Sunday, October 15, 2006
Happy Birthday to Kelli
This morning I went to Andrew's cousin's wife, Sarah's baby shower. That was really pretty fun. A little awkward since I still don't know many people on Andrew's side of the family very well, but Sarah and I are in that boat together, so I suppose if she can go to a shower where she hardly knows anyone, then so can I! Sarah and Nathan got married the day before Andrew and I did.
My sister Abra turned...well, I suppose I'll just say she had a birthday on Tuesday. My other sister, Kelli, had her birthday today. We all went over to my mom's house for dinner (and cake and root beer floats). Besides which I am singing in church with my mom tomorrow so we had to practice.
Kelli and the twins are spending the night at my parent's house, so right now, Andrew is helping Kelli with her algebra course. She asked me to help her! Fat chance of that!
Anyway, here are some pictures from her birthday party. It was pretty low key, and I definitely had a hard time taking a picture of her. She kept hiding. I eventually convinced her that her picture would look fine if she'd just hold still and smile!
You'll want to zoom in for the next picture. David thought that I had already taken his picture so he made a face at the camera, right when I took the picture.
Speaking of David...there's a really funny story about him. My mom asked him to sign the card for Kelli. He went and did that and then left the card in the other room. My mom walked into the kitchen and said, "David, where did you put the C-A-R-D?"
We spell a lot of things out in our family because...well, it's just what we do. The idea is that if you spell a word out that the "children" will have no idea what you're talking about. In this case, the child is nearing 30 and knows very well what C-A-R-D spells. Not that it really matters. When we were young children it wasn't uncommon for one of us to say, "Mom, can I have a coo...I mean a c-o-o-k-i-e?" Or to say, "But I don't want to go to bed" in answer to "Should we put the kids to b-e-d?" We all can spell, and because our parents insisted on spelling things over our heads, learned to spell at a young age. At least, we could all spell cookie, cake, nap, bed, dessert, McDonald's, and a few other key words.
Anyway, David went to answer my mom's question of "Where's the C-A-R-D?" by spelling back to her. He said, "It's on the D-E-Eeeegh..." Then he burst out laughing. My sister Kelli also burst out laughing. They tried talking to each other but were laughing too hard. Everyone was left in the dark. Finally Kelli gets out, "You're...trying...to..." and then before she can finish has a laughing fit. So we all waited around for an answer to why they were laughing so hard. Giggling along in that uncomfortable I-really-have-no-idea-what's-going-on-but-I
-feel-left-out-if-I-don't-laugh-too way.
As it turns out, he was trying to spell "DVD player" but couldn't decide how to spell DVD. Is that D-V-D or is that D-E-E-V-E-E-D-E-E? D-V-D is a little too obvious, if you ask me. We all had a good laugh about it. Man, spend one night with my family and I'm not sure you'd consider any of us of normal intelligence.
After dinner at mom and dad's house, Andrew and I went home to clean up our house a bit. We invited Kelli (and the rest of my family), as well as Andrew's family, to play games at our apartment. Kelli put the twins to sleep and then she and Josie headed over. Andrew's parents and Emily also stopped by. It was a pretty fun evening, even with all the silly antics going on!
*****
My sister Abra turned...well, I suppose I'll just say she had a birthday on Tuesday. My other sister, Kelli, had her birthday today. We all went over to my mom's house for dinner (and cake and root beer floats). Besides which I am singing in church with my mom tomorrow so we had to practice.
Kelli and the twins are spending the night at my parent's house, so right now, Andrew is helping Kelli with her algebra course. She asked me to help her! Fat chance of that!
Anyway, here are some pictures from her birthday party. It was pretty low key, and I definitely had a hard time taking a picture of her. She kept hiding. I eventually convinced her that her picture would look fine if she'd just hold still and smile!
Us Singing "Happy Birthday" to Kelli
You'll want to zoom in for the next picture. David thought that I had already taken his picture so he made a face at the camera, right when I took the picture.
Speaking of David...there's a really funny story about him. My mom asked him to sign the card for Kelli. He went and did that and then left the card in the other room. My mom walked into the kitchen and said, "David, where did you put the C-A-R-D?"
