♪♥The Wonderful World of Bryan & Natalie♥♪

Speaking of My Birthday

2012-02-12T21:23:00.000-08:00

I had a wonderful one! Bryan sure treated me well and got me some great gifts! First off, I got to sleep in until 12 in the afternoon!! That is, after going to bed past one in the morning because of Max (which has gotten so much better by the way. Now we go to bed around 11pm). Bryan took Max when he woke up and I slept an extra couple hours without worry. It was nice! (PS. He actually does this often, like on the weekends and Tuesdays and sometimes Thursdays when he doesn't have class until later. He's the best husband!!) When I woke up, Bryan made me my favorite breakfast ever: crepes with vanilla cream cheese filling. Soooo yummy!!! Bryan let me pick where we went to dinner, uninfluenced by him, so I just decided to go for it and we tried out this Middle Eastern/Greek family owned restaurant that I found online and I am so glad we did! We got the Meat Combo for Two which included a beef kabob, lamb kabob, chicken kabob, gyro meat, pita bread, Greek style rice, hummus (which we passed on) and Greek salads. We loved every bite! I also got to Skype with by family, which is always enjoyable. Bryan spoiled me this year and I love him for every thoughtful gesture. He's my soul mate and without him I don't know how I would survive. He means everything to me and I am so blessed that he chose me to be his eternal wife! Thank you for the wonderful birthday Bryan!!! I love you!!

Happy Birthday to Me!!!!

2012-02-04T23:25:00.000-08:00

Max giggling!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Cutest thing EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!! I about cried.

Four and Ready for More

2012-02-02T15:39:00.000-08:00

4-Month Stats

Weight: 16lbs 12oz

Height: 26.25"

Head: 42.5cm

The doctor didn't tell us the percentiles this time and when I try to look it up, I get a huge range like 75-90th percentile or 50th-75th.

Max is four months old!!! He just gets cuter and cuter every day! Some things Max loves: diaper and clothing changes, his daddy (he will seriously chat up his daddy for hours it seems. He only chuckles with me these days), being carried around in the baby carrier and observing the apartment, doing sit-ups, flying baby, and the song "Popcorn Popping". He gives some big smiles on occasion, but they're so hard to capture because when he smiles back at you, he turns his head away all shy. He's experimenting more with his vocalizations, but usually only when he's upset. He has copied sounds that I make, but you have to get him at the right moment in order to do so. I originally wanted to wait until Max was at least six months old before feeding him solids, but he is so interested in the things that we eat and drink. So interested in fact, that I started to give him Vitamin D drops (I know, I should have been doing so since he was a newborn...my badness) and he loves taking them! He gets a big smile on his face when I prepare to give them to him. He also loves taking gas drops and will stop crying or fussing the moment you give it to him. The doctor did, however, say to wait at least a few more weeks because the earlier you introduce solids, the likelier they are to develop food allergies later on. The other day, he started to be able to stay sitting up on his own! Not for too long, but for long enough that I was able to capture some cute pictures of the event. We're still working on his 2am bedtime and have started being able to put him down for naps in his crib (he used to only be able to sleep in the swing or our arms). It can take up to an hour for him to finally sleep in the crib, but at least he gets there. I want to start sleep training, I just have to get up the guts to do so. He's a big baby, but he still just seems so small to me and I can't stand the thought of torturing him, by making him cry it out at night. I will get there though; I need my sleep too!! I think I want to wait until his bedtime is at a more reasonable hour before trying. Oh yeah, Max laughed for the first time a couple days ago!! He's been chuckling for a long time, but he genuinely laughed! Bryan thinks it wa on accident and I don't care either way. I just loved hearing it!! We love our little Binker Bears so much. It's true, you don't realize how much love you are capable of until you have a baby.

Size comparison. They are the exact same size, except Max's legs are longer!

Flying baby!!

Preparing to give a talk.

Snow day!

Loving the baby carrier.

First time in the high chair. We prop him up with blankets on either side so he doesn't lean. He loves the high chair, which is super nice because now Bryan and I don't have to take turns eating dinner.

His new favorite pose.

Heading out to church.

Big smile! He still squints when he smiles :)

Sitting!

Sleeping in his crib for the first time. (I know you're not suppose to put stuffed animals in the crib, but I want him to have a sleeping buddy...)

Studly Muffin. Wouldn't it be awesome if his eyes stayed blue?

PS. Sorry if my posts seem like just a bunch of scattered thoughts stringed together...because they pretty much are.

Max's Baby Blessing

2012-01-24T21:28:00.000-08:00

Max was so blessed to be blessed (lol) on Christmas Day. What an excellent way to start such a special sacrament meeting with a baby blessing. I was in such a good mood that morning that I completely forgot to pay attention to anything Bryan said during the blessing!! Luckily for me, my wonderful sister-in-law, Deborah, jotted things down for us. His blessing was short and sweet and perfectly describes the person I see my baby boy becoming one day. We were so lucky to have so many family members attend the blessing, which we had in Bryan's parents ward, which is also the ward we attended for the first 7 months of my pregnancy. It was fun showing off my baby to all those who saw me grow bigger and bigger by the week.

The Jones Clan

Bryan's Uncle Scott Grandma and Papa Jones

Parents. Or should I say, Grandparents.

The Simonds' side of the family

Uncle Kaleb and Aunt Kailee

Uncle Johann, Aunt Deborah and cousin Henry

Grandpa and Abuela

Cousins

Christmas in Cali

2012-01-22T21:23:00.000-08:00

We spent three weeks in California for Christmas vacation and it was Heavenly!! It was so nice having a ton of people ever so willing to hold Max and entertain him! Not that I don't love spending all my time with my baby, it can just be a little much sometimes when he even has to join you in he bathroom... I'll tell of our vacation through the pictures:

One of my little brothers, Kaleb, got married! They got married in the San Diego temple and get this: they were married in the same sealing room and by the same sealer as Bryan and I were. What a coincidence! As we were listening to the sealer I couldn't help but observe how each ceremony is tailored to the individual couple getting married, despite the sealer having just met them.

Waiting outside the temple:

My mama and me

Can't escape a hungry baby!

My dad and me

The happy couple, Kaleb and Kailee!!

I have two sisters now!! (This is a big deal for me. I grew up with three brothers).

Max and his cousin Henry meeting for the first time.

Auntie Deborah

Cousin Henry loving on Max... ...a little too much?

We spent Christmas Eve with my family this year and everyone enjoyed their time with Max.

Aunt Deborah and Uncle Derek, my other younger brother.

Matching PJ party!

Uncle Johann, my brother Auntie Kailee

Christmas day was spent with Bryan's family. Bryan's dad was so excited to have all his youngest kids and grandkids home for Christmas that he spoiled everyone with presents!

Max with his twin cousins, Hannah and Carter

All three of Max's cousins. These are Hanging out by the tree on his first Christmas.

Bryan's brother Daniel's kids. (I don't

know why this picture's sideways).

Max and Papa Jones

Trying to eat my hand.

Watching Peter Pan with Uncle Daniel and cousin Ethan.

Disneyland Hotel

2012-01-17T18:06:00.000-08:00

Bryan's parents were generous enough to get all the family tickets to Disneyland and California Adventure this Christmas vacation. We unfortunately [thought we] lost our camera a couple days into vacation so all our pictures were taken either with Bryan's phone or someone else's camera. The night before we all went to Disneyland Bryan got the flu, so we went in a little later than everyone else. By the time he got up and ready to go, California Adventure was opening so we decided to start our day there. We went on the new Little Mermaid ride and Toy Story Mania, both of which Max actually enjoyed and I loved. After, we had lunch and headed over to Disneyland. We called Bryan's parents to meet up with everyone (Bryan's brother's family was there too) and it turned out that the flu had caught up with Bryan's dad and he and Bryan's mom were headed home. We thought we could still meet up with Bryan's brother, but they were already in California Adventure. So we caught the parade, got a pin for Max's first visit and headed to the rides. Well, we went two days after Christmas and the place was PACKED!!! We walked around the park looking for rides we could go on and alas found none. The only thing we ended up doing was hanging out in Innoventions for about 45 minutes to feed Max, change him and relax. EVERY line was more than 30 minutes and though I was more than willing to wait in them, Bryan was still recovering from the flu and just wanted to head back to the hotel. We took a break, Bryan took a nap, and we went back to Califonia Adventure to catch the most amazing World of Color show. That made the disappointment of only going on two rides totally worth it!!! Seriously the best show I have ever seen! We ended the evening with the best boneless wings from ESPN Zone.

First ride: Little Mermaid

Max loves the new baby carrier!

Doesn't he look so different without clothes?

Pajama souvenir

Getting ready to see World of Color

We also had the wonderful opportunity to stay 2 nights at the Disneyland Hotel thanks again to Bryan's parents. It was seriously such a dream come true!! I'd never stayed at any Disneyland-based hotel and I was like a kid in a candy store! There were Mickey details everywhere, including in the sheets and the tiles in the shower.

The carpeting in the hotel

The wall lights up with fireworks and plays

"A Dream is a Wish You're Heart Makes" when you first turn them on.

Watching the Disney Channel at the Disneyland Hotel!

We actually left these lights on all night. It was so fun to wake up

throughout the night with Max and see these!

Not an attractive view.

We stayed in the Frontier Tower and they had an awesome model

of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.

Photo Shoots

2011-12-12T23:15:00.000-08:00

We had a photo shoot in our apartment for our Christmas cards and I thought I would share some of my favorites. Since we just took the pictures here, we had all day, but somehow only managed one or two smiles out of Max. He was excited most of the time, but he doesn't smile when he's excited! He just kicks around a lot, flailing his arms! It's too cute.

Max has some really pretty eyelashes, I'm so jealous! Here are some more pictures of him I took while trying to capture his eyelashes. They are so light though, so I had to take some awkward shots in order to show them off. The first picture is my attempt at capturing them so you can see what I mean and the rest are just because I have an addiction to taking pictures of my little baby (I don't want to miss anything!).

Look Who Rolled Over!

