Summers' Times

February 2010

2010-03-02T20:57:00.011-07:00

They updated? No way! I know it has been a long time since there has been any activity on this site, but we have been just plain busy. Hope you enjoy the picture log of the past 4 months.

To start though I need to make sure to wish Adam a Happy Birthday! It was the beginning of February. He is amazing, juggling school, research, family, and church demands and yet we still get to spend lots and lots of time together. Zaida and I could not imagine our lives with out you!

Smile BIG!

After a very cold January, Zaida and I have been on lots of excursions.

We give two thumbs way up for the University of Nebraska State Museum: Morrill Hall (a.k.a. the Dinosaur Museum)

and the Lincoln Children's Museum!

January 2010

2010-03-02T20:37:00.009-07:00

Look what I can make "Edible" Art!

Little Miss Mommy.

Dad is the BEST Playmate!
Eden's Sewing Adventures: Matching/Memory Bean Bags and the Alphabet.

Zaida loves the matching ones because she can identify the animals and place the match on top. The alphabet will come in handy when we learn letters and start to spell since I have a double set.

Christmas 2009

2010-03-02T20:09:00.009-07:00

Christmas as a Family in Lincoln before our trek West.
Thanks Great Grandpa and Grandma Clark for the new Horse!

Barbie and Grandpa Z - What could be better?
I LOVE Bolt!!! Thanks Grandma Summers for watching it with me.
Dad and Zaida lounging around. I love Dora PJ's!

BOWLING!

Making sure Grandpa Summers and Uncle Lars don't cheat.

December 2009

2010-03-02T16:13:00.012-07:00

I love Winter!!!

I love play in the Snow...
... and sometimes fall down.

I love to decorate the Christmas Tree!

November 2009

2010-03-02T15:55:00.013-07:00

November was full of lots of Activities:

Played with Jane - Happy Birthday!!!

Played at the UNL Farm Animal Day.

Played in the leaves.

Did NOT cry over spilt milk.

Was very grateful that my first Turkey was success!

Happy Halloween

2009-11-01T20:25:00.013-07:00

We deprived Zaida of the opportunity to go trick-or-treating because we really did not know where to go, but she still got to wear her costume for two days. She and Eden dressed up for the ward party. Eden and Zaida both went as bugs.

This past week Eden and Zaida also got to go to a pumpkin patch where Zaida tromped around exploring corn fields and pumpkins. Lately Zaida has been on a kick where she needs to have her shoes on if she is awake just in case she has the chance to slip outside. This past week her favorite pair have been this bright red pair. She loves to hear the sound that they make when she walks on the tile floors. While Eden was out shopping with her, she would start marching in place just to hear the clanking sound that they make. At home she will take normal sized steps across the carpet, but as soon as she reaches the kitchen she starts taking as small of steps as possible just to hear the clank (It is always nice to have another woman clanking around in high heels).

Zaida's Birthday

2009-09-30T18:37:00.007-07:00

It's hard to believe that a year ago we were sitting in the NICU for a week waiting to take Zaida home. We have been blessed since then with a happy, healthy little girl with a knack for adventure. This last week we were able to have Eden's parents visit to help celebrate Zaida's birthday. She didn't seem to mind the extra attention and loved to "talk" to her grandparents and walk around the apartment back and forth from one person to the other to see what everyone was doing.

On her birthday everyone went outside to enjoy the day. While outside one of our neighbors came out and offered everyone an otter pop. Zaida's got spilt on the side walk so Eden got some water to wash it off. The water end up in the grass/dirt making mud that Zaida found and enjoyed playing with.

After dinner we came home and Zaida got to open her presents. Notice Eden's white necklace that Zaida is wearing. She has worn that thing for probably the past week and has become quite attached to it. If she sees it she has to wear it. She will then start walking around the apartment taking the necklace off and putting it back on. Zaida was more interested in a DVD from the library than opening her presents, but once she pulled out her new toys she seemed pretty pleased with the product. It was hard to get her to put them down so we could have her pull out the other items in the bags.