We spell a lot of things out in our family because...well, it's just what we do. The idea is that if you spell a word out that the "children" will have no idea what you're talking about. In this case, the child is nearing 30 and knows very well what C-A-R-D spells. Not that it really matters. When we were young children it wasn't uncommon for one of us to say, "Mom, can I have a coo...I mean a c-o-o-k-i-e?" Or to say, "But I don't want to go to bed" in answer to "Should we put the kids to b-e-d?" We all can spell, and because our parents insisted on spelling things over our heads, learned to spell at a young age. At least, we could all spell cookie, cake, nap, bed, dessert, McDonald's, and a few other key words.
Anyway, David went to answer my mom's question of "Where's the C-A-R-D?" by spelling back to her. He said, "It's on the D-E-Eeeegh..." Then he burst out laughing. My sister Kelli also burst out laughing. They tried talking to each other but were laughing too hard. Everyone was left in the dark. Finally Kelli gets out, "You're...trying...to..." and then before she can finish has a laughing fit. So we all waited around for an answer to why they were laughing so hard. Giggling along in that uncomfortable I-really-have-no-idea-what's-going-on-but-I
-feel-left-out-if-I-don't-laugh-too way.
As it turns out, he was trying to spell "DVD player" but couldn't decide how to spell DVD. Is that D-V-D or is that D-E-E-V-E-E-D-E-E? D-V-D is a little too obvious, if you ask me. We all had a good laugh about it. Man, spend one night with my family and I'm not sure you'd consider any of us of normal intelligence.
After dinner at mom and dad's house, Andrew and I went home to clean up our house a bit. We invited Kelli (and the rest of my family), as well as Andrew's family, to play games at our apartment. Kelli put the twins to sleep and then she and Josie headed over. Andrew's parents and Emily also stopped by. It was a pretty fun evening, even with all the silly antics going on!
Correction
Andrew's OPI final OPI score wasn't Intermediate: High, as Nancy reported. It was really Advanced: High, which gives more sense to that post.
Saturday, October 14, 2006
Integrative Biology Opening Social
I work in the Integrative Biology department, for those of you who don't know. My job description (when I was hired) was this:
"The Graduate Secretary works with fifty to sixty graduate students, the graduate coordinator, department chair, and other faculty and staff. This position maintains student records and forms and tracks student progress. He/she coordinates with the department secretary in matters relating to graduate student tuition, contracts, and travel. This position also acts as department seminar coordinator, working with faculty to host off-campus seminar speakers and helps to organize three department banquets annually. "
If you add to that: maintains the website, writes articles for MyBYU News, designs new brochures for the department (both undergraduates and graduates), publishes newsletters, gives computer help to anyone who happens to walk into her office, maintains the bulletin board in the hallway, creates new budgets for people to follow, does office allocation, coordinates scholarships for undergrads and graduates, and many other things. And, if you take away: "helps to organize" and fill that in with "organizes with little to no help and/or support," then you'd just about have my position right there.
I feel that I do a lot of things in addition to my "job description" that I was hired for and people keep giving me more things to do. It's kind of frustrating. The department chair will walk into my office and give me something to do. If I start to say something he says something to the effect of, "You're going to ask me how to do this. Well, don't. You figure it out." And then he'll leave, even if what I was going to say was, "Oh, by the way, I've never done this in my life, have no access to these records, and was never trained to do this. This is part of the other secretary's job." It's impossible. He won't listen. He intimidates me so bad! He travels a lot, which I'm kinda grateful for since work is always a lot more calm when he's not there.
Anyway, last night was the Integrative Biology Opening Social. I had planned this for 300 people before I left for Jordan. I arranged the park, had a preliminary list for the food. Had it all prepared with fliers made up and everything. I even had it approved by the Department Chair (the old one, whom I adore!) and the Financial Secretary. Well, I come back from Jordan to a split department. 1/3 of our faculty and students are gone. The BYUGSA activity was scheduled for the same night and the weather was horrible. So, we rescheduled.
Last night was the next available Friday. The department chair said to go for it. So I did. I invited all the undergraduates, the graduates, the faculty, the staff, our student secretaries, the post-docs...and their families. So really, that should have been quite a number of people. I mean with only graduate students and faculty we have about 60--and then with spouses and children, the number should be higher, right?
So I dropped off my count to about 200 when I did the preliminary ordering for the food. I asked for the students to RSVP (the professors generally do that anyway). In total, 7 professors and 5 students RSVP'd. 3 of them yes, the rest no. So, out of 200 people invited, that really is not a very good count to go off of at all.
