Glowing in Vienna

Randomness

2012-01-26T12:32:00.000-08:00

Thanks for the Christmas Cards. Ez, in particular, really enjoyed reading them.

We love our zoo. Ez and I really like the monkeys, but the seals are right up there too. Seeing them belly-flop from 30-40 feet is something else (ok Natalie says it's more like 25 ft...).

The animals get pretty cozy with each other.

Natalie says Jimmer is old news, but I can at least dream right?

'Til 4:30

2012-01-23T12:39:00.000-08:00

We recently switched to the dreaded afternoon church schedule. Since the Austrians have a strict lunchtime schedule we don't start church until 1:30. When we didn't have kids, late afternoon church wasn't so bad. We got to sleep in, have Belgian waffles for breakfast, and I had plenty of time to finish up the final details of my Sunday School lesson. However, Ezra, like most toddlers, is not a big fan of late church, especially with Sacrament Meeting last.

Luckily Ezra has some amazing Nursery teachers and he loves the first two hours, but when it comes to the last hour he doesn't have much patience. Usually Sacrament meeting consists of Ezra and I going in and out every 5 minutes. I've been bringing books, cars, snacks, and crayons, but nothing seems to do the trick. He would prefer to climb the stairs in the hallway or run up and down the aisles, but I think that might not send him the right message.

I realize that I'm being a bit of a wimp considering other families in my ward that have 3+ children, but if any of you have ideas on how to survive late church please share! Also if you have advice for helping 32-year-old husbands that get hungry and cranky during afternoon church, that advice would be welcome as well. And if you want to just tell me to suck it up, that's okay too.

Snow!

2012-01-18T12:38:00.000-08:00

We got our first snow of the season in Vienna. I think it's been at least 10 years since I last built a snowman. Turns out I'm out of practice!

I told Ezra to give the snowman a kiss so I could get a picture of both of them together. I guess the snowman was too scary to kiss because this is as close as Ezra got.

Snowball fight!

p.s. Thanks Aunt Lindsay, Michelle and Nicole for the awesome snow kicks. They are both comfy and manly. Keith, and Ezra, thank you.

One More Present

2012-01-13T00:01:00.000-08:00

This Christmas present had Grandpa Morgan's name written all over it!

Grr, 'Pa & Shell Come to Visit (Part 5)

2012-01-11T11:27:00.000-08:00

At the fountain in front of St. Peters Basilica

So the last leg of the marathon Christensen trip was going to Rome. There is so much to see there. I think one of the coolest things for me was standing in parts of the former Roman Forum and being able to imagine what Rome might have looked like 2,000+ years ago. My "must-sees" for Rome are:

the Colosseum - I would recommend doing the personal guided tour which also includes the forum.
the Vatican, including St. Peters Basilica
the Pantheon
the Forum
Trevi Fountain

For me, there were a couple of other "bonus sites" that I'm glad we took time to see. Those are the Moses by Michelangelo and The Ecstasy of St. Teresa. I loved seeing these two sites because they were less crowded than most major sites in Rome. Keith mentioned that if these sculptures were in almost any other city in the world they would be the crown jewel of that place, but a lot of amazing art gets lost in the clutter in Rome.

Michelle with the audio guide in the Vatican Museum. This room was crazy--wall to wall with all kinds of famous sculptures from antiquity. It was overload to say the least. If I were to do it again (without a 1-year-old) I would get the guided tour for the Vatican Museum too.

After a short catnap by the Vatican wall, Ezra ran all around St. Peters. I think he must have walked/ran at least 20 "baby-miles" that day.

While we were inside St. Peters we saw people walking around in the top of the rotunda. We asked someone about it and they told us that for 5 Euros you can climb, not only to the top of the rotunda, inside, but also go to the top of St. Peters. We decided to do it and got the view pictured above. It's a hike--320 stairs just to the rotunda, and that many more stairs to the top--but it was totally worth it.

View back towards St. Peters.

Grr, 'Pa & Shell Come to Visit (Part 4)

2012-01-07T11:49:00.000-08:00

We returned from Salzburg on the 23rd so we could spend Christmas Eve and Christmas in Vienna. Here are some of the highlights of our time in Vienna:

We snuck in a visit to the Vienna Opera. The 3 Euro standing room tickets have to be one of the best kept secrets in town (sitting tickets are expensive and hard to come by).

Christmas Day we took a look at what Santa brought, then headed to 9:30 church. It was a really great meeting, we were combined with the German-speaking ward (that also meets in our building) and sang Christmas hymns in both English and German.

In my crazy plan to show my family as much of Europe as possible in two weeks, we left on the night train Christmas evening headed for Rome. (Did I mention that my sister Michelle told me before coming that she was expecting their trip to Europe to be very Polar Express-like. No pressure!) Well, the night train wasn't exactly the Polar Express--Keith and I have vowed to never take a night train again--but it was an... experience and we met a really nice Korean friend (the 6th man in our 6-person couchette) along the way.

Can you believe all six of us fit into a compartment the size of a closet? We literally hit knees when we got out of bed.

In all fairness they did feed us a croissant with fruit tea and we saved a day of traveling.

Grr, 'Pa & Shell Come to Visit (Part 3)

2012-01-04T12:19:00.000-08:00

Although the GPS led us astray in downtown Salzburg, I couldn't have been more thankful for it as we tried to find our way to a castle we planned to see in Germany. One of my goals for this blog is to provide some European vacation planning advice. On the "what not to do" part of this advice includes planning a three hour drive from Salzburg to Germany in the snow on really narrow icy roads. What was I thinking, right? Well, I had my heart set on seeing the Neuschwanstein Castle (the one that the Disney Cinderlla castle is patterned after). I wouldn't plan it the same way again, but we have some crazy memories to now look back on and some cool pictures of the snowy German country side. That said, I would highly recommend seeing this castle, but the 30 minute hike to the castle would be much more enjoyable in the spring, summer or fall.

It was freezing cold, but all of us managed to pull out a smile for the picture.

Grr, 'Pa & Shell Come to Visit (Part 2)

2012-01-03T00:01:00.000-08:00

We took our first trip to Salzburg while my parents were out. It was snowy and cold, but beautiful. We decided to skip the Sound of Music tour considering the weather conditions (Keith and my dad were actually really disappointed), and opted instead for cruising the Christmas market and watching Sound of Music late at night in the hotel room (with Czech subtitles). There is something magical about watching that movie in Salzburg, even in the middle of winter.

We actually drove half way up this very narrow, snowy and icy street - until the car mirrors started scraping the walls - because the GPS told us to. It was a little reminiscent of this Office episode.

Keith was freaking out a bit when my dad wanted this picture with Ezra. Outside the window is an extremely high drop off the castle. I'm pretty sure this big hole in the wall wouldn't be allowed in the U.S.

Christmas goodies at the market.

Salzburg is an unbelievably beautiful city. It is storybook-like around every corner. I could have spent a day just walking through the streets.

Grr, 'Pa & Shell Come to Visit (Part 1)

2012-01-01T10:54:00.000-08:00

The Christensens came to visit for Christmas! It was the best Christmas present I could have asked for this year. We had a blast showing off Vienna and it was so much fun experiencing all the Christmas Markets and other Viennese festivities for the first time with my parents and my sister Michelle.

Visiting Keith at work. He provided a complementary tour of the U.N.

Grandpa and Ezra checking out the Christmas lights in downtown Vienna.

Michelle posing in front of one of the many light filled streets downtown.

My favorite street with Christmas lights in the shape of chandeliers.

Early Christmas

2011-12-31T11:22:00.000-08:00

In Austria, "furnished apartments" don't come with light fixtures. In preparation for my parents visiting us, we finally got around to purchasing and installing some fixtures. Ezra was so excited about the ladder, he thought Christmas had come early.

Cars, Trains and Airplanes, but mostly just Trains

2011-12-14T04:30:00.000-08:00

Ezra loves all things that drive, fly or run on a track. He immediately perks up every time he hears a car siren (which happens fairly often near our house). Almost every day Ezra and I go to the park by our house and lately we haven't been making it all the way to the playground there because instead, we stop to the watch the trains. The train thing has been going on for quite a while now. Ezra loves riding the train every day--metro. His cars are trains, not cars and they run on tracks, not roads. He will often line up random objects (soap bottles, tea bags, Cheerios, etc.) and says "chrain chack" over and over. We're torn on whether to encourage the obsession or try to curb it somehow. Resistance may be futile.

O Tannenbaum

2011-12-13T03:47:00.000-08:00

Ezra is completely fascinated with the addition of the Christmas tree in our house. I think since we don't have many other decorations it's much more of a novelty than it would be otherwise. Some of our friends were so nice and lent us two strands of 220 volt lights so we didn't have to keep using our transformer with our one strand of Walmart 110 lights we brought with us.

If you look closely on the bottom picture, Ezra looks like he's a little Christmas elf with the glowing lights following him. Completely un-Photoshop-enhanced.

Walking: A Love-Hate Relationship

2011-11-28T23:06:00.001-08:00

Heidelberg

2011-11-14T02:03:00.001-08:00

Due to the lack of sightseeing options in Frankfurt (the mall is one of its top 10 tourist attractions) we decided to take a day-trip to Heidelberg while we were in the area.

To start we drove a little past Heidelberg up into the mountains (to pass the time while Ezra got a little extra napping in) and came to a town that had four castles! The castles in Germany are pervasive. The grounds at most of the small ones are set up similar to a small monument in the U.S. At this castle they had a couple of small plaques explaining the place and you could pretty much climb and walk anywhere you pleased. There were no guards or toll stations.

The whole place felt a little Secret Garden-ish with the ivy on all of the walls.

Over looking the river from the castle grounds.