Before the night ended we stripped Zaida down to her diaper and sat her in the her high chair for the ever messy cake and ice cream eating. Eden cut her a piece of cake and we placed it right in front of her. She touched the icing but didn't want to pick it up, so Eden got a fork and we gave her a bite. She smiled as though she liked it but wouldn't eat anymore so I gave her another bite off the fork. This time she took about half of it. It was about this time that she noticed the banana she had been carrying around prior to being placed in her chair. She motioned for me to open it and then began eating it until it was finished, this was a strange feat due to the fact that she usually will only eat one or two bites of banana. Upon completing the banana she started fussing to be let out of her chair so she got down and that was it.

Out west

2009-09-20T20:07:00.012-07:00

This is late in coming, but I thought that I would put it up anyway. At the end of August we got a phone call from my Dad telling us that my grandpa had past away and the funeral would be sometime the following week. I talked with my brother, Ryan, and his family to discuss traveling together since they live 4 hours east of us. We decided to drive and we would leave that night (Friday), drive through the night so the girls would sleep the whole way and everyone would be happy when we got to Utah.
Ryan, Rachel, and Jane got here just about 11 pm so we took off around midnight. Zaida had fallen asleep on our drive home from the state fair (which was only about 10 minutes away) so she was already in her car seat. Three hours into our trip our plan to have the girls sleep the whole trip failed as Zaida woke up. Both her and Jane woke up off and on through the night and the morning. However we still were able to make pretty good time as we made it to my parents house in 13 hours.

While in Utah we enjoyed time with family and going up to Idaho to visit Eden's parents and grandparents. While there we even got to have an early birthday party for Zaida. We were able to spend a little over a week back "home" and enjoyed seeing everyone again. Here are some pictures from the trip.

This is what breakfast accommodations were in Rawlins on the way out. Zaida seemed to like her perch on the storage bins.Zaida took her Grandpa for a walk around the Box Elder County Fair

While we were in Idaho Eden's family had an early birthday party for Zaida.

If you ever find yourself in Idaho Falls around lunch time you should hit this place up just so you can say you ate at the tie-dye bagel shop, just don't expect too much, I mean it's still a bus.

We thought Zaida would enjoy feeding the ducks and geese on the river in Idaho Falls, but it turns out she enjoyed feeding herself more.

Before we left the river we went over by the boat dock and as soon as Zaida saw the ramp to the water she went to the edge. That wasn't close enough, we were barely able to get her clothes off in time for her to go splashing around. She is apparently unfazed by cold water because I sure wouldn't go in it.

Sarpy County Fair

2009-08-02T19:17:00.007-07:00

Nothing says summer to us like county fairs. This week we hit up another two fairs to bring our grand total to 4 since we moved out here. Don't worry, we still have our county fair and several others in the area that we may go to as well as the State fair here and in Iowa- I hear the Iowa State Fair has a Llama show- how could anyone pass that up.
Zaida has this thing for always wanting to carry around something while we walk around, lately it has been either a rock or a stick. If she doesn't have one she will stop and sit on the ground at the first one she finds and pick it up, if neither of those things are around then she will pick up anything that doesn't seem to belong on the ground. After enjoying this wood chip for awhile she deemed it necessary to share it with the horse.She also liked petting any of the animals that would stick their head out of their pens, although I don't really approve of the petting of goats, in this instance I thought it was alright since we made sure to pet the sheep first. After petting the animals she then decide it was funner to walk by the pens and any goat that was sticking their head out she would give them a good pat, she would then squeal and the goats would jerk back into their pen.

