The One when We Went to Long Beach to See Sara Jayne Swim

We drove to Long Beach Saturday night to see my super swimmer cousin Sara Jayne swim. One of the last times she'll be swimming in a professional capacity! I can't tell you how many of her swim meets I've been to. Lots. Since I was about 9 years old or something. I can't imagine how many swim meets her mom - my aunt - has been to!

The event was at the pool they built for the Olympics back in the day.

Here is Great Aunt Katy and her (first!) Great Nephew Fox.

Precious.

Here's my Chris and Sara Jayne's Tyler. The hubbies.

Sara Jayne is the middle swimmer. Funky photo huh? The swimmers look like liquid being poured into the pool!

Sara Jayne is in lane 3, the gal with the 'Y' cap.

Ogling over Fox. Natch.

He melts my heart! We had to plug his ears cuz it was so very loud as people were cheering their team and family members on.

After the meet the entire BYU swim team went to Outback Steakhouse for dinner. Fox got a little (okay, a lot) grumpy so I tried to nurse him at the table under a blanket - my first time attempting to nurse in public and I felt really awkward about it - but he wasn't settling down so I took him out to the car for awhile. He usually goes to sleep for the night at 7 so it's no wonder he was grumpy - we were cutting into his precious beauty sleep! So I rocked him back and forth and he eventually fell asleep and we ate our dinner then said goodbye and headed home. It was Fox's longest adventure yet: over six hours away from home!
Fun to see you Great Aunt Katy, SJ, and Tyler!

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The One with Behind The Mist

Now that no more Harry Potter or Twilight books are being written (though I'm still crossing my fingers that someday there will be more of both), I bet your kids (and you, come'on, you can admit it, I won't judge you) are looking for a new hit series to read. I've got just the books for you! My mother-in-law, M.J. Evans, wrote a new trilogy called Behind The Mist and it's being published and now available for purchase - even on Amazon, this series is legit!

Here is the summary of book one of the Behind The Mist Trilogy: There exists a land filled with power and love...behind the mist.

Nick and his family spend their summers in the Colorado mountains where he first meets an exceptional horse named Jazz. What begins as an increasingly strong bond between a horse and his young rider goes beyond extraordinary when an unexpected tragedy launches them on a thrilling journey to the land behind the mist.

Celestia is the immortal home to noble and great horses that, based upon the virtues they developed on earth, earned the privilege to be given the power and status of a unicorn, and receive their horns. Under the guidance and direction provided by Lord Urijah and his Council of the Twelve Ancients, the unicorns serve as the guardian angels to the animals on earth.

Nick is the only human in Celestia - or so it first appears. As they learn more about this magical land, Nick and Jazz are compelled to embark on a rescue mission into the Dark Kingdom that is ruled by the evil unicorn, Hasbadana. Though aided on their journey by special skills and unusual allies, the boy and horse confront powers that threaten to destroy them in their attempt to save a lost soul.

Join Nick and Jazz as they battle the forces of evil and demonstrate the transcendent power of loyalty and love.

Sounds like a can't-put-down book to me!

I helped Margi, I mean, M.J. :), set up a blog where she posts fun facts and videos about amazing horses and shares reader stories. CLICK HERE TO READ THE MIST TRILOGY BLOG.

Behind The Mist is now available on BehindTheMist.com as well as Amazon.com, but brownie points if you buy it directly from the Behind The Mist website cuz Amazon charges an arm and a leg in fees.

This book would make a FABULOUS Christmas present for one and all :)

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The One when the BYU Bell Tower Played Harry Potter

Sometimes I miss being in college. Those were some good days. For instance, I miss the hourly tolling of the bells from the Bell Tower. Chris actually proposed to me on the walkway right under the Bell Tower.
And so, I dedicate this post to currently enrolled BYU students and alumni as well as fans of Harry Potter. In honor of the movie mania day, Brigham Young University showed a little school spirit for Hogwarts with their carillon tower. The bells rang out the "Harry Potter" theme song in celebration of the movie. My li'l bro totally heard them this morning. So jel. (I've made a new word. Jel = jealous. For future reference.)

I really wanted to see it today. Desperately. But I think we'll try and see it at like 9:45am on a Tuesday so if Fox cries during the movie not too many people will get mad at us for bringing a 5 week old. Don't tell me anything about it!!!
Edited to add some pictures of Fox 'cuz it's been awhile :)




Boy oh boy how I love my little boy!

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The One with Fox's Namesake

Where did we get the name Fox? Well. Once upon a time there was a show called the X-Files and one of the main character's name was Fox Mulder.