2011-12-10T20:07:00.001-08:00

This video is actually his third time rolling over. We just watched him the first time all proud. Then Bryan put him back on his tummy and pulled out his phone, but as SOON as he was on his tummy he immediately rolled over again! Bryan didn't have time to even hit record.

Max has some serious muscles! We gave him bath the other night and felt his thighs and they are rock hard and massive. I think we have a future soccer play on our hands. Maybe he'll go pro and support his wonderful parents so they can be lazy and have everything they want :)

Precious Baby :)

2011-11-29T15:22:00.001-08:00

2 Month Check-Up Stats:

Weight: 13lbs 9oz = 90th percentile

Length: 23in = 50th percentile

We have one short chubby baby! Max went to the doctor's today and he is doing great! He hated the shots of course, but as soon as it was over, he was pretty content again. As much as I hate to hear him cry, I think he has such a cute one! I seriously love my baby so much I can hardly stand it! Thank goodness too, because otherwise I would have a hard time taking care of him considering how much sleep I don't get. Max tends to go to bed around 1 or 2 in the morning and sleeps until 11 or 12 in the afternoon while eating every three hours in between. Not too bad I guess, except lately he hasn't been able to sleep anywhere except for in the swing or in my arms, which means I am spending a lot of time on the couch. He eats every 2 hours throughout the day and takes about six or seven 1/2 hour naps, which makes it so hard for me to get anything done because I feel like I have to entertain him when he's awake. He'll be pretty content just sitting in the swing or bouncy seat by himself and sometimes I'll catch him smiling to himself while I'm in the kitchen making lunch or something; I just like to see him smile and learning to laugh and coo so I try and talk to him and play with him while he's awake. Max is such a strong baby!! He can hold his head up for quite some time during tummy time. He can pretty much hold his own weight on his legs too as long as we help him to balance. This impressed the doctor very much. She said most babies can't bear weight on their legs at this age. Max LOVES his hands! When he starts to wake up from his naps we'll just hear him sucking on his hands making tons of smacking noises. It's really cute, especially when a hand starts to stray from his mouth, he'll sometimes move his head to his hand rather than move his hand to his mouth. Here are some pictures from the last month: Enjoy!

He has such a goofy smile! I love it!

We got him a new jacket for winter. We bought it big so it can fit over his sweaters.

Isn't he the cutest baby in the world?!!! (I know, I'm biased.) I should probably post more often so I don't have to put so many pictures in one post!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

2011-11-25T14:01:00.001-08:00

Bryan, Max and I were on our own for the first time for Thanksgiving this year, scary! We were originally going to go to a huge buffet here serving Thanksgiving food, but finally realized we couldn't afford it, so we decided to make our own dinner. Well, guess what? It turned out great! The only snag we came across was that it took a whole lot longer than expected so we didn't have dinner around the traditional late afternoon time, but later in the evening. That's ok though because I'm, proud of us anyway. We managed to roast a 10lb turkey, had stuffing (for Bryan), corn (for me), mashed potatoes and gravy, and pumpkin pie: delicious!! I hope all of you had a fantastic Thanksgiving and were able to eat everything you wanted!!

Our underdone turkey. We eventually had to cut off the breast meat and put the rest in the oven to finish cooking since the wings, drumsticks and thighs apparently take a lot longer to cook.

See Max hanging out behind me? There are so many things I'm thankful for, namely our precious little baby boy. He is everything I could ask for and so much more. I am so grateful for my wonderful husband whom even though is at school all day long, is willing to help me whenever I need him and loves to hang out with his son. I have a wonderful family :). There's so much more that I could mention, but that's the jist of it. A post about Max (who is 2 months old today!) coming soon.

Spokane Temple Visit

2011-11-14T19:12:00.001-08:00

We drove over to see the Spokane Temple the other day. It was a short trip though because it was freezing cold!! It was much smaller than the Redlands Temple; about half the size if possible, but it was still nice to go see.

Max was sleeping so cozy and peaceful the whole time :)

Grandma and Papa Jones

2011-11-10T21:13:00.000-08:00

Bryan's parents came to spend some time getting to know their newest grandson. They helped us out a lot and provided us with many Costco goodies to keep us stocked up :). We're grateful for your visit and thanks for everything! Max loved all the extra attention!

Growth Spurt

2011-11-02T15:23:00.000-07:00

I think Max just went through a huge growth spurt. The picture on the top is a day less than 4 weeks and the one on the bottom is 5 weeks, 2 days. He plumped up nicely!

And here's Max at 3 days old on the left and again at 5 weeks, 2 days on the right. What a major change!!

A Month of Ups and Downs

2011-10-28T12:21:00.000-07:00

Max is now one month old and is cuter than ever! Everywhere we go people always tell us how cute he is. (Probably just because he's a baby in general, but I do believe he is a particularly attractive one!) It's a good thing too because it makes up for the extremely rough first few weeks with him. It started just a couple days after bringing him home from the hospital. He went from eating every 3 hours to suddenly eating every 1-1.5 hours and would eat for almost an hour at a time and would STILL seem to be starving! You can only imagine how taxing this was on me! If I ever got any sleep, it was only for 20 minutes at a time (45 minutes if I was lucky). Postpartum was intense for me (luckily not to the extent of postpartum depression). Breastfeeding was extremely painful as well and no matter how hard I tried, we could never get a good latch going. I was ready to completely give up on breastfeeding, but I wanted to breastfeed so badly that I kept with it, despite our difficulties. Finally, after calling the lactation specialist at the hospital a second time when Max was two weeks old (the first time she said we just needed some time to work on it...frustrating), she agreed to set up an appointment with me. After gaining weight in his first week, Max was suddenly losing weight again at two weeks. While on the scale crying his head off, the lactation lady noticed that Max was tongue-tied! What a revelation!! She said it's a good thing I came in and that was the reason he wasn't able to latch properly and was therefore not getting enough milk and was losing weight. My poor baby! I felt so horrible!! The next week we visited an ENT who clipped his frenulum and told us Max could extend his tongue out twice as far and that should solve our problems with breastfeeding. Sure enough, breastfeeding was no longer excruciatingly painful and he is now eating every 2-3 hours. He was now doing so well, in fact, that he gained almost a pound in just a week! Now he's almost 2 pounds in a little over a month!

In other Max news: this boy sure does make us laugh! He takes forever to wake-up (just like mommy) and will stretch and grunt and make funny noises for a good 5 minutes while trying to wake-up. I have yet to catch this on video, but will surely keep trying because it's just too cute. He's started smiling for real at us, but will only do it maybe once a day. He spits up A LOT, but the doctor's not too concerned since it doesn't seem to typically bother him and it's not projectile and he's gaining weight really well now. He tends to miss the burp cloth most of the time though. He's gotten on a bit of a schedule, which is super nice. His days are broken up into quarters: starting around midnight, he sleeps through the first quarter, is awake for the second quarter in the mornings and afternoon, sleeps through the third quarter in the late afternoon/early evening, and is awake for the last quarter till about midnight-ish. Of course he naps during the waking time and eats during the sleeping times as well. He LOVES his mommy very much and I'm pretty much the only one who can really get him to calm down when he's crying. This get exhausting for me and discouraging for Bryan, but is sure to get better. He loves his daddy too and will get excited when he comes home from a long day at school. I'm so in love with my baby and Bryan just adores him. I feel so blessed to have such a sweet and wonderful family of whom I can be with for eternity. My husband and my baby are the loves of my life and I could not ask for anything or anyone better than them :D.

(Sorry if you've already seen most of these pictures on Facebook. They're my favorites :)

Meeting the First Set of Grandparents

2011-10-17T11:41:00.000-07:00

My parents came to see Max and were here for 2 weeks. Though I was still very postpartum during their stay, they were a HUGE help! My mom would take Max after feedings during the day so I could eat or nap AND she cooked dinner every night, did laundry and kept the apartment clean! Thanks for all the help! We love you!!

Meeting Abuela and Grandpa.

This is how Max and my mom spent most of their time.

Can this be MY child?

2011-10-06T18:25:00.000-07:00

I'm in the first picture, Max in the second, and Bryan in the last. So who does he look like? I don't know, but lucky for us, we managed to produce a baby MUCH cuter than we were!!

Meet Our Baby Boy!!

2011-09-28T21:08:00.000-07:00

*Precursor: this may be long so if you would like to skip down to the pictures, I will not be offended :)

Our little Max has finally arrived!! We are so excited and overjoyed to have him here with us, especially after what's been going on the last few days since he's been born. Well, here is our birth story:

Saturday evening around 12:30am my water broke! Oh the influx of emotions! (Mostly excitement at this point). We arrive at the hospital around 1:30am only for the nurse to tell me that there was no sign that my water had broken (she was very skeptical, no matter how much I reassured her that it indeed happened). Contractions began slowly at 2:30am and by 3:30am they were suddenly right on top of each other. I finally received an epidural by 4:30am and Bryan and I got to sleep for a few hours. Around 5:30am my water broke AGAIN! By 7:00am I was fully dilated, but since the baby and I were doing so well, they let me "labor down" to let the contractions do most of the work. By 7:40ish I started pushing and Maximus was born at 8:06am, was 8lbs 10oz and was 20in in length. What an easy and relatively short labor and delivery! 7.5 hours from start to finish and I only pushed for about 20-30 minutes :)

What happened AFTER the birth:

Bryan got to watch the nurse clean him off and test him, all the while little Max held Bryan's finger so tight and refused to let go. However, not 5-10 minutes after the birth, Max was whisked away to the special nursery because he wasn't receiving enough oxygen. We later receive the news that Max was really pale, really swollen, had fluid in his lungs, was under an oxygen tent, and was receiving an IV and antibiotics. Our poor, poor little boy! They reassured us that they believed everything would be ok, but that they wanted to rule out infection and were taking every precaution to ensure his wellness. For the first 24 hours all Bryan and I could do was visit him in the nursery and talk to and touch him only slightly so as to not overstimulate him. It wasn't too long (though it seemed like an eternity!) before they weaned him off the oxygen and I could start breastfeeding. After a full day and night of that, they removed the IV and stopped the antibiotics. By the afternoon of the second day was able to stay in our room with us while they monitored his weight and vitals every once and a bit. As long as everything went perfectly, he would be able to go home in the morning, "but no promises" added the pediatrician.

