Flashback Friday - Camping!

We are leaving this afternoon to go camping with my parents. This is a Labor Day tradition in our family and as a kid, sometimes we'd go several times in one summer. This year, due to the Makely's having a baby 2 weeks ago and my brother Kris and his girlfriend being pregnant and just moving into a new house, most of the weekend will just be my parents Brent and me. We love camping. I was born in Running Springs (well, actually San Bernardino but my family lived in RS) and then we moved to Mariposa (a small mountain town just outside of Yosemite) where we lived until I was 4. I was young so I don't remember much of those times but whenever I get up into the mountains, I feel like I'm home. The smells, the trees and the fresh air are just so comforting. This weekend we will be up at Huntington Lake, just an hour or so outside of Fresno. My parents bought a camper trailer a few years ago so we won't be "roughing it" what with the toilet, shower, sink, stove and microwave and what-not, but Brent and I sleep in a tent and we still cook most of the food over the fire. Anyway, we're excited to get away from it all and just hang out with my parents all weekend. I'm betting the weekend will include several games (liar's dice, chess, dominoes, farkel, etc), hikes around the lake, a trip to the little "town" for their yummy buffet breakfast, several naps in the sunshine and lots of good conversations. Here are some pictures from camping trips in years past.

Good Stuff...

We aren't football people but we do think these guys are hilarious...Connect four!!

Baby Makely Update

To update the post from last week about my sister's new baby, Samuel Royal, was born on August 16th, at 8:41 pm. He was 6 lbs. 15 oz., 19 inches long. He was 4 weeks early but is a healthy little guy. Good job Tiff!

Flashback Friday - Doc's Pizza Buffet

We are big pizza lovers and lately have been missing one of our old favorites from Provo, Doc's Pizza Buffet. Here's a list of our favorite things about Doc's:

- all you can eat pizza
- the prices!
- the variety of pizza and the fact that they take special orders (our fave, pepperoni/pineapple)
- they serve Apple Beer!
- the location (it's right next to the store I used to work at)
- great for Saturday night dinners before fast Sunday
- pasta and salad bars included
- ice cream cone included too
- dessert pizza

The quality of the pizza isn't the best, but it's still good and as poor, starving college students, mediocre all-you-can-eat-pizza, apple beer, ice cream cones and dinner for 2 for $10 + tax is one of the good things in life. Oh Doc's, we miss you!

The Tale of Despereaux Mouse

I REALLY want to see this movie. And read the book.

(Cami & Melissa, I'm sure you can figure out why this would be on my list of movies to see other than the general "it looks like a good, wholesome movie".)

When I was little, my family called me Mouse. See if you can tell why...

And then there were 8!

Congratulations to the Makely Family!! Tiffani (Emily's sister) had a baby boy last night. He is child number 6 in their family. We are so excited! We love the Makely's and can't wait to meet the little guy. As far as I know, he is still nameless. They are going home from the hospital probably today so I guess he'll have a name soon. According to Ephraim (kid #4, age 4) the baby's name is Racecar. I'll update with pictures and his name once I know it.

The Makely Family: Richard, Tiffani, Faith (12), Malachi (9), Hope (6), Ephraim (4), Gideon (2)

Flashback Friday - Life Without Air Conditioning

Our air conditioner was not working on Wednesday & Thursday and it reminded us of a few years ago, in our first LA apartment, when we didn't have central air/heat. We had a 10+ year old window box unit in our dining room. It cooled down the dining and living room quite well but the bedrooms and bathroom were off through a hallway and we were on the second floor so for about 2 months during the summer, the bedrooms were disgustingly hot. After a couple of weeks of trying to cool them down using all the fans we could get our hands on, we decided it was a futile effort and just started sleeping on the living room floor on the mattress from our fold-out couch. The couch itself was miserable to sleep on so we just put the mattress on the floor and would lean it up against the wall during the day. It wasn't too bad but we were REALLY excited when we found out that our new apartment had central air that we wouldn't even have to pay for. So for the last few days, I've been thinking about the good ol' days back in our cute Chandler Blvd apartment when we were both freshly out of college and all of our furniture was handed down or bought at DI. We were brand new to the whole LA experience and miserable with our jobs but loved our new "grown-up" life. Good times.

