San Francisco

For spring break Carson and I headed to San Francisco with Megan and Andrew for a few days. It was a great trip, we did so many fun things, saw so many cool sites, and ate soooo much good food. The millions of pictures below are the big

highlights of the trip

Eating yummy burgers in San Jose

Visiting the Winchester Mystery Mansion

This house was purchased by Sarah Winchester, the widow of William Winchester. She thought she was being haunted and was told that she could keep the spirits at bay if she built a house and never finished it. This led the the mystery mansion of staircases that go straight to ceilings, doors that go nowhere, and many other architectural oddities.

We had a fun time touring the mansion. We stayed near the back of the group so Carson was free to explore all the doors and cupboards, he even found a trap door in the floor.

Even though it was a little chilly, we had to stop at the beach for a bit

Carson thought it would be fun to bury my legs in the sand, and then a random dog came to visit while I was immobile

Hiking in the Muir Woods

Redwood trees are so cool

The bakery at pier 39 really made me want to try making shapes with my bread

Alcatraz

We had a great time learning about the history of Alcatraz with the audio tour. We were particularly fascinated by the break out attempts and successes

We also had a great lunch in China town. I was pretty surprised at how similar some of the foods were to real food from China

We had a ton of fun at the Musee Mecanique

The best part was a heated battle of hockey that ended in overtime with Carson and I as the victors

The losers

He sure is cute

Pier 39

One of our favorite places was the Mirror Maze (yes we drove for hours and paid $5.00 a person to have the most fun at the mirror maze)

Once we stepped inside the maze we realized how confusing it really was. Since we had the whole place to ourselves we decided to play tag, a much harder task than it sounds. At one point I thought I was sneaking up on Carson only to turn a corner and tag/punch myself in a mirror. The best part was watching Megan running at me when she totally ran into herself and bounced off her own image onto the floor. There were actually many times that Megan and I were on the floor because we were laughing so hard.

The sea lions!! We kept hitting the pier at night so we could barely see them, but I kept insisting that we had to see them during the day, it wasn't until our last day there that we managed to see them in the daytime.

Carson and I with Alcatraz in the background

Some other highlights of the trip include:

• Walking hours to see Japanese town in San Jose when it really was not worth seeing at all
• Our super smelly hotel room in San Francisco. The carpets had been cleaned and never dried leading to a very musty smell that the nose never adjusted to, luckily we got to move rooms after the first night
• Hitting Ghirardelli Square for some chocolate
• Eating in Little Italy with a never ending supply of bread
• Seeing the Golden Gate Bridge
• The yummy scone place we stopped for breakfast on our last day
• And the best part... not having to worry about school or work for a few days and getting to spend time with each other

It's a....

We had an ultrasound the other day to find out if our baby is a boy or a girl...

15 weeks

17 weeks

19 weeks

And the verdict is... a GIRL!!!

She had her face hidden through the ultrasound so we never got to see it, but we did get to see her little feet move back and forth, and she gave us a few waves. We are so excited, and we cannot wait for her to get here!!

You can't tell yet...

But there is a baby in there!!!

This is my pic from 13 weeks, I am now closer to 15 weeks, and maybe showing a tiny bit more. Hopefully I will post more pics soon. Carson and I were so happy when we found out just a week before Thanksgiving that we are going to have a baby. We decided to keep it a secret until Christmas and then we would tell both our families. Boy was it hard to not say anything when we saw everyone for Thanksgiving, but we managed. Then for Christmas we wrapped up our ultrasound picture, a cute little Christmas outfit (that will hopefully fit our little one by the time Christmas rolls around again), and some diapers. At the Dalton's we let Morgan open the present because she told us that all she wanted for Christmas was to be an aunt. She screamed she was so excited, as was everyone else. We let my Mom open the gift at the Holyoak's, and I am not really sure what everyone's initial reaction was because I was sitting next to Stacy who was yelling at Jeremy that he was missing everything. I did hear my Mom exclaim, "there is only one," when she saw the ultrasound picture. I guess one set of twin grandkids is not enough for her. The baby is due on July 24th, which seems really far away to me. I have been feeling pretty good so far, just a couple headaches, and only one or two trips to the bathroom to toss my breakfast (always at work because it is much more embarrassing there).

Besides sharing our exciting news, we also had a really fun Christmas. We managed to both get a few days off so we could have a little longer vacation. We played games, ate great food, and got to spend lots of time with family. We also got family pictures taken on my side, something that has not happened in a long time since it is so hard to get all of us together. Our pictures won't lack character though because there was lots of crying and unhappiness from some of the younger ones, and of course since I have the brothers that I have, there were many snowballs thrown directly at the head. It was not uncommon to be standing there patiently waiting to get your picture taken, and then all the sudden you would get hit in the back of the head. I'm sure there is snow, and more than one messed up hairdo caught on camera.