Coming home:

LUCKILY, everything DID go perfectly and on the third day, he was released from the hospital and could come home with his very proud and very happy mommy and daddy :D

The oxygen tent he was stuck in for about 7.5 hours. The nurses always made him so comfortable though, I think he didn't mind it at all.

Daddy holding little Max for the first time. He was so nervous, but loved it.

The doctor let us have a brief visit in the room for some quality family time. I had been discharged, but the hospital has a neat boarding program where they let the mothers use the room like a hotel room and they gave me free meals. Bryan could continue to stay with me, but had to pay for his own food.The hospital photographer left Max in a super cute position after the little session and so I made sure to take advantage and get a free shot for myself since the packages are SO expensive!

Ready to head home! I knew newborns were small, but I didn't know just how tiny he would look in his car seat.

For your viewing pleasure :)First family photo!!! Needless to say, we're happy to be home.

Pregnancy Photo Shoot

2011-09-18T16:01:00.000-07:00

We had a fun little pregnancy photo shoot today and Bryan did such a wonderful job taking the pictures! I am so happy with the end results :)

Ultrasound Pictures

2011-09-15T11:58:00.000-07:00

I am 38 weeks and was so excited to be able to have an ultrasound. Apparently in my first ultrasound at 16 weeks, the placenta was really low, so my new doctor wanted to do a follow-up one to make sure that it was out of the way. Our baby boy is measuring at 7lbs 14oz, which is pretty big for this time. The tech estimated he can get to about 8.5-9lbs if he goes to full term. I sure hope he doesn't wait that long; I don't want to pop out a big baby!!

He has five toes on each foot! (We are quite excited about this).

His arm was blocking his mouth. I think he has Bryan's nose.

Arm in front of mouth again.

Finally decided to move his arm after much prodding. If you can't tell, this is a full frontal facial shot, sideways. I think it's funny how huge everything looks since he's all smooshed inside there. We are so excited for him to come and nervous all at the same time! My Braxton Hicks contractions are so constant that I feel like it can be anytime now. Unfortunately, the doctor said I've made no progress since last week, but I think he is going to be coming pretty soon :)

Bryan's B-Day Weekend and Baby Update

2011-09-06T16:13:00.002-07:00

With Labor Day this past weekend we made sure to take advantage of the whole weekend to celebrate Bryan's 26th birthday. It started on Saturday where we had dinner at this local hot spot called The Flying Goat. Not the most attractive name in the world, but let me tell you, the food was delicious!! We started out with some seriously yummy, seriously huge wings for an appetizer and split a pizza topped with chicken, sun dried tomatoes, artichoke hearts, and arugula pesto. We will definitely be going there again, but only on special occasions because the prices were a little steep for our poor law student budget.

After dinner we stopped to get a new beta fish since sadly our old fish, Gus, passed away about a week after we moved up here. I think the drive was just too much for him. We're still deciding on a name for our new one and are thinking of the names Red or Speck (Specks?). Any suggestions or ideas?

On Sunday, Bryan's actually birthday, I'm sad to say that nothing really went on that day. It was just the two of us for the first time and so it wasn't too exciting this year. I did make him the requested Brats for dinner and added some caramelized onions to go on top and WOW did they taste good!

I also made the next requested chocolate cake with chocolate frosting that I surprisingly liked (I don't usually like that much chocolate at once). And no, Bryan did not turn 24, he is 26 years old now. We accidentally bought these candles for his last birthday and then realized he was turning 25, so we were going to use these on my birthday because I was going to be 24. Well, my birthday rolled around and I didn't get a cake or anything, so we didn't end up using them for my birthday and were forced to use them for his this time around. At least he got to blow out some candles right?

(Sorry about the long post, I'm almost done I promise!)
Monday we continued the celebration by going out to the annual Pig Out in the Park that happens every year around Labor Day here in Spokane. It was fun to go around and look at all the different food booths that they had there. We chose to share a gyro and a dessert crepe (since everything was pretty pricey). It was a fun experience, but I don't think I'll be willing to pay 7 bucks for a gyro with only to slices of meat again.

And last, but not least: Baby Update!
I'm 36.5 weeks in the picture, but 37 weeks pregnant now. I just had a doctor's appointment today and I'm already 2-3 cm dilated (I was at 0 just two weeks ago)! She said that it's possible I could remain this far along for a couple weeks, but she definitely thinks I'll be delivering before my due date of September 28th. Scary and exciting at the same time!! I guess I better finish unpacking and cleaning our apartment soon then! She estimates the baby's around 6lbs and he's head down and ready to come. I have been having regular Braxton Hicks contractions every day for a couple days and Bryan's starting to feel the anxiety now too. As much as I wanted the baby to be born in a different month as Bryan's birthday month, I'm just ready to get this baby out now. It's exhausting and extremely uncomfortable being in the last month of pregnancy!

Spokane River

2011-08-30T19:23:00.000-07:00

We visited the ever-so-beautiful Spokane River the other day and wished we would have taken our bathing suits because apparently you're allowed to swim in it! Who knew? I've never lived by a river you can actually swim in before. We did manage to stick our feet in though and it was freezing! The water, however, is SO clear and it was just lovely! Needless to say, we will be frequenting the river often while we are here.

Isn't he the cutest husband ever!! I love him :D

4 Years Strong

2011-08-23T22:45:00.000-07:00

As of August 4th, Bryan and I have been married for four years! Can you believe it's been that long already?? I am the luckiest girl in the world because I have been happily married to my best friend for four years now and we are still going strong. In fact, we are going so strong, that we are getting ready to bring a precious new life into the world together. Bryan is the husband I had always dreamed of and he never ceases to amaze me. I love him so much more every day and am so excited that I get to spend eternity with the one I love :)

Welcome to Spokane!

2011-08-14T17:26:00.000-07:00

We have arrived! Spokane, Washington will be our home for the next three years and we are excited! We moved in Friday and are still working on getting things unpacked, but we managed to go out and explore a little of the area.

Gonzaga Law School

This is where Bryan will be spending every waking moment, studying to be a lawyer! I am so proud of him for making it this far and for being so excited as he is to begin. I think I'm way more nervous for him than he is!

The law building is surrounded by the baseball field, soccer field, and basketball court. You can perfectly see the soccer field from the library of the law building, which could pose some studying problems for Bryan...

It is also directly next to the beautiful Spokane River.

Bryan is ready and determined to start school next Monday and though it's going to be lonely without him around all the time, I couldn't not be happier for him. He's been wanting to be a lawyer since high school and I want nothing more than for him to accomplish his goals, which I know won't be a problem. Good luck in this new adventure Bryan!! I love you!!!!!

Goodbye Saturn

2011-07-21T23:46:00.000-07:00

Hello Nissan Versa!!!

Well, we bought a brand spankin' new car and it's crazy! We finally got to the point that we realized our 2-door, 7-yr-old, 99,000 mile, 4 seater Saturn Ion just wasn't going to cut it for us anymore. Our main concern was for the safety of our little baby coming in a couple of months. Our Saturn was just not a good fit for having a baby in the backseat at all whatsoever. Our next concern was with how much longer our car would even last us if we kept it for another few years and we figured we might as well trade it in now while it's still worth something. Our resolution? We found pretty much the cheapest car on the market with great interior space and an actual warranty. My advice to anyone buying a new car: 1) bring snacks because you will be there for a really long time and 2) try and walk out on the dealer at least twice in order to get a way lower interest rate and way higher value for your trade in. Well, our new car better last us a quite a while because after today I DO NOT plan on buying a new car for a very, very long time. Overall we are very happy about our purchase and feel really really good about making the decision. Our stress now comes from learning to live REALLY cheap while in law school so we can make sure to make our payments every month. I think that won't be a problem, but I seriously have to stop thinking about it because it's giving me buyer's remorse, even though I know we ultimately made the right decision. Oh yeah, the deal we were getting was only for a white car. I wish it were a more exciting color, but I guess there wasn't much we could do about that, so I'm still happy.

Summer Fun

2011-07-10T13:00:00.000-07:00

We haven't been able to do too many fun activities this summer with work getting in the way all the time, but the few things we have done have been very enjoyable. For Memorial Day, Bryan and I had the pleasure of attending a Dodger game! Despite everything happening off the field, we certainly still support our team and the players in the game. Memorial Day was a dollar Dodger Dog day so needless to say, we indulged and had about six hot dogs between the two of us. It's so strange; I don't like hot dogs and will only eat them if I have to, but there is just something so delicious about eating Dodger Dogs at Dodger Stadium.

You know wat that means: Dodgers Win!

Another activity that we actually have pictures of is our trip to the San Diego Zoo Safari Park (previously known as the Wild Animal Park). Despite it being a little hot and humid and walking around all day, it was pretty relaxing to go and just look at all the animals. Bryan's dad was generous enough to take us for a day trip.

Bryan second favorite (his first being the cheetahs). This was such a lazy little meerkat, but so cute.

There are too few pictures with Bryan and I AND my belly. Behind us they brought out a cheetah cub for us to see.

This cheetah cub LOVED his little panda bear. The lady told us about how each cheetah is partnered up with a dog and the cheetah learns from the dog how to react to the situations they are put in.

My absolute favorite, the tigers! They get such a huge enclosure that you rarely ever get a chance to see them and I was pretty much only able to do so through the wonderful zoom on our new camera.

And lastly a new belly pic! I am now 28.5 weeks pregnant and in my third trimester! I'm in the home stretch! It's hasn't quite sunken in just how close I am to being due because my focus has pretty much been on us moving in just a few weeks. I figure once that's out of the way, then I'll realize just how close I am to having the baby. I've been feeling pretty darn good. My main complaint is my swollen feet :(. It only happens on the weekend because I am on my feet walking 8 hours a day Monday through Friday, but the moment the weekend hits, my feet become the fattest things I have ever seen and it can be quite painful sometimes. Bryan and I are still just so excited for the baby to be born and 9 months is seriously too long!!