Checking out the mushrooms growing out of the wall.

From there we drove back down to Heidelberg. Keith insisted I include this picture (source link) to show how beautiful Heidelberg is. Lit up in the back is the main Heidelberg castle. In the foreground is the "old bridge". The lights in the top right corner are the funicular that takes you to the summit.

At the castle grounds. While we were there I took a picture for a Korean family and had fun brushing up on my Korean.

Ezra was doing a lot of walking practice while we were on the trip. He didn't walk while we were there, but he did some official walking yesterday!

Frankfurt Temple

2011-11-13T03:51:00.001-08:00

Last week we visited the Temple in Frankfurt. We found out that it's not actually in Frankfurt, but in a little town called Friedrichsdorf, just north of Frankfurt. They had a great farmers market there where Ezra and I found some fantastic Clementines for lunch.

The grounds at the temple were gorgeous. I haven't seen grass like that since the last time I was on a golf course.

Ezra spotted this retro VW police car in the temple parking lot.

The Smiths Visit

2011-11-11T12:55:00.001-08:00

My Uncle Geoff, Aunt Peggy and cousin Jessica came to visit last week. It was so fun to have visitors. It made us excited to have my parents and Michelle visit in another month. Who's next!?

On the Riesenrad. (don't mind me looking like a crazy person in this picture, it was the only one we got of all of us together)

Ezra getting a break from the stroller after some sightseeing. Thanks Uncle Geoff.

Me and the cousins: Jessica and Becca.

Talk about a cool coincidence, Becca's on BYU Study Abroad in Vienna right now. It's been so fun to have her over for dinner a few times since she's been here. She's even been nice enough to babysit Ezra for us. We're sure going to miss her when she has to leave next month.

Ugly Uggs or Comfy Kicks?

2011-10-29T12:46:00.000-07:00

The other day Natalie came home with these shoes. Obviously I got really excited because I thought she was announcing that she is pregnant and that we're having a little girl. You can imagine my disappoint and shock when I found out that not only is she not pregnant, but she wants Ezra to wear these girly little shoes because she says they are cute and comfy. Please vote and provide any opinions in the comments. Thanks!

Ugly Uggs or Comfy Kicks?

Zoo

2011-10-22T14:16:00.000-07:00

A few pictures from our visit to the zoo this week...

Ezra was literally inches away from this tiger. It's kind of silly, but when the tiger walked past us, I started questioning the strength of the glass that my baby was "blow-fishing". Instead, I probably should have been more concerned about the number of germs he was ingesting.

Vienna's zoo is very old, it doesn't have the fanciest facilities or the diversity of animals that you might find at the San Diego Zoo. However, it does have a lot of charm. They post feeding times of all the animals. We haven't seen it yet, but supposedly they run a piece of meat on a zip line for the snow leopard to jump up and catch.

They also have a really great park inside the zoo. Usually it is packed, but since it was such a cold day we had the whole thing practically to ourselves. It's hard to find photographers here in Vienna, so I took the opportunity to take a few pictures of Ezra myself. Who knew that after moving here I would be wishing for JC Penny photos or Kiddy Kandids?

"I Spy" Quilt

2011-10-16T05:07:00.000-07:00

Keith's aunt Anna-Kare made this beautiful "I Spy" quilt for a charity auction a few years ago. We were lucky enough to win it. I didn't realize, until Ezra turned one, how fantastic it is. Ezra and I have spent literally hours the last two weeks looking at it. Right now Ezra's favorite thing to look for is the "buuh" or butterfly. If I were a little more domestically savvy I'd make a bunch of these for baby shower gifts. Alas, quilting, just another skill to add to my list of things to learn how to do.

Every Day

2011-10-10T12:17:00.000-07:00

The other day we were skyping with Keith's mom and she asked me, "so what do you and Ezra do all day?" I realize that there's some mystery as to what one does in Vienna versus Los Alamos. The truth is, a lot of the same... laundry, going to the park, sometimes meet Keith for lunch, etc. etc. So here's an idea of a few of the different things we get to do in Vienna.

Some of the perks of living here include:

> great running paths (without any hills) and next to really amazing old buildings--so schön

> fantastic museums

> ten minute walk to H&M

> flee markets and booths at Naschmarkt

> endless foreign cuisine options

Here's some pictures of some of the every-day things we've been doing this summer.

Lucky to have this guy helping with laundry.

Taking advantage of the commissary at the UN. So grateful for tortilla chips!

Returning items to the store is a little more involved here. This picture was taken before we rode two stops on the metro, took a 20 minute bus ride, ate a couple Swedish meatballs, exchanged a few things, and finally made the trek back home with a 30 lb piece of wood packed on top of the stroller.

Not Austria. I had to laugh when my friend in Thailand posted this on her FB page. I definitely could have used one of these carts in place of my stroller.

Vienna has all sorts of furniture stores downtown. I love window shopping them. This is my favorite piece so far. Do you think Keith will get it for me for my b-day?

A sample of some baroque around town.

Going for a run.

Ezra's Cheerio routine while I'm running.

Checking out an outdoor sculpture by our house. It randomly gurgles and squawks.

2011-10-08T12:52:00.001-07:00

No walking yet :)

Tour de Vienna

2011-10-03T13:33:00.000-07:00

A while back we posted about this trip to Melk and Krems. In the post we mentioned that there is a really great bike path there that runs along the Danube all the way to Hungry. We finally had a chance to try out a small segment this weekend and it was fantastic. It's a "must see/do" if you come to Vienna.

We were worried the weather was going to be too cold, but it ended up being really warm. In fact, we had to cake a bunch of sunscreen on Ezra because it was so sunny.

A few pics from the trip:

Some vineyards along the way

Taking a break in one of the little towns we passed through

More snacks along the way

I almost forgot to add that both Keith and my bikes were stolen (mostly our fault). I've since been told that bicycles are one of the top items stolen in Vienna. In any case, we found a company to rent our bikes from that also rented the bike trailer. Keith made all the arrangements for us, in German no less.

I ended up getting a "beach cruiser" of which I've been wanting to try out for a long time. I found out that they are very heavy. Lucky for me the path is mostly flat and a pretty easy ride. Ezra did great in the bike trailer. At one point Keith was doing one of his routine checks to make sure all was well with the trailer and saw Ezra was slumped over forward. Keith quickly pulled over, ready to do CPR. Fortunately Ezra had just been lulled to sleep by the bumps in the road and seemed to be a little annoyed that we stopped moving just to wake him up.

Ezra's first plane ride

2011-09-17T18:00:00.000-07:00

Ezra's birthday also reminds me of a story I've been meaning to put in writing since he was born. As you know, Ezra had some breathing problems and an infection so they decided to fly him from Los Alamos to Albuquerque. We decided that I would fly there with him. Since the doctor wouldn't allow Natalie to be discharged for at least 24 hours, she had to stay behind. (Natalie's parents drove through the night from Utah to pick her up and bring her down to Albuquerque the next day.) This was actually one time in my life where my girlish figure actually came in handy. The airplane carrying Ezra had so much medical equipment that their weight limit only allowed them to carry an extra person weighing less than 150 pounds.

They only gave me a few minutes to pack. Luckily I was really anal about packing our "hospital bag" like 2 months before Ezra's due date so I had some spare clothes. I also grabbed some leftover snacks as I rushed out the door.

All I really remember from the ambulance ride to the airport were the strict instructions from the nurse to stay buckled in my jump seat at the rear of the plane no matter what. If, for some reason, there was an emergency during the 30-minute ride then I should wave my arms to try to get their attention. That sounded easy enough. - I think I also may have signed my life away in case they crashed the plane.

About 15 minutes into the ride it all of a sudden dawned on me that I hadn't eaten in more than 24 hours. So I fumbled around in the dark until I found my little grocery bag of snacks. When I reached in, the only easily accessible items were some peanut M&M's floating around the bottom of the bag. They were better than nothing so I popped one in. I forgot to chew and the M&M got lodged in my throat. Now I couldn't breathe and I was stuck at the back of a small, dark, very loud airplane. The two nurses, of course, were completely focused on Ezra so no amount of flailing my arms seemed to catch their attention. I panicked. The only thing I could think to do was throw my bag of snacks at them. I'm not sure exactly how many M&M's hit them in the head, but that got their attention all right. To my surprise they just stared at me - I guess wondering how in the world I could have an emergency during a 30-minute plane ride that had the primary purpose of getting my newborn son to the hospital as quickly as possible. Fortunately after a few more seconds I managed to cough up the M&M on my own. Once we landed, one of the nurses politely reminded me that the universal sign for choking is to hold both hands to your throat. Then she smiled and said, "You're lucky you coughed up that M&M yourself since we're only NICU nurses. We don't know how to take care of big people, just little ones."

Here's a couple pictures of Ezra inside the machine he rode in on the airplane. They wheeled it into Natalie's room on their way out so she could say goodbye. Doesn't it kind of remind you of what they used to freeze Han Solo with Carbonite?

The Big One!

2011-09-13T01:23:00.001-07:00

We've heard it a million times, but it's true, "it's hard to believe our little baby is already a year old!"

Now that Ezra's crawling he's much more independent. He now climbs into/onto/around things, sticks his fingers into small holes, eats anything on the ground, etc. etc. so Keith and I are having little heart attacks nearly every day. Every once in a while we look at each other and ask, "do all first parents worry that their baby's facing serious injury or even impending death around every corner?" Hence, not only are we celebrating Ezra's birthday because he's one, but we're also celebrating that he's survived two paranoid parents for a whole year.

We had a little birthday party, just us and Ezra. I was stressing a bit about his cake. I can acknowledge my talents, but cooking and baking are not some of them. However I was pleased that Ezra's very simple cake turned out. There are not cake decor shops here in Vienna so I was pleased to find a little bakery where they sold plastic squeeze bottles that could double as a device to pipe frosting.