Home on the Plains

2009-07-29T18:13:00.005-07:00

Well for those of you who didn't hear or notice, we moved. That's right we said good-bye to the Cache Valley, and the entire state of Utah and have now settled in the lovely plains of Nebraska. Okay so it is more of a city but you can imagine what it would be like if it were the plains. We have been back here since the middle of July and are starting to get a feel for the area. I will admit I have missed being able to go and randomly stop in at family and friends homes, but don't fear, Eden had an answer for that. She decided to make cookies for every apartment in this building and the next (they are 4-plexes) and we would deliver them so we could get to know our neighbors. I learned two things during the few minutes that we spent delivering these treats. 1. Although most the people back here are very nice most neighbors apparently don't drop cookies off to each other. 2. We are the minority in these two buildings.
We spent several weeks with family prior to moving out here so Zaida was used to a lot going on, or maybe living in the sorority house had something to do with that, regardless, to try and keep busy we have spent some time at two of the local county fairs and have been grabbing brochures and free magazines at stores and rest stops like true tourists. Eden learned that last weekend was the "Wild about Omaha" weekend (like I said, we are hard up for entertainment). Basically, it was free admission to the zoo and several other places in the city. We decided we would get up and head over early Saturday morning. By the time we drove the hour to Omaha the traffic to get of the free way to go to the zoo was backed up nearly a half mile so we decided to skip the zoo and visit Winter Quarters instead.
It was interesting to go back now. The last time that either of us had been was pre-temple days. I always find it interesting how positive and happy the pioneers were to live in those little cabins. We saw the cemetery while there and Zaida was more interested in having me walk her down hill so she could feel the effects of inertia and play with the flowers.
After we got back home Saturday night we discussed the option of going to Missouri to tour the church sites there this week before I start my research and school. I had a meeting Tuesday that I thought would firm up the day I started my research (it didn't) so we decided we would leave after church Sunday and drive down to Independence.
We saw the Visitors center in Independence and that was good for a history stand point. Zaida woke up earlier than usual that morning so by the time we were finished in the visitors center she was ready to head out. Then we went up to Liberty to see the jail. On Sunday we had the lesson on the revelations received by Joseph Smith while in Liberty Jail so the timing of the trip was pretty impeccable if I do say so myself. This site was a must visit. It was sobering to see the size of the jail in real life and think of the conditions as you stand there looking at it.
We decided to skip the other sites and headed back home. Since then things have become pretty boring. I have started my trainings to become certified to do my research and Eden is now busy tending to Zaida, which right now consists of lots of walking assistance and book reading, especially if the book has farm animals in it.

On the road again

2009-05-26T13:56:00.006-07:00

A lot has happened in the last month and a half so I will try to catch everyone up to speed. May 1, I graduated with my Masters in Animal Science, the following day Eden's brother graduated with his Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering. The following week my youngest brother, Mark, got married and then the following day my grandma past away so the next week we had her funeral. In between the wedding and the funeral, we went with some friends to Island park for a weekend getaway. It was a blast!!! We went into Yellowstone, which is one of my favorite places, and got to seen new born Bison calves. It was awesome!!!

Last weekend we went up to Idaho for Eden's Grandma's 80th birthday party. I must say I was hesitant to be participate in this party due to Harriet's 80th birthday not occurring until January, but due to her good health, attitude, and the spring in her step I concluded that she should make it to 80 and beyond, so why should I miss out on a party? While there we had a good time seeing Eden's relatives and enjoying some chicken in a barrel. Zaida also got to go on her first horse ride when we went up to help with the cattle drive. She enjoyed it, but I think she enjoyed helping her great-grandpa drive the truck even more.
This week it is off to Reno with my family for a sheep show and sale, then hopefully we will be home for a while so we can get things packed and ready for our move in July. Then again, we can never stay in one place too long so we will probably be hitting the road again soon.

Road Warriors

2009-04-06T08:40:00.007-07:00

We were going to try and blog about Feb. in March and that never happened, so here is the cliff note version prior to my recounting March. Zaida grew, Eden worked and Adam wrote his thesis. That about sums it up. I did take a trip down to Missouri and Oklahoma the end of the month to meet with my major professor since he retired in December and fled the Intermountain west, I also toured Oklahoma State University to see how I liked it.

March however was a more eventful month. Due to the imposed furlough at the University Eden had spring break off so she and Zaida accompanied me to Nebraska. The purpose of this trip, besides freezing, was to determine if the University of Nebraska was where we should go. I met with professors in North Platte, where they have an extension center and then the next day went to Lincoln to tour the main campus and their facilities. Upon completing the tour I was very impressed with the facilities and the program and haven't seen anything like it.