Halfway to Our Future

2011-05-12T12:56:00.000-07:00

20 Weeks!!

I am halfway through my pregnancy and am feeling pretty good. I'm just hungry all the time and my lower back really likes to be in pain, which I would prefer it not to be. If you haven't seen by other means, Bryan and I have decided to name the baby Max Aidan Jones. Max has been the only boy name either of us really liked from the beginning. We seriously went through hundreds and hundreds of names and nothing stood out to us in the least! So Max was easily agreed upon. I feel him kick ALL THE TIME now!!! I started feeling flutters around week 15 and by week 17 there was definite kicking and punching going on, but usually just at night. Now, he's having a kick fest morning, day and night. I LOVE feeling him kick!! It's such a wonderful feeling to know he's alive, well and active. I just can't wait until Bryan will be able to feel him from the outside so he can experience a little of the joy I feel every day. (However, I do still think it is extremely bizarre and unnatural.)

In other news, Bryan has accepted a spot in the Gonzaga University law program in Spokane, WA. It looks like that's where we'll be heading in August if BYU decides not to get back to him (he is currently on the wait list). Aside from the fact that we'll be extremely far away from our families, we are actually very excited for this new adventure to begin. Spokane seems like a very lovely place and I hear it has a very strong Mormon population, which is always nice. I'm so nervous for Bryan to start law school and hope the transition is easy for him. It will be something different indeed.

It's So Obvious

2011-04-14T13:43:00.001-07:00

That we're having a BOY!!!!

Our wonderful little baby boy!!!!

It's amazing how clear these pictures are!!

14.5 weeks!

2011-04-01T13:48:00.000-07:00

Belly Pic!!!

I am now in my second trimester! Woohoo!! So excited to finally be in this stage and have high hopes that my nausea will dissipate soon! We went to the doctor's a couple weeks ago and of course, don't really know how things are going because I won't get result of anything until my next appointment in a couple more weeks. One interesting thing though, I was about 12 1/2 weeks when we went, but my doctor thought I was much further along than that: at LEAST 14 weeks, he said. I think that's impossible considering I pretty much know for a fact we didn't get pregnant any sooner than we actually did. Anyway, I'm trying not to speculate too much because I don't want to get my hopes up for something that may not happen. Oh, we did hear the heartbeat!! It was such a wonderful experience, but as soon as the doctor found it he took the doppler away, so we only heard maybe 4 or 5 beats. We have our first ultrasound on the 15th and I will be over 16 weeks then, so I desperately hope they can tell if it's a boy or a girl!! I just want to really start focusing on names and start buying things that are gender specific! Oh yeah, I got full Medi-cal coverage for the pregnancy, which is such a lifesaver! It only worries me that Bryan may go out of state for law school and then we just may be stuck again so we'll see what happens. Speaking of Bryan and law school, so far he has been accepted to Gonzaga University and the University of LaVerne!! I'm so proud of him!! So that's our update, hope you enjoyed it!!

Some Details

2011-03-13T21:22:00.000-07:00

My due date for now is September 28th and Bryan and I could not be more excited! So I'm about 11 1/2 weeks now and still have not seen a doctor! This makes me so nervous! I applied for Medi-cal shortly after finding out I was pregnant and still haven't received word as to whether or not I qualify. I think we're just going to have to set up an appointment with a doctor as soon as possible and may just have to pay out of pocket for the first visit if that's what it comes to. I just want to see the baby so badly so I know it's really there! I'm so afraid of the doctor telling me that there's no baby in there. That would be another nightmare come true!! But I love reading every week about what the baby's developing and what food size it compares to. Right now it is the size of a walnut or a fig. I feel like I've been pretty lucky as far as nausea goes so far, but I've read that I should be finding relief from it, when really I feel like it's just starting to pick up. I'm so happy that I have such wonderful support from my loving husband and I love more than anything to hear him talk about "our baby" and to be happy about it. It's a crazy, scary, and exciting experience and I can't believe I have to wait a whole 7 months or so more to hold my baby!!!

Excited because...

2011-03-06T17:51:00.000-08:00

WE DID IT!!!

2010-12-28T20:18:00.000-08:00

We are finally graduated from BYU! It is about time too! We seriously could not be happier. Bryan graduated with a BS Psychology and I a BS in Communication Disorders. Unfortunately we don't have pictures of us in caps and gowns because BYU only has a ceremony in April and August, so we may go back to walk, but we'll see where our lives are in a few months. Nonetheless, it feels so good to be done with school. It hasn't quite set in yet, but I know it will when vacation's over and we don't drive back up to Provo with everyone else. We're big bad adults in the real world now! It's crazy!!

So what's next for us? Bryan is in the process of applying for law schools. He is applying to BYU (which would be ideal because of the costs), Chapman in Orange CA, La Verne in Ontario CA, UNLV, Gonzaga in Washington, and U of Denver. We are(temporarily) living with Bryan's parents until Bryan starts law school in Fall 2011. We are both just looking for jobs right now, hoping for something good since we have are awesome Bachelor's degrees! Right now we're just kind of taking life as it comes.

However, the main thing occupying our minds right now is when to start a family. I wish I could fast forward time 8 months from now and see what our situation would be like with Bryan in law school and a baby on the way and see how well we can handle it. So this is where I need opinions!!! We really want to be able to have our own place to live throughout law school, but the only way that seems possible is if I work full time for the next few years. If we choose to have a baby, then we may be forced to live with our parents until Bryan finishes law school, which isn't ideal. I just want to be independent and still have our full privacy and continue to be our own family. I just wish my desire to have a baby wasn't so strong!! So I want to know how you mothers do it. How do you have a baby while your husband goes to school? Do you continue to work? Does your husband work? Who takes care of your baby if you do work or go to school? Anyway, I would really appreciate any advice you could give me about having a baby, living in your own apartment, and being the sole provider of your family!!!

The Phantom of the Opera

2010-10-13T11:40:00.000-07:00

Was AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh my goodness. I cannot even describe how good it was. So Bryan and I took a brief trip down to California to go see The Phantom of the Opera at the Pantages theater in LA at the beginning of the month. It was a short, but sweet trip. We got to see both of our parents (who also came with us to see the play) and even had time to relax and watch General Conference. We were running SUPER late the night of the show and just BARELY made it through the doors before they closed behind us! Boy were we lucky! I seriously refused to miss even a second of it. My favorite part of the whole thing was that Bryan absolutely loved it!! He just kept telling me leading up to it to "don't expect anything", "I already know I'm not going to like it",...yadda yadda yadda. He loved it and couldn't wait to get home and watch the movie. That made me so happy! Hopefully it is warming him up to actually wanting to go see more musicals with me :) Here are some pictures of the fabulous evening:

Bryan's parents are on the left and mine are in the middle

Colorado Trip

2010-10-04T11:06:00.000-07:00

Bryan and I have been talking lightly for the past couple years about going to Denver to see the Dodgers play the Rockies sometime. It wasn't until this past summer that we actually discussed it seriously and decided we were going to do it! We reserved a room at a really nice Best Western,

bought tickets to two games, and by the end of August we were on our way!

The first game we went to, we decided to splurge a bit on some decent tickets and sat right on the third base line, just 5 rows up. That is the closest I've ever been at a Dodger game!!

Before the game, James Loney, the first baseman for the Dodgers, came right up close to our seats to sign autographs and he signed our ball!!! We were so excited to say the least!

James Loney signing our ball:

Our signed James Loney Ball :)

My wish is to attend an away Dodger game at least once every summer (my dream is to go to St. Louis next year). So as we attempt to do this, Bryan's goal is to have the hot dog known for the team. Here he is eating his Rockie Dog:

They won the game that night, which was super nice. Unfortunately, they were so lucky on Saturday night. We spent the whole day Saturday in downtown Denver, where they have a lot of fun and interesting things to do. My favorite part was seeing the King Tut exhibit at the Denver Art Museum! The exhibit was stationed there for a short time and I wanted to see it so badly that Bryan willingly sacrificed the money (it was expensive!) to go see it with me. It was certainly the highlight of my summer and definitely worth the money especially since the guy told us that these artifacts may never leave Egypt again! We weren't allowed to take pictures of any of it though, which was way too bad. Here are a few more pictures of our adventures downtown:

Can you find Bryan?

This was my second favorite exhibit the the art museum:

Who Had a Birthday??

2010-09-28T08:15:00.000-07:00

It was Bryan!!!!

Bryan is now officially...

His cake was a pain to make. It was SOO moist so when I tried to spread the icing it just kept falling apart. Luckily it ended up ok and looking cute and thank goodness it tasted good!

Bryan and me before the party started:

We had dinner at his most favorite place to eat: Pizza Pie Cafe! It was as good as ever!

Bryan with all his loot:

The Plaid Clad:

The Gang:

All in all it was a great day. Happy Birthday Bryan!!!! I love you!!!!!!! :D

PS. Yes, his birthday was September 4th, but since school started, I haven't even had the chance to think about anything else, which is why this post has come so late.

Winners in All

2010-07-13T11:10:00.000-07:00

Congrats to Spain for winning their first World Cup ever!

But more importantly, congrats to Uruguay for being the fourth best team in the world! It's so amazing that they were able to get so far. Nobody believed they would even get out of the group stage. I am so proud of them!!

Better still, a HUGE CONGRATS to Diego Forlan of Uruguay for winning the coveted Adidas Golden Ball award: best player in the tournament!!!!! I sure hope this really puts Uruguay on the map and hope people don't disregard their skills just because they are such a small country. I can't wait for the Fifa World Cup 2014: Brasil!

*How did you find out you’d won?
"To be honest, after I was nominated I decided to wait and see what happened, especially as there were rumours that I might win but nobody was revealing anything. Then I got a message from a friend in Buenos Aires which said 'Congratulations, you’ve won the Golden Ball’. Then my agent called me and confirmed it. I started getting more calls and suddenly all my squad-mates had charged into my room, and before I knew it they’d chucked me into the hotel swimming pool!"

One More Week of Glory

2010-07-02T08:55:00.000-07:00

*Warning: this post is only about soccer and I won't be offended if you choose not to read it.

