke happy.

Speaking of, Brooke is continuing along with solids and is doing great.  She's getting a lot better at eating food and not letting it all fall out of her mouth.  Also, every time we give her a new food she gets this look on her face like "... what is this..."  It never looks like she'll enjoy a new food.  But after she processes the new taste for a while she's always ready to dig in.

She even reaches out for the spoon and tries to feed herself if you're too slow!

So far she's loved everything she's had and we haven't run into an allergy yet!

On Wednesday night I made my way out to Elders quorum basketball.  This is only my second time going as last time I went I messed up my big toe really bad.  About half of my toe nail is full of blood underneath, but it hadn't hurt for a long time, so I figured it wouldn't be a big deal to go.  Well, I only played 2 games, one in the basketball shoes I wore before that caused everything, and one in different shoes, but by the second game it was too late.  I'd say that my toe got worse, but the wound actually moved all the way to the side of the nail and allowed it all to drain out, so my toe now is actually doing a lot better than it was before!  So there's a bit of good news.  I took half the week off of running while my toe was recovering, but I'm excited to get back out and give it a go tomorrow and see how I'm feeling.

I don't remember which night, but this week Monica made happy ramen noodles (I believe that's the proper name of the recipe)!

And Brooke spend some time on her tummy.  I like to put some toys a little ways in front of her because she'll reach for them and sometimes kick her legs, so I'm hoping it helps her get moving sooner.  She was able to reach her dinosaur at some point and made sure she got it in her mouth!

On Saturday we finally got a propane tank so we could use our patio oven.  We made some awesome pizza for dinner!  We even have one of these things.

And in it goes!

The first pizza turned out a little messy.  We were not successful in keeping it from sticking to the... oven paddle thing.  It kinda turned into a pile of stuff and leaked everywhere.  We soon learned the secret and the rest of the pizzas turned out fine!

Here's how our very first "pizza" turned out.  When it wouldn't slide off we tried to make it a calzone so it would be easier to pick up and move... but we still ended up with... something else.

I'm real excited for tomorrow night.  We're going to get out our fire pit and roast hot dogs!  I'm really excited, and hopefully Brooke enjoys a good camp fire!

I hope everyone out there has a great week and enjoys the day off tomorrow!

6 months!

Howdy all!  It was a great week over here.  Brooke finally hit the 6 month mark!  We wanted to take some 6 month pictures with her in her great dress she wore last Sunday, but she was having none of it so this is the only one we got.

This week was good.  We were pretty busy through most of the week, and Brooke was having another growth spurt, so she was all kinds of grump!  She got shots again on Tuesday, which she loved!!

Also, solids have been going well.  We've given her oatmeal, bananas, sweet potatoes and apple sauce.  We even made her sweet potato fries one day so she could try to feed herself.  Typically with things like that she'll put it in her mouth and take a bite.  Then she drops whatever's in her hand and opens her mouth wide open until all the food has fallen out... but at least she's doing well with mashed up things!  Apple sauce is probably her favorite food right now.  It's also very convenient for us as we just have to take it out of the jar!

Saturday was a very full day.  I went running in the morning, and then right when I got home we left to get breakfast.  There's a place in Parker called The Egg and I that only does breakfast and lunch, so we went to try it.  It was very good, and Brooke was very happy while we were there!

After we had been there she started getting a little upset, but nothing looking at a picture of her on my phone couldn't cure.  Video

I spent most of the day working out in the yard.  I mowed the lawn, turned on the sprinklers and made sure they work, and got all the rocks and rose bushes out of our little strip of dirt along the walkway to the front door.  I moved a few sprinklers around and put in a whole bunch of grass seed.  Hopefully in a month or two we'll have grass in there!

Monica went to a yoga class earlier in the day at the rec center and got a day pass.  When I finished working outside she thought we should take Brooke swimming.  It was a great idea!  Brooke enjoyed the water, and her mouth only went in a couple times... which she wasn't too fond of.

She had a lot of fun and enjoyed swimming around the lazy river chasing dad!  Swimming really tired her out and when we got home she ate and zonked off to sleep!  All in all a very busy and exciting Saturday!

And with that I believe we're all caught up!  Hope everyone is doing fantastic out there!  Have a wonderful week!

Alex in "You've had a Birthday, shout HOORAY!" and "The Eternal Flight"

Sorry I missed the post last week.  We had a really crazy day trying to get back home, and when we finally got home we were exhausted, but I'll explain more later.  But look at this super cute picture of Brooke!  This is on her first flight ever!  They even gave her wings!  Delta for the win!! (Katie or David, if you're reading this it's not too late to send us some Southwest wings)

So nigh on 2 weeks ago was my birthday.  Of course I can't really take a birthday picture without Brooke or else no one would care!  Monica decorated the house while I was gone at work, it was a great surprise!  It was also the perfect amount of decoration, not a ton, but enough to make the house look festive.