I love the show, I love the name (luckily Chris does too), and when I was about 12 years old I decided that some day when I had a son I would name him Fox. And now I actually have a son and his name is Fox. He's literally a dream come true!
Fox's middle name is Thomas and that's because my dad's name is Thomas and Chris's dad's name is Thomas. Funny huh? Killed two birds with one stone there!

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The One with Weight Watchers

I joined Weight Watchers last Saturday.
I gained 56 pounds during my pregnancy. That's about 26 more pounds than doctors recommend.... oopsies. How did I gain so much weight? Basically, when I was working as a receptionist during my pregnancy I ate for five hours straight five days a week. Literally, every time the head honcho walked in around 4:00pm the first thing he'd say to me was, "Always eating!" Cuz I was. I munched on pretzels and beef jerky and candy and granola bars and brownies and chips and crackers and anything and everything I could get my hands on. I didn't realize how much I was gaining until I started hating pictures of myself and comparing early pics to later pics. I've never had to watch what I eat and I didn't change my habits when I was preggo which I sorely regret. But I'm gonna get back on track! I want to look like this again (except maybe not with blonde hair, haha. Although I am itching for something new for my 'do...):

And I want to be able to fit these pants again:

That's my goal and I'm stickin' to it. And that's my cute nephew Drew beside me :)

On a related note - I had my last OB appointment today at the wonderful Kaiser Permanente to check everything out.

I'm about 90% healed which is great to hear because of how badly I tore. The doctor also gave me the green light to start exercising which is bittersweet. Now I don't have an excuse not to exercise. I hate exercising cuz it hurts and I don't like pain. Bah. But - I WILL do it! I will I will I will!
Side note - I LOVE the OB I saw today. She wasn't my OB during my pregnancy, although I did see her once about 7 weeks ago when my OB was out of town and I loved her then too. If we have another baby while living here in SoCal, I will definitely go to her cuz she rocks my socks. (Kate H. - if you're reading this, it's your doctor and I'm so jealous she's been your OB for 8 months!)

So back to Weight Watchers. My goal for this week is to lose 1 pound. Pretty lofty goal eh? :) Weight Watchers is a system where every food has a different point value - veggies are like 0 or 1 point and the burrito Chris ate for lunch today from Taco Bell was 14 points!! (An average meal is around 6-9 points). Since I'm breastfeeding I'm allotted 10 more points which I'm so grateful for because it's been HARD! I feel like whenever I have food restrictions I get more hungry than usual! I hate being hungry. So hopefully I can be strong and play mind over matter (or stomach) and reach my goal. By posting it for the world to know I hope I hold myself more accountable. And Chris is playing along unofficially so he'll be able to offer moral support.
We'll call these the BEFORE pictures:


I'll post another at the beginning of the year to check our progress.

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The One when the Art History Buff went to Dental School

My hubby did a guest post on the Art History Salon blog which I'm copying and pasting here cuz I find it quite interesting.

The Dentist, Gerrit van Honthorst, 1622

(See, they even had dentists back in 1622!)

"One of the most frequent questions a college student is asked is, “What is your major?” Now for me, this conversation would go one of two ways.

Conversation 1:

Person: “So, what are you majoring in?”
Me: “Art History.”

*Pause where person would have to determine whether or not I was serious.*

Person: “Oh. So…what are you going to do with that?”
Me: “Go to dental school.”

*Person laughs, thinking I’m joking, then they realize I’m not.*

Person: “How does that work?”

Quite well actually.

Conversation 2:

Person: “So, what do you want to do?” (as in, with my future.)
Me: “I am planning on becoming a dentist.”
Person: “So, what’s your major? Biology? Chemistry?”
Me: “No, actually. I am majoring in Art History.”
Person: “Oh… that’s fun...”

Yes, it is. But that isn’t the reason I chose Art History as my major. It seemed that I often had a hard time explaining my seemingly conflicting choices of career and undergraduate major, but to me, they were never conflicting in the slightest.

The most important aspect of a major is learning to think. I could have majored in a science and spent most of my undergraduate time memorizing facts for a test and then forgotten those facts shortly thereafter. But, in the study of art history, I learned how to analyze. I learned how to organize and present my thoughts. I learned how to make coherent arguments based on evidence. These skills, the skills of learning and assimilating knowledge, rather than just rote memorization, have been more beneficial to me since my time at BYU than anything else could have been in my undergraduate education.

As most college graduates can attest, the actual facts and figures that you spend hours memorizing for exams are quickly lost to time. But, if you approach your education with the goal of learning to reason, think, and observe, you will truly gain an education worth obtaining. This will be an education that will benefit you no matter what field you go in to.