Oh. My. Goodness. I LOVE THE WORLD CUP!!!!! I should have written this post a long time ago, considering it has been going on for a few weeks now! I figured if I was going to write about it at all, I might as well do it before my FAVORITE TEAM is out of the running (not that I have any doubt that they will move on, but just in case). I love soccer very much and am so sad tat I stopped playing when I was younger. I haven't ever really gotten into MLS soccer though, they just don't show enough games on tv and it just hasn't interested me much. But the World Cup is the main event that I look forward to every four years, right up there with the Olympics! There's just nothing better than watching National teams playing for the pride of their country! As sad as I am that the US is out of the running, I'm very proud of them for getting as far as they did and being number ONE in their group. US soccer has seriously come so far, even from the last World Cup four years ago in Germany. We went in as the favorites in our group and people all over the world were expecting them to get past the group stage and show what they are capable of. Unfortunately, we just couldn't figure out how to score against Ghana and once again, they were the death of us. There is, however, one more team that I am so proud to call my own, that at least for one more day is still in the tournament: URUGUAY!!!!! My mom is from Uruguay and we have been back to visit so many times throughout my life, so I hold this country very close to my heart. I have so much confidence that they can win today against Ghana, but still I am soooooooo nervous to watch the game, I really don't think my heart will be able to handle watching it! No matter what happens though, they have already made their country proud. It's been a long since they've even qualified for the World Cup, but to get as far as they have has been such an accomplishment already. They finished first in their group, have played excellent defense (only allowing one goal so far in the Cup) and Luis Suarez and Diego Forlan have been AMAZING strikers with two goals each. I'm not worried, just nervous. All I can say is: GO URUGUAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There are a couple other teams I am rooting for, however. Bryan served his mission in Paraguay and they amazingly enough, are still in it as well. This is the furthest they have ever gotten in the World Cup and that is a huge accomplishment. Unfortunately they are to face Spain next. Yikes. Good luck! It's going to be a tough game to watch because Spain is the final country that I am routing for. Of all the teams that have the best possibility to win the trophy, I want Spain to win it. They are notorious for choking in the Cup and have never before won the grand trophy. Plus, my mother's parents, grandparents, and everyone before them come from Spain, so it's in my blood to root for them as well! Finally, I am SOOOO glad that Brazil is out!! Woohoo!!!

Landon Donovan after his amazing goal in the 91st minute, allowing the US to win the group!

URUGUAY!!!!

31 year old still amazing: Diego Forlan and teammates

23 years young and fabulous: Luiz Suarez

Sadly, it's not real face paint.

I'm so glad Bryan has chosen to support Uruguay as well! :D

Paraguay flag for Bryan.

NEW DO!

2010-05-13T20:06:00.000-07:00

Check me out!!

Do you like it? I sure do!!!

I WON!!!

2010-05-02T21:45:00.000-07:00

Check out what I just won:
http://grosgrainfabulous.blogspot.com/2010/03/baby-bungalow-guest-giveaway.html
Can you believe it?? I sure can't! I'm so excited! I've never won anything before! I'm going to pick the mocca design. It's super cute and pretty gender neutral. Now if only we had a baby to use it for...Oh well. Maybe sometime this year we'll talk more seriously about getting pregnant. Who knows. :)

Flirty Aprons GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

2010-03-16T11:32:00.000-07:00

Flirty Aprons GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

Baby Bungalow GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

2010-03-10T09:18:00.000-08:00

Baby Bungalow GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

It Begins Tonight

2010-02-12T09:58:00.001-08:00

Doesn't this just give you the chills?

Shanghai Circus

2010-02-04T11:17:00.000-08:00

So for those of you who may not know, my birthday is today!!! In celebration, Bryan took me to go see the "New Shanghai Circus" last night at BYU and it was amazing!! I couldn't believe how agile and strong everyone was. Some of the GIRLS were carrying the weight of up to three other girls! It was absolutely fantastic to see! One of my favorite things they did was the hoop jumping. The guys did that part and they would jump through hoops that were way above their heads feet first and even butt first! I was also very impressed by the tight rope girl. She rode a unicycle on it and hoola-hooped with about 15 hoops and climbed a latter that she plced on the tight rope. The contortionist girls was kind of freaky. For every act, at least every 30 seconds you couldn't help but clap or say "wow!" or "ooo!" or "aahh!" because of the crazy things they were doing. Here are some pictures (none of the actual show we went to), but it shows some of the things they were doing:

The celebration continues tonight when we go to JDawgs, courtesy of a sweet lady who works in my office, and I'll probably open my "biggest" present tonight. My sister-in-law, Deborah's birthday is Saturday so we're combining the main "party" in the middle, which is when I open the rest of my presents (meaning the 3 others that I have). So tomorrow we are going out to dinner with my brother and family, and Bryan's brother and family, to Tepanyaki! It's going to be so nice to spend the evening with family.

Olympic Glory

2010-02-01T11:06:00.001-08:00

I am unbelievably excited for the Olympics this year!! (Well, I am EVERY year they come around). It's going to be so exciting! I've always had such a desire to go to the Olympics...to compete. But since I'm lazy and don't ever plan on training that hard for anything, my dream will never come true. So instead, one day I would like to at least go and watch some events in person. I have my fingers crossed for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London! Between Bryan and I, we pretty much want to watch every event this year, but here are the ones I'm looking forward to the most:

(This guy reminds me of the movie Blades of Glory)

It's very unfortunate Sasha Cohen didn't make the team this year.

*Just to name a few :)

Sleigh Day

2010-01-24T18:54:00.000-08:00

As much as I can't stand it being all wet and snowy outside, we were looking forward to it snowing this week. The reason? Sledding! In the 4 winters that I have been here in Utah (not to mention, the 22 years of easy access to the snow in the mountains down in California), I have never been. So we went Saturday with my brother, sister-in-law, and their baby. It was so much fun! Who knew? We had such a blast on our little foam sleds we got for dirt cheap at Kmart. My nephew is really hilarious too. So my brother and sister-in-law took him down with them a couple of times, but then he started saying "No! No!" when they would put him on their lap. I thought maybe he was just scared, but it turns out he just wanted to go by himself! He's only about 20 months, but he think he's such a adult! He's such a cutie. Needless to say, my first experience sledding was a grand one! We all worked up a big appetite and went to the all-you-can-eat Pizza Pie Cafe, which was delicious as usual! There's nothing better than spending a great day with great friends :)

ElfYourself

2009-12-03T10:32:00.001-08:00

This never gets old! Aside from me and Bryan, my brother Johann, his wife Deborah, and their son Henry are all in the video :D

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Reasons Life is Great

2009-11-29T19:47:00.000-08:00

First off, I wanted to start the blog with an older picture from a month ago of me and my wonderful Halloween pumpkin! I thought I looked really cute in this picture, so I had to put it up ;) See, I told you I looked cute! Haha. Ok, ok. That's enough of the self-flattery. So as you all may know, there is now an In-N-Out in Provo, UT! Woohoo! Although we still hold firm to the notion that Utah does not quite deserve it, we are neverless still ecstatic about it. We were on our way to delight in the delishessness of this glorious place, when we stopped suddenly in our tracks, only to find...the line. That line was longer than any line I have seen at Disneyland! I had heard that it was about an hours wait for the drive-thru. Bumm-er! Anyway, we decided to forget about it and figured the next time we'd have it, would be when we go down to California. But alas! We were extremely bored one night and figured there was nothing better for us to do than wait in the line. Turns out, it's only about a 20 minute wait. We ate our In-N-Out like it was the last morsel of food left in this world. Thanksgiving soon came and went. Thanks to the BYU vs Utah football game, we stayed in Provo for the break. That turned out to be just fine. Our wonderful sister-in-law's parents (Sarah's) were so kind as to invite us over for Thanksgiving dinner and what an experience that was for us! I always thought I had a big family of 6, plus my aunt, uncle and cousin would always come over for the big Thanksgiving feast, but the Wadsworth's have 11 children, 5 son-in-laws, and about 10 grandchildren who were all there. It was an experience like none other and it was wonderful! Her family is so kind and generous and we really feel like we're family when we are over at their house. Sadly, we didn't take our camera to the big event, but it was so much fun nonetheless.
And last, but most definately not the least, one of the biggest rivalries in the nation: the BYU vs Utah football game, and what a game it was! Wow, we have never been to such an exciting game. So pretty much, BYU had to win, or our parents would have been so mad that we didn't come down for Thanksgiving just to see them lose. After the game was over, Bryan and I joined the many other fans and "charged the field". (The only reason I put that in quotation marks is because I was afraid of getting trampled by the hundreds of fans, so by the time I decided I was ok with it, pretty much everyone was already on the field, so it wasn't much of a charge anymore). Anyway, it was so much fun! When will we ever get another chance to go onto the field after a game?? Also, by some coinkidink, we just happened to be standing in the pathway that all the football players were taking to get off the field, so of course we just had to pat their packs and helmets (those that I could reach) and scream at them as they trudged on by. It was magnificent! Here is a video of some of the players walking by us and all the screaming fans surrounding. You may want to turn the volume down if you're going to watch it.

P.S. Scrubs starts Tuesday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D :D :D

Musical Wonders

2009-11-11T21:31:00.000-08:00

Amazing!

When will America catch on and do this? If BYU would do this I would LOVE to walk up the stairs to school everyday!!

Summerized Summer

2009-10-08T17:05:00.000-07:00

So here's the thing. I know I haven't written in a while and I'm not sure the actual reason why. It could be because I'm too lazy, or because I like reading other people's blogs rather than writing my own, or possibly because I feel like no one reads my blog anyway, so I don't see much of a point. Or of course, a combination of the three. Well, no matter the reason, even if no one reads this (maybe once we have a baby people will be more interested), I am going to continue on just for my sake. I want to be able to have these memories :) So without further adeu, here is a brief summary of our summer and fall thus far:

We went to California for a second time this summer and went to not one, but TWO Dodger games in one week and it was fabulous!

My Dad, my brother and me

My wonderful husband and his dad

We're not sweaty I promise, it was very misty that night

The beautiful Dodger Stadium as we walk away

We visited the tide pools in San Diego

My Dad really wanted to sit in the top deck. He thought it would be so much fun (which is the main reason we went to a second game). It actually has a pretty good view.