My older brother, Ryan, and his family live 4 hours east of Lincoln so we went to visit them. We went to see the sights of Coralville, however the only thing we got to see was the mall, the outlets, and hobby lobby. It didn't help our cause that the temperature was -7 the first day and about 20 the following two days. Ryan and Rachel were gracious hosts and did give us the windshield tour of the flood zone and the campus of U of I. However, I have made a conscious decision to never visit them again in the winter due to the cold temperatures causing us to only have shopping for an activity.

The rest of the month we were busy as Zaida determined it necessary to start trying new foods. We found that she hates rice cereal, pears, oatmeal and loves potatoes and bread. We found out this week that she will eat sweet potatoes, but I think that is due to the ability to read the label and see the word potatoes, she is a very advanced individual. She also got two teeth, earlier than we expected, but they are here, and she reminds me often by grabbing my hand and putting it in the chomp zone before I can remember that she has teeth.

We went to Vernal for a lamb sale, but half way there my dad called and said he wasn't coming with the lambs, we continued on our journey anyway and had a good time visiting the Bingham clan. It was good to see them again and I enjoyed helping Jake by tearing out trees in the pasture.

I defended my thesis on the 26 and now am finishing up the revisions on my thesis as graduation nears. We also made a final decision on where we will be living next fall. I was lucky in that I was accepted to all three schools that I applied, but we are headed to Lincoln. So if anyone is in Nebraska in the next 3-4 years let us know we would be glad to have you stop in. I will be changing my focus from animal nutrition to animal reproductive physiology, but will still do a lot with nutrition and reproduction interactions so I am pretty excited. Eden's job ends June 30 so we will be moving in mid July.

January 2009

2009-02-01T21:25:00.009-07:00

In case nobody noticed, Christmas came and went, as did the New Year. We spent both of those holidays enjoying the company of family. This past month we went on our first major road trip with Zaida the road warrior. I have been conversing with several different schools, and by several I mean two, about pursuing a PhD. One of these schools happens to be Washington State University, which invited us to come up over the 3 day weekend and tour their campus.

For our navigational assistance we borrowed my dad's gps. This device allowed for ease of travel when trying to find houses or hotels, but gets really confused when you deviate off course, which I did constantly because I am a guy and as such have an acute sense of direction.

We went to Boise the first day of our travels and went to the outlet mall and visited one of Eden's friends from high school, Carlee ( who is married to Kurt, who isn't one of Eden's high school friends, but due to matrimonial vows has been accepted into the group, as was I). We had a good time catching up and visiting with them.

Sunday was our longest day in the car, we went from Boise to Pullman, this trek took about 6 hours and was very unpleasant for those with weak stomachs. It was mile after mile of twisty turny roads. At first I was a little disappointed with the city of Pullman. Although it is small, it is based on four hills and any time I thought I was discovering something new I was really just driving around the hill. This disappointment was alleviated a little when upon turning around one bend in the road we were greeted by two brown bears sitting in a large pen staring at a group of Rocky Mountain Big Horn sheep that were in a large pen across the road from them. Apparently the University does studies on these animals.

Our tour of the University was very good. The professor who showed us the sites and I would be working under was a very nice guy and would be great to work for. At the end of the visit I was informed that I was accepted to the school, which was another bonus.

We took a different route home, traveling up to I-90 and through Montana, and then down I-15. This was a preferred route and would be the route I recommend to anyone that wants to go to Pullman and visit the bears.

Other news includes Zaida turning four months old. She has an appointment with the doctor this week so that will be fun for her. Eden hasn't had to go back to school this semester so she fills her free time, which isn't much, with reading all sorts of random books and magazines. As for myself, I have one class on-line to finish my course work and then have been spending the bulk of my time writing my thesis, which is a real treat.

