Tired

The ride home...

The Groom's Family

The whole N* Clan... every last one of us!

Cousins

Gramps

Granny

Fun Family Shots at the wedding

The luncheon was originally planned for outdoors, but the weather forced us inside... Despite the chill, the reception was still held outdoors. Brrrr! The kids didn't seem to mind the chill and entertained themselves with the playhouse located in the backyard.

My brother Steve, his wife Pam, and their daughter Savannah.


My brother Paul, his wife, and their daughter Eva.

Paul and his little angel!

It is so fun to watch my brothers become fathers!

The groom with my little Preston!

Me and my brother Paul.

The R* Family

The Good Stuff

Really, isn't this what everyone really enjoys about a wedding?

Wedding Bells

We hurried up to Utah hours after Porter's last day of school in order to be present the following day for the joyous union of my brother Mark and his beautiful bride Annika!

Our Blueberry Hunt

Just in case there were no blue berries left upon our return from Utah, we snuck in a trip before we left. We collected 18 pounds of beautiful, plump berries!

Sophia in her blueberry hunting clothes.

That's really what she calls the adventure.

I don't know which part is their favorite... the all you can eat blueberry smorgasbord as we pick, or the snow cone at the end!

Preston's Birthday

We really did celebrate Preston's birthday! Here are the picture's to prove that even with a daddy working late and preparations for week long house guests we did take time to rejoice in one year down! Preston is such a cute, happy baby.  We are so blessed to have him in our life!!!  We love him so much! 

Preston's 1 year old stats: 

Notice the screwdriver :) He is such a boy!

a pirate's life for me!

As the airplane began moving, Sophia asked : "Mom, who's driving the airplane?"

Me:n The pilot

Sophia (with wide eyes that sparkled as her eye brows moved up and down and a voice that dipped up and down in awe): A pirate's driving our airplane?

Who knows what excitement or drama she was imagining or hoping would be included with our flight.

We're Back!

What a great trip... It's nice to be together again, in our own home, and in our own beds, but it's hard to have such a fresh memory of what we're missing by not living close to family.

Sophia was the one who was especially anxious to return home. For the last four or five days she's been at times asking or at times downright demanding to go back to Texas. However, she was the first to tell me this morning, "Mom, let's go to Granny and Grandma's every day."

Upon immediate arrival, Preston was content for an hour exploring the kitchen and spending the majority of his time re familiarizing himself with his leapfrog activity table.

Porter immediately, with no hints from us, discovered the death of his and his kindergarten teacher's beloved fish. (The already placed replacements obviously were not fooling him.) A huge emotional display of tears and sobbing ensued.

A delighted Sophia enjoyed emotions similarly experienced at Christmas, as she proceeded to try on many of her left behind clothes and shoes and costume jewelry. She also lovingly packed around her long lost baby dolls.

Ahhh, home sweet home!

The Twos of Angela - by Doug

A while ago, Angela did a post about the Twos of Doug. I felt like she wrapped her digital arms around me when I read it, and I'd like to return her electronic hug with my own love byte (ooo-lala!).

Nearly eight years ago, the most beautiful girl in the world (no offense to the other 3 billion girls out there) accepted my hand in marriage. To illustrate her beauty I'll tell a quick story: I was working as a law clerk several years ago and I had a picture of Angela, myself and Porter as the background on my computer. My boss was a very unique man who would say whatever he thought without regards to feelings. So one day my boss saw the picture plastered on my desktop; he came in for a closer look and gazed for a few seconds. He then stated "Your wife is blind." Knowing that Angela is exceptionally blind without her glasses/contacts, I thought for a split second "How did he know she is blind?" I then realized he was complimenting Angela's beauty and disparaging me for my lack thereof. Frankly I have to agree with him, and although Angela is nearly perfect, I am very thankful for her poor vision.

Anyway, here are The Twos of Angela to show to the world what an incredible woman Angela is! Some of the twos may seem similar to the ones Angela said about me, but what can I say--we have a lot in common!

2 things you compliment her on while in her presence:
Her beauty - as illustrated above, I find Angela very attractive, and although she was beautiful when I married her, I think she just keeps getting better! I wish I could say the same.
Her desire and effort to make sure our family does fun things - if I was the only one running the family we would probably never do anything fun because I would just want to get things done; I even forget to feed our kids breakfast on Saturday mornings while Angela is gone on a long run because all of the stuff I feel needs to be done. Angela makes sure we incorporate fun family activities which create priceless family memories.

2 compliments you make about her to your friends:
"Oh ya, my wife is a multiple marathoner" - does this make me sound lazy since I'm not out there running with her?
She is an incredible wife and mother - she puts us first in her life

2 (or more) traits you married her for (in no particular order):
She completes me - where I am weak, she is strong
Her touch - oh the electricity I felt when we first touched! Isn't she shocking?!
Her passion for life
Her incredible dancing moves
Her faithfulness to the gospel
Her support for me in my endeavors
Her love of camping and the outdoors in general
Her laugh
Her smile
Her intellect
She's a babe
Her desire to have a strong marriage
Her desire to stay fit
Her need for me
The list goes on!