We took seriously nifty pictures through the binoculars. It gave this really neat shadow effect.

Our new camera takes these pretty amazing panoramic shots too.

Mi familia
Ok. Enough with the Dodger pictures already. This blog entry is now very disproportionate because of it. Sorry!

Bryan had a Birthday! This is his joyous face when he opened up the tickets for the Blink-182 concert! He was seriously ecstatic and so surprised, I love it!

Bryan with all of his gifts (cell phone unpictured, but included in the presents)

My brother, sister-in-law and nephew. (Johann also had a birthday a couple weeks after this, but I didn't take my camera. I really need to be better at that)

On the way to the Blink-182 concert!!!!
So we had didn't know that we were allowed to bring our camera into the concert until we were at the front of the line and it was too late :( We took pictures with our phone, but you can't really see anything at all.

So here's a sign of the concert. Also, Taking Back Sunday was there too and they were amazing in concert! And so was Blink-182, oh my goodness they were so good!!!!

About to head off to our first football game of the season! I wish I had an after photo though, what a disappointment it was. Oh well. Still fun :)

Our camera has some pretty good zoom too. (We could have had awesome pictures of Blink considering how ridiculously close we were to begin with, but what can you do?)

We also welcomed a new member to the family!!!!!!!

Ethan Mark was 8lbs 13oz and born the day before Bryan's birthday, September 3rd.

Ok, ok, ok. So he's not OUR baby, but our new nephew, born to Bryan's brother Daniel and his beautiful wife Sarah :)

Last picture, my other nephew Henry. We were playing The Beatles Rock Band for Johann's birthday. Henry watched Bryan put his guitar on and went over to the other guitar and did the exact same thing and tried to play it. It was SO CUTE!

Well, I hope you enjoyed our "brief" summary of our summer up till now. Tune in for more exciting news to come!

The Rebuttal

2009-08-09T21:19:00.001-07:00

If you have not done so, please see the previous post first. Thanks!
-Natalie

Anything but Monopoly

2009-08-09T20:53:00.000-07:00

Natalie and I played Monopoly today. It did not end well! This is basically a play-by-play of what happened. Two competitive people playing a game by themselves is never a good thing. You gotta love stripgenerator.com!

Owlz Excitment

2009-08-09T09:54:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was so much fun, just being able to hang out with my hubby all day was wonderful! Bryan, unwantingly, took me to the Farmer's Market here in Provo that I have been wanting to go to for a very long time now (for some strange reason), but it turned out to be quite pointless because we didn't even think of bringing cash with us so I couldn't buy corn or anything I wanted to. So that lasted about 5 minutes, but now we know for next time. Afterwards, another unwanting Bryan (he's the best), took me to see Julie & Julia. I felt so bad because I practically begged him to go with me to see it and to be honest, it was quite a dissapointment. Imagine my guilt after that. It was a cute movie though, I just wouldn't choose to see it again. After eating our traditional Pretzelmaker, we headed home for a much beloved nap :) My favorite! For dinner, we decided to try that Zupas place that has just soups, salads and sandwiches and holy cow, it was so good! And cheap! Bryan got the ever so delicious Lobster Bisque and I got the delightful New Orleans Style Gumbo. I thought it was great because they give you each a chocolate covered strawberry, which is quite random to me, but yummy as well! After, we were going to see a movie at the dollar theater, but when we got there, the line was just ridiculously long, so instead we headed out to the Owlz baseball game. I LOVE going to baseball games with Bryan! It's possibly one of my favorite things to do. (Of course it would be better if it was a Dodger's game, but what can you do when you are stuck in Utah). I love spending time with Bryan. He just makes me so happy and no matter what, always makes me laugh and I just adore him with a passion!!!

This was the first Owlz game that we've been to where they've won

The mascots, Hootz and Holly, got married. It was kind of awkard.

But they had fireworks!!

2 yrs come and gone

2009-08-05T17:34:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was our two year anniversary and it was wonderful! Bryan got me the prettiest pink flower and brought it to me at work, which made everyone jealous :) He also bought us both the new BYU Football shirts for the season, Go Cougars! We actually decided to celebrate part of our anniversary early by getting each other's gifts like over a week ago. Bryan had been begging for his MVP Baseball 05 game for the PS2, since his is all scratched up. We just happened to be at the mall and saw it for only two bucks, so how can you pass that up and not buy it? Exactly! I was a little jealous, admittedly, so we went right ahead and bought my gift which is one of my new favorite movies, Coraline! Anyway, back to our actual anniversary yesterday. After Bryan got off work, we went to Red Lobster. We have been dreaming about going there for the longest time and already knew what we were going to get. We decided to share one of their new location inspired dishes, the Maine Lobster and Crab bake and holy cow it was so good! Lobster tails, crab legs, shrimp, scallops, potatoes, corn on the cob, and broccoli. What more could you ask for? My mouth is watering just thinking about it. Unfortunately, I forgot I had my camera so I didn't get a picture. The night ended just as perfectly as it started with my mom's signature home made cherry cheescake. Yumm-o! What a fantastic day it was :)

Oh, I love you Bryan...

2009-07-15T09:04:00.000-07:00

Bryan is going to hate me for this, but I just couldn't help myself!

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

California Dreaming

2009-06-28T22:02:00.000-07:00

Last weekend Bryan and I were able to go to the wonderful Southern California! Oh what a MUCH needed vacation that was! Last term was probably the toughest term/semester that I have had here at BYU. Word to the wise, do not take PdBio 220 (Anatomy) unless you absolutely have to!!! Needless to say, an hour through my two hour final, I was done! But we finished finals and headed off to sunny California! Oh how we miss the place! The drive down was long, but we decided to take our precious time, stopping in St. George for In N' Out and buying a new camera at Best Buy (it's about time!). We got home at about 10pm, but didn't get to bed until 12pm, because my parents were just so excited to see us that they kept us up till late (and vice versa). We spent Thursday mostly with my family, visiting my brother's new house and having barbeque pork for dinner. We did have the chance to see Bryan's mom that morning to, which was really nice. Friday, the beloved of all days, we went to Disneyland!!!!! We have been waiting for SOOOO long to finally go there again, that we didn't waste one minute of our time. We woke up about six in the morning to eat at the Original Pancake House (which is a tradition for Bryan's family to go to before Disneyland). Bryan's mom was supposed to come with us and then his dad was going to meet us at the park later on, but his mom couldn't find her annual pass and we were forced to leave her behind. It was such a bummer! We got to the park later than we hoped, so we decided to start our day at California Adventure and be there when it opened. After lunch, we headed in to Disneyland (doesn't that name just make you all giddy inside?)! The park was open from 9am-12am so of course we made sure that we were in line for our last ride by 12 at night. (That's the secret, as long as you are in line for a ride by the time the park closes, they don't kick you out). I think we ended up leaving the park around 12:30am. Our feet and my back were KILLING us by the end of the day. Saturday we did NOT set our alarms to wake us up in the morning. We were SO tired! We spent the majority of the day with Bryan's family and had a huge barbeque with both families (can you tell we love barbequing?). It was so nice just to be able to watch movies with his parents and spend the day relaxing. Our time in Riverside was way too short, so we plan to go down again in August! Somehow, we only managed to take pictures at Disneyland, but here are a few of our favorites:

On one of our most favorite rides: The Matterhorn!

After dinner where we had a much needed rest. Isn't he just so cute?!

This reminds me of Hawaii (so did the yummy fresh Dole pineapple whip we had here at the Tiki Room)

Sporting our 3D glasses for Toy Story Midway Mania (such a good ride!!)

The beautiful Sleeping Beauty's Castle at night

Stuck on Dodgers

2009-05-28T11:03:00.000-07:00

Sorry this is so late but it's about time we talked about the Dodgers for a little bit. The new season started about a month and a half ago and they are not only in first place, but they are 18 games over .500 with the best record in the major league! Needless to say we are more than a little excited about the way things are going for our boys in blue! Even though Manny Ramirez is gone for 50 games because he is retarded, the Dodgers are doing just fine. Juan Pierre has been quite impressive, while filling in for Manny. Thanks Pierre! Also, Orlando Hudson has filled in the gap of the missing Jeff Kent quite well and has been a very valuable addition to our team. Thank goodness! Being in Utah, we were so bummed that we wouldn't get to see very many of the games on TV, except for when they played the Rockies. Last year, we solved this problem by paying for MLB.TV every month, but this year decided that we couldn't fit it into our monthly budget. However, a miracle occured! Bryan's dad called Bryan out of the blue and said he would pay for us to have MLB.TV! Amazing!! SO we have access every game, right here on the internet :) We are also VERY excited for June 19th to come. We will be going down to Cali for the weekend when the Dodger's will be playing the Angels at Angel Stadium. Bryan's wonderful uncle has season tickets to the Angels and being the generous man that he is, has agreed to give us tickets to one of the games! If we're lucky, they will be the ones right in the second row next to 3rd base! Can you tell we're excited!!!!!!! Also, we have saved up enough money to be able to go to the wonderful, amazing, fantastic, happiest place on earth...DISNEYLAND!!! It has been way too long since we've been. I've decided that when Bryan and I are rich, we are going to go to every Disneyland in the world. We have Anaheim and Orlando down, so now all we have left is Paris, Tokyo and Hong Kong. It will be an adventure indeed!

Oscar Spectacular

2009-03-11T20:04:00.001-07:00

Ok ok. I know th Oscars was a few weeks ago, but I just can't get over how absolutely HILARIOUS the opening skit was!! Hugh Jackman is a genius here and I just wanted to share this with all of you. I can't stop watching it! You may want to know a little about the nominated best picture movies for the 2008 Oscars, but if you don't know anything about them, it should still be pretty darn funny anyway. Enjoy!