From my experience, majoring in Art History was the perfect discipline to cultivate those skills, and more students should consider this field of study in preparation for all manner of graduate programs and career fields, from law to dentistry to medicine to business—and more."

Well said Christopher :)

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The One with Animals in Anthropologie

I've had the latest and greatest Anthropologie catalog sitting in my cupboard for a few weeks now and finally got around to flipping through it. LOVE IT! Of course. I wouldn't expect anything less from Anthro. They're like a dream come true. Anyways, as I was browsing I came across these pages where they modeled things on animals and I got all giddy. Cuz I heart animals. Sharing here to save and preserve for future generations.
A llama wearing necklaces!? LOL.


Why is the cat wearing a dog sweater (bottom right photo)? The world may never know...



Someday we're gonna get a poodle and name him Ross or her Phoebe.

See the kitty playing with the shoelace on the bottom right picture? Hehe. They really do that.

Poor turtle!


This bunny is pretty cute. But Chandler is cuter :)

I have a zebra finch!


I sooo want this purse. Sans chicken on top.

Baaaa ram ewe!

Save the best for last - a FOX!

Now if only I could afford even a sock from Anthro :)

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The One with Remember When?

I was watching the Back to the Future trilogy on TV the other day and in the 2nd one they go to the future - 2015 to be exact. It's almost 2015 now and I'm pretty sure we won't defy gravity by then and fly around on hover-boards or drive around in the sky in our cars...

I told my dad this and his response was something along the lines of, "Yes, but they didn't think of cell phones." True. So then I started thinking about all of the advances in technology that I've seen over my short 25 year life (see below). Just imagine what the next 25 years holds!

Remember when the only way to watch a new movie was to buy the VHS or rent it at Blockbuster? Now there's Netflix, Red Box, instant play on TV, iTunes, DVDs (which are now being replaced by BluRay), etc. I wonder how much longer Blockbuster/Hollywood video will be in business?

Remember when you actually had to take out your CD from your CD player to listen to your music? (And I'm sure the generation before me is thinking about records and record players).

Now we have MP3 players - most notably, the iPod. I still remember the exact moment I handled an iPod. It was the summer of 2003 after I graduated from high school. My dad won an iPod at work for fixing the most bugs and I asked if I could try it out while I was laying out in the sun working on my tan. I was instantly amazed. I could have my entire CD collection available to me at the touch of a button! Say what!?! I bribed my dad to pay for half of an iPod if I earned my amateur extra ham radio license. Which I did and I got a 30gb iPod for $500.

The very next day Apple came out with a 60gb iPod for $400. I hate it when that happens!

Remember when computers only had like 10 gigabytes of space? Now they have terabytes of space.

Remember when movies weren't in 3D? Now TVs are being made with 3D capabilities.

Remember when you had to roll down car windows by hand? Now almost everything about cars is automatic, not to mention all the doo dads and gadgets they're including these days (keyless entry, built-in GPSs, iPod docks, etc).


Remember when there was no such thing as cell phones? Or remember how big and bulky early cell phone were?

How did people keep in touch back in the day? Chris and I call each other at least three times a day to let each other know where we are and that we're safe. And my cell phone I have today blows my first cell phone out of the water. Phones are pretty much little portable computers. You can virtually do anything on your phone that you can do on your computer.

Remember when there was no such thing as the internet and you had to go to the library to do your school research? I don't even know where the closest library is now... The internet is the most amazing thing ever. My life revolves around the internet. What would I do without it?

Basically, I'm just astounded by our world and technology and am so curious about what the future holds.

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The One with Fox's First Video

Of course this is what happens the very first time I try to record Fox on video.
(PS - It might be funnier with the sound off, I'm watching Supernatural in the background and it's kinda loud.)

LOL. Gets me every time.

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The One with Thanksgiving 2010 Place Cards

This week on the American Crafts blog the theme I chose (waaaay back in June) was Thanksgiving Place Cards. (I also made that the theme for the Create blog this past week...I'm super creative these days :) ...). I got the chance to make a set of place cards for American Crafts this week and here is one of them:

I totally traced Fox's hand to make the feathers :)
Visit the AC blog to see the entire set of place cards, find out the supplies, and read the instructions. Happy Thanksgiving - almost!

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The One with 4 Weeks Old Already?!

Time is going by waaaay too fast. Much faster now that Fox is out here in the world instead of inside my belly. Why is that?
Here's my little Ewok on his 4-week birthday:





Toodle-loo!

(I've got something scrappy tomorrow :)

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