Andrew and I left to go set up at 4:30. We had a few mishaps. One being that there was no spigot at the park. There was, however, a drinking fountain. Andrew got all creative and made a funnel out of paper cups.
In all, it took us a full hour to set up, so we were done by 5:30. No one was there. The park is one of those places that is hard to find and hard to give directions to, but once you find it you realize that "duh"--it is right there and was totally easy to find all along. I told everyone..."It's right before Reams [a grocery store]. It's on 2230 N, just head west, you'll go over a bridge and you turn right after you're over it." Yeah, so I went out and stood on the corner for like half and hour being a land mark for everyone. And then I sent Andrew out to be the landmark. We eventually just started dinner at around 6:10.
There were about 10 people there.
I phoned my mom and she brought over Kelli, the twins, and Josie. And a few other people trickled in as the night went on, so all in all we had about 30 people there. The people who came had a good time, I think. We played a little game to get to know the faculty. That was pretty fun. I just got a random fact that no one would ever suspect of them and posted them around and had people guess who they were. Only 7 people turned in facts (we need to work on this in our department. It's a big problem! No one turns in anything! No one RSVP's!) but it was still fun. We had things such as:
I once had a set of 7-eleven floor mats stolen by a gang of Hell's Angels bikers.
I was an extra in Footloose and you can see me in 3 or 4 scenes.
I have a BB embedded in my left hand.
I drove a tank for the US Army.
I received two scholarships--one for dance and one for the engineering program.
I play volleyball for the A division.
I lived in Latin America for 7 years as a teenager.
I had no idea was had such a diverse faculty. It was fun to learn these things about the faculty--I was asked to do it again...and try to get more answers from the faculty. I'm in charge of the Christmas party as well, so maybe we'll be repeating this game then.
So, even though the social was kind of a flop (it was Friday the thirteenth) the people who came had a great time and the park was beautiful. I decided that I really like fall. The trees are just so pretty. It still is pretty warm-ish during the day... The only downside is that it leads to winter...yuck. But even that isn't too bad this far south.
"The Graduate Secretary works with fifty to sixty graduate students, the graduate coordinator, department chair, and other faculty and staff. This position maintains student records and forms and tracks student progress. He/she coordinates with the department secretary in matters relating to graduate student tuition, contracts, and travel. This position also acts as department seminar coordinator, working with faculty to host off-campus seminar speakers and helps to organize three department banquets annually. "
If you add to that: maintains the website, writes articles for MyBYU News, designs new brochures for the department (both undergraduates and graduates), publishes newsletters, gives computer help to anyone who happens to walk into her office, maintains the bulletin board in the hallway, creates new budgets for people to follow, does office allocation, coordinates scholarships for undergrads and graduates, and many other things. And, if you take away: "helps to organize" and fill that in with "organizes with little to no help and/or support," then you'd just about have my position right there.
I feel that I do a lot of things in addition to my "job description" that I was hired for and people keep giving me more things to do. It's kind of frustrating. The department chair will walk into my office and give me something to do. If I start to say something he says something to the effect of, "You're going to ask me how to do this. Well, don't. You figure it out." And then he'll leave, even if what I was going to say was, "Oh, by the way, I've never done this in my life, have no access to these records, and was never trained to do this. This is part of the other secretary's job." It's impossible. He won't listen. He intimidates me so bad! He travels a lot, which I'm kinda grateful for since work is always a lot more calm when he's not there.
Anyway, last night was the Integrative Biology Opening Social. I had planned this for 300 people before I left for Jordan. I arranged the park, had a preliminary list for the food. Had it all prepared with fliers made up and everything. I even had it approved by the Department Chair (the old one, whom I adore!) and the Financial Secretary. Well, I come back from Jordan to a split department. 1/3 of our faculty and students are gone. The BYUGSA activity was scheduled for the same night and the weather was horrible. So, we rescheduled.
Last night was the next available Friday. The department chair said to go for it. So I did. I invited all the undergraduates, the graduates, the faculty, the staff, our student secretaries, the post-docs...and their families. So really, that should have been quite a number of people. I mean with only graduate students and faculty we have about 60--and then with spouses and children, the number should be higher, right?