Here are some pictures of Zaida for her fan club:

What's up

2008-12-11T10:24:00.005-07:00

Sunday we had the opportunity to bless Zaida. Due to the over stimulation that seems to occur every Sunday at church we set forth a plan which we thought was fool proof to ensure happiness and sleep for the baby. Eden took Zaida during Sunday school and fed her so she could fall back to sleep and thus be in a state of rest during sacrament meeting. However, Zaida, upon finishing her meal determined herself to be in high spirits wanted nothing to do with sleep and went about her time smiling and attempting to laugh, which turns out to be a lot of heavy breathes and squeaky sounds. Then sacrament meeting began and with the opening hymn so did the face of irritation. Zaida started to frown, then grunt, then scream. I took her out and tried to quiet her in the hall but she thought voicing her opinion was more important. Luckily there was another baby blessing so they went first. Eden came out to assist with damage control and almost had her back to sleep when the bishop went to the pulpit and invited us to come forth. The hand off woke Zaida back up and she cried through the blessing. It was a great experience, albeit stressful with the screaming, but we still like her.

After the blessing we went back into the hall for more screaming. I took her down to the kitchen where we had her vibrating chair thingy and placed her in it. She immediately stopped crying and started to smile and coo. It was almost like she was saying, SUCKER, it made me laugh. I finally got her back to sleep and we enjoyed the rest of the day with family and friends.

Other news for the week, include Eden's graduation this Friday. I would like to congratulate her on completing her Masters. She is amazing and I look forward to hearing everyone call her Master Eden. (You call people with PhD's Doctor, so why not people with Masters, Master?)

2 months

2008-11-30T21:33:00.005-07:00

Here are some of the latest pictures per the request of her cousin Jane.

Happy Halloween

2008-10-31T17:48:00.004-07:00

Zaida was a horse for the ward holloween party

This is an outfit some of the sorority girls gave her. They said they bought it because the skeleton glows in the dark and they wanted me to be able to find her if I went in to get her in the middle of the night.

Meetin' and a Greetin'

2008-10-19T20:56:00.009-07:00

Zaida has been off her oxygen for a week now and we haven't had any problems with her at all. Her two week appointment went well and things are great, the best part is that she doesn't have that annoying little moniter attached to her foot beeping all the time for no reason other than that she wiggled.

Due to Zaida's new portable condition we took her this weekend on her first outing. She went an met all of her great grandparents from Kaysville all the way up to Blackfoot. She even experienced her first trip in the mountains to see her great-grandpa Tom's cows, even though she slept the entire time. So here are some more pictures of little spike.

Home at last

2008-10-06T17:23:00.007-07:00

Sunday evening we were finally able to bring our little girl home with us. It was much prefered to the arrangements of staying in the NICU any longer. In the NICU she was having about an episode a night were she was in such a deep sleep that she would forget to breathe and the nurses had to give her a little oxygen to bring her out of her little spells. That being case, they sent us home with oxygen and a moniter to watch her. The only part we don't like is they have to be on her at all times even though her episodes only seem to be happening between 12:30 and 2 am. On the bright side she didn't have any issues last night with her breathing but that might be due to the fact that she was awake during her favorite hours instead of asleep. However we are going to look at it possitively in that she is done with this whole mess and just waiting patiently for us to take her off the oxygen.

Here she is sporting her oxygen in her car seat ready to get out of Dodge.

Update

2008-09-30T20:59:00.007-07:00

After writing our last post we have had some little problems with Zaida and her lungs, but she is on the up and up and things are looking better. When she was born and sucked in some amniotic fluid, it went into her lungs and she got some pneumonia. Also due to the the fluid, her lungs weren't staying very inflated so the doctor put her on high-flow air, which is a mix of oxygen and something nice to help push extra air into the lungs. She had to have an asperator on her nose and it made her look like a distant relative to miss piggy. Due to the high pressure air being pumped into her lungs to dry them out, they had to stick a tube down her throat into her tummy to ventilate the extra air.

Due to all these tubes, she was unable to eat anything and was just given an IV to help deliver her nutritional needs and antibiotics. The tubes and asperator also made it so she had to stay in her crib and we couldn't hold her, talk about a helpless feeling to just look down at her and not be able to comfort her very well.