We utilized our 72-hour kit for the first time. Turns out that waterproof matches don't light very well. We ended up using the broiler in our oven to light them. Glad we found this out before there was a real emergency.

Ezra's Birth Story

2011-09-11T11:44:00.001-07:00

In honor of Ezra's first birthday, I wanted to post a condensed version of Ezra's birth story. If you really want to read the whole thing, leave a comment or e-mail one of us and we'll send you a copy.

(Paraphrased sections are in brackets [].)

The Tuesday night after Ezra's due date Natalie started having contractions that hurt. They woke her up every ten or fifteen minutes all night. She started getting really excited that this was it, but by morning the contractions had stopped again.

Wednesday night the contractions started up again every ten or fifteen minutes. But this time she started having back labor painful enough that she was never able to fall asleep. By morning the contractions were still pretty consistent, but still only 8 to 10 minutes apart. It was the first of many times Natalie told me she didn't think she could "do this". The contractions were now so strong that I had to give counter-pressure on her back through each contraction. [We went to the doctor, but they sent us home because she was only dilated to a 1.]

By Thursday night the contractions were still only 8-10 minutes apart, but the back labor pain got even worse. That night neither of us slept. It was without a doubt the worst night of (no) sleep of my life. Every time I was just about to drift off to sleep Natalie would jump out of bed which was my cue to jump out of bed too and give her counter-pressure.

By Friday morning Natalie was exhausted from not sleeping the two nights before. I was pretty tired myself. We didn't know how much longer we could go on. Friday afternoon I suggested to Natalie that we go to the park to walk around to see if we could speed up the contractions. I told Natalie that if we could just walk long enough to make the contractions come five minutes apart we would go to the hospital again to have her checked out. I seriously doubted that she would actually be in labor, but it gave her a goal to work towards. After about two hours of walking the contractions were, on average, about 5 & 1/2 minutes apart. We decided that was close enough so we drove over to the hospital fully expecting to be sent home. [To our amazement she was a 5 and they admitted her.]

At 8:00 p.m. a new nurse came in to check Natalie's progress. I (correctly) guessed that Natalie was going to have a marathon labor so I whispered to the nurse that even if Natalie hadn't made any progress she should stretch the truth a bit just to keep Natalie's spirits up. The nurse must not have heard me because she told Natalie she was still a "good 5."

At around midnight Natalie started to shake during the contractions. Stacey, our amazing doula, got really excited about the shaking and said it was likely a sign of "transition." So she hurried to get a nurse to have them check Natalie again. This time I think the nurse realized she needed to give Natalie a little encouragement so she said Natalie was about a 6. [At this point we discovered her water hadn't broken all the way, but they refused to wake the doctor to come in to break her water.]

Around 4:30 a.m. (Saturday) Natalie still wasn't making any progress and was literally about to run out of steam. She desperately needed some sleep, but still refused the nurses' offers for drugs. Stacey suggested to Natalie that she ask me for a priesthood blessing. I of course obliged. I don't remember the words of the blessing, but I do remember the very powerful assurance from the spirit that everything would be OK. Literally minutes after the blessing Natalie fell asleep. The contractions kept coming, but they slowed down a bit and eased off enough that Natalie was able to stay in bed through each one (which she had never been able to do all the way back to when they became painful three nights earlier). And then after each contraction she fell right back asleep. This pattern lasted until about 7:30 a.m. which gave her just enough rest to get her through the long day ahead. I have no doubt it was a miracle from God.

[At 9:30 a.m. the doctor finally made it in to break Natalie's water. She progressed to a 9, but never got any farther so they decided to have her start pushing anyway in hopes that she would progress far enough that the baby could be delivered.]

At 1:30 p.m. Natalie was ready to start pushing for real. I distinctly remember thinking that there was no way Natalie could push for more than one hour. An hour and a half tops. Besides intermittent sleep for 3 hours the previous night she hadn't slept in three days. (I was beat too.) [She ended up pushing for 3 hours.] Ezra was born at 4:31 p.m. on Saturday almost exactly 24 hours after we were admitted to the hospital. He weighed 7 lbs, 1 oz and measured 19 1/2 inches long.

The scariest and happiest day of our lives.

[As we documented on our blog last year, Ezra had breathing issues and had to be flown to Albuquerque to spend one week in the NICU.]

He is now a healthy, happy little boy and we're so glad that he is part of our family.

Survivors

2011-09-02T11:49:00.000-07:00

I wanted to quickly thank everyone who contributed ideas to my Flying Phobia post. Ezra and I faired better than expected thanks to all the wonderful suggestions. We were blessed to have considerate and kind people sitting next to us on each leg of the trip. And that's saying something considering we passed through six different airports on the way there and four more on the way back.

All of your ideas for flying with little ones inspired me to try to make this before I left. Who knew that some junk from around the house on a string could entertain for hours? Necessity--or anxiety in my case--is the mother of invention!

I felt so blessed to be able to make it to my baby sister's wedding. It was beautiful. I'll post some pictures of the newlyweds soon. We had a great time while we are there, but Ezra and I were glad to get back to Keith in Vienna!

Weekend on the Adriatic

2011-09-01T01:33:00.000-07:00

This weekend we spent in Croatia. We had a lazy vacation hanging out at the beach and the pool. The first day on the beach was easily over 100 F. It was nice to store up a little warmth before the long cold Viennese winter.

If anyone would like to meet us in Croatia, let us know. We'd love to go back sometime soon!

Tangent: For those of you who went to high school in the 90s, do you remember Channel One? Anderson Cooper? Lisa Ling? A.J. Hammer? It seemed like every week they reported on Yugoslavia, Serbs, Croats, Bosnians... naturally I lumped Croatia with eastern block countries and considered it a cold, cemented, war-torn country. However, the bustling beaches we visited this weekend were definitely not cold and very different from what I imagined it to be like. The best way I can describe it is a cross between Greece and Italy. The trip peaked my interest in learning a little more about Yugoslavian history. Maybe Channel One provided more value than spinning acne cream ads to teenagers after all.

14 Days of Natalie and Ezzie (Day 14)

2011-08-20T04:00:00.000-07:00

This concludes the "14 Days of Natalie and Ezzie." Thanks for reading.

I Love Natalie, Reason #14: She is fun. I know that sounds a lot like my last reason, but there is a subtle difference. In addition to smiling and laughing, Natalie is always looking for ways/activities to make life fun.

Although I know Natalie would win a "fun competition" any day of the week, we like to have mock debates about who is the "fun one" in our relationship. Who is the "fun one" in your relationship?

Ezzie, Day #14: Thankfully Ezzie also inherited his mom's fun streak. Here's a couple photos and a video of him having fun in the kiddie pool with cousin Hadley (courtesy of my sister-in-law Emily who grabbed these wonderful shots).

(Do you see that gap between his two top teeth? Can you say braces & $$$ ?)

(Click to enlarge this one so you can see the priceless expression on Ezzie's face - and a closeup of his double-chin.)

Brrr.

Having fun on the trampoline with mom and cousin Hadley.

14 Days of Natalie and Ezzie (Day 13)

2011-08-19T04:00:00.000-07:00

I Love Natalie, Reason #13: She loves to smile and laugh. It is a great complement to my naturally serious nature.

Ezzie, Day #13: Thankfully Ez inherited his mom's love of laughter. He is such a happy kid. Every time we see our landlord here in Austria he tells us (in his broken English) "your baby is so funny".

I went back through all of our photos to find ones of Ezzie smiling and laughing at various ages. Of course there are way too many to post them all so here is a small sampling.

14 Days of Natalie and Ezzie (Day 12)

2011-08-18T04:00:00.000-07:00

I Love Natalie, Reason #12: She places a high importance on family. I think that is in part because she comes from such a great family.

Ezzie, Day #12: Ezzie is lucky to have two awesome sets of grandparents.

May 2011 w/ Grandma Karen

August 2011 w/ Grandpa Bart

April 2011 w/ Grandma Morgan

April 2011 w/ Grandma Morgan

August 2011 w/ Grandpa Morgan (and Natalie)

14 Days of Natalie and Ezzie (Day 11)

2011-08-17T04:00:00.000-07:00

I Love Natalie, Reason #11: She is spiritual. She is a great example to me and everybody else around her.

Ezzie, Day #11: Including her little sister.

What a good lookin' couple. I just wish Ez would have waited and gone on a mission first.

14 Days of Natalie and Ezzie (Day 10)

2011-08-16T04:00:00.000-07:00

I Love Natalie, Reason #10: She is frugal. Well, OK, she didn't come that way and she isn't always perfect, but she has come a long way. By the same token, she's helped me to not be the ultimate cheapskate I once was.

Quick story about our growing pains with frugality. (I apologize in advance if you've already heard it.) Shortly after returning from our honeymoon, we made an emergency trip to the Macey's grocery store in Provo for food and other essential items. It was, of course, our first real shopping trip together. I'm sure we still had that newlywed glow as we walked up and down the aisle hand in hand. That was until Natalie grabbed the second least expensive hand soap and placed it in our cart. You read that right, second least expensive hand soap. The absolute least expensive soap cost 1 penny less than the soap Natalie picked. I immediately had visions of Natalie wasting away our money on extravagant purchases and burying us deep in credit card debt. So I skipped over reason and dove straight into a lecture about how I once had a church young men leader from Tennessee who worked in a shampoo bottling factory who told us that they made one only type of shampoo but packaged it in lots of different bottles including a mix of name brands and generic brands. And so I wasn't about to pay 1 penny more for hand soap that likely came from the exact same factory. I think Natalie didn't know how to respond or even what to say so she just burst into tears. Once she started crying I didn't know what to do either so I decided our finances could probably afford the 1 penny hit if it would just make her stop. I later discovered she only picked the second least expensive brand because she liked the scent a little better.