So I dropped off my count to about 200 when I did the preliminary ordering for the food. I asked for the students to RSVP (the professors generally do that anyway). In total, 7 professors and 5 students RSVP'd. 3 of them yes, the rest no. So, out of 200 people invited, that really is not a very good count to go off of at all.
Andrew and I left to go set up at 4:30. We had a few mishaps. One being that there was no spigot at the park. There was, however, a drinking fountain. Andrew got all creative and made a funnel out of paper cups.
In all, it took us a full hour to set up, so we were done by 5:30. No one was there. The park is one of those places that is hard to find and hard to give directions to, but once you find it you realize that "duh"--it is right there and was totally easy to find all along. I told everyone..."It's right before Reams [a grocery store]. It's on 2230 N, just head west, you'll go over a bridge and you turn right after you're over it." Yeah, so I went out and stood on the corner for like half and hour being a land mark for everyone. And then I sent Andrew out to be the landmark. We eventually just started dinner at around 6:10.
There were about 10 people there.
I phoned my mom and she brought over Kelli, the twins, and Josie. And a few other people trickled in as the night went on, so all in all we had about 30 people there. The people who came had a good time, I think. We played a little game to get to know the faculty. That was pretty fun. I just got a random fact that no one would ever suspect of them and posted them around and had people guess who they were. Only 7 people turned in facts (we need to work on this in our department. It's a big problem! No one turns in anything! No one RSVP's!) but it was still fun. We had things such as:
I once had a set of 7-eleven floor mats stolen by a gang of Hell's Angels bikers.
I was an extra in Footloose and you can see me in 3 or 4 scenes.
I have a BB embedded in my left hand.
I drove a tank for the US Army.
I received two scholarships--one for dance and one for the engineering program.
I play volleyball for the A division.
I lived in Latin America for 7 years as a teenager.
I had no idea was had such a diverse faculty. It was fun to learn these things about the faculty--I was asked to do it again...and try to get more answers from the faculty. I'm in charge of the Christmas party as well, so maybe we'll be repeating this game then.
So, even though the social was kind of a flop (it was Friday the thirteenth) the people who came had a great time and the park was beautiful. I decided that I really like fall. The trees are just so pretty. It still is pretty warm-ish during the day... The only downside is that it leads to winter...yuck. But even that isn't too bad this far south.
Thursday, October 12, 2006
5 hour date
Last night Andrew and I had the most enjoyable evening. We went to the temple with Grandpa Frank & Grandma Sharon, and Brock & Layla. It was nice to get to do that with them before Grandpa and Grandma leave on their mission. After we went to dinner at Los Hermanos. The service was terrible, but that gave us a lot more time to visit with each other. Grant came to dinner with us as well. We pretended it was his birthday. It is his birthday in a week, so we didn't have to pretend that much, it was still pretty funny. He kept insisting that it was his birthday and demanding things.
Because Grandma and Grandpa won't be here for Christmas, they gave us our presents already. With specific instructions not to open them until Christmas. Andrew is having a hard time with this. He really doesn't do well waiting to open things. So, I hid the presents from him. We'll see how long they stay hidden. Hopefully he'll leave them be until Christmas.
Layla was pretty bad, too. She kept hinting about her Christmas present for Grandma and Grandpa all through dinner.
It's only October. We still have Halloween and Thanksgiving to go through until we have to worry about Christmas!
Because Grandma and Grandpa won't be here for Christmas, they gave us our presents already. With specific instructions not to open them until Christmas. Andrew is having a hard time with this. He really doesn't do well waiting to open things. So, I hid the presents from him. We'll see how long they stay hidden. Hopefully he'll leave them be until Christmas.
Layla was pretty bad, too. She kept hinting about her Christmas present for Grandma and Grandpa all through dinner.
It's only October. We still have Halloween and Thanksgiving to go through until we have to worry about Christmas!
Andrew's Arabic
Last month, Andrew took the OPI--that's the Oral Proficiency Interview, a government test for languages. We've been waiting for his score all month and trying to guess what he got. Andrew guessed that he would be at an Advanced: Mid level. When he took the test before we went to Jordan he didn't really do all that hot, so he thought he'd jump a level and then add a little bit more on to that.
Well, we finally got his score today. He got an Advanced: High. That's one step below a superior! Okay, so it's not really a step down, it's like a whole level down. He still has to study for a few more years before he could be a superior, and live in an Arabic-speaking for a while. But, Advanced: High is still a really good score.