She stayed on the asperator until this morning and then was just given a nasal canula which was still delivering a high-flow air. The canula caused her to work harder and tested her oxygen to see if she was able to breath more on her own. She did very well on that and they used another nose canula, but this time-low flow air. Then about 2 this afternoon they took her off the oxygen support all together. It was then that we were finally able to hold her. YEAH!!!!

At about 6 pm they allowed her to have her first meal and she now seems to be sitting fat and happy. We fed her again at 9 with a bottle and will keep feeding her every three hours through the night. Now that she is eating and sleeping better we hoped that she will be able to keep on improving so we can take her home.

This has been quite the experience so far, but luckily we have an amazing doctor who got on top of treating her with antibiotics as soon as he thought she might have an infection that quick action has really helped her progress as much as she has in her first days of life.

Thank you everyone for your love, support, and prayers.

She's here

2008-09-29T10:04:00.004-07:00

After determining that she had to make a grand debut in life late, I am pleased to report that Zaida Fern Summers was born this morning weighing in at 8 lbs. 12 oz. As all of you should be interested to see what she looks like I will now post some pictures and then recall the events of last evening.

We weren't able to snap many pictures before the nurses deemed it necessary to take Zaida away to the NICU due to her lack of desire for oxygen. She didn't want to cry when she came out and thus didn't expel all of the juicy fluids she has been living in for the past 9 months. However the doctors aren't too concerned anymore and she shall be fine. Unfortunately these pictures don't show the beautiful long blonde locks on the top of her little noodle.
Now for the story.... Sunday early in the morning Eden thought that she had started to feel contractions. So to combat those she went about her regular activities for the day. We went to church, went and ate dinner with some friends, went on a walk, then at 7 I had to go on visits for the EQ. I came back at 8 and Eden informed me that we should start to get ready to go to the hospital. I wasn't sure that going to the hospital was yet necessary due to the fact that the contractions weren't that regular, of course, I had been gone for the last hour. We gave Eden something to eat and slowly got ready to go, at 8:30 however her water broke and I was then a firm believer that it was go time and kicked it in gear, throwing bags in the car and racing around like a crazy.
We got to the hospital about 9 and then waited until Zaida made her debut at 0453.

My sexy skull

2008-09-13T09:00:00.014-07:00

It has been a few days now since the surgery and I must say that I am feeling pretty good. The pain meds that the doctor gave me made me sick to my stomach so I stopped taking them on Thursday night and luckly haven't had any real pain. I believe this is due to the fact that the softball crunching into my noggin also decided it should smash the nerve, so the left half of my forehead is numb. This is probably also the reason that I never realized that the thing was fractured. The doctor reattached some of the nerve endings while I was cut open so I should get the feeling back sometime. The second picture is a nice little image of my head looking down. on the right side of the picture is where the break is. The orbital was broke in about three places and the break also cause the sinus cavity to cave. There should be black signifying air behind the left eye (right side of picture) but there isn't.

This 3D scan of my skull I think is pretty cool. Not only does it show that under all that skin and tissue am I an extremely attractive skeleton, but it shows the break really well. They put a 4cm piece of mesh titanium on the bone secured on each side and then attached all the peices to it. The mesh is suppost to help the bone grow through and be stronger. That is about the jist of it as far as things go here. I will get the stiches out next Friday and hopefully it will be looking good for the arrival of the runt sometime around the 23rd.

What happened to your eye??

2008-09-10T19:00:00.008-07:00

With the consent of Sir Jason Denson I have stolen the title to one of his previous, half true stories to tell a tale of what occurred to me on the night of September 2. While playing in a city league softball game I was sliding ever so gracefully into second base when out of nowhere I felt a large hard object hit me in the head right above my left orbital. It turns out that said large hard object was the softball that the outfielder flung at mach speed to the second baseman. Unfortunately for my cranium the second baseman possessed snail-like reflexes thus missing the ball entirely and allowing for the collision with my noggin. Following a few minutes of lying on the dirt I stood up and was asked by the ump if I knew what day it was, my reply was "who cares." I only said that because I was unsure if it was Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday and it was a convenient way to cover up this fact.