Babies!! And some other thoughts...

WE LOVE BABIES!!!

Ok, so if you know us at all, you already know that we both love kids more than pretty much anything else you could think of. And we're not too picky about who's kids either. Children are a wonderful, beautiful blessing and we LOVE them! Pretty much all of them! Yes, we know that they are stinky and fussy and needy and really mess with you sometimes, but I'm sure NO parent that reads this can say it's not worth it.

On that note, I got to babysit Kaleb yeserday. He is a 6 week old little guy that belongs to some of our good friends here in LA, Jake and Kristen. We love the Stevens family and Kaleb is awesome! I may steal him soon. I think newborn is my favorite stage of babyhood and I don't think I could ever get sick of tiny little wiggly babies. Kaleb is no exception. He cracks me up. If you check out his parents' blog, you'll find lots of pictures of him in all his glory, but I did manage to snap a few pics. Note the mohawk. It's fantastic. And no, his parents don't comb it that way, that's how he came out, which makes it ever more fantastic.

I'm sure several of you are wondering where we are at in our "efforts" to have a little one of our own so to put things to rest, here's the scoop. We are at the end of what our insurance will cover as far as infertility so for a few weeks now we have been thinking and praying and fasting about what the next step we will take is going to be. The problem here is that there are a few really good options thanks to our connections and the fact that Farmer's is offering the employees a totally new package of coverage starting in Jan. And, we found out last week that Farmer's is starting an international rotation program for the Actuarial students. It is an opportunity to live in another country (somewhere in Europe or maybe Australia) for 2 years and network and learn and teach with employees from Farmer's parent company, Zurich Financial. It sounds like a fantastic opportunity for Brent, career wise, but it's not definite that he'll get a spot since they are only taking a few people.

So new dilemma, if we apply to the international program, where does that put us with trying to start our family? If we chose to move out of the country, would that be putting career instead of starting a family? How would this work? What do we do?

Well, that was how we felt last week. We have now decided (thanks in part to the Cooke family and the Family Night and the long discussion we had) that we don't have to choose just one option. Heavenly Father has put all these things in front of us and so we are just going to do as much as we can (fill out adoption applications, find out info on our new insurance/invitro, apply for the relocation, etc). We are going to do our part, and see what Heavenly Father comes up with as the answer for our family. The more we do, the more chances we have for success. And who knows, maybe we'll end up doing a combination of thing like invitro in England, that is where it all started you know.

Anyway, now you are up to speed. We appreciate all of the support our family and friends give us. We are doing really well and feel really positive about the near future.

Hooray for the Olympics!!

I have a feeling that Brent and I will not be going to bed much before midnight for the next 2 weeks because the Olympics are on. NBC has about 8 hours of coverage each day (don't worry, we fast forward through a large portion of it) and USA and CNBC also cover the non-prime time rated stuff (fencing, boxing, weightlifting, equestrian, etc). It is SO fun!

Brent loves sports and learning and numbers and so that makes the Olympics a perfect way for him to use his brain. He pauses the tv whenever there is some sort of statistic so that he can figure out how the athlete needs to perform to beat it, and we usually watch the little blurb about the sport before it starts so that we can figure out what the heck is going on. I think he watched an entire water polo game the other day. He's enjoying that I'm not whining about the amount of sports he's been watching which I tend to do, especially during March Madness.

I on the other hand, am not a big sports fan. Well, at least not the main stream sports available to us on tv. I usually have a hard time watching sports on tv, except for baseball. Don't even ask me to sit through a basketball game. YUCK! But, there is something about the Olympics that gets me every time. I love the variety of things to watch, learning about some of the crazy "sports" out there, seeing the competition between the rookies and the seasoned athletes. Plus the John Williams music rocks. I think so far, my favorites have been the swimming and the gymnastics. The cycling was pretty cool and the rowing was interesting. The womens saber fencing made no sense at all. Tonight is the women's synchronized springboard diving finals. It should be pretty awesome. I'm hoping that at least one of the networks shows the synchronized swimming. That stuff is insane! And cheesy!