Wow, the miracle of living in Jordan.
Well, we finally got his score today. He got an Advanced: High. That's one step below a superior! Okay, so it's not really a step down, it's like a whole level down. He still has to study for a few more years before he could be a superior, and live in an Arabic-speaking for a while. But, Advanced: High is still a really good score.
Wow, the miracle of living in Jordan.
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Mini-Thanksgiving from the microwave
Thanksgiving just wouldn't be Thanksgiving without a hand-turkey, and a nice home-cooked meal. Unfortunately, Andrew and I were on campus until 4-ish and by the time we got home we were starving! We have this little habit of sleeping in and getting ready in twenty minutes, only remembering to grab a pack of fruit snacks or something equally un-filling. (See, mom, fruit snacks are useful!) This morning we had bagels because Andrew had been smart enough to take them out of the freezer yesterday. I suppose before I get into today I can tell about yesterday. I will provide minimal details because this is Thanksgiving and it's supposed to be a happy day.
Andrew's grandparents (Frank and Sharon) got set apart as missionaries yesterday. They are going to be humanitarian missionaries in charge of the Middle East and eastern Europe or something...they will be based in Germany (Heiss...Germany...Heiss...). They had previously served in Lebanon but that mission is closed now (I wonder why...) so they are glad that they will at least still be involved with Lebanon, even though they won't be living there.
Naturally, the whole family came to celebrate. We had a wonderful dinner after fasting all day. Dinner somehow tastes so much better when you've been going without all day--even if it is just a sandwich. We ate virtually everything there. And we did have a good visit with Grandpa Frank, Uncle Matt, and Aunt Nicki. Unfortunately, the family dynamics were quite interesting. Sarah and Emily were mad at each other. Emily and Jacob were mad at each other. Katherine was mad at the world. And a lot of people were upset with her. That, and Sarah was playing boss. So with so many "happy" attitudes going on we had a very interesting evening. But, we are glad that Grandma and Grandpa will be going on a mission. That will be such a blessing for them and for us.
******
So, now I can get on with today. Happy Thanksgiving to one and all! Andrew and I came home from school and ran into our first dilemma. We had forgotten to take meat out of the freezer, but we were both starving so we didn't want to wait for dinner. So, we made a lovely stove-top/microwave Thanksgiving dinner.
We had canned stew (because that has meat in it), instant gravy, stove-top dressing, potato pearls from the cannery, frozen corn and frozen string beans. It took us about fifteen minutes to make dinner and about ten to clean up. Thanksgiving has never been so easy. We still have tons of left-overs. I'm not sure how because we tried to not make too much. We should have invited the missionaries over...one of them is from Canada...
And, I have pumpkin cup cakes in the oven right now (because making a pie takes so much more time)! Boy, do they smell good. There's nothing to get you in the mood for fall like the smell of baking pumpkin, I'll tell you what!
For FHE (Family Home Evening), we did our lesson at the table. Andrew has so much homework that it's hard to get a good block of time set apart to give a nice sit-down lesson. So, what we did today (since he has two papers due on Wednesday) was your typical Thanksgiving traditional go-around-the-table-and-say-what-you're-thankful-for thing. It's kind of nice when there's only two of you because you don't have to sit dreading that people will say all of the things you're thankful for before it gets to you. Instead we just kind of called them out. We were thankful for a lot of the same things, too (go figure), like our house, our car, each other, temples, our jobs, our school, our families, and the fact that we don't live in a country like Congo. Wow, that would be hard. Our country is pretty good, really.
Boy, those pumpkin cupcake sure are smelling good. I'm thankful for pumpkin cup cakes, too.
Two last items to discuss before I quit this post. We got a new computer desk that I really like (I'm thankful for that, too)! It's a corner desk so it fits nicely into our dining room. My little brother got one at BigLots! (a glorified dollar store) and I really liked it when I saw his. Andrew and I went to BigLots! this weekend and the one we got was the last one they had in stock. It was pretty inexpensive so we just got it because we didn't know when we would find that good of a deal again.
I was getting so sick of sitting in the office. At work I'm in an office all alone all day...and then I was coming home and working away in the office all alone. Andrew was just in the next room, but I couldn't really talk to him or anything, so it was pretty boring. Now I'm right where the action is! Yippee!