I was taken home to my bed to wait out my concussion and shock with nothing but a little ice pack and an ibuprofen bottle. I determined that I would have a black eye and nothing more.

This is what I looked like about 3 hours after the incident. After a night of unrest I went out to my research the following morning and chased cows out of the pastures and down to the corrals to weigh them. I didn't feel too bad so I figured I was well on my way to healing quickly and properly.

As of Saturday I had an extremely attractive shiner that was the envy of all rednecks at the demolition derby, it should be noted that this derby was finer than any derby heretofore attend by myself and received a solid 10. However Sunday the swelling began to go down and there was a noticeable dent in my forehead. Concerned for my good looks Eden determined that I need to go to the doctor so I made and appointment for Tuesday.

The doctor took a look and decided that a CT scan was in order so today I went to the specialty hospital and had the scan done. It turns out that due to the impact of the ball on head I broke the orbital bone above the eye in several places. I was sent to see a specialist and he determined that surgery was a necessity so tomorrow morning I am going in to get a metal plate strapped above my eye. I figure this is a good thing because it will help serve as a shield for future eye on ball encounters. As soon as we get the pictures of the CT scan back I will post picture of two of the fracture only because they look really cool. Wish us luck.

For the inner gymnast in us all

2008-08-29T13:22:00.001-07:00

Trip to the Redwoods

2008-06-26T20:38:00.022-07:00

A few weeks ago we went with Eden's family to California to visit her aunt and go up to the Redwoods. While we were there we went to Mt. Diablo which is a fun little Sunday drive destination if you are in the Oakland area. On the mountain is an area that I believe is referred to as Rock City, or something to do with similar. We got to climb on the rocks and that was a fairly jovial time had by all.

Monday we went to Six Flags and enjoyed the animal shows that they had although I must say that I was a little disappointed with the shark feeding that they had, it was not nearly as exciting as I thought it would be, boo to them. We did get to go on two rides, a Tony Hawk roller coaster and of course one of the greatest rides of all time, bumper cars.

-Disclaimer: we did tell her not to go on the ride but she wouldn't be excluded from the bumping of cars.

On Tuesday we were back on the open road as we drove up through the Redwoods and went on the Ave. of the Giants, I was impressed with the overall size of the trees, they were huge.

The most amusing part of the entire trip took place while we were at a ranger station. They had a board that listed all the animal sightings for the past few days and down on the bottom of the list after deer, moose, elk, birds, and other fairly uninspiring animals my attention was drawn to these words "albino bear cub" I thought to myself could it be? I have never heard of such a thing, however the words following made me begin to laugh hysterically "could have been a husky". The moral of the story must be that all husky owners must keep their dogs leashed whilst in state parks as to not give off the illusion that an albino bear cub is in the area.

Tribute to Technology

2008-06-26T20:27:00.003-07:00

As we continue to prepare for the arrival of our little bundle of joy, we, and when I say we I mean mostly Eden, have come across some items that make me proud to be a man. This vest is the brain child of two men in Colorado that wouldn't succumb to society and carry a sissy diaper bag with flowers, instead of conforming they created THE diaper vest. What more could a man want when dealing with children? It has places for diapers and bottles and even a changing pad slips in the back. If you really want to watch the demo movie of all it can do, go to www.dadgear.com

Minority wins

2008-05-08T07:35:00.002-07:00

It isn't often that the minority wins, but in the case of guessing the sex of an unborn child, nobody really knows. However in the poll the minority of the people guessed that we would be having a baby girl, and on Tuesday when we went to the doctor they confirmed the minority to be correct. She apparently looks healthy and is on schedule so I guess we will wait for her debut at the end of September. By the way now that we know she is a she I don't think I can call her Cletus the fetus, so if anyone knows any girly names that rhyme with fetus let me know.

Helga, Lars, or Elvira?

