Owen pictures

Ya, ya, I know - it's been a while since we've put pictures up. Here are a bunch of pictures from the last month and a half or so. There's not a lot of organization to them; this post is mainly so we don't get shot by out-of-town relatives (Karen :). Enjoy!

A little bit of sag...

This was after we had packed up Owen's crib (and everything else in that room). It was completely empty except for his mattress. It psyched him out - when he woke up in the morning and after his nap, he wouldn't get off his mattress. Poor kid. :)

From our last walk across campus.... we had to take this picture!

By the Maeser building - Matt's favorite place on campus.

Pretty sure I had the cutest graduates on campus.

When we first got to CA we took a break and went down to Pacific Grove for a weekend. It was a great mini vacation!

Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Love this face. So much. Even the little runny nose. :)

Night at Fisherman's Wharf in Monterey.

From our sailing trip in the SF bay.

Cherry picking... teaching Owen about the "rock" in the middle of the cherries that he's not supposed to eat.... he ended up swallowing about 4 of them, and that was the last of the cherries he got to eat by himself.

This was one of the ones he swallowed... it never got spit out for my mom to catch. :)

This boy loves cherries.

Madeline and Becca helping Owen climb the ladders.

Showing Owen the farm animals at Tilden Park. He loved the cows. Can you tell?

Walking through San Francisco on our 'get away' for our anniversary.

Owen's prize from San Francisco... he loved it!

Sailing in the San Francisco Bay

Matt and I were invited to go sailing in the bay a few weeks ago. We embarked from Emeryville in the morning, sailed around to the north side of Angel Island and had a picnic there, then sailed past Sausalito, the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, and the Bay Bridge before heading back home. It was a great day! We LOVED sailing, and hopefully we'll be going again soon.

A map of where we sailed - the red line was our route.

Our view of the main sail.

A view of the east side of Angel Island. Angel Island handled many of the immigrants that came to the western US. It's often called "the Ellis Island of the West", and many of the buildings that used to house staff as well as the people that were quarantined on the island are still there.

This is where we had our picnic. This building on the north side of Angel Island used to be a barracks for some of the staff on the island, and is now a museum.

A view of Belvedere and Tiburon (we think) from our boat. This is said to be the most expensive real estate in the Bay Area.

The Golden Gate bridge and a passing sailboat.

Our boat and the Golden Gate Bridge.

Alcatraz Island - a different view than the one we normally get from the city.

A sailboat passing the city... I think this is the Marina Green in the background.

More city. You can see the Transamerica building to the left (the triangle building) and Ghirardelli Square to the right - if you look closely you can see the big "Ghirardelli" sign above the building. That's my favorite place in all of San Francisco. :)

Me driving the boat.

My sweet sailing shoes. Sperry Topsiders for $20 at Ross? Yes please.

Our captain and host Roby Hyde teaching Matt how to drive.

Steve and Debbie (Matt's parents) relaxing on the boat as we pass a cruise ship docked in San Francisco.

Matt, me, Steve, and Debbie on the boat after returning from our fantastic trip!

Matt vs. Wild

Every so often we get the chance to do something totally unnecessary, yet totally awesome! This happened to me last semester when I signed up for a wilderness survival class at BYU. We met once a week and learned various skills, like starting fires using sticks, making rope out of bark, setting traps to catch food, and building shelters. For our final we went on a three day survival trek out in the middle of nowhere and had to prove ourselves against the wild.

This is me saying goodbye to my wife and son as I went off into the wilderness, (probably... to die)

The trip started out when we were dropped off in the middle of the night, on the side of a dirt road in the middle of the desert. We were told to follow the road until we reached our camp. We ended up hiking for two or three hours in the dark until we found the camp. Once there our teacher told us to get some sleep, that we would need it for the next day.

I slept under the stars, on the hard ground, and woke up covered in snow. It was one of the worst nights I have ever had. That day was used to pass off our skills for our teacher. It was exhausting and tons of work. Around 5 pm we were told that the time had come to go off on our own. We were hiked through the woods by our TAs and dropped off one at a time. Then I had to spend the next 38 hours alone in the wild.

This was the shelter I was able to build with the hour of sunlight I had left.

The walls didn't reach the floor, so I was freezing all night long. I could also hear coyotes all around me in the dark. My fire also went out in the middle of the night and I couldn't get it going again.

After that sleep I knew I needed to build a serious shelter.

It took most of the day, but my shelter was as solid as a rock by the time I was finished.

My lonely camp.

I burned a hole in my sweatshirt when I was reading scriptures by the fire.

Waiting to be "rescued"

Overall it was a really fun trip and a great class. That being said, I was happy to go home to my little family and sleep in my warm, soft bed once again.

This was my welcome home poster prepared by Nicki and Owen.

Nicki also made me an awesome welcome home feast! Steak, my favorite snack foods, and banana cream pie! Thanks babe.

Easter Weekend

We had a great Easter weekend - we had breakfast with my sisters on Saturday morning, attended our ward's Easter egg hunt on Saturday afternoon, and dyed eggs on Saturday night. The next morning, Owen found his Easter basket and hunted for eggs in our house. We enjoyed spending the weekend together watching conference and eating tons of Easter candy! It was a great restful weekend right before the last couple weeks of school!

Helping Lexie stir.

Trying to convince Owen that he wanted to find eggs, not play on the playground.

Eggy! (in Owen's words)

Once he found out there was candy in the eggs, he wouldn't let them out of his sight.

Coloring on his egg with a crayon before he dyes it.

Owen loved these eggs (and managed to break about half of them before they were even dyed - he even bit right through the shell of one of them).

Deciding what stickers to use on his eggs.

This was close to the end of our egg dyeing - Owen was getting to be a bit of a punk. :)

Dyeing Easter eggs. Owen LOVED this! Hopefully next year he'll get to do it on his own instead of just watching. Mommy didn't want to deal with scrubbing dye off of him and his high chair. :)



Owen loves to help me put away pots and pans that I've washed, so we hid his Easter basket in the cupboard with the pots and pans, and set one out to entice him to open the door. He was so excited to find his basket!

Opening his Easter box from grandmas.

Bunny glasses! He thinks these are hilarious.

Climbing on to the table to get his basket.

Karen, this video is for you. Owen dances to this card every night on his way to bed. :)

Advent Calendar info

My friend Jenn, who helped me make the advent calendar I posted on here a few weeks ago, is being spotlighted tomorrow (Wednesday) on the craft blog The Idea Room. She has also started selling advent calendars in her Etsy shop if you're interested. They're just like the one that I made - a frame with numbered pockets all around it to hold all the pieces, and a magnetic background scene with the manger and hills, etc. She's also got a lot of other cute patterns and crafts for sale. Go check it out!