I think this was the cheapest kind. She says it smells funny or something like that.

Like I said, we've both come a long way. And just for the record, Natalie now buys that expensive Bath & Body Works hand soap. It still makes me cringe a little bit, but I get over it much more quickly now.

Ezzie, Day #10: My sister Jenn has two little girls (and one more on the way! - we're hoping boy) and she has always done a fabulous job teaching them a bit of sign language so they can communicate a little easier before they start talking. So naturally I've wanted us to teach Ezra how to sign the simple phrases like "more", "food", "all-done", etc. Believe me, I've been trying. But every time I do he just gets really frustrated. He points and nods his head if he wants something and slaps stuff away with his hands if he doesn't want it. He's been doing the head nod since day 1 it seems. Any advice?

14 Days of Natalie and Ezzie (Day 9)

2011-08-15T03:32:00.000-07:00

(I'm not running out of material. In fact, I'm just getting started :)

I Love Natalie, Reason #9: She loves me. Without a doubt she loves me. There is no other way she would sponge bathe me and wipe my rear end after I did something stupid like break both arms at the same time.

For your viewing pleasure. Just in case you needed a little pick-me-up laugh.

See, can't you just tell how much she loves me.

Ezzie, Day #9: When he's not eating, Ezra is also fascinated with cars.

Trying to figure out how his favorite one works. Its a blue race-car that drives on its own when you pull it backwards a little bit (which winds up the back wheels).

Natalie built a ramp out of some material in "cardboard land". Ezra loved watching the cars speed down the ramp.

P.S. Just kidding about Natalie wiping my rear end (the doctor purposely always had me with at least one cast below the elbow - even though I should have had two over-the-elbow casts). Just checking to see how closely you're reading.

14 Days of Natalie and Ezzie (Day 8)

2011-08-14T03:00:00.000-07:00

I Love Natalie, Reason #8: She gave birth to our son. All I can say about labor and delivery is wow. And without drugs? Amazing.

Ezzie, Day #8:

14 Days of Natalie and Ezzie (Day 7)

2011-08-13T04:00:00.000-07:00

I Love Natalie, Reason #7: My father-in-law and mother-in-law gave me crap about this post - too mushy or something like that. Apparently they still don't get my over-the-top dry sense of humor. Does any man really think he can tell his wife in all seriousness "you complete me" and get away with it? So anyway, I guess that means I need to come up with a more manly way to express how I love Natalie. I'm not so good with words though so I've decided to let my favorite childhood band say it for me. (What? You don't have a secret favorite 80's/90's band? I won't embarrass Natalie and tell you hers, but it rhymes with "Space of Base".)

Ezzie, Day #7: I don't want to "miss a thing" of Ezra's little life either. They grow up waaaay to fast. Do you remember this little guy? He'll be 1 in less than a month.

Natalie nearly had a nervous meltdown during Ezra's first month because he wasn't eating and was losing weight. But now he's turned into quite the healthy little chunk. Apparently my sister-in-law Emily, also at the wedding, said something to the effect of "He seriously just ate for 30 minutes straight. And I think the only reason he stopped is because Natalie didn't have any more food to put on his plate."

Look at the those little rolls, "moobs" (ala Phil Mickleson), and double-chin!

14 Days of Natalie and Ezzie (Day 6)

2011-08-12T11:30:00.000-07:00

I Love Natalie, Reason #6: She is intelligent. (I realized how important that is when a girl I was dating told me she didn't understand action movies. - How hard can it be?)

Ezzie, Day #6: Speaking of standing up. Ezra gets in to pretty much everything now. Any tips on how to best "baby-proof" your apartment (beyond just your standard child-safety locks and outlet covers)?

"Helping" organize our Kleiderschrank (wardrobe).

Climbing inside a different wardrobe.

14 Days of Natalie and Ezzie (Day 5)

2011-08-11T11:30:00.000-07:00

I Love Natalie, Reason #5: (Speaking of sports...) She is a BYU fan. She even claims to have a little more BYU "fanhood" than me, (but we both know who spends more pointless hours searching news.google.com for BYU stories). I couldn't ask for more. She completes me.

(My sister Sally says that I've traded J. Crew for BYU. From a purely financial perspective, that seems like a good trade doesn't it?)

Ezzie, Day #5: Ezra has been able to pull himself up for a while, but he is getting a lot more brave. We usually find him in his crib like this now...

Speaking of BYU... sportin' the Cougar jammies.

And a couple from a while back...

What kind of parents let their baby stand up alone on a chair?

14 Days of Natalie and Ezzie (Day 4)

2011-08-10T11:30:00.000-07:00

I Love Natalie, Reason #4: She loves sports as much as I do. I know it sounds silly, but seriously, what guy doesn't want a spouse that actually enjoys watching games and actually enjoys talking about sports (with incredible acumen I might add). I married the perfect woman.

Ezzie, Day #4: OK, so despite what I said in my previous post, I do still care a tiny bit about how I look. Athletic shoes. What can I say? Even though I know I'm just a victim of the Nike marketing machine, I still can't seem to help myself. (Though this story about my nephew James has me convinced that boys might just be born this way.)

Do you have a brother, spouse, father, etc. like this buying athletic shoes?

Here's Ezra trying on my new shoes...

14 Days of Natalie and Ezzie (Day 3)

2011-08-09T11:30:00.000-07:00

I Love Natalie, Reason #3: She is my Best Friend. I know that sounds trite, but she really is. I'm so glad that I get to spend eternity with her.

Ezzie, Day #3: As I already mentioned, Ez really likes going to the Spielplatz (playground). This last month Natalie took a German class at the U.N. so I got to spend my lunch hour with Ezzie at a nearby park. I forgot how much fun the playground can be...

(Please ignore my outfit - Merrell shoes, ankle socks, khaki shorts and a BYU t-shirt. Every piece embarrasses Natalie tremendously. It's kind of funny that I actually care about function way more than fashion now considering what my sister Sally remembers from our childhood. She just mentioned it in this story actually.)

14 Days of Natalie and Ezzie (Day 2)

2011-08-08T11:25:00.000-07:00

I Love Natalie, Reason #2: She feeds me and it tastes great. (This is particularly poignant to me right now since I'm eating cereal for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the next 2-1/2 weeks.) Despite Natalie's lack of self-confidence, she is actually a really good cook.

Ezzie, Day #2: Speaking of food. It turns out that Ezra really likes to eat. How much food is normal for an 11-month old baby to eat? He'll regularly eat a meal similar to the following (after nursing!):

1 Avacado

2 Nectarines

1 Piece of Bread

Watermelon (until we run out - he really loves Watermelon)

Excited to eat.

Favorite food.

WARNING: Very boring video of Ezra eating watermelon. Only a grandparent would enjoy watching. You've been warned.

14 Days of Natalie and Ezzie (Day 1)

2011-08-07T10:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I sent off Natalie and Ezra back to the States for Natalie's little sister's wedding. So I'm going to be a bachelor for approx. the next 2-1/2 weeks. I think the German word for this kind of bachelor, "Strohwitwer" -- literally "straw widower" -- is much more fitting. It's been less than 48 hours and it already feels like the longest 2-1/2 weeks of my life.

I hate to admit it, but I'm totally lost without Natalie and Ezra. I spent most of my day yesterday in front of the computer looking on-line at this map and mindlessly clicking the refresh button every so often...

Since I don't have much else to do, I'm going to blog about them once each day for the next 14 days. Each day I'll post one reason I love Natalie (in no particular order of importance) and a little something about Ezzie.

So without further adieu...

I Love Natalie, Reason #1: She is a serious trooper. I really hate to admit this, but I talked Natalie into buying a flight back to the States with a crazy itinerary because it saved us about $800-$1000. It included three plane changes and six airports and about 29 hours of travel time from door to door. She even had to pick up her luggage half way and then re-check it with another airline (just to be clear, that means going through security two separate times). - Oh yeah, all with an 11 month old baby. (Yes, that explains her previous post about her "flying phobia".)

Ezzie, Day #1: Recently Ezra really started enjoying the playground (more about that in a later post). The sand is a favorite. And of course the sand is way more fun with a little water...

No, the mud didn't come out of his shirt.

These cute girls are the kids of two new Austrian friends Natalie and Ezra made at the park a few weeks ago.

Flying Phobia

2011-07-27T23:30:00.000-07:00

My little sister is getting married in a few weeks. I'm so excited for her. Keith is really sweet for letting me take Ezra away for a couple weeks so I can go (though he did make me promise to not let Ezra take his first steps while we are away). Poor guy I don't know what he's going to do while we're gone.

I'm starting to get a little anxiety over flying "across the pond" with an eleven-month-old. If you have any advice of things that I can do/take with me to possibly make the trip more successful, please share. In the mean time I'm going to align my chakras, channel my inner yogi, and pray for a zen-filled trip. Ezra will need low-stress mom:)

Melk & Krems

2011-07-25T12:41:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we ventured out of Vienna for a day excursion on the Danube to two picturesque towns called Melk and Krems. The whole area is filled with a number of little European towns. We stopped in just the two main towns, but next time we will definitely stop at some of the places in between.

Keith and Ezra taking a rest on the walk up to the Melk Abbey.

The famous Benedictine Abbey at Melk.
(Aerial view of Melk Abbey. Postcard image © P. Martin.)

An amazing library in the Melk Abbey. (It looks strikingly similar to the library in the house of our friends the Judis. The Judis' library ladder is much cooler though.)

We took a boat down the river from Melk to Krems. Here is one of the neat castles along the way.