Lastly, I made two little baby hats this weekend. Andrew's cousin Nathan's wife, Sarah is having a baby (did you follow that?) so I thought that I would make her a hat. I'm planning on going to her baby shower this coming weekend and I was bored so I sat down and out popped this hat. I wasn't sure if she was having a boy or a girl so I made a hat in what I thought was a nice neutral color: yellow. I had three choices: peach, yellow, or green--all baby pastels. Really, peach would be too girly and green would be too boyish so yellow was my only choice.
Apparently I was wrong because Andrew was kind of disappointed in the hat when I was done. It was too girly, he thought. I'm pretty sure that David has a baby blanket that matches that hat, but whatever...so I started making one with a green base, just in case. We called Andrew's mom (she's in Arizona at Andrew's cousin Bethany's wedding this week) and asked if she knew what Sarah was having. Well, Sarah's having a boy. So, I finished the green hat last night. Andrew was happier with that outcome. I think that I would dress a newborn baby boy in either green or yellow, but since Andrew's the boy I suppose he's the expert. Who knew that yellow-shorts boy would be so concerned about fashion?
Sunday, October 08, 2006
Provo Temple and Dinner at Marquita's
Andrew and I were going to go the Provo temple on Friday with his grandparents and his cousins before his grandparents leave on their mission, but his cousins (Brock, and Layla) couldn't make it, so we rescheduled. Instead, Mom, Josie and Marissa (one of my cousins) came over to watch Swadesh, a Bollywood film. We had an enjoyable evening. An enjoyable dry evening. We tried to invite Emily to come but she was playing in the marching band for the High School football team. Sarah is on the colorguard. I'm sure they both had an enjoyable evening getting soaked in the freezing, pouring rain. It was coming down in buckets!
I'd forgotten how crazy Josie and Marissa get when they are together. They are pretty much really crazy! And loud! We had to send them into the office a few times to let them calm down (which means be really noisy and crazy without disturbing us). Needless to say, it was an interesting evening with those two!
On Saturday morning, Andrew and I headed to the Provo Temple, by ourselves. When we left for Jordan they were still working on the temple grounds doing some new landscaping and installing some fountains. I must say that it is shockingly more beautiful now than it was before. They remodeled it because no one was getting married there. Instead, everyone was heading to Manti, Salt Lake, or Timpanogos (where Andrew and I got married). The day Andrew and I got married, 50 other couples were married in the Timpanogos temple! Even more get married each day in the Salt Lake temple. I think the church was hoping to share the wedding load a bit...and it seems to be working. I know of quite a few people who plan on getting married in the Provo temple.
Here's a before and after picture:
This picture doesn't really do it justice because it's so dark (it was still pretty stormy yesterday morning) but you can still see some of the work that they've done.
We did a lot of work organizing our house on Saturday afternoon. When we're finished, I might just post some pictures of it for everyone to see...but it's not finished and some areas are still rather unorganized and cluttered (the, ahem, office)!
On Saturday evening we went over to Marquita and Daniel's place for dinner. I forgot my camera which was really too bad. Marquita had prepared a wonderful, authentic Korean meal. She had a griddle on the center of the table and we fried our meat and vegetables right there. She also had a ton of little dishes full of sauces, vegetables, and spices to add to our meal. We ate with chopsticks (even Andrew)! It was so much fun! We played games and did a lot of catching up. We're planning on having them over for a Middle Eastern meal. Perhaps I'll remember the camera then.
It was amazing to see their baby, Maya. She is 17 months old now. The last time we saw her was in December! That's so long ago and she was just starting to get mobile. Now she's walking and talking. When we came to the door, we were carrying Cranium. Instead of saying hello, Maya put out her hands and demanded, "TOY!" It was pretty funny. She spent the whole evening trying to open the box and get into the game.
I'd forgotten how crazy Josie and Marissa get when they are together. They are pretty much really crazy! And loud! We had to send them into the office a few times to let them calm down (which means be really noisy and crazy without disturbing us). Needless to say, it was an interesting evening with those two!
On Saturday morning, Andrew and I headed to the Provo Temple, by ourselves. When we left for Jordan they were still working on the temple grounds doing some new landscaping and installing some fountains. I must say that it is shockingly more beautiful now than it was before. They remodeled it because no one was getting married there. Instead, everyone was heading to Manti, Salt Lake, or Timpanogos (where Andrew and I got married). The day Andrew and I got married, 50 other couples were married in the Timpanogos temple! Even more get married each day in the Salt Lake temple. I think the church was hoping to share the wedding load a bit...and it seems to be working. I know of quite a few people who plan on getting married in the Provo temple.