And of course I got the goods!  I got some root beer flavored licorice, a 50 foot USB cable, a board game, and an Optishot Golf Simulator!!

So of course we were golfing in the living room!  I can swing all my clubs except my Driver in there.  And if we moved the coffee table I would be able to swing my driver too!  We use foam balls instead of real ones because we're not brave enough, and we'd have several holes in the walls and a broken TV if we used real balls, so I think it was a good call.  It's a lot of fun, but we haven't had a lot of time for it because Brooke's been staying up pretty late the last 2 weeks.

And of course I got some delicious peanut butter chocolate cake!  We took it with us to Tyson and Tina's house the Saturday before, so that's why so much is missing!  I promise we didn't eat all that before candles!

Brooke has started sucking on her thumb.  This often results in her hugging her face all night as she sleeps.  The nice thing about sucking her thumb is that she soothes herself when she wakes up in the middle of the night now.  She still doesn't have the fine motor skills to put a pacifier back into her mouth.  The end result of finger sucking is that she's slept through the night for the past week, so that's pretty great!

Also, she wore this adorable jacket one day!

And here's another curled up sleep picture.

Monica's parents (or at least Mom) have been trying to get us to fly out for quite some time.  We picked a weekend that we could come, and it just so happened to be mothers day weekend.  It turns out that was a terrible weekend to fly, because there were big storms here in Denver.  On our flight out we got on the plane, taxied out onto the runway, and then sat there for over 90 minutes waiting for a thunderstorm to pass over.  So our 60 minute flight took 3 hours.  All in all from the time we left our house to getting to Monica's parents took 7 hours, so it was just faster than driving.

While out in Utah the family came over to visit.  This tended to lead to late nights (meaning we stayed up later than 9:30).  As we headed to bed one night Monica saw a Papa Murphy's commercial (link) where a child attempts to eat a taco and ends up dumping most of the contents out.  If you clicked that link you found out that it's not very funny, and Monica will admit to this, but on the way to bed she couldn't stop laughing and eventually collapsed on the stairs, giving me time to take a picture.

What a good night!

We tried to schedule our flights early in the day so it would be easier for Brooke.  This means that we weren't in Utah much on Mother's day.  We got to the airport just fine and through security, but the flight was a disaster.  As we approached Denver there was a severe thunder storm and a tornado south of the airport (I think it was quite distant as there weren't signs of rain when we got to our car).  Anyway, we circled for over and hour waiting for clearance to land and in the end had to fly over to Grand Junction to refuel.  Then we had to wait at Grand Junction for permission to take off.  There are a couple things of importance to note in this whole story.  First is that Monica gets motion sickness, and the turbulence from the storms makes it really bad.  So does taking off and landing.  So she was miserable basically the whole flight trying not to throw up.  Second, we had a baby with us.  Brooke was a real trooper, and if any of our flights had made it there normal time she probably would have just slept the whole way.  Being couped up in our small section of the plane for around 5 hours was just too much for Brooke, and she cried several times.  Monica also had to feed her multiple times, which made her really hot having to hold Brooke which makes her motion sickness worse.  Basically it was probably the worst plane flight I've ever been on.  By the time we finally got home it was 9 pm.  It took us 9 hours to take a 1 hour flight from SLC to Denver... so it probably would have been faster to drive.  It was a very long day, and made for a long tired slow start to the week.  Hence, I didn't blog last week.

When we finally got home it was time for dinner in bed!  PB and J and goldfish.

This last week we started Brooke on solids.  She's had oatmeal and bananas so far.  Today we combined the bananas and oatmeal and she seemed to really like them together.  Today she also seemed to eat a lot more than before.  She usually drooled most of her food out, but she ate quite a bit today, so she's getting much better!

Also, she tries to suck her thumb whether or not her pacifier is in.  If she tries hard enough her thumb gets stuck in her pacifier when she pulls it out of her mouth.  Unfortunately I didn't get a good picture of her thumb stuck in there when it was out of her mouth.

Saturday was a crazy day for me.  I woke up and ran 12 miles, and then spent most of the rest of the day out in the yard.  I mowed the lawn for the first time this year, reseeded parts of the lawn, continued leveling out parts of the lawn, and ripped out our bushes in the front of the house!  Just look at that monster!

And boom!  It's gone!  I think it looks so nice without the bush, and it's still just a dirt pile right now!  Just think about how much better it'll be once there's grass growing in there!