This is another one of the charming little towns along the river called Dürnstein. (Richard the Lionheart was imprisoned in the castle up on the hill.) There is a popular bike path all along this part of the Danube. We really want to do this trip by bike next time. It would be the perfect way to see everything in between.

We haven't gotten a lot of family shots, so when we found this mirror in the middle of one of the streets we thought we'd take advantage of it. I just wish this little Mini belonged to us.

We were all smiles in Krems until we realized that we couldn't find the train station and my phone with our maps had died. We tried asking around for directions, but our German is still pretty weak so we got even more lost. Finally a Romanian man took pity on us. He left his 5 kids and wife at the grocery store while he drove us to the station - just in time for our train. Some people are so nice. (Just ask Keith's sister Sally, she meets them all the time at Big Lots.)

Smart or Not?

2011-07-20T13:03:00.000-07:00

Did we mention he likes to play with keys? All of the doors in our house have keys in them and Ezra can't get enough, touching, turning and pulling keys out of the keyholes. After another day of Ezra demanding to be held next to the door to play with the keys, I finally decide to use my brain instead of my brawn. My solution:
I felt pretty proud of myself for coming up with this. Maybe the baby gods were smiling on me today. Hopefully I didn't outsmart myself. I'm hoping that the next post isn't about Ezra's visit to the emergency room with a broken arm from falling out of his highchair.

The Closet

2011-07-17T14:03:00.000-07:00

It's so refreshing to interact with a little child. Ezra gets such sheer joy out of the simplest things in life.

Besides climbing in the closet, he also loves pushing buttons of any kind, especially the ones in our elevator. -- I've never seen anybody go so crazy about a broom, or brush (especially toothbrushes), or keys. -- He has also developed an amazing appetite for his size. He goes crazy for watermelon, yogurt and avocados. -- My favorite thing is how much he enjoys interacting with other people wherever we are (train, bus, park, etc.). It doesn't matter if they're old, young, happy, sad, crazy, ... I think he secretly enjoys getting grumpy people to crack a smile.

4th of July in Austria

2011-07-16T13:43:00.000-07:00

It's a little different living someplace where they don't celebrate the 4th of July. It was really tough to go to work that day. It felt unpatriotic. A couple of Americans at work tried to arrange a BBQ and "waterskiing" on the Danube (you get pulled behind a cable) after work, but it turned out to be a really cold and rainy day. So we did the next best American thing -- we went bowling and ate hamburgers!

Baby-zilla

2011-07-11T23:15:00.000-07:00

This past week was very warm in Vienna. I'm not used to the humidity so some trips to the swimming pool were in order. The places we went to are what they call "schwimbads" or baths. They consisted of a number of swimming pools, a couple of slides, sand volleyball, and a huge trampoline. A lot of the kids at the pool got a kick out of Ezra's swimming suit. It has a shark fin on the hood so I heard a lot of "Holy smokes Batman!"

In other news this week, Baby-zilla wreaked havoc on "Ikea Cardboard Land" and its inhabitants.

Asian Celebrity

2011-07-11T23:12:00.000-07:00

It turns out that Ezra is some sort of celebrity in China. While we were taking a break at the at a bench outside the Prague Castle, all of a sudden Ezzie and I were surrounded by a huge group of Asians. They started snapping pictures of him like the paparazzi.

He's such a "ham." He loves smiling and posing for the camera.

They gave him gifts.

Before I knew it they had taken him from me so they could have their own pictures taken with him.

Prague

2011-07-03T09:44:00.000-07:00

My sister Sally requested lots of pictures from everywhere we visit. So...

Prague, Czech Republic, is often called the "Golden City." It somehow avoided most of the destruction during WWII and so has been able to retain much of its beautiful historical architecture including a fantastic array of bridges across the Vltava river. The closest bridge in this picture is St. Charles' bridge, Prague's most famous bridge. Not only is it the most beautiful bridge, but local legend says that the first stone was laid by King Charles on July 9, 1357 at 5:31 a.m. This date makes a palindrome: 135797531.

Now that I've mentioned some of the touristy stuff, here are the highlights...

This was our first experience riding the trains in Europe. Luckily it wasn't crowded so we had an entire room to ourselves for most of the trip (each car is divided into rooms of six seats). I think it might have helped that Ezra seemed to be crying each time we stopped to pick up more passengers ;)

Sitting in his own seat.

Touching this relief on St. Charles' bridge is supposed to bring good luck. I think Ezzie just liked the shiny dog--shiny because of all the millions of people who have touched it. Fortunately we brought a lot of hand sanitizer with us.

This clock tower is also a very famous landmark in Prague. It chimes every hour on the hour (well almost, it's an astrological clock so it is off by a few minutes). Little figures pop out of the windows and do a little song and dance. Pretty amazing stuff for how old it is.

Ezra got so tired of all the sightseeing that on this trip he finally learned how to sleep in the BabyBjorn.

We found this amazing little restaurant on the hill up by the Prague castle with a really cool view of the city. The food was also fantastic.

Another highlight of Prague is the "Jewish Museum" (actually a collection of many sites). One of them is this cemetery. The Jews were only allowed to bury their dead on a small plot of land in the city. Since the Jews believe you should not disturb the body of a dead person they simply had to start putting graves on top of old graves and cover them with dirt. That explains how there are so many headstones in such a small area.

We also tried to plan at least one activity each day that Ezzie would enjoy. We thought he would like rowing around on the river. He liked it for about ten minutes and then...

...we finally figured out he just wanted to sleep.

At the Prague Castle, a couple from Israel with their one-year-old boy stopped at the benches to take a break next to us. Ezra was really fascinated by the Cheetos they were eating.

They offered to share with Ezzie. Needless to say he liked them a lot.

Of course Ezra's favorite part of the trip was the cool new bathtub in the hotel.

The train ride home.

Baby Food Ideas?

2011-07-02T03:23:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe Ezra will be ten months on the 4th of July! He's no longer a little accessory that lets me pack him everywhere in the baby carrier. Now he wants to crawl around, touch and climb on anything that he can get his hands on. He's even managed to master crawling on our slippery wood floor. All this new mobility makes traveling on the bus and metro a little more challenging!

And it must take a lot of energy because Ezra's been eating like a horse lately. Since we moved and I'm not working at the bank anymore I figured I'd have time to make baby food. However, our shipment of kitchen stuff--including my food processor--isn't coming for at least another month so I'm trying to make things for him that don't need to be pureed. The other day I tried roasting chickpeas. When they came out of the oven they were nice and crispy, but after a few hours they turned mushy. If you have baby food ideas for me please share. And if you don't care about baby food, we'll try to post something more interesting next time, with lots of pictures :)

Settling In

2011-06-20T09:38:00.000-07:00

We're finally settled (sort of) into our own apartment, yay! The process of looking for an apartment was a bit stressful. However, in hindsight it was a lot of fun to walk through different apartments and try to imagine our lives in each them for the next year or two. We finally decided on a place near a couple parks and just down the street from a metro stop. Keith will be taking the metro to get to work so having a stop close to our place is a major bonus.

This weekend we made a marathon tour through Ikea. The aroma of Swedish meatballs, little marshmallow cars and the anticipation of lunch under 10 Euro kept us going though the day. Ezra was a champ and only had one meltdown the whole time. He even slept in Keith's arms in the living room furniture section for 45 minutes. Much to Keith's chagrin, we've now entered the adult world of owning our own furniture. Prior to this our furniture consisted of a hand-me-down futon and floral arm chair. Hopefully we can figure out how to put all the Ikea stuff together!

Here are a few, mostly unrelated, pictures from some of the stuff that we've been doing the last couple of weeks.

Ezra, happy to be unconventionally sporting his swim diaper.

Keith's Father's Day treat was also my first attempt at baking in Austria. They were supposed to be oatmeal cookies. Did I mention that all of our stuff, including anything baking related, isn't being shipped from the U.S. until the end of this month? I made the cookies sans a mixer and baked with a muffin pan.

Very exciting feature of our new place.

Checking out flamingos at the zoo.

Happy 32nd!

2011-06-08T03:51:00.000-07:00

Keith's Birthday was a little non-traditional this year, with a slice of Viennese Sachertorte instead of a birthday cake. I searched high and low for some birthday candles but all they had at the grocery store were big ones that you put in a candle stick or packages of 50 votive candles . I finally found a package of the cutest candles shaped like macarones at a fancy cooking store near our hotel. However, the practical side of me (yes, it shows up every once in a while) knew that Keith would be more annoyed than grateful that I spent 7 Euro on Birthday candles.

It ended up being a lot of fun. And so far neither of us have gotten E. Coli from the bean sprouts we had for dinner that night. Wish us good luck that it stays that way!

Happy birthday Keith!

Without a Highchair, and Too Many Places to Go

2011-06-07T13:36:00.000-07:00

We've been waffling on what kind of highchair to get recently. It took us over a year to decide on and take the plunge to buy our first car; so it's no surprise that even a buying a highchair is a deliberate decision. Both a benefit and a drawback of being married to an engineer (from the picture can't you tell he's the cutest dad too?).

Anyway, if any of you have advice on highchairs, please share. We're getting past the point of being able to contain Ezra during eating time!

Visiting the Kinderspital

2011-06-04T12:23:00.000-07:00

Before we left the States we visited my Aunt Peggy in Logan. After we got to Austria we found out that my cousin Garrett had Whooping Cough while we were there. We called our Los Alamos pediatrician and he strongly recommended that we take Ezra to the doctor to get antibiotics ASAP, even though Ezra doesn't have a cough or any other symptoms yet. Per his recommendation we took a trip to the Vienna children's hospital ("Kinderspital") today.

