Cool Youtube Video

So I don't usually do more than one post a day, but I was looking for a video clip on Youtube, and this was one of the most watched videos of the day, and I thought it was really awesome.

My Laundry Elf

Owen is starting to get to that age where he just loves to help me.  What ever I am doing, whether I need help or not, he is always trying to see what I am doing, and tries to help.  Usually it just makes twice the work, but it is so cute, how can I not let him help? 

Today was laundry day.  As things come out of the drier, I throw them on the couch, and start to fold them.  Well, I had just finished folding a bunch of towels, and stacked them nicely on the floor.  Then I went to fold some blankets.  Well, my little helper got to the towels...

 
 

And then the blankets...

 
 

What a little pill!  But I love how much fun he had "helping" me.

General Conference in ASL.

I love General Conference. I look forward to hearing the voice of the Prophet, and receiving council from our Church leaders every 6 months.  It is such a spiritual and emotional feast for me, I am truly grateful for it.  

One of my favorite talks this conference was by Elder Robert D Hales.  He talked about Provident Living.  He had a lot of great advice.  I loved it!  He reminded us to "be provident provider for ourselves and our families; to joyfully live with in our means; be content with what we have; avoid excessive debt; and diligently save for a rainy day."  What great advise we could all do better to listen too, especially during this economic crunch.

Something that was unique for our family this conference was that we got to watch it in American Sign Language.  The sister missionaries assigned to our ward are also the ASL missionaries.  One of the the sisters, Sis Barnard, is completely deaf.  So they asked if they could watch conference at our house, with the ASL translation.  

Here is an example of what it was like, only this is from a couple conferences ago: 

It was great having the sisters over.  I have been signing to Owen since he was born, and I  sometimes wonder if he is picking up on it.  But whenever Sis Barnard comes around, he actually signs to her.  It is amazing to see a 14 month old communicating with someone other than his parents!  It makes me so proud!

Owen in Training

A couple of months ago we got P90X,

a home workout/fitness training program.  We really like it; in fact, I love it.  

The program has you do a zillion pull ups, so we had to get a pull up bar for our home (I am actually starting to be able to do a pull, can you believe it?).  Owen thinks that this pull up bar is the greatest toy in the world.  His is always reaching up to it, trying to grab on.  He has gotten pretty good at doing pull ups him self.

Here are some pictures from Owen's "workout" this morning.

 

  Owen is actually pulling himself up here.  Tom is just holding his legs.

What a STRONG little boy.  I am convinced that he got all this strength from me, after all, STRONG  is my middle name.  No, really it is.  It was my maiden name, then I got married, so now it my legal middle name.

Mmmm Nutella

Need I say more?

Home at Last

Well, we are finally home.  We have been in Utah for the last Ten days.  Tom had a two week break in school, and so we headed for Utah.  The whole point of this trip was actually for Tom to go and shadow some chiropractors, which he did, and he had a lot of success.  I think that he met with 9 in all, spread our between Logan and Sandy.  Not bad, seeing as we were only there for one business week.

Anyway, we had a great time in Utah.  This was the first time that we have actually drive the 12 hour trek since Owen was 4 weeks old, so we were a bit apprehensive about the drive.  Tom decided that it would be a good idea to leave a 3:00 am, so that the Boy would sleep through a good portion of the drive.  It worked, Owen did not wake up until we were almost to Ontario Oregon (about half way).  And he only got supper fussy once, right out side of Twin Falls, so we decided to stop and have a look at the rather large hole in the ground at Twin Falls.

Here we hare at the Twin Fall Gorge.  Apparently Evel Knievel once attempted to jump this on his motorcycle, but he did not make it.  Too Bad.

  

This guy took the picture for us (seriously, I balanced the camera on his head).

We spent the firs couple of days in Cache Valley with Tom's family.  It just so happened to be everybody's Spring Break so all of Tom's sibling's families where there.  It was great to see everyone.

  

WE were lucky enough to see almost everybody on my side too.  The only one missing was my big brother Josh, but his wife kids where in there, which was great!  I even got to meet my newest nephew CJ.  He is so cute.  Man, was it fun to see everyone.

  

We really got to see everyone on this trip, even some good friends.  I had my roommate party, which was lots of fun.  And we were able to hang out with one of Tom's best buds, Bill Swann and go to one of his other buddy Patrick's baby blessing.  We also got to meet up with the Reynolds, our good friends from WSCC.  They moved down to Salt Lake in at Shaun finished school last October...lucky.

So, all in all, we had a pretty great trip.  We did a lot, we saw a lot, we drove a lot (we put 1300 miles on the car), and Tom met a lot of Chiropractors.  It was a great trip, but boy it is nice to be home.

Best Roommateship Ever

I had a lot of awesome roommates during my college years. Most of them I can honestly say that I absolutely loved. But there where two years, and three roommates that I will for ever adore. Megan, Malorie, Elyse, and I lived together at Andersen Apartments from 2004 to 2006. If you where to ask any of us, we would tell you that we were the best "roommateship" you could ever find. Not to say that we don't love other roommates that we have had, it is just that the there was something about the chemistry between the four of us. Maybe it is that we all got along so great, maybe it was because we had so much fun, maybe it was because we experienced soooo many things together. But what ever it was, there is something that has bounded us four on a forever deep level.

Last Tuesday, we all happened to be in Logan Utah, the home of Utah State University, and all our favorite roommate memories. This has not happened in almost 4 years, so naturally, we had the best roommate get together ever. We laughed, we cried, we reminised, we caught up, we dreamed, and then we laughed some more. I can honestly say that I love these ladies to death and back again. They are like sisters to me, and I am so greatful that I have them in my lives. I just think that we need to do these get togethers A LOT more often.