Anyway, congrats and good luck to all the Olympians out there, especially the LDS ones. Good luck to Laura Wilkinson, a diver. She went to my high school (several years before me) and this year, she is attempting the most difficult dive for a woman, because the press is starting to label her as a has-been and she wants to prove them wrong. Also, we are really rooting for Michael Phelps, we want him to get the new record of 8 gold medals in one Olympics! How sweet would that be? He would not only be the best swimmer of all time but the most decorated Olympic athlete in history.

Our one complaint, the arrangement of the National Anthem that they play for the US gold medalists is kind of wussy. We want to hear something bolder and more triumphant!

P.S. The opening ceremonies were cool. They had some wicked awesome stuff, and the Bird's Nest stadium is so modern, and the design of the cauldron is beautiful! Have you seen the Water Cube, where they do all the swimming stuff!?! It's a giant blue cube that changes colors! We had a fun night on Friday watching the opening ceremonies with the Thompson's. We had Panda Express and chatted. Good times.

Flashback Friday - Drill Team

I saw this idea on a friend of a friend's blog and since I was toying with the idea of doing a weekly themed post anyway, it seemed like a good fit. Every Friday (or as often as possible) we will post a flashback, something Brent and/or I are being nostalgic about that current week.

This week, thanks to all of the So You Think You Can Dance I have been watching, I am remembering the 2 years I did drill team and cheerleading for the little league football team back in Texas. Football is practically a religion in the south and in the area I grew up in there was a league of 12 different teams starting as young as 8 years old. Let me point out it is full contact football, full pads and all. They are all named after NFL teams, and the team for the district I lived in was The Broncos.

Each football team has it's own cheer team (we were the Pony Express) and we would have 2.5 hour practices 2 times a week and cheer and dance at the Saturday football games and at the end of the season we had our own drill team competition where we danced in several different categories (pom, military, jazz, novelty, etc). It was pretty hard core for being 11. If you are asking yourself, what the heck is a drill team?, here are some youtube videos of random drill teams doing pom and high kick. It's a huge thing in Texas and the dancing is actually quite amazing. The team from my high school, the Bearkadettes, often wins national competitions.

Anyway, here are the pictures from the 2 years I was a Pony (3rd & 6th grade). The registration fee was pretty hefty and there was a fund raiser you had to do as well or the parents would have to pay another fee and the parents all had to put in 5 volunteer hours, or again, there were fees. We didn't have much money growing up but my parents knew how much my sister and I wanted to do this so they designed and made the uniforms. I'm not sure if they started doing that my first year, but by the time I did my last year, my sister had done several years of it and they would make the 80+ uniforms, by hand, tailored to fit each girl. It would take weeks and hundreds and hundreds of hours, and our dining room would be covered in blue and orange fabric but it was either that, or we'd have to come up with about $300 per girl or just not do it. Thanks Dad and Linda! I think they helped with the competition costumes as well, which were usually big gaudy things with lots of sequins.

Enjoy! And just remember that this was Texas in the 90's so big hair and bright lipstick were in. Oh wait, they still are...

Date Night!!

So, many of you know that we are big "date night" enthusiasts. More often than not, our dates are just "pick-up-some-takeout-and-watch-a-movie-on-the-couch" dates, which honestly isn't that different from our regular weeknights. Throw in the occasional venture to an actual sit-down restaurant and/or movie theater and there you have about 80% of our dates. Calling them date nights makes us feel better and makes it a little more fun/special. We ALWAYS have at least one date night a week (usually on Friday) and since we have no kids we often have 2 and sometimes we'll switch off planning it every other week as a surprise to each other.

During the summer, our dates tend to get more creative partly because Brent isn't too serious about his studying yet and partly because we live in LA, people! There is always something fun to do in LA, but more so in the summer. And you don't have to have money to do lots of them! Some of my favorites: fish and chips on the beach to watch the sunset, driving along Mulholland to see all of the city lights and to watch the car hit 50,000 miles, going to the Griffith Observatory, going to tapings of Last Comic Standing and eating dinner while we stood in line, a John Williams concert at the Hollywood Bowl, wandering around Universal Citywalk waiting for our movie time, etc.