Now one more amusing story for the end of my post. The other day I was at work and this little 4 year old girl kept climbing and jumping on me. I finally told her that she couldn't jump on my belly because there was a baby in there. She immediately says, "Are you fat?" and starts trying to lift up my shirt. It was way funny, and then she would ask me if my baby was crying? Kids say the funniest things.

Decorating!!

Oops I didn't really mean to go a month without posting, but since Carson and I seem to be forgetting our camera everywhere we go, there were no pictures, or worthy stories to post about.

We did have an awesome Thanksgiving (even though there are no pictures). We got to go to Moab for a quick trip, and even though we would have liked to have gotten to stay longer, we also like being employed. Anyway we had Thanksgiving at 1:00 with the Daltons, and then at 2:00 with the Holyoaks, so we were very stuffed by the end of the day. It is so fun to see family, and we played many games, and ate lots of yummy food. It was awesome. The day after Thanksgiving we had to head back home so Carson could go to work that night, but that just gave us a head start in getting our Christmas tree and decorations up.

We headed out one morning in search of a suitable tree, but oddly enough even though we drove around for hours all we could find were cedar trees, or very large pines. We had gone out past Carson's work because he said he saw a guy driving back from there with 3 trees in the back of his truck. Well we have no idea where he got his trees, because we couldn't find anything that we would even consider cutting down (and believe me were were not being picky at that point). So the next day we headed out again to a different spot, and we found our perfect tree surprisingly fast.

Our tree in its former home!

Superman after cutting it down

Carson begged me to let us get a yum yum tree this year, and then he even let me cut it down, a duty I took very seriously

Our stockings (can you guess which one is Carson's)

And our tree all decorated in its new home! I love our Christmas tree because we collect ornaments whenever we go someplace new, it is a tradition I started when I was off traveling the world. It makes me happy to see the ornaments now and think "that came all the way from China, or Ireland, or Switzerland..." Our newest ornament this year came from Yellowstone.

Pumpkins and other stuff...

Carson and I headed over to Megan and Andrew's to carve pumpkins the other day. We had to distract Alex a bit, but we had so much fun. I really like carving pumpkins, too bad you have to do the messy cleaning them out part first.

My witch and Carson's spooky tree

Our birthday party!! Carson and Andrew planned this little get together all on their own, and Andrew made us a sweet brownie cake.

Happy Birthday to us!!!

And the rest of the pics are of my Halloween village. I started collecting last year with a large total of 1 house. This year Megan got me another, so I decided that I would try to get a whole village, unfortunately some of the houses and buildings, and even the accessories are very expensive. So I decided I would try to make my own accessories, and even though they don't look as good at the ones at the store, I think it is way cool. I couldn't get a very good picture of it all lit up, but it looks pretty spooky and realistic in the dark.

We even made little hay bales :-)

Birthday Fun!!

Last week Carson and I headed up North for my friend Chelsey's wedding. The day started off rocky when things started going wrong for me at work, resulting in me getting off later than I was planning. Then I get home thinking Carson would be packed and ready to go, but instead he calls me to tell me he is stranded about 20 miles out of town. Seriously!!! He had gone out with his construction class, but hours later everyone was still working and he couldn't get a ride back. So I hurry and unload all my heavy work stuff out of my car and up the flight of stairs into our apt (it was about 4-5 trips), then pack some clothes for the weekend as fast as I can to so I can go pick up my stranded husband from the freeway exit. We were finally on our way, and estimated to arrive before the line at the reception was scheduled to end, but of course we got a little lost on our way to the place, and we barely missed them cutting the cake. We were there for the awesome dance solo that the bride and groom performed. Chelsey was such a beautiful bride, and it was so cool to get to attend the sealing the next day in the Draper Temple

Since our trip was close to my birthday, we decided to splurge and go to a haunted forest on our way home. It was way cool, longer than we expected, and with some new things that I had never seen before like this creepy clown that chased us around with a lawn mower. The scariest part was at the end when you have to get on this slide and go down, it was dark so the slide didn't look very long, but it turned out to be much longer than it looked, and then out of no where sparks start flying at you, and yeah I will admit I screamed.

We also made a trip to Gardner Village to see the witches!!! Carson is such a good sport to go with me even though it was pretty crowded. We had such a fun trip, now some other friends need to get married (Keara... Becca...) so we can do it again real soon.

Cookies!!!

These 2 sure are cute together!!!

The other night Carson and I got together with Megan and Andrew and our friends Courtney and Zach to make Halloween cookies. We had lots of fun, and there was lots of creativity going. Andrew even sang us a little song about one of his cookies.