(oh, and her desire to give me a dozen kids, right Honey?.... Honey?)

2 days you cherish being together:
Our wedding day - before I got married I thought that people just said that because they had to, but I really mean it! What an incredible day
The days after the births of our children. Emphasis on the word "after"
Okay, so Angela used the same two answers in the Twos of Doug, but I agree; here is a third for good measure: the days we reunite after we have been apart for several days or weeks

2 material things you could give her if you just inherited a fortune:
A really nice SUV or minivan
A nice camera and some professional photography lessons

2 things you would miss the most if she left for two weeks:
working together as a team
having her companionship

2 thoughts that crossed your mind when you first met/saw her:
She's a babe
The first time we met, we held hands as she helped me around the rollerblade rink and the electricity was palpable!

2 favorite dates:
Dancing , country dancing, Latin dancing
A nature walk through a big park

2 funny/odd things you love about her:
After almost eight years of marriage she still likes to snuggle up at night

She starred in many movies made by her brothers - she is quite the actress!

2 two places you have lived together:
Utah
Texas

2 favorite future vacations you look forward to:
Portugal
Caribbean Cruise

2 things you look forward to doing together later in life:
going on some fun vacations together
serving a mission

Don't worry, Angela is okay

Don't worry everyone, Angela is still alive. I'm in Sandy and my family is in Logan -- roughly a hundred miles separating us. Angela has the kids and I was bored (don't tell Angela, she'd be really jealous if she knew about all the free time I have) and so I thought, hmm... I'll check Angela's blog. My mouth dropped when I saw it has been over three weeks since Angela has posted an entry! So I'm sure you must have been very worried about her.

We came up to Utah on June 6 for Angela's brother's wedding on June 7, and we have been in here ever since. I, unfortunately, have to work for most of our trip, but fortunately I can work remotely until I return home in a few days.

Angela runs her big relay race tomorrow from Logan to Park City, beginning on Friday and ending Saturday. I'm so proud of her!! Isn't she great! (and doesn't she have great legs to show for it!?) I'm a very lucky man to have such a motivated, outgoing woman as a wife. I'm excited to meet her in Park City with the kids for the finish.

So I'll be flying solo with the kids for a night, which is a scary thought even though she has done it every night for the past week. We may campout in grandma and grandpa's back yard. Anyway, all is well with us and with my free time, I'd like to draft a tribute to Angela in the form of The Twos of Angela.

updates...

I haven't posted for a while. I'm not sure what' s been keeping me so busy...

Perhaps it's...

* bedtime successes... Bedtime is one of my weaknesses. Mine and my kids. I'm a sucker for just one more book, or one more minute of mama snuggle time... Or the kids are playing so nicely, I'll just let them keep playing. Etc. Etc. I am notorious for getting completely sucked into a book and not coming up for a air until 1 or 2 in the morning. I love to read blogs, research topics, or browse stores via the internet before going to bed.

But we've set a family goal of having the kids in bed with lights out at 8. That means stories are all read, snacks are eaten, prayers are said and teeth are brushed by 8. No exceptions. Mom and dad have to be in bed by 10. Each person who successfully accomplishes this gets to color in a square on our reward chart. When the chart is colored in we'll go get pizza.

It's working beautifully, but it means no more late nights for mama.

* night time training... another weakness is nighttime baby routines. I love to sleep with my babies. The problem is, right around the time I'm ready for them to sleep in their own beds, they've decided they quite like it in my bed and don't want to leave. So with Preston we've tried to be a little more moderate. He has started the night in his bassinnet or crib and then when he wakes up I pull him into bed with me, nurse him and we all drift quickly back to sleep. But, this last week we weaned him at night, which went well... Although it meant no quickly drifting back to sleep on my part. Then we moved his crib into Porter's room... and voila he slept through the night last night. We'll see if it continues, but the process has drained me of some energy.

* gym results... I've been using my gym membership... and I love it! I've been trying all of the classes, and Body Pump is my favorite. It's really what I wanted a gym membership for, some toning. I also loved the spin class. So fun and such a good workout. It really rivals running for me, which is awesome. I feel like I have a hard time getting a good workout from anything except running. Step... I'll leave it. Along with Body Combat, kind of funny doing all that punching and jumping, but I didn't feel that great of a workout. Body Flow, I feel long and lean all day after doing that class! So, while it doesn't have a lot of cardio benefit, it's a little treat to myself. The only problem is Preston has a cold, and I'm sure he got it in the daycare. I've been doing body pump at 5 am (yes, it's brutally early). But some of the other classes just aren't offered that early. And Doug goes running at 5 when I don't go to the gym, so I don't want to go every morning and take that away from him.