On Saturday, Brent needed to stop by his office and get an analysis running on his computer so that he would have less to do on Mon so I finally got to see where he works. I've been to the building about 1,000 times but I've never been inside. I got to see his "cube" and where the rest of his team sits and his old crappy, cramped cube. It was fun. Sad that Brent had to do work on Saturday but we were only there for about 30 minutes and now I can picture in my head where he is all day long.

Then, we headed over to Santa Monica and strolled the 3rd Street Promenade and Ocean St. We stopped and had dinner at Johnnie's NY Pizzeria. We're not big shoppers so there wasn't a whole lot to do but walk around but the weather was nice and it was something we hadn't done before. We saw a few street performers and stopped in a book shop. It was a nice evening, and we've both decided that we're glad the other isn't a clothes monger because there are certainly enough stores to spend a fortune in down there.




Yay for date night!! I know this sounds cheesy but it really has strengthened our marriage because for a few hours, we don't talk about our worries or things that are stressing us out or what we have to do tomorrow, we just have some good quality time. And it gives us something specific to look forward to during the week, not just "oh good, the weekend is coming". It's a fantastic way to learn, and connect and grow together as a couple.

Now, I hope you all go out and start having more dates. We're lucky that we get every one every week, which I know a lot of people can't do, but once a month should be easy enough. It's important!! And I don't want to hear any excuses (kids, work, too tired, etc)! Call me if you need a sitter, or if you want to double!!

Home again, home again, jiggity jig.

**Warning! Really long post with lots and lots of pictures, ahead!**

We're back and already missing our family. Darn. How come vacations are never long enough? I think part of the problem is that when you leave your house, eventually you want to get back "home" again, but Utah is a home for us.

We had a really great time and filled every day to the max with fun activities. We saw and did so many things and visited with a lot of people, but still didn't make it to everyone. So, here is a mass apology to all of those family and friends we didn't get a chance to see on this trip. We missed you! We will be coming for at least a week in December so hopefully we'll see everyone next time.

Here's the basic rundown of our little vacation.

Thursday was Pioneer Day, which for all of you who haven't lived in Utah, and might not know, is actually more than just an occasion to sing fun songs in Primary. It's a state holiday and a lot of businesses close for the day and there are all sorts of festivities. In Brent's family, one of the traditions is to go downtown and watch the parade. Several of us got there around 7am and found a spot to sit, then the others gradually trickled in and we ate lots of yummy sweet rolls, orange rolls, fruit and cold cereal. Brent's dad marched and played with the Post Office Band, as he does pretty much every year, and we saw lots of fun floats. Some of the cousins played a card game while waiting for the parade to start and the rest of us chatted and passed around our niece (Brent's sister Andrea's baby), Hannah, who is 3 months old.

After the parade, we went back to the house and rested up a bit and then got to work on preparations for the big BBQ. July 24th is also Brent's sister Camille's birthday so most years, after the parade, the whole family comes over to my in-law's house for a BBQ and games and just plain ol' fun. They have an amazing yard and we have lots of room to spread out and be silly. Everyone brings food and it's always delicious. This year we had steak, salad, dutch oven potatoes, fruit, scones, cookies, grape lemonade, homemade root beer and homemade ice cream. After dinner, people played water balloon volleyball, "I love all my neighbors", Four Square and shot water balloons with a giant slingshot while the rest of us watched and laughed and talked. I rarely had big parties with extended family growing up since we were so spread out geographically so anytime we get to be with Brent's family, I just sit and soak in all the love and laughter. I think at one point we had almost 30 people. We also stuck candles in the cookies and sang Happy Birthday to Camille. What a day!

On Friday, we slept late, took a long walk and then had a big yummy breakfast. After we all got cleaned up, we (Brent's parents, sisters and us) went to Randy's (my father-in-law) cousin's house to look through some of Grandma and Grandpa Gray's things to see if wanted any things from their house before the rest got donated. We found some fun treasures and quite a few useful items. After we got back to the house, we were joined by Brent's sister's husbands and we went to the Mayan for dinner. It is a Mexican restaurant with a jungle-y atmosphere and a rock waterfall and a diving show. The atmosphere and food were better than I remembered but the diving show was much worse than it used to be. It was still fun though. After dinner, we went to see Horton Hears A Who at the $2 theater. (Might I just add that cheap movie theaters are one of the things I miss about Utah.) It was hilarious! I thought it was going to be a little silly but it was awesome. "You take care of the meatball, I'll take care of the freaking out."