The hospital receptionist (who fortunately spoke English) sent us straight to the quarantine area behind this locked gate.

"Access for patients with skin rashes and/or infections"

Behind the gate were three isolation "boxes."

Ezra didn't mind our little box at all. He had heaps of fun playing on/with everything in the room. The hard part was keeping him from sucking on stuff (who knows what the previous kid in the "box" had).

The receptionist told us that it would be a minimum wait of 2-3 hours for the doctor. He came within 5 minutes (I think because we were paying cash, turns out that money talks--even in a socialist system). So we had enough time this afternoon to visit the gardens at Schönbrunn Palace.

Looking down at the palace.

The view looking away from the palace (from http://www.schoenbrunn.at).

Of course, despite the amazing beauty all around us, Ezra only wanted to play in the dirt.

Such a busy day really wore Ezra out.

Oh, and after all that, the doctor wouldn't give us any antibiotics. They are really scared of their population building a resistance to antibiotics so they won't give them out unless you really need them.

Still Searching

2011-06-02T02:49:00.000-07:00

We've spent most of the last few days looking for an apartment, so I've not been taking as many pictures as I would like, but here are a few pics from the other day in the park.

This little boy was so cute. He was curious about the baby in the stroller. Ezra's first Austrian friend.

Seeing these bike rentals made me excited for when our bikes are finally shipped here. Just before we left NM I "won" a bike trailer on Freecycle (a sort of Craigslist but only with free things). I didn't get a chance to try it out before we left so hopefully it will work okay. If anyone has advice on using bike trailers, please share. It makes me a little nervous.
Keith, prying grass out of Ezra's mouth at the park.
Here's a picture of a typical street in Vienna in the Innerstadt (main downtown area).
Like I mentioned above, we're still on the search for an apartment and it occupies most of our time. The UN gave Keith most of the week off to get settled and to look for apartments. We've looked at about eight different ones so far. The apartments range from buildings that are 200 years old to ones that were built more recently.

2011-05-29T19:40:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was our first time going to the Vienna International Ward. We were proud that we navigated well enough to get there for the third hour--it's a long story. Everyone there was really friendly and nice. It definitely has an "international" vibe. To give you an idea of what I mean, there is a student from Canada studying music theory here majoring as a trombonist, a student from SUU and her roommate from Nairobi, and the bishop's is from Australia. Just a small cross-section of the ward.

Later yesterday we decided to check out a nearby park. It was much larger than our quaint Ashley Pond in Los Alamos, in fact, I think that the whole population of Los Alamos made up the number of people at the park yesterday. They had a large duck pond; soccer and basketball courts; grassy areas; a ton of park benches; and even some people practicing tight-rope-walking (see picture below).
Maybe the tight-rope people are preparing to do something like this. My very chic friend Kelly shared it on Buzz. I would call it a high altitude-scenic-serene adrenaline rush. After watching the video I would like to think that if I had the time, resources, better balance, and some serious courage; I would try this sometime. Do you think anyone's attempted this wearing a baby bjorn?

Some things that I'm loving:
> people watching
> fresh food
> high heels on cobblestone streets
> tiled roofs

Some things I'm getting used to:
> sharp cheese - we bought some cheese ravioli for dinner the other night. I tried really hard to push wet sweat socks out of my mind (forgive me, I know don't deserve to be in Europe for saying this).
> jet lag
> $ to € conversion: Poor Keith can't help himself mentioning how much everything we buy is in dollars. Ouch.
> speaking German: go away inhibitions!

New Home

2011-05-28T21:58:00.000-07:00

I was recently selected for a one-year position at the United Nation's International Atomic Energy Agency (http://www.iaea.org). The Agency's headquarters are in Vienna, Austria. We arrived yesterday morning. Who's coming for a visit?

Ezra and I in front of St. Stephen's cathedral near the main square in Vienna. They are doing some restoration work, but they put a facade over the scaffolding so you can't tell.

Vienna's Pestsäule at Graben Square which commemorates the end of the Bubonic Plague.

Natalie and Ezra hanging out in Graben Square. This pedestrian-only street used to be the main center of commerce in Vienna. Now it is lined with expensive retail shops (e.g. Versace, Gucci, Cartier, Tiffany's, etc.)

Ezra and I in near Wienerwald. I'm excited to try their Schnitzel.

We are staying in a short-term apartment until we find a permanent place to live for the next year. This is what it looks like from our view on the 7th floor (the 7th floor in Europe = the 8th floor in the U.S.).

Ezzie loves Vienna because they still have bathtubs.

Gone Fishing

2011-05-23T22:13:00.000-07:00

My dad couldn't be prouder. He gave Ezra a fishing pole and this is the reaction he got.

Grandpa Bart can't wait to take him to Strawberry Reservoir next summer to catch some monster trout. Looks like he might be a natural; he's got passion anyway!

Oregon

2011-05-02T19:50:00.000-07:00

We've been in Oregon for the last couple weeks. We saw Keith's brother David off on his mission to Brazil and also went to Keith's foster sister, Bri's, wedding. It was great to spend time with Grandma and Grandpa Morgan, Tomas, Shaun, Krista, Kenny and Jenn and her two adorable girls Ava and Sadie. We knew it would be a while before we get to see them all again so we were really glad to get to spend so much time with them.

Hand-prints in the cement with Grandpa.

We decided to take a day-trip to the coast. Believe it or not, it was completely clear, sunny day (I didn't know those existed on the Oregon coast). We didn't do a lot of swimming, but we played in the sand. I'm still cleaning sand out of Ezra's ears and my diaper bag.

After hanging out in Medford we headed up to Portland for Bri's wedding. On the way we stopped in Corvallis to visit two of Keith's mission companions Justin Ward and Brian Latta. Unfortunately we forgot to take a picture of Ward's awesome handle-bar mustache.

Jenn and Ava with the beautiful bride (Bri) after the sealing.

I just love the Portland temple. It's tucked back in the middle of the tall evergreens. All the tulips were in full bloom, just gorgeous!

Seven Months

2011-04-12T20:27:00.001-07:00

If you look closely you can clearly see that Ezra is eating solids.

One of his new favorite games, picking toys out of the basket.

Jimmer in Denver

2011-03-28T21:36:00.000-07:00

UPDATED 3/29 (SEE BELOW)

Keith doesn't usually let me spend money on him, so I always jump at a chance for us to do something that he really enjoys, which usually equates to something BYU sports related. Since BYU was playing in the NCAA tournament in Denver and actually had a decent seed in the tournament it was a no-brainer that we would go. My dad who is equally fanatical about BYU sports dangled the see-the-grandbaby-carrot in front of my mom to get her to skip her Thursday evening class to meet us in Denver for the games.

Here's a few pictures from the highlights of the trip:

BYU Buddies

Here's Ezra at the game. Child abuse, right? For anyone that has to take a child to a loud place I highly recommend them, minus the chipmunk-cheek side effect.

Getting ready to try out the hotel pool

Traumatized from the a-little-too-cold-for-babies hotel pool, then warming up with Dad.

Trying out the hotel drawers.

Hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa.

We had a blast and BYU actually won both of their games. We've been on a few BYU sports trips where we got skunked, so it made the whole thing that much sweeter. It was a good run Jimmer!

UPDATE BY KEITH 3/29

Nat forgot to mention a few things...

We also met up with my good friend (and mission companion) Steve Nabrotzky. He's about as die-hard BYU as they come (he took his wife and three kids on the 10+ hour drive the following weekend from their home in Tennessee to New Orleans to watch BYU in the sweet sixteen -- and his wife, Sharalee, was 8 1/2 months pregnant!!! He also claims they are naming their soon-to-be-born boy "Jimmer Jackson Nabrotzky.")

Thanks to Steve's shrewd scalping we got awesome seats for the first game at a steal of a price.

And a special thanks to Steve's wife Sharalee for the cute little moccasins for Ezzie.

I also wanted to give a shout-out to Jackson Emery. He was just as much a reason for BYU's success as Jimmer. (Jackson surpassed Danny Ainge this year to become BYU's all-time leader in steals.)

Jackson Emery

And last, but not least, I wanted to give a shout-out to Natalie. What she didn't mention is that she made a huge sacrifice so we could go to the games in Denver. Natalie and her sister Nicole have been training for months to run the Moab Half Marathon. Unfortunately the race was the same weekend as the opening weekend of the NCAA tournament. I am so lucky to have such an awesome wife! -- Don't worry, I'm going to make it up to her. We're going to Utah in a couple of months so she and her sisters can do a different half marathon.

Fun with old pictures

2011-03-12T15:24:00.000-08:00

Isn't going through old pictures fun?

My sister Jenn.

My sister Sally.

Yours truly.

Pictures

2011-03-02T10:00:00.000-08:00

Here's a few more for the grandmas. Ezra's still working out the cross-eyed thing :)

Mom help: So our most recent challenge is getting Ez to sleep without his swaddle. If anyone had suggestions for me, please share!

Happy Valentines Day

2011-02-14T17:57:00.000-08:00

I got this picture in my e-mail at work today from Ezzie...

Man I love being a dad.

All Dressed Up

2011-02-11T22:26:00.000-08:00

After our trip to Vegas we made our way to Utah to see my family. Conveniently the BYU basketball team had a home game - I'm not sure why that always seems to happen...

Actually, part of the reason for our trip to Utah was for Keith to have oral surgery. His mission companion, Ryan, is a periodontist. He did a gum graft for Keith which is apparently painful enough that it requires some strong pain medication. Unfortunately Lortab really messes with Keith's body (he gets extremely nauseous, has hallucinations, etc.), but for some reason he took it anyway.

The same night as Keith's surgery, Ezra came down with a nasty cold and ear infection.