Ok. So this was just going to be a post for this one Oscar skit, but then I remembered a couple of other ones that I thought were EXTREMELY funny too, so I just had to add them on here. If you like Jack Black, Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly, then you will love these. Oh, I guess the embedding has been disabled by request so here are the links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5JAPkvnyso
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoXLu9Rz70g

BV-Days

2009-02-17T14:17:00.000-08:00

My very own Birthday was about two weeks ago on the 4th of February and what a wonderful day it was! The night before I told Bryan that I was OK with not being made breakfast in bed (like he usually does) because I thoroughly enjoy my sleep and didn't want to be waken up any earlier than I had to. So instead, he woke up early, walked over to Shirley's bakery around the corner (this was when our car was still broken) and brought me a very yummy cinnamon roll that I was able to take to work with me. I love my husband so much! He takes care of me and knows what I like! Work and school were pretty uneventful (why do we have to go on our birthdays again?). But later that night my brother and sister-in-law came over for some pizza and yummy strawberry cake with cheesecake frosting. I awkwardly opened my presents in front of everyone, but was very happy with everything I received. I was really just happy to enjoy the company of the family that I love. Oh, and my nephew Henry is just so entertaining to watch. Friday the 6th was my sister-in-law, Deborah's birthday! So as a combined treat we went to the oh so mouthwatering Goodwood BBQ. How can you not resist a delicious rack of ribs on your birthday? Then we went over to their house (Johann and Deborah's) for some more yummy cake and Scrabble (which I won by the way, but who's bragging..) It was a good week!

(I stole these pics from Deborah's blog. I hope you don't mind! We still need a battery for our camera!)

On to Valentine's day! We had a fabulous Valentine's day. Thanks to my birthday present from Johann and Deborah (mentioned above) I got to go to Kohl's (my favorite department store) and pick out some lovely decoration to add to our apartment. If you want to see them, you'll have to come over. Sorry! Finally, after much debating on whether we wanted to go to the Olive Garden or Brick Oven for dinner, we chose the less expensive option and went to Brick Oven. There are no regrets! Their caesar salads, garlic bread and pizza are delicious!! Plus, apparently my friend works there that I haven't seen in a really long time, which was really cool. After our yummy, early dinner (we went at 4 so as to avoid the V-day crowd), we went to see Coraline in 3D. Now that was a good movie! However, I will NOT be showing it to my kids until they are much older! We ended the evening with our most favoritest cake in the world: Rainbow Chip cake with Rainbow Chip icing. We can't ever seem to find that stuff anywhere until I discovered that it seems to b the only cake that the Creamery sells! And it is GOOOOOD too! Well, there's our current update and we hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's day as we did!

Hooked on a Feeling

2009-02-13T22:16:00.001-08:00

David Hasselhoff's music video "Hooked on a Feeling"...'nough said.

The Magic of Ordinary Days

2009-02-11T21:17:00.000-08:00

So I have discovered my new favorite movie, which is "The Magic of Ordinary Days". It is one of those cheesy Hallmark movies, but for some reason I just absolutely loved it the whole time I was watching it. It takes place in 1944 and is about a woman (Keri Russell - one of my favorite actresses) who gets pregnant before she is married, but the father is sent out to war. Her dad doesn't approve of the baby and arranges for her to marry this farmer from the middle of nowhere. She believes this situation will only be temporary, but in time she comes to fall in love with the man she has married. Anyway, someone from YouTube paired some clippings from the movie with this beautiful song that I also now love. (And I won't be offended if no one cares to watch it).

In Rememberance

2009-01-21T14:16:00.000-08:00

Just a short note before I decide to write a long blog about what really happened today. Jeff Kent has retired...I know, sad news. So this is in rememberance of the amazing career he had as a second baseman. I've only been a fan of him for two seasons, which is when I finally became a baseball fan and a Dodger fanatic, but during this time I have come to find out what a great player he is (or I guess was) even at the age of 39 and 40. He was the 2000 NL MVP, five-time All-Star and four-time Silver Slugger. He will retire with a .290 career batting average, 377 home runs, 1,518 RBIs and a .500 slugging percentage. His 351 home runs hit as a second baseman are 74 more than the next closest second baseman, Hall of Famer Ryne Sandberg. So he a shoe-in for the Hall of Fame! I know I would vote for him! He is settling in Austin, Texas with his wife and four kids ranging from ages 5 to 12. But all in all, even though he is one of baseballs top 10 hot-heads, he was a good guy (from what I can tell at least) and a good member of the Church. So, even though he's still alive, I just wanted to say farewell Jeff Kent. I will always love you! (but don't tell my husband that!) Also, I'm just glad he retired with the Dodgers :)

Major Change

2009-01-09T13:32:00.000-08:00

Ok. So I (Natalie) have made a big decision that I am trying my best not to regret. I changed my major from Psychology to Communication Disorders, which is Speech Pathology and Audiology. A few days before this semester began, I just started getting the feeling and began thinking that I wanted to be a Speech Therapist. So after talking it out with my parents and my hubby, I made the official and final decision to change my major the day after school started. It's a big sacrifice because it puts me back a semester and I HAVE to go to grad school if I want a career in Speech Pathology. I just hope I'm doing the right thing, but I guess only time will tell right? This idea didn't just come out of nowhere, by the way. When I tranferred to BYU, it's what I wanted to do, but I took the intro class and changed my mind. I tend to do that a lot. But unless I want to be in school forever, then I'm stuck with this major. That's ok though. It will be a lot of work but I think it's the best thing for the future. Wish me luck!

BELIEVE

2009-01-06T17:52:00.000-08:00

I figure now is as good a time as any to write about our wonderful Christmas vacation! Especially since we are just sitting around waiting to our favorite show of all time to premier for the new season. SCRUBS is the ultimate best and luckily for us, we both LOVE it!! Anyway, we had the wonderful opportunity to go home to California for the week and a half of Christmas vacation that we had. Unfortunately we had to work the first Monday and Tuesday of vacation causing us to wait until Christmas Eve to go home, but it turned out to be fine. We had a great Christmas Day! We stayed at the Jones' home for the first week and the tradition there is to wake up at 7am to start opening presents. That was a little hard to do, but the excitement of Christmas helps a lot. After opening our presents, we headed over to the Simonds' home to spend the day. It was nice because my brother, his wife, and their baby boy were able to make it down as well and we all got to open presents together. We always hav fun opening presents because we take turns to see what everyone got and their reactions. The common themed reaction this year was "It's a sweater!!" and if you haven't seen The Three Amigos...watch it!! We soon headed back to the Jones' home to enjoy a delicious Christmas dinner prepared by Bryan's mom. The rest of the vacation consisted mostly of relaxing and enjoying NOT being in school for a change. Some other highlights of our vacation were going to the San Diego Wild Animal Park and Downtown Disney as well as just plain spending time with our families. It was SO nice being away from Utah and in the 70 degree weather that we experienced in Cali! We didn't have to wear boots, sweaters, long-sleeve shirts, beanies, glove, scarves or anything like it the whole time we were down there and it only rained twice. We can't wait to finally be permanently back there for good! Well, we hope you had a great a vacation as we did and we're sorry that the unfortunate school has to start back up again so soon. Good luck in your studies or your jobs and treat you families (and especially spouses) well for the New Year! Happy 2009!!! This is us in a fake bird's nest at the Wild Animal park.

Happy Holidays!

2008-12-23T11:29:00.001-08:00

Just writing to wish everyone a VERY Merry Christmas!!! Today is our last day of work and then we get to go home to California tomorrow! Oh the excitement! We just keep praying that the road conditions will be good to us. Today has been bright and sunny so let's just hope that it continues through tomorrow. It has not been fun having to stay in Utah to work and waiting to go to Cali until Christmas Eve, but we're making the best of it. Last Saturday, Bryan's brother, Daniel and his wife Sarah came over and we went to see such pretty lights in Spanish Fork. They do this thing every year called the Festival of Lights and you drive around this cool display of Christmas lights. I recommend it to everyone who is stuck in Utah for the holidays. It is only five bucks per car and 15 minutes away and you get to stay warm with the heater on. We had fun :) Yesterday was nice. Both Bryan and I work on campus at BYU and we received an email around two o'clock saying that the supervisors had permission to shut down their offices due to bad weather conditions. So we got to leave three hours early!! It was nice, BUT, Bryan had scheduled to take his online class midterm and then he was going to request his final, and yesterday was the last day he could do it. So we walked over to the Independent Study building (in the bad weather conditions that they shut down the school with) and of course, we get there and they are closed! So we trudged back to the opposite of campus to get in our car and go home. We were VERY wet by that time. But on the way to the car, the ducks at the pond on the south side of campus were all gathering around these people who were watching them, thinking they had food, but they didn't. So I convinced Bryan to get bread with me and come back to feed the ducks. They are SO cute!! I thoroughly enjoyed feeding them. They all have different personalities too, it's so funny to watch them. We decided that when we have a house with a pond in the backyard, we are going to buy some ducks :) Well, that's the excitement of our lives. I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and that you all get what you wish for. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

A Saturday to Remember

2008-12-09T14:15:00.000-08:00

This past Saturday Bryan and I got free tickets to the BYU basketball game at the Energy Solutions Arena, in Salt Lake City so we decided to make a day of it. The first thing we did was go see the Disney movie Bolt in 3-D. It was a really good movie and I recommend it to everyone! Even Bryan loved it too! We cried. The movie started at 1:30 and the game started at 5:00, so after the movie we walked around the Gateway mall for a little bit. It was nice just to walk around and not be tempted to spend any money (since we don't have any). We then headed over to the Arena which was just right across the street from the mall. We had great seats! We were in the 5th row just behind one of the baskets as shown below:

BYU played Utah State and there were TONS of people there from the other school! Each school got half of the Arena so the other team's fans were across the court from us. It was such an exciting game! The scores were close the whole, with BYU constantly in the lead. We, however, came out the winners with a score of 68-63. :) After the game we went to one of our favorite Maxican food places: Albertos! We used to eat Albertos all the time in California, but the only place we have been able to find it in Utah is in Salt Lake. The food was sooo nummy! Finally we ended the day with walking around temple square to see the Christmas lights. Bryan had been waiting for this part all day. Temple Square was extremely crowded, but I have to admit, the lights were beautiful!

