Updates, but No Pictures

A lot has happened since our last blog post.  For one thing, I think Olivia threw away the camera connector cable to our laptop, so we can't get any pictures off our camera.  I know I should just buy a new one, but I still hope that it will magically appear.

Olivia is still wild and crazy.  I finally bought her a tiny potty because she always wanted to poop in the toilet but then got scared at the last minute.  She pooped in there when she was like 16 months and the water back splashed on her little booty, so she hasn't wanted to go on the big toilet ever since.  I'm not going to lie, but I do NOT want to potty train her until after the baby comes.  She always tells me when she is going to poo, but I just tell her to go in her diaper because going to the bathroom for her means she gets completely naked, puts on her shoes, then sits on the potty for 10 minutes before running around the house naked.  I'm too pregnant to chase her around, so we're putting the potty training off.

Olivia also got a new bed!  She is actually using my bunk bed from when I was a small child.  She uses the top bunk so that she has the bar so she won't come out.  Up until yesterday, she never got out after we put her in.  Then she would just come out in the morning, play with her Elmo book, then wake me up when she was done.  Two days ago she learned how to jump out of her bed instead of climb, so it took her a while to get to bed.

Other than that, she's just talking up a storm and always kissing my belly.  She loves little babies and always insists on holding a little baby named Stu that we always babysit.  She's going to be a great big sister.

A lot of changes have been going on with John too.  He just got called as Young Men's president in our ward and is loving it so far.  They are doing a Christmas tree pickup fundraiser for scout camp that he is really excited about.  We're excited to see how much money they can raise.  He also finished applying to grad schools!  Not only that but we're moving to Texas next year!  He will be attending the MBA program at Texas A&M.  We will be 2 hours away from my sister and her family so it will be fun for Olivia to play with her cousins.  In the near future, John in mostly excited for this new baby so that he can take 3 weeks off work.

As for me, I'm just doing the same old thing: playing with Olivia and watching Elmo.  The baby is due in 2 weeks!  We'll see how that goes.  About a month ago, I went into the hospital because I was having contractions 2 minutes apart.  It was a nice hospital stay.  It was like a really expensive hotel with room service with less than comfortable beds.  This pregnancy has been a little harder than the other.  I haven't gained any weight in the past 4 months and the baby is really small, so I go into the doctor often so that they can closely monitor the baby.  I do 2 non-stress tests a week and an ultrasound every week.  I think I will be seeing a specialist next week.  Nothing to worry about.  I'm just glad that everything is being monitored.

That's it.  Looking back, I think I should have bought the camera cable before typing all that out.  It looks so boring without pictures.  Better get one today.  This baby could come anytime and I better have a camera to take lots of pictures!

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!  Here's Olivia helping with the green beans!

Tough Mudder and California

In September we went to California for the Tough Mudder race around Lake Tahoe.  This race was crazy!  It is an 11 mile obstacle course with a lot of mud.  I thought that that the obstacle course was full of  tires that one runs through and swinging ropes.  I was wrong.  Check out the website.  They had to climb 12-foot walls, craw though long muddy tunnels, run though electrical shocks, and tons of other wild things.  Here's our preparations:

Olivia loves sitting in the cooler.  I'm pretty sure that she played in here for at least an hour.

This obstacle was towards the end.  They had to climb up like a 15-foot quarter pipe.  That's John standing on the left in the blue.  He was the first one up and had to pull up his brothers and dad.  John's dad broke a rib and his gold crown (tooth) came out, but the first aid guy refused to put in back in his mouth, so John had to stuff that thing back on.  He did such a great job, that the dentist didn't even need to fix it later!

John said that he could have gone for another 5 miles, but I think Jacob was ready for the end.

After the Tough Mudder race, I stayed in California with my family and took a one-way flight for only 32 bucks, home.  Meanwhile, John had Wednesday off work, so he went on a 15-mile hike adventure alone in Craters of the Moon, a National Monument a little more than an hour away from where we live.  He took a lot of landscape pictures that are neat, but it's better in person.  Here is just a tree mold.

Other than that, life is wonderful.  John is applying to several grad schools to do an MBA program while Olivia and I have been playing around the house all day!  Olivia loves playing with all her friends and play fighting.  She's a buff little girl that isn't afraid of anything.  Over Conference Weekend, we went down to Utah and went to John's mission reunion.  Olivia said hi to everyone, ran around, and would run off the stage and jump into my arms.  She's a brave girl and not afraid of anything!

Zoo, Leatherman, Tetons, Table Mountain and Olivia!

We went to the zoo in August. You will see in a previous post last summer Olivia's first Idaho Falls Zoo visit.  Olivia was awake for the experience this time.

This is John's failed attempt of Leatherman Peak in the Lost River Mountain Range last month. It's the second highest mountain in Idaho. John says he knows the mountain far better now and will succeed the second time.

We went to the Teton National Park again. This was just a quick half-day trip. First picture is the traditional Jackson Hole, WY antler arch photo.

Biggest dog ever.

Can you see Melinda's favorite tree?

On Labor Day John hiked Table (Rock) Mountain just outside of Driggs with a friend. They found a moose!

This is Table Rock almost at the end.