Here's a before and after picture:
This picture doesn't really do it justice because it's so dark (it was still pretty stormy yesterday morning) but you can still see some of the work that they've done.
We did a lot of work organizing our house on Saturday afternoon. When we're finished, I might just post some pictures of it for everyone to see...but it's not finished and some areas are still rather unorganized and cluttered (the, ahem, office)!
On Saturday evening we went over to Marquita and Daniel's place for dinner. I forgot my camera which was really too bad. Marquita had prepared a wonderful, authentic Korean meal. She had a griddle on the center of the table and we fried our meat and vegetables right there. She also had a ton of little dishes full of sauces, vegetables, and spices to add to our meal. We ate with chopsticks (even Andrew)! It was so much fun! We played games and did a lot of catching up. We're planning on having them over for a Middle Eastern meal. Perhaps I'll remember the camera then.
It was amazing to see their baby, Maya. She is 17 months old now. The last time we saw her was in December! That's so long ago and she was just starting to get mobile. Now she's walking and talking. When we came to the door, we were carrying Cranium. Instead of saying hello, Maya put out her hands and demanded, "TOY!" It was pretty funny. She spent the whole evening trying to open the box and get into the game.
Monday, October 02, 2006
More pictures of more nieces and nephews!
Andrew and I had lunch at his parents' house and then watched the last session of General Confernce with them. My friend Annik was there--I haven't seen her in forever, so it was nice to get to see her again! After we wore out our welcome there, we headed over to my parents' house to help out with the twins. Kelli was gone to pick up her boys, so Andrew and I did a lot of helping. We took the twins for a walk and that was really fun. Andrew even helped get them dressed. He's a lot more comfortable with them now that they're older!
After Kelli and her kids came back, we had dinner. I took some pictures of her kids. Matthew and (little) Andrew got haircuts this weekend. They look strapping...after they finished washing off all the dirt and chocolate from their faces (boys will be boys!) I took their pictures.
After dinner they headed out to the trampoline to show me their tricks. Don't worry... Although I did egg them on a bit, no one was seriously injured in the taking of these pictures (unlike last time)! They were flipping left and right and doing backdrops and bellyflops. I was sure there were going to be some minor injuries, but it all ended up happy.
And, even though Sabrina wasn't feeling very well, I did get her to smile. She can now scoot herself backwards in the walker...she doesn't know that she's doing it yet. It kind of surprises her everytime she does it!
Olivia was very active and very happy the whole time. I had a difficult time getting a good picture of her though. She's developed an astounding interest in photography. Everytime I would pick up the camera, she would reach for it. Maybe it was a hint that she didn't want her picture taken anymore...
After Kelli and her kids came back, we had dinner. I took some pictures of her kids. Matthew and (little) Andrew got haircuts this weekend. They look strapping...after they finished washing off all the dirt and chocolate from their faces (boys will be boys!) I took their pictures.
After dinner they headed out to the trampoline to show me their tricks. Don't worry... Although I did egg them on a bit, no one was seriously injured in the taking of these pictures (unlike last time)! They were flipping left and right and doing backdrops and bellyflops. I was sure there were going to be some minor injuries, but it all ended up happy.
And, even though Sabrina wasn't feeling very well, I did get her to smile. She can now scoot herself backwards in the walker...she doesn't know that she's doing it yet. It kind of surprises her everytime she does it!
(look at all that drool!)
Olivia was very active and very happy the whole time. I had a difficult time getting a good picture of her though. She's developed an astounding interest in photography. Everytime I would pick up the camera, she would reach for it. Maybe it was a hint that she didn't want her picture taken anymore...
Sunday, October 01, 2006
Photo Shoot with the Twins
It's conference weekend! My sister, Kelli, came down from Salt Lake with her girls (they boys are at their dad's house this weekend so we'll get pictures of them up later). Andrew and I went over so that I could hang out with my mom and sisters during Priesthood session...and also so that I could hold the babies. And so that we could take pictures of them to put up on the blog for our family to see (Auntie Abra hasn't met the twins yet)!