It was definitely a good day :)

I also wanted to add that we have a Christmas tree!!!!! I looked online for all the best deals and found one that I really wanted at Walmart! It was only $35 so we decided we can afford it and went down to Walmart to go get it. When we got there, we discovered that the tree was 6.5 feet tall and started to debate whether we needed one so tall or not. We looked at the four foot ones, but they didn't have what I was looking for at that height. Finally, after about a half an hour, Bryan said "That's it. I came here expecting to pay $35 dollars so that is what I'm going to do!" So we bought the (fake) tree that I've always wanted! It's big and came with lights already on it and it's WHITE! Our ornaments are a work-in-progress though, but I love it! I made the snowflake tree-topper all by myself too! I was so proud of myself!

(Pictures are courtesy of Johann and Deborah who let us borrow their camera. Thanks guys!)

The Charleston Elves

2008-12-03T17:14:00.001-08:00

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

California

2008-12-02T14:30:00.000-08:00

Bryan and I had the fantastic opportunity to go home to California for Thanksgiving. Before I mention anything else though, my younger brothers, Kaleb and Derek, received their mission calls!! Their calls came so quickly and we just happened to be in Cali at the time. It was crazy because Bryan and I were at his cousin's house heating up the jacuzzi and playing pool when I got a call from my sister-in-law asking me when we would be back at my parent's house and she said my brother's mission calls had come. It was funny because nobody had checked the mail all day and finally at night my dad went to check it and he started running down the driveway saying "There here!" I was SO anxious to get home! So without further ado, Kaleb is going to the Washington Seattle Mission which is where my dad is from and Derek is going to the New York Rochester Mission which is where the Sacred Grove and other church sites are!! I am so ecstatic for them!!
Left: Kaleb with a picture of Seattle; Right: Derek with a picture of the Sacred Grove

Moving on now. Bryan says our trip was wonderful... We had Thanksgiving dinner with my family and dessert with Bryan's parents. We didn't do anything too exciting while we were home, but it was just really nice to play games and just sit around with our families and just to be with them since we rarely get to see them, living in Utah. It's so nice to have both of our families in the same city (even though we do live a half an hour apart). Our families were able to get together Saturday evening and we had hamburgers and hot dogs and watched the USC vs Notre Dame game. Now just a couple more weeks of school and then we shall be off to California again for Christmas!!

Naughty or Nice?

2008-11-18T18:09:00.000-08:00

Go to this link to see whether Bryan has made Santa's naughty or nice list:

http://family.go.com/santas-list/video/132-bryanandnataliejones/

I thought this was pretty coolio. Merry Christmas!!!!

Halloween!!

2008-11-02T20:25:00.000-08:00

Bryan and I had the best Halloween we had experienced as a married couple. Last year we stayed home, watched scary movies and handed out candy to only three groups of kids that came by. This year, however, we had the wonderful opportunity to go to our friends, The Bassetts, house in Lehi and go trick-or-treating with them and their most adorable kids! The oldest, unfortunately, was sick and didn't get to come with us, but we still collected candy for him anyway. Bryan and I were Dodgers, of course. The baby slept, the youngest girl, Bella, was a mouse and the oldest girl, Sammy, was a pirate. We didn't get to take any pictures because the battery for our camera has officially died and doesn't want to recharge anymore. We will buy another one someday though! We have discoverd that Utah is very generous on Halloween. We have to admit, we did collect candy for ourselves as well and got a TON of candy just by going around the block! Someone was even giving out full size candy bars! There was also a family giving out Stephen's hot chocolate for the adults which was very yummy! After trick-or-treating in the rain, we came back and made dirt cups and watched the movie Casper on their projector. It was so much fun to go trick-or-treating with them. Bella was so cute because she kept dragging her heavy bag of candy around, but when one of us offered to carry it for her, she would refuse. The girls were also very generous with giving us even more of their candy, but I would feel bad so I made sure they would only trade with me. We seriously had the best time! Although we did miss out seeing our nephew Henry on his adorable scarecrow costume. I told Johann and Deborah that they will have to dress him up for me another time.

This picture is not from Halloween, but it's just to show the cutest girls from the family that we love in Lehi. Bella is on the left and Sammy on the right. They absolutely LOVE when Bryan and I come over and don't leave us alone until we leave! That is ok with us because we love them too!

Yes on Prop 8

2008-10-23T22:10:00.001-07:00

I have officially voted! Yay! So I just wanted everyone to know where I stand on Proposition 8, which would change the California Constitution to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry and that only a marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California. I have indeed voted YES on this Prop. I have nothing against those who choose to lead the same-sex lifestyle and I do have friends who choose to live this way, but it is important to me that I live in a state that shares my values and standards regarding marriage. I just learned recently of an incident where a man was arrested in Massachussetts for wanting to know ahead of time what his child was to be learning in school. This child brought home a book called "Diversity" which sounds like a book about the different ethnicities right? Wrong. This book promoted homosexuality and that it was ok to be heterosexual or homosexual if you choose. This child was in Elementary School! When his parents found the book, they went to the school and asked that the school inform them of what they are teaching their child so that the parents can choose whether to allow the child to go to school that day or not. Instead of talking things out and reasoning with the parents, they threw the father in jail. That is terrible! I do not want to have to worry about going through that same situation in California when I have kids the same age as this child. I feel that it is my right as a future parent, to be able to teach my children what values and standards they should uphold. It is the same thing as teaching your children about religion. Public schools are not allowed to teach religion, so whay should they be allowed to teach about homosexuality? The fact is, they shouldn't. And that is why we need to vote Yes on Prop 8 so we do not have to worry about what reprocussions may come in the future.

On November 3rd, the member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is asking the nation to fast for Prop 8 at 10:00 am for 24 hours. So I ask everyone who reads this and is willing, to please fast for this Proposition and pray that it gets passed in California so that we may sent the standards for other state who are still allowing same-sex marriage. Thank you everyone! I love you all!! :)

We're Going to the Playoffs!!

2008-09-29T21:23:00.000-07:00

DODGERS UPDATE: For the first time in four years the Dodgers have won the National League West Championship! In your face Diamondbacks!! They start the postseason Wednesday at 4:30 MST against the Chicago Cubs and you can bet Natalie and I will be watching it! Our hopes are high that they could win the World Series! If anyone wants to come see the games with us on Wednesday, Thursday, or Saturday, you are more than welcome to come to our apartment: BSF+D (bring some food and drinks). But please make sure to call us before you come so we can make sure our apartment is spick and span!

As a surprise, I ordered this picture for Natalie from a game we went to in June.

Birthday Madness!!

2008-09-04T21:10:00.000-07:00

Today is Bryan's birthday!!! And he sure had a wonderful one! (In my opinion and his as well). It started with me waking up at 6:15am to make him a delicious breakfast in bed including pancakes, eggs, toast, chocolate milk and yes, chocolate cake! Then off to school it was, but not before he found the few love notes I left him in his shoe and such :) We really got to celebrate his birthday after work when we went to the Brick Oven with my brother, sister-in-law, and 3 month old nephew: Johann, Deborah and Henry. We love hanging out with them! They also paid for our dinner which was so kind of them! We had lots of pizza and the waiters brought him some chocolate mousse and sang to him. After, we headed over to our apartment for cake and presents (Bryan's favorite part). It included all of us previously mentioned and Bryan's close friend Kevin from his work. I made him chocolate cake with chocolate icing, per his request. From Johann and Deborah, Bryan received a really cool Dodger cup that you can put in the freezer and it will keep your drink cold when you take the cup out and they also got him a movie gift card. We LOVE going to the movies so it was the perfect gift! Next he opened the gift from his parents which was, of course, his favorite Disney movie that just came out on DVD: The Nightmare Before Christmas!! Finally, he opened the waffle maker that I gave him (which, yes, he has been wanting one for about 6 months now, it's true, it's not for me I promise!). And then for the last gift, his most favorite of all, the DAVID BECKHAM JERSEY!!!!! Oh man, that sure made him happy, which indeed makes me happy. It has been a great day (besides having to go to school and work on his birthday-nobody should have to do that). So Bryan is officially 23 and still young. I'm just so grateful that I am able to share this day with him and really hope I made it worth his while. Oh, also, we ordered a Spanish card deck, which are cards that they have in Uruguay and Paraguay, and they arrived today, so we just included that as one of his birthday gifts as well. It has been a nice day :)

Dinner at the Brick Oven (I'm not sure what Bryan is doing here...)

A couple of Bryan's gifts: The Nightmare Before Christmas and David Beckham jersey

Nice pose ;)

Blogging Bandwagon

2008-08-31T23:31:00.000-07:00

Well, it looks like we have jumped onto the blogging bandwagon and have created our very own blog. One of my friends unknowingly gave me the idea of using the blog as a journal, since neither Bryan nor I are very good at keeping our own journals, we thought we could just print this out at the end of each month and keep it in a folder. Sounds good so far! Let's keep our fingers crossed that we can keep up with this!! To be honest, our lives aren't too exciting, however, there are some things we were able to do this summer that we have thoroughly enjoyed. Just last weekend we had the chance to go to Idaho to visit Bryan's brother, Daniel and his new wife Sarah. They're lucky to have a two bedroom apartment and invited us to visit them for a weekend. The best part of the weekend was when we went tubing down Snake River (it was my first time, so I was a little nervous). It turns out, there was nothing to be afraid of and we had a blast! Although, I didn't think to put on sunscreen so I did get just a little sunburned. We also had the wonderful opportunity to visit the fairly new Rexburg Temple and do sealings for the first time. There is nothing more beautiful than the spirit that is felt in the Lord's temples. We made it back from Idaho just in time for the BYU football season to start and went to our first game! We got to sit in ROW 6 in the endzone! We were so close we could almost touch the field! Even though we're not the biggest fans of football, we really enjoyed the game (of course, it also helped that we are students at BYU). Oh, BYU smashed Northern Iowa 41-17. We are unfortunate to report though, that we do not have any pictures of these events due to the fact that Bryan's camera is on the DL (that's baseball termonology for the camera being on the disabled list because it needs a new battery).

DODGERS UPDATE: The Dodgers beat the Arizona Diamondbacks 8-1 and now are only 2 1/2 games behind Arizona. Also, Jeff Kent (my favorite player) just went on the DL and is in need of knee surgery :(