So I must confess, I did use a secret method to get those bushes out in the end.  I was down to the roots of the first bush and struggling digging out the roots when a tree removal company drove around the corner.  They were doing a job at the neighbors house and were done for the day and decided to drive through the neighborhood and see if there was anyone else they could help.  They pulled up and just offered to chip up my branches for me, but I asked how much to take out the bushes too.  It was a great call.  I spent 4 or 5 hours hacking away at the bush to get down to the roots of one, but still a long way from getting it out.  They took about 45 minutes to pull them both completely out.  I am SO glad they drove by!  It was an answer to the prayer I didn't realize I said.

Well, I believe we're all caught up now.  Again, sorry for not posting last week, I never had a chance on Sunday, and then I just forgot through the week.  Hope everyone out there is doing well!  Have a great week!

Lawn Darts

Well, for as busy of a week as this was I have surprisingly few pictures...  Last Sunday we took advantage of a nice day to head outside and play lawn darts, Brooke included!  Unfortunately wearing a baby does take it's toll on lawn dart playing and we lost bitterly.  Next time Monica has to wear the baby!

Just look at that easy going, non-weighed down strut!

Also, we are good enough that spectators started to watch.  The kids who live next door came out and climbed up on the fence to see what we were doing, and this squirrel was watching us from the top of our tree!

Maybe next round we"ll charge admission.  Speaking of charging admission, that reminds me of a completely unrelated story.  I remember going down to visit Matt Donahue in St. George for a couple days.  While I was down there we played a lot of basketball, and we decided what if we sold tickets to our game?  Matt was the Jazz (all of them) and I was the Bulls and we were playing for the NBA title.  Who knew the title game would be out on driveway?  The NBA has come a long way in the last 20ish years.  Anyway, we made tickets for the game and actually sold them to his family.  The tickets were 10 or 15 cents each, and we may not have even set up the chairs outside!  Unlike real history the Jazz managed to win the championship.  And also unlike real history, the trophy was a drawing on paper!

With that side note concluded we can continue on with this week.  Work went well enough.  I burned 2 of my finalized FPGA designs and they went back to manufacturing to be soldered down to the boards.  In a few weeks the board will come back and then I'll have to test them all and make sure they work.

Friday night Katie and David came over and we had dinner and played games, well, just game.  We played Ticket to Ride which I wouldn't consider a long game, but apparently took the whole night.  The best part of it all was that I WON!  That totally makes up for my disgraceful performance in the NBA finals so long ago.

While they were here they mentioned that they took in the car for the Takata airbag recall.  The dealership said they would have their car for about 2 months because there are so many cars that need to be fixed, and gave them money for a rental car in the mean time.  This story inspired the only other picture I took this week, a picture of our new(er) car's VIN number.  Don't worry, our car is safe and has no open recalls on it.

Saturday was quite a rush.  We spent the morning running and baking and trying to keep Brooke happy all while trying to get ready to head up to Tyson and Tina's house.  While we were at their house we got to hear a recital, play games with the kids, move furniture, have dinner and cake, and even do a short interview!  What a night.  It was a lot of fun and it had been far too long since we'd gotten together.

This morning has been full of making rolls for dinner tonight and trying to keep Brooke asleep during nap time!

That's about all the news for the week.  Hopefully I'll do a little better at getting pictures this next week!

The Incline!!

Hello to all you good people!  This past week just flew by!  i finally got my FPGA design closed and it's all ready to go!  So that's very exciting.  Just one more to go and then it's on to hardware testing!

On Friday night we had some friends in the ward over for dinner and games.  It was a lot of fun!  Around 9:45 they confessed it was 15 minutes past their bedtime and they probably needed to head home cause they were getting really tired!  Little did they know it was also 15 minutes past ours! So that worked out perfectly.  It was also nice because I had to wake up early on Saturday because we took the young men in the ward to the Manitou Incline.  It's a pretty intense hike.

Basically you hike straight up the side of a mountain.  They've put in a whole bunch of wooden beams to prevent erosion and to give you steps to climb up on.  Here's what it looks like down the mountain from part of the way up.

And here is a picture at the top!

And I also grabbed a photo sphere.  I'm hoping if you click on it it'll open up to provide the real effect.

We hiked down the back way which is a lot less steep.  The hike up is just about a mile, but the hike down was 3.  In spite of the difference in length it took about as long to get up as it did to get back down.

On the way down there were some nice views from the trail.

It was a lot of fun and everybody made it back safely.  That night we went to a dinner group.  The ward organizes them about once a year and families sign up and then get put in groups for dinner.  It was a lot of fun to get out with some other families in the ward.

It of course wouldn't be a week without a picture of Brooke.  We went to Target this past week and she insisted on trying on sunglasses... sigh.

They're still a little too big for her head, so she didn't insist on buying them.

Well, I think that's all I've got for this week.  Hope everyone is doing fantastic!