When we went back inside, I was given both babies because everyone else was busy. This was not just any balancing act. These babies are relatively...ummm...large. Let's just say that they are as big as I was when I was around two years old--they are only 6 months old. They are 20 pounds each! That's 40 pounds of baby that I'm holding which is nearly 40% of my body weight, so if I look like I'm grunting, I probably am!
Dad took Sabrina and gave her a kiss. She promptly started crying (with real tears streaming down her face). We figure that he scratched her with his 5 o'clock shadow and scared her half to death. Although, she was relatively had to get to smile the whole evening so I think it might have something to do with her diaper rash.
The girls have gotten so mobile recently. Sabrina will push herself up on her hands and knees. She so desperately wants to crawl but can only scoot backwards. This is very frustrating to her when she is trying to get something placed in front of her. She'll get it soon!
Olivia is also getting a lot more active. She learned to roll over (finally!) a few weeks ago and ever since then has been a much happier baby. She's a lot more interested in toys and playing and moving. Here she is enjoying the walker (that they can't really touch the ground in yet!) that, believe it or not, they fight over. Yes, these 6 month-old girls fight over toys. It's pretty funny to watch. I didn't know that infants fought over things but apparently they do.
They get a long most of the time though. It's fun to see them interact with each other. Whenever they are together they like to hold onto each other. It's hard when you put one down to sleep and the other one mauls them until they wake up...but, it's cute to watch them play together.
One of Olivia's favorite chew toy is...Sabrina. For some reason, Sabrina doesn't really seem to mind and won't pull her arm or scoot away. She just lets Oliva do it.
We also decided to put up a picture of Rosie on our blog, even though most of you have seen her. We love her, too, though and even though she spent most of yesterday hiding in the basement with Josie (playing the computer, obviously, we made an effort to catch her on film. I think it is nice that Josie and Rosie are such good friends. I think it would be so hard to be an aunt only 3 years older than your niece. Josie and Patrick are 5 years apart. Josie and I are 9 years apart... Josie is closer in age to her niece than any of her siblings! Talk about role confusion! Anyway, they get along well most of the time. Well, by special request, this picture has been removed. We will try to get a new one up shortly.
When we went back inside, I was given both babies because everyone else was busy. This was not just any balancing act. These babies are relatively...ummm...large. Let's just say that they are as big as I was when I was around two years old--they are only 6 months old. They are 20 pounds each! That's 40 pounds of baby that I'm holding which is nearly 40% of my body weight, so if I look like I'm grunting, I probably am!
Dad took Sabrina and gave her a kiss. She promptly started crying (with real tears streaming down her face). We figure that he scratched her with his 5 o'clock shadow and scared her half to death. Although, she was relatively had to get to smile the whole evening so I think it might have something to do with her diaper rash.
The girls have gotten so mobile recently. Sabrina will push herself up on her hands and knees. She so desperately wants to crawl but can only scoot backwards. This is very frustrating to her when she is trying to get something placed in front of her. She'll get it soon!
Olivia is also getting a lot more active. She learned to roll over (finally!) a few weeks ago and ever since then has been a much happier baby. She's a lot more interested in toys and playing and moving. Here she is enjoying the walker (that they can't really touch the ground in yet!) that, believe it or not, they fight over. Yes, these 6 month-old girls fight over toys. It's pretty funny to watch. I didn't know that infants fought over things but apparently they do.
They get a long most of the time though. It's fun to see them interact with each other. Whenever they are together they like to hold onto each other. It's hard when you put one down to sleep and the other one mauls them until they wake up...but, it's cute to watch them play together.
One of Olivia's favorite chew toy is...Sabrina. For some reason, Sabrina doesn't really seem to mind and won't pull her arm or scoot away. She just lets Oliva do it.
We also decided to put up a picture of Rosie on our blog, even though most of you have seen her. We love her, too, though and even though she spent most of yesterday hiding in the basement with Josie (playing the computer, obviously, we made an effort to catch her on film. I think it is nice that Josie and Rosie are such good friends. I think it would be so hard to be an aunt only 3 years older than your niece. Josie and Patrick are 5 years apart. Josie and I are 9 years apart... Josie is closer in age to her niece than any of her siblings! Talk about role confusion! Anyway, they get along well most of the time. Well, by special request, this picture has been removed. We will try to get a new one up shortly.
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