These are the 2 cookies that Carson decorated (halfway through decorating the bottom one I asked him what it was, he didn't really appreciate that).

You see this little guy...

He came over to play with me the other day.

And even though I spent the next day...

sweeping and mopping crackers off the floor,

putting all the books back in the bookcase,

putting the cans back in the cupboard,

vacuuming up the spilled crumbs from the entire pan of peanut butter fingers that ended up on the floor (although let's be honest that was really more his mom's fault),

and putting all my Halloween decorations back up...

I just want to say one thing...

ALEX come back and play anytime!!!!

Fall Fun!!

I LOVE fall!!! It is my favorite time of year, I love the colors, the weather, the leaves.. everything. Plus my birthday is in the fall, as well as the start-up to the best holidays of the year. I have been a little slow getting my Halloween decorations up this year though, because even though our lives sound really boring when I try to write about them in a blog, or a letter to Dallen, we are really actually very busy. But Carson and I did find time to go to Yankee Meadows the other day for a hot dog roast, and to see all the fall leaves. We also got to have our first snowball fight of the year. It is hard to say who won though, because while I hit Carson with more snowballs than he hit me with, he takes the award for the best hit with a well placed snowball right to my chest that knocked the wind out of me. He takes his snowball fighting very seriously.

Anyway here is a picture of the beautiful lake. The picture below is Nathan's refrigerator art from our family reunion. Crystal was riding home from church with my parents, and this message is for them. Even though the flash make the 2 hard to see, I think it is really funny.

Isn't he creative!!! I wonder how long it took him to make???

I love Carson!!!

If you don't want to read a mushy tribute to my husband, than this post is not for you, because that is exactly what this is (except with a bit of a twist since I am going to reveal all of Carson's little quirks).

Carson makes me laugh everyday with the funny little quirks he has. For example the biggest one that comes to mind right now (that is actually kinda starting to bug me) is that Carson loves to wake me up when I am sleeping, seriously it is like he is five years old. I have to get up really early for work, at least I consider five or any time before that rather early, so when I get home from work I like to take a little nap. But it never fails that as soon as I fall asleep Carson wakes me up for some reason or another. He won't admit that he likes to do it, he even denies it in fact, but I am convinced he must like to do it, because every single day without fail he does it again.

Carson also enjoys to quiz me on the hymns at church, so he won't let me see the book when we are singing. He does praise me after though, because more often than not I surprisingly know all the words to the songs.

Carson does not like to do the dishes, so if there is half a sink of dishes, he does them, and is so proud of himself that he is sure to mention to me that he did the dishes. (He is no where to be found when there are large stacks of dishes in and around the sink)

He takes his hunting very seriously. When he was on his mission he sent me his journals, and I thought it was so funny because he wrote pages and pages on the day that he killed his first deer with his bow, any other event is lucky to get 1 line of text. He will tell you every detail of the day if you ask him about his hunting trips too.

Neither of us really love to shop, but if there is something I need and and he ends up going to a store with me he tries to be really helpful by... disappearing. Seriously within seconds I cannot find him anywhere. He thinks that he is not pressuring me to hurry or something, but if I just need to go in and look at something really quick I end up spending way more time looking for him than I did looking at any merchandise. He's so thoughtful though.

Carson gets really into books on CD when we drive places. So then when we get home he will come inside and within minutes he is asking if we can just sit and finish listening to the book.

He talks in his sleep. The topics can get very interesting based on whatever is going on in life at the time.

He thinks that Diapers are easier to put on backward rather than forward.

He puts BBQ sauce on his salads.

He doesn't like to get sprayed with water, so even when he showers, he stays out of the water as much as possible. (He likes baths though which I think is funny)

His all time favorite cereal is... Bran Flakes. Seriously of all the delicious cereal choices there are he picks Bran Flakes as his top choice.

He has trouble staying awake at church, and has even been known to fall asleep during the rest hymn. We pack snacks in our bags like we have little kids to keep Carson awake.

He will wear his socks until they completely fall apart. He thinks it is a waste to buy a new pack before the other ones are all worn thru.

Even if he wakes me up, wears holey socks, eats nasty cereal, and sleeps thru church, I still love him more than anything. He makes me laugh every day, is the perfect guy for me, and the best husband I could ask for.

Love you babe!!

Carson and I got to hike Kanarraville Falls the other day with Megan and Andrew. The hike was so pretty, and we had a really good time. Unfortunately the water was so cold, and you had to walk in it for long stretches sometimes, by the time we were thru some of the little slot canyons my feet were numb and aching.

A few days after we did the hike, someone mentioned to us that they had seen a 4 foot rattlesnake on that hike the weekend before, I am so glad I did not know this before we went because I would have been totally freaked the whole time.