Despite all of this, Keith really wanted to see Jimmer play one more time, so on Saturday we loaded up and drove down to Provo. First we met up with Ryan's family for lunch. Keith spent the entire time face-down on the table at Magelby's Fresh. By the time we got to the Marriott Center parking lot, Keith was about to lose what little lunch he had so we actually turned around and went home. (If you know Keith, you know he had to be on his death bed to miss a BYU game.)

I was bummed too because I was excited to try out the noise canceling head phones some of you recommended to protect Ezra's ears at the game. Here's a couple of pics of Ezzie in his game-day outfit...

All dressed up and nowhere to go.

(Thanks Ryan and Kari Dawn for the cool Cougar paw!)

Keith is really excited about his new BYU hat so he insisted that I post a picture of it. Are these guys going to a BYU game or deer hunting?

Between a sick baby and a sick husband I totally forgot to take any pictures with my family :(

Viva Las Vegas

2011-02-11T22:08:00.000-08:00

Last week we took Ezzie to see my Grandpa Sam and Grandma Jo in Las Vegas. We had a great time visiting them. Here are a few pictures from our trip...

Grandma Jo, Ezra, me, Grandpa Sam

Three generations (wish my mom could have been there to make four).

My grandparents know all the great spots to visit in Las Vegas. Here are some pics from the Bellagio's "Chinese Year of the Rabbit" exhibit...

Notice the very large rabbit behind me.

Ezra had a great time hanging out with his great-grandparents.

January 2011

2011-02-01T13:32:00.001-08:00

Sorry for inundating you with pictures. (It's for the grandparents.) Here is a snapshot of January 2011...

Ez loves his "under the sea" playmat.

Blue Steel

Poor guy seriously despises "tummy time."

OK, he likes it for like two minutes, then he lets us know about it.

Sleeping with one eye open. He gets that from Natalie (I'm not kidding).

The old how many fingers can I shove in my mouth contest.

Already reading.

The rest of these pictures are from a "photo shoot" his mom made him do. Can you tell Natalie likes taking pictures of Ez? (Thanks Aunt Jenn for the fancy tie!)

The PIT

2011-01-30T18:51:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Natalie and I took Ezra to witness "Jimmermania" in person. Unfortunately, despite Jimmer's 32 points BYU still lost to UNM.

UNM's basketball arena, called "The PIT" (because it is basically underground), was incredibly loud. Poor Ezra burst into tears every time the crowd cheered so Natalie and I took turns with him in the hallway.

Here's a few photos courtesy of our friends...

The view from our seats. Not the best, but we were just happy to be there.

The Jimmer.

Our friends' daughter getting Jimmer's autograph after the game (I am so jealous).

All that cheering for the Cougs wore Ezzie out.

Christmas 2011

2011-01-16T21:43:00.000-08:00

Here's a quick photo/video tour of our Christmas trip to Utah/Idaho...

We spent Christmas with Natalie's family. She has a lot of Aunts, Uncles and Cousins that live nearby that we got to see. We also got to see Natalie's Grandma Reba. It was really fun to have Ezra meet her.

Grandpa Bart, Ezzie, Great Grandma Reba

After Christmas we drove up to Idaho to see my Grandma and Grandpa. My grandma is in an assisted living home for people with Alzheimers disease. It was really nice to visit her and my grandpa.

Great Grandpa Morgan and Ezzie

Great Grandma Morgan and Ezzie

We also got to see my Aunt Maria and Uncle John and their family. They were nice enough to let us stay with them in Idaho.

Ez, Natalie, Brooke, Hannah, Ria, John

We also stopped by Kaysville, Utah to visit my Aunt Kare and Uncle Fred and their family. My cousin Christer and his wife Cat also live in Kaysville. It was fun to meet their new little baby Jack. They have three kids under three!

Christer, Jack, Ez, Keith

Jack, Uncle Fred, Ezzie

Natalie also got to meet up with her old roommates Katie and Sarah. They all had babies within a few months of each other. Unfortunately our camera battery died so we don't have any pictures from that visit.

We also got to see my Aunt Karra and her boys Jake and Camaron. My Aunt Karra and Uncle Sam set me up on a blind date with Natalie.

We also got to see our good friends Geoff and Loni (Lonners). Their twins were born (prematurely) a few weeks after Ezra. So it was fun to meet them for the first time. Connor and Ashlyn are both super cute. I couldn't believe how big Ezzie looked compared to their premature babies. Loni is already scheming to have Ezra and Connor be roommates at BYU like Geoff and I were.

Natalie, Ezra, Keith, Connor, Geoff, Elise, Ashlyn, Loni

Here are a few more pictures from our time with Natalie's family.

Ezra and Uncle Kyle (Natalie's brother)

And last but not least, here is a video of Ezra and his Grandpa Bart. He was really good at getting Ezra to laugh. He really speaks Ezra's language. (Natalie's sisters claim Bart has lots of practice because he talks to them like that all the time.)

New Mexico Bowl

2011-01-16T21:39:00.000-08:00

Ezra attended his first (of many) BYU football games when the Cougars came to town for the New Mexico Bowl. BYU defeated UTEP 52-24.

Southern Thanksgiving

2011-01-09T15:15:00.001-08:00

I've been meaning to post about Thanksgiving, and just getting around to it now. Here are a couple pictures from the trip.

We wanted to visit all of our grandparents after Ezra was born. Keith had business travel in Florida around Thanksgiving so we decided to just make a trip of it and visit my grandparents in Texas on our way.

Who knew that Texas was actually going to be hotter than Florida, when we arrived in College Station we stripped Ezzie down to his diaper, because it was a muggy 80 degrees! A nice break from the wintery November weather of Los Alamos.

Here's my grandma with Ezra.

Here's my Uncle Jerry holding Ezra and Lizzy (my cousin Jacob's daughter). Jerry's a natural grandpa and knows how to get the babies to smile. He and his wife Kathy were nice enough to have us for Thanksgiving dinner. Lucky for us my Uncle Mark, Aunt Stephanie, and their family came down from Missouri so we got to see them. My Uncle Peter lives in College Station so it was great to see their family too (p.s. thanks Meg for letting us borrow your Pack'n Play!).

It has been ten years since I visited my grandparents in Texas. They decided they were game to have our little nocturnal baby stay at their house. It was fun to stay in my mom's old room and see some of the stuff from her childhood.

My grandpa holding Ezra.

After Thanksgiving, we headed to Florida. We flew into Tampa so we could see Keith's Grandpa Bill plus his Uncle Tony and Aunt Patrice and their family. Keith got to meet his new cousin Jayden that Tony and Patrice adopted from China. We were lucky enough to arrive on the day of Jayden's birthday party. Here's Tony, Patrice and Jayden.

You wouldn't know it from this picture, but Ezra actually started sleeping through the night a few days before we left for our trip. He was such a good baby on our flights to Texas and Florida. It wasn't until the way home that his patience started running thin.

Christensen Family Pictures

2011-01-02T20:21:00.001-08:00

Over the Christmas break we took family pictures with my side of the family. Here's a sneak peek from our photographer's blog...

Back Row (l to r): Hadley, Kyle, Emily, Karen, Bart, Michelle, Keith, Ezra, Natalie

Front Row (l to r): Lindsay, Nicole, Chad

On the left is Ezzie in his shapka. On the right is Ezzie's cousin Hadley.

Quasi Giggle Video

2010-12-23T00:04:00.000-08:00

My dad asked me to post this video so he could hear little Ezzie trying to giggle for the first time. (Sorry, I know that is totally boring for everybody else.) The picture quality is awful. It was way too dark inside for our little Flip-like video camera. The best giggles are at the beginning, but you'll probably have to turn your volume up quite a bit to hear it.

Merry Christmas to all!

First Encounter

2010-12-17T14:36:00.000-08:00

When we were coming back from Florida they had a Santa in the airport. Our flight was a little delayed so we thought we'd take advantage of the free photo with Santa. I took Ezra once and couldn't get him to smile, so Keith took him again and still no success. Oh well, at least he's not screaming.

BYU Blue

2010-12-15T20:07:00.000-08:00

Here's Ez all decked out in his BYU gear. He's psyched for the New Mexico Bowl this weekend!

In the last month he's gotten really smiley, he'll regularly smile at strangers. In fact, there are a couple of ladies in our ward that can make him smile on cue, tired, hungry it doesn't matter. I think he has a little baby crush on both of them.

Growing Up

2010-11-15T09:38:00.000-08:00

I took a few pictures during "tummy time" the other day. I'm amazed at how grown up Ezra looks now that he can lift his head and look around.

My sister-in-law Emily had the really cute idea, to take pictures of her little girl next to a stuffed bear every couple weeks so you could see how much she was growing. I thought it was such a cute idea, I tried it with Ezra and his sheep friend. Not a great picture to show how much he's growing, but I thought his little smile was too cute. I had to show it off to the grandmas!

Mr. Mom

2010-11-12T19:56:00.000-08:00

Natalie is going back to work at the bank for a few hours each week. That means I get to be a Mr. Mom for a few hours each week. Today was her first day back at work and so I got to stay home with Ezzie. Here is how our day went: Eat. Poop. Sleep. Repeat. (OK, he did stay awake long enough to "play" for a few minutes.) He told me it was the "funnest" day of his life so far :)

My little "Ezzie Bear" all bundled up to go have lunch with mom. (That was probably the highlight of his day.)

Getting a bath. (OK, that was last night, but I did give him a bath for the first time all by myself.)

Where we Live

2010-11-07T19:53:00.000-08:00

In previous posts we've shown pictures of the canyon in our back yard taken from the perspective of our house. This morning our neighbor e-mailed us a nice picture from one edge of the canyon looking back at our house. It's posted below. In case you can't tell, I've got a white arrow pointing at the house we're living in. We sure will be sad to leave this house when the couple who owns it gets back from their LDS mission to England next Spring.