Saturday morning, we (Brent's immediate family, minus Andrea and the baby but plus his cousin Jared who is pretty much a brother and whose wife was out of town) woke up early and headed down to Mt. Timpanogos. We hiked up to the cave and did a tour of it. The hike was starting to get pretty strenuous (at least for those of us that are out of shape) towards the end and I was beginning to wonder/hope that the cave would be worth it. It was! I have never been in a cave and most of the family hadn't been there either so we were expecting it to just be a big room. We were wrong! The tour took about an hour and our guide, Ranger Sue, was great. It was just the 9 of us on the tour so she took extra time and shared lots of cool things with us. After the cave tour, we hiked back down the mountain and had a picnic lunch near the river. What a great experience! The day was beautiful and we started early enough that it wasn't too hot and the side of the mountain we were hiking was still mostly shaded.

After the hike Brent, Jared and I went to Provo. We went to my sister Cami's house where she was throwing a baby shower for her sister-in-law, Ana. During the baby shower Brent and Jared went to visit our boss from when we (Brent, Jared, Cami and I) worked at the Law Building at BYU. They had fun visiting and catching up. The shower that Cami threw for Ana was really great. She makes the BEST centerpieces. So creative! After the shower, Brent, Jared and Cami's husband Luis hung out and played video games while Cams and I had our own fun. As she put it on her blog "we spent most of the afternoon giggling about ridiculous nonsense, which is just the way I like to spend my afternoons". She showed me her beautiful house, her wedding dress store, and the designs for her line of bridal gowns that will *hopefully* be available this fall. You should see these gowns, they are gorgeous and unique and totally modest. So here's my plug for Casablanca Gown Co. If anyone knows someone getting married and wants a custom gown, let me know and I'll pass along her info. I love being with Cami because she is one of the few people who knows everything about me and she totally gets me and whenever we get together, it's a riot. Thanks, sissy!! Also, while I was at Cam's house, I took some pictures of her garden and some pregnancy portraits of Ana since she hasn't allowed anyone to take pictures of her for the past 8 months. I guess she trusts me and that's very flattering.

After visiting the Farias family, Brent, Jared and I went to American Fork to a friend, Jeff's, house. Brent, Jared, Jeff and another friend, BJ were all roommates in college for a couple of years and it was about time for a reunion! We are all married now and Jeff and BJ have kids that we had never met. So we sat on the back porch with all the guys, their wives and kids and roasted hot dogs and caught up and reminisced about the old days. It was so fun to see all those guys again, some of whom I hadn't seen since their weddings almost 4 years ago. It's fun to see how we've all "grown up" in some ways but are still young and crazy in other ways. I spent quite a bit of time talking to Jeff's wife, Hannah, who has also experienced lots of infertility problems, but now has 2 beautiful twin girls from IVF. It was nice to trade stories, complain, and share advice and tips with each other. I am always sad to hear when others have problems getting pregnant but it is so nice to really talk with someone in "the club". Thank you Stevenson's for a wonderful evening!

On Sunday, we all slept late and then had a huge breakfast of pancakes, eggs and fresh fruit. Afterwards, Brent spent some time showing his mom some new tricks on her computer and then we all went to church. After church, we trekked up to his grandparent's house for dinner. It was so fun to visit with his grandparents. After dinner, Brent's aunt and uncles and cousins came up for dessert and there was more visiting and more games. It was hard to leave that night because we knew we would be flying home the next day.

We really loved our vacation and remembered how much we miss living near family. It was so great to have all of Brent's sisters and their husbands sleep over at the house so that we could all be together for so long. We can't wait to come back at Christmas!! Yay for family!!

Wow, that was long. I guess if you've made it this far, you're either family or really bored, or both! I was going to cut it down a bit but Brent said it is good and our blog is basically our journal and we don't want to forget what we did on our vacation.