Monday, June 29, 2009

Yay Temples!

We went to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple open house on Saturday...it was so beautiful, and luckily Joshua behaved better this time than he did during the Draper one. Plus, Brianne came with us! I'm glad she was able to come experience it, too. It was a beautiful tour--I look forward to being able to serve in that temple once it's dedicated. We got out just as the sun was dipping behind the temple, which allowed us to get some really nice pictures.
Moroni, the moon, and a random bird. Cool, huh?
Our family :)
I love it when Cody carries Joshua around on his shoulders, and Joshua seems to love it, too! Cody took this random picture of me. I don't usually like posting pictures of just me, but here you go. Isn't the view from the temple just breathtaking? And you can see the Draper Temple and the Jordan River Temple in the distance =)

Storm + Sunset = Awesome

June has been a month full of rain, it seems. We missed a lot of it while on our trip to Texas, but we still experienced some pretty cool thunderstorms last week. Check out these views from our "balcony"(really just a staircase to get down to the garage) during last Friday evening's storm:Yeah, it's pretty cool. I like our view. :)

I love piano and cello music...

Ever since I moved to the School of Technology, I've used Pandora to listen to music. I started out with Collective Soul and music like that, but realized that some of it was a little too hard for a work environment. So, I put in Enya, and ever since then it's been playing a lot of simply beautiful piano music and other stuff like that. I love it.

Then I found a friend's blog had the following video posted, and I fell in love. I gotta say, I'm not a huge fan of the Taylor Swift song, but played on the piano, it sounds awesome. I'd love to play as well as Jon Schmidt...maybe in the next life, who knows. Anyway, enjoy!

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Happy Daddy's Day!!!

I can't believe it's the second one already...thank you, Joshua, for making my husband a daddy, and thank you, my love, for being the best father to my son that I could hope for! =)
Edited on 6/23 to add: the matching shirts were semi-not on purpose...I ordered Joshua 6 or 7 T-shirts online (all he had were long sleeves), and didn't realize until after they came that one of them looked almost exactly like one of Cody's shirts. We joked off and on about taking a picture of them in their matching shirts but didn't actually do it until now...but anyway, yeah. Makes Joshua look even more like his daddy, which is adorable anyway =P

Saturday, June 20, 2009

18 months

Just a report on Joshua, who had his 18-month checkup yesterday. He's looking good! He's in the 95th percentile for length and 79th for weight, so he's definitely still long and lean like his daddy. Motor skills seem right on track, and while he doesn't say many words yet, the doctor isn't worried and just encouraged us to keep working with him. His favorite words to say right now are "Ohhhh, nooooo!" It's adorable. And that's about it! Happy half-birthday (two days late), Joshua! We love you!

Texas!!!

We had a family reunion in Texas last week. My mom's side of the family got together in San Antonio, and then my family spent a few extra days at my brother Kendall's house in Houston. We had a great time! It was a little rushed because I mixed up the dates that we were supposed to fly out, so Joshua and I flew out a day before Cody did. We finally all got there and, though Cody had to do homework most of the week, we still enjoyed ourselves. It was hot and humid, of course (hey, it WAS Texas), so most of the activities were inside where it was cooler, but we did do a few things outside--most notably a waterpark, where some people got horrible sunburns and will hopefully never forget to put on sunscreen again (I'm looking at you, Kirsti and Rich! =P). Anyway, on to pictures!

First, here are two pictures of the group that was at the reunion. The first was taken at the Alamo at beginning of the week, before the Allemans arrived. They are all wearing a shirt made for the reunion, which was a tradition for us when I was growing up. I won't bother with naming everyone; just know that there are several generations here--most of my cousins have spouses and children of their own already.
This second picture was taken at the end of the week, after a trip to the San Antonio Temple. Some of the people in the first picture had already left and others had arrived (like us!). FYI, the reason some of us are in jeans is because we were needed to stay behind to watch the little kids.
Now let's get to the pictures that are in semi-chronological order. First off, here's Joshua in his reunion T-shirt on our first day there. I took this picture on my cell phone to send to Cody, as it was his first full night away from Joshua (and also my first full night away from Cody since we got married...it was weird sleeping alone).While waiting for Cody to arrive on Wednesday, we took the opportunity to do something he wouldn't really have enjoyed: we went up the Tower of the Americas (Cody is afraid of heights). It was really high and offered a fantastic view of San Antonio. You can kinda see the Alamo in one of the pictures--500 points to anyone who finds it!Cody finally joined us on Wednesday, June 10th. Sadly, he had to do homework for a lot of the trip...I took this picture to show where he spent most of his time at the hotel:
Kendall (my brother) and Rich (my brother-in-law) playing Wii in their orange shirts:
Here's the San Antonio Temple and a few pictures of Joshua wandering around the grounds, waiting for everyone to come out so we could go get some Rudy's Bar-B-Q:
Here's my mom and two of her four brothers that came to the reunion. L-R: my dad, my mom, Mike (my mom's oldest brother), his wife Donna, Brent (second oldest brother--and yes, he's 6'9"), and his wife Suzanne. And lastly, my family! Well, all the ones that were able to come, anyway. My brother Dana and his family were unable to attend, mostly because Dana is a high school teacher and the reunion was during the last week of school. L-R: my neice Audrey, sister-in-law Shelly, brother Kendall, nephew Damon, me, Joshua, Cody, sister Brianne, my mom, my dad, sister Kirsti, and brother-in-law Rich.After the reunion, we all headed up to my brother's house in Houston (well, technically Humble) and spent a few days enjoying family. I didn't get any pictures there--why, I don't know--but we spent most of the time just talking and playing Puerto Rico (which, by the way, is an awesome game). Joshua, Audrey, and Damon had a lot of fun playing with their grandpa, too. Families are great!

Saturday, June 6, 2009

Time for another haircut!

Summer is upon us, and with our trip to Texas coming up next week, we decided it was time to give Joshua a summer haircut...and boy, did we ever! We borrowed Cody's grandpa's hair clippers (these things are ancient...the receipt in the box says 1968--but hey, they still work!) and went at him. Here are the before pictures:
And now for the after pictures:Yup, it's definitely short and will take some getting used to, but we like it. It makes him look older, and we won't have to worry about combing it that much anymore! Plus, it kinda makes him look even more like his daddy, don't you think?