2008-03-25T21:31:00.001-07:00

This posting is a special little tidbit for all you in the blogger world. Think just because you look at this website your are in the know....About a month ago we told our families that Eden was pregnant and due September 23, at that time my three genius brothers decided to take it upon themselves to name the said child. Each of them was kind enough to choose one of the names mentioned in the title and enjoys referring to the child with the name they have chosen. My dad was also kind enough to think of some names but we won't mention them. Which of the three do you like? Until our child is born I think I will affectionately call it Cletus, why you may ask? Because it rhymes with fetus and that's what it is.

MicroPoll : Will the Baby be a Boy or Girl?

2008-03-25T21:28:00.001-07:00

View Poll |View Results

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4000 miles and a blown tire

2008-03-17T15:52:00.002-07:00

So for those of you who want to know what a tire looks like after exploding I present exhibit A, or more commonly known as the picture to the right. My parents and I went on an excursion over spring break that took us through 7 states with our furthest east stop beinging in the quaint little villiage of Beaufort, Mo. were we picked up my calves. On this trip we also stopped and bought some sheep (what says family vacation like looking at sheep?) while also making a little time to back track and visit my brother Ryan and his wife, Rachel (aka Sis) who live in Coralville, Iowa.

On the way home while nearing the metropolis of Cheyenne I was driving my Dad's pickup while pulling our stock trailer. We were just getting up to freeway speed when BOOM, the back drivers side tire blew, luckily I was able to coast us to a stop and we didn't loose control, that could have been a touch messy with all the critters in the back. This little fiasco ended up being a three hour delay since we couldn't find anyone to get a new tire from, and since they thought they might have a problem just patching up the one we blew, but we made it home safe later Saturday night.

Cattle Barons

2008-02-01T15:51:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures of my latest project. Most people will have crafts or some other whimpy thing, but I buy cows (very manly). These little critters are Lowline Angus and are considered miniature cattle (okay, maybe not so manly). They will only grow to be about 40-42 inches tall and originate in Australia. My goal is to get a large herd of them to run with my sheep and then buy a large farm somewhere in the middle of nowhere to live out the rest of our lives far away from civilization (just don't tell Eden). Or raise them for show and to sale, I guess that would work too. I will go pick these calves up in Missouri over spring break and the others are in Idaho and will be born in the next few months, if you can't tell I am pretty excited about this.

Snowmobiling Yellowstone

2008-01-13T14:36:00.000-07:00

While attending the Utah State Fair in September I won a snowmobile trip for one. It came with a two night stay at a crappy little hotel. Free food vouchers, at a restuarant that wans't even open yet, and a ticket to the worlds greatest little theatre ever. They had one screen and played one movie, with a running time of a week. Luckily while we were there the film of chioce was Beowulf- not recommended for anyone.

Okay, it really wasn't that bad. The resturant down the street accepted the vouchers. We also got a discount on Eden's trip so it was worth it.

We went the second day that the park was open and were the first group of snowmobilers in. It was pretty amazing to see all the snow that they already had. It was also neat to be able to see all the wildlife so close, it is different when the buffalo are walking down the road when you are on a snowmobile, as opposed to in a car.

While we were in West Yellowstone we also went to the Imax. We were expecting it to be a hit with all the people that attend in the summer, but we were the only ones in the theater when the movie started. Just imagine a six story movie screen all to yourselves. The only other highlight was going to the Wolf and Bear discover y center. The wolves were boring. They only wanted to sleep and lounge in the sun. The Grizzly Bears we another story. They are all big time posers. Whenever they saw the cameras come out they seemed to stop what they were doing and look at you with a big smile.

Graduation

2008-01-13T14:14:00.000-07:00

In December, Adam graduated from Utah State University. Adam graduated with a BS degree in Animal Science. I am so proud of him. We have finally reached a milestone, a degree. It gets us closer to moving out of little Cache Valley.

Our family celebrated by attending both USU's Commencemnt activities and the College of Agriculture Celebration. I hosted lunch, a baked potato bar, at our house and had a wonderful time visiting and being with family.

Adam's next move is to continue with his schooling. He started working on his Master's Degree in his last semesters. Estimates Graduation will be in May 2009 in Animal Nutrition.