Victory shot. From left to right: Mt Owen, Grand Teton, and Middle Teton.

Olivia keeps growing.

This is Olivia playing with some other kids in our ward.

Olivia and John with Jocelyn's first picture! We're pretty sure on the name Jocelyn.

Passport Stamps, Yellowstone, and the Zoo!

We have done so many things this past few weeks!  Three weeks ago, we went down to Southern Utah where Olivia hiked her first 11,000 ft mountain, Brian Head Peak!  We also hit up Kolob in Zion National Park and Cedar Break National Monument.  She got two more stamps in her National Park passport!

Then my parents came the following weekend and we all went to Yellowstone!  First, they got to wake up to this sign in our front yard.  We have had a bag a dirt that the garbage man hasn't picked up that has been sitting there for a month. We are lazy bums and haven't done anything about it, but the neighbors (or neibors as they spell it) gave us some encouragement!

Here are a ton of Yellowstone pictures.  Not all of them need explanations.

 FYI that's my brother who one lady at church thought was a high school student.  Nope, that's my brother the psychologist. 

 This is my favorite part in the entire park!  It looks like a painting even in real life.

 Kevin brought his camera and a monocular (singular binocular) to take some extra close pictures.

 Olivia, the mountain climber loves to climb rocks and stand at the top.

This bison came so close to our car we could have pet him if we wanted too!

 Old Faithful!  We got there just in time!

 Olivia and her licker.

 Monks

That's all of Yellowstone!  We went to the zoo the next week and Olivia loved it!  Unfortunately Olivia is really into hiding things and we currently cannot locate our camera.  Hopefully another update will come soon!

In and Out, National Parks, Shasta, and Grass

A lot has gone on since May.  We took a trip to Craters of the moon, went to CA twice, completely redone the front yard and put grass in, climbed Mt Shasta, and in one week, I will be done with my 7 years of   college forever... until grad school.

Believe it or not, I am horrible at taking pictures and have no proof of anything that I just said.  Here are some other pictures though.

Olivia has suddenly turned in a super picky eater.  She use to love raspberries, but now she just puts them on her finger and forces daddy to eat them.

Nobody in Idaho has air conditioners because they all have basements which are surprisingly cooler.  Now, since John and I both have a fear/hate for basements, we bought a 2-story house instead.  Unfortunately it didn't come with an air conditioner.  But heck, we bought one anyway!  Coming Tuesday or Wednesday.  It gets really hot in our house, especially upstairs.  Olivia's baby monitor measures the temp between 87 and 90 every night.  During the day, I just throw Olivia in her swim suit, put on a bunch of sun block, and let her play with the hose and water the lawn.  She loves it!

This was Olivia's first time seeing the firework show in Idaho Falls: best firework show west of the Mississippi!  Melaleuca spends over 20 million on this 40 minute firework show.  It's wonderful because it is walking distance from our house and we don't have to drive and wait hours to get on the freeway.  If you want to see it next year, just come to our place!

When we were in CA, Uncle Kevin gave us a bunch of glow sticks so we shared them with our friends and let Olivia play with the rest!  She loved them!

Olivia loved the fireworks!

Hey Olivia, What's in Your Mouth?

This video is so funny (at least to me) that I couldn't wait until Sunday to post it.  It might just be a thing that only parents and grandparents think if funny, so I won't be offended if you don't like it.  She does it every time, but she usually has a rubber band or something else she shouldn't have in her mouth.  This is chewed up chicken.

The Other Side of Hell and 16 Teeth

(This is John's first blog post!  Enjoy)

Olivia has sixteen teeth. This is how she deals with change.

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On May 8th John had a company meeting in Boise. It was 8 hrs of driving for a 3 hr meeting. Good thing he got a rental out of it. He left early so he could do his thing. His first stop on the way was Horse Butte, just before Burley, very close to where Hwys 84 and 86 meet. Turns out the Butte was just a hill next to a rest area. This is a picture of the rental car at the rest area.

This is Horse Butte. No wonder John had trouble finding any information on it online. 

The summit. After walking for about 15 minutes and crossing three barbed-wire fences.

Other side of the butte from the 'summit.'

John's second stop on the way to Boise was Burley Butte. This one was even more pathetic. John actually drove over the Butte before he even realized he had missed it. Yes, this is a picture of the Butte.

And this is from the "summit," also taken from the car.

On John's way back from his 600 mile drive he stopped at a rest area between Blackfoot and Idaho Falls that he said the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) website for Bonneville County claimed there were trails at that rest area which were part of Hell's Half Acre.  John confirmed that they were and we did the first one, I-15 Pocatello bound, on Saturday. This is the map of it at the trail head.

 It's a pretty serious hike when you have to bring a bag of chips along.

Fun little paved paths. The trail head sign said it would take 45 minutes to walk. At a truly leisurely pace we did it in about 15 minutes. Don't trust trail signs.

This is the other side of the freeway. We did this trail on Sunday. These are excellent little walks for the Sabbath. 

Olivia lost one of her flip-flops. This is a zoomed in picture Melinda took of it before making me run back and get it.

For Mother's Day the Ward gave everyone 19yrs and older a milk chocolate Symphony bar. Olivia benefited.