Our neighbor also e-mailed us a nice picture of our canyon at sunrise.

And thanks to Grandma Karen for the fun Halloween outfit. (It looks like his friend Charlie got the same outfit from his Grandma. :)

Just for Fun

2010-11-04T16:37:00.001-07:00

Baby Blessing

2010-11-02T21:01:00.001-07:00

The day of Ezra's blessing was an eventful one beginning with a mix up with car keys. Everyone but me, Ezra and Keith's mom Dee dee left early to save seats. I had given out my car keys the day before to my brother so I realized 10 minutes before church that I didn't have a way to get us to the church on time. Luckily my dad came to the rescue and brought the keys and the person conducting church did their best to stall.

Keith coming out to meet us :)

We were so grateful to all those that attended Ezra's blessing. We're so lucky to have such supportive friends and family.

Aren't these boys handsome?

Here you go mom:

Blessing Pictures

2010-11-02T20:53:00.001-07:00

Unfortunately, I didn't do a very good job of taking newborn pictures of Ezra. I'm so sad that he's getting big so fast (although it means I'm a little closer to a few more winks of sleep!). Here are a few I took in his little blessing outfit. He's my new muse, poor guy. Keith's just glad he's not the one that has to pose for pictures anymore.

Pyloric Stenosis

2010-10-26T20:55:00.001-07:00

Last Thursday Natalie took Ezra to the doctor because his level of spit-up was increasing and he was starting to throw up some too. Of course they patted Natalie on the back and smiled and told her that all babies spit up a lot. But just to be sure they ran a few tests. At about 4:00 p.m. Natalie called me at work to tell me that we had to drive down to Albuquerque that night so Ezra could have surgery in the morning for Pyloric Stenosis. It's apparently a fairly easy surgery, but still, it's surgery.

By 8pm that night Ezra was admitted to Presbyterian Hospital in Albuquerque, the same hospital where he spent the first week of his life. The on-call pediatrician asked us a bunch of questions and then told us we couldn't feed him starting at 2 a.m. until the surgery that was scheduled for around 9 a.m. (Yeah, that's easy to do with a baby - but somehow Ezzie survived on Sweet-Ease all night long.) The doctor also said they wanted to redo the ultrasound at 7 a.m. We're so glad they did. The ultrasound showed no signs of Pyloric Stenosis. Thank you so much to our friends and family who fasted and prayed for Ezra. The doctors kept us most of the next day and finally decided Ezra does have Acid Reflux (which is what Natalie thought it was in the first place). He seems to be doing a lot better now by keeping him upright for 30 min after eating; plus a little antacid medicine.

At the hospital sucking on a pacifier dipped in Sweet-Ease.

A couple more...

2010-10-26T20:02:00.000-07:00

Picture Post

2010-10-24T22:14:00.001-07:00

By demand of the Grandmas (and Sally), here are some more pictures of Ezzie...

Rock'n

2010-10-12T01:08:00.001-07:00

Trying to get Ezra to sleep is not for the faint of heart. I told Tomas (Keith's brother) that I would post a picture of him, from this weekend, doing what he dubbed "the Natalie Rock."

Contest Results

2010-09-26T22:49:00.001-07:00

Thanks to everybody for participating in our guess the birth date/weight/height contest. Below are the results.

Birth Date Winner: Alex Baker (our friend from Los Alamos) guessed September 4th, Ezra's birthday.

Birth Weight Winner: Jenn Shideler (Keith's sister) guessed 7 lbs 2 oz, one more ounce than Ezra's birth weight.

Birth Height Winner: Tie. Grandpa Bart (Natalie's dad) and Grandma Dee dee (Keith's mom) both guessed 19.5 inches, Ezra's exact birth height.

Overall Winners (calculated as combined "closeness" of all three guesses where day =ounce=inch):
1st: Maria Thomas (Keith's aunt), off by 4.5 "day-ounce-inches".
2nd: Sally Rollins (Keith's sister), off by 5.5 "day-ounce-inches".
3rd: Sarah Franz, (another friend from Los Alamos) off by 6.5 "day-ounce-inches".

I apologize to my Aunt Maria who actually won. I thought Sally won and so she picked James for a middle name :)

Baby Ezra Update (9/24/2010)

2010-09-24T21:22:00.000-07:00

We're sorry for not posting updates more often. First a little good news, then more pictures for the grandparents. Ezra no longer has to wear oxygen. His oxygen saturation levels have looked good every time the pediatrician has checked him. He will have to wear his heart/lung monitor for a few more weeks though.

His hair is getting lighter each day so tonight Natalie cut his little mullet for his baby book.

Ezra sporting his awesome BYU-blue hat from Aunt Sally.

What's in a Name?

2010-09-14T20:50:00.000-07:00

As I was filling out the birth certificate information for Ezra yesterday Keith and I were finally forced to pick a middle name. It's official: Ezra James Morgan

We just liked how it flowed and luckily Ezra's cousin James was nice enough to share his name with his new little cousin.

Here's a few more pictures of Ezra James:

Some people brought blankets to the babies in the NICU, Keith of course picked the Chicago Cubs blanket.

Baby Ezra Update (9/10/10)

2010-09-10T12:52:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Ezra had a few instances of desaturation so they had to put him back on some Oxygen. He's done OK since then, but because Los Alamos is at 7,200 feet they want us to take him home with Oxygen.

He has a pretty low resting heart rate so they did an EKG and Echo-Cardiogram yesterday. The Cardiologist said his heart looks OK.

His Sodium levels are back to normal. His blood cell counts have improved too.

Here are a few more pictures...

Natalie is an awesome mom!

The nurses say our baby is really in to technology. Takes after his dad (and Kip).

Natalie and I still can't believe we got this cute dark-haired baby.

Of course Ezra spends most of his time zonked.

Nap time is my favorite time.

Baby Ezra Morgan

2010-09-07T13:51:00.000-07:00

Announcing baby Ezra Morgan...

Weight: 7 lbs. 1 oz.

Height: 19 1/2 in.

As you may have already heard, Ezra was flown to the NICU in Albuquerque because of breathing problems, an infection and a few other things.

Thank you all so much for your phone messages, text messages, e-mails, etc. We are overwhelmed by all of the support. We are sorry that we haven't been able to respond personally, but we want all you to know that we really appreciate your love and support.

Ezra is doing much better now. His breathing has dramatically improved so that he no longer needs oxygen. His sodium levels are improving and his blood cell counts are also coming back to normal which hopefully means he is successfully fighting the infection. They told us this morning that we will likely be able to take him home on Saturday.

Here are a some pictures. I know Natalie will probably post tons more once we get home...

Proud, but very scared parents.

Proud Grandparents (Natalie's parents Bart and Karen). They drove through the night to be with Natalie at our hospital in Los Alamos so I could fly to Albuquerque with baby Ezra.

BYU football buddies.

No baby yet (plus bonus pictures)

2010-08-29T21:45:00.000-07:00

Natalie's birth stats:

9 lbs 4 oz.

20 inches

11:52 p.m.

Here's a few baby pictures of Natalie...

Look at all that hair! What a cute baby. She doesn't look at all like a 9 pound plus baby. (Are those really Natalie's parents or teenage imposters?)

... and here she is at 3 months.

And a few baby pictures of me...

I honestly have never seen the hospital picture on the right until today. I wasn't sure the alien in that picture was really me until I saw the handwritten text at the bottom.

... and at my baby blessing with my parents and great grandfather. Wow dad, nice 'stache.

My birth stats:

6 lbs 12 oz.

20 1/2 inches

9:25 p.m.

Voting is now closed

2010-08-28T10:41:00.001-07:00

In fairness to those who guessed today as the birth date, voting is now closed. Thanks everybody for your guesses. We'll try to post baby pictures of ourselves and our own birth stats soon (you may rethink your guess : )

I can't believe the competition is almost here...

2010-08-22T22:04:00.000-07:00

...one week (give or take) to go!

Natalie's family requested a little friendly contest to see who can guess the following:

1. birth date

2. birth weight

3. birth length

Please post your guesses in a comment. Winner gets to pick the middle name.

(P.S. Please don't forget that the gender is still a secret.)

Satellite

2010-08-18T20:38:00.000-07:00

Can a belly have it's own gravitational pull?

Is it fair that Keith's cuter with a belly than I am???

Just a week and a half left until my due date. I'm starting to wonder what "due date" means anyway... no contractions, nothing. I have a feeling that the baby has maybe decided that life in the womb is pretty good. I were all curled up and warm, safe and fed I probably wouldn't be so eager to leave either! (p.s. the top picture idea came from Keith's cousin's wife Janelle:))

Camping 2010

2010-08-12T22:05:00.000-07:00

It was luxury camping for me this year. Jenn and Chris brought their pop-up tent, and I love them for that (thanks to Chris' parents Barry and Marilynn for letting us borrow it)! I felt like such a wimp for not sleeping in a regular tent, but decided that being 8 months pregnant was a good enough pass (this time).

Here's some pictures from the trip:

Hiking to some waterfalls.

Ava couldn't have been happier than throwing rocks into the river all day. It was so cute, she had Chris and Keith both attentively collecting rocks for her. The demand for rocks went up significantly when Uncle Keith showed her how you can throw a handful of rocks in at once, instead of just one, making a much more impressive splash.

As always, great company, good food and beautiful surroundings. We even had great weather this time! Thanks Shidelers, we had a blast!

Babymooning

2010-07-27T18:59:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago we had a family reunion in Park City with my mom's family. After the reunion Keith and I went to Yellowstone for a few days for a little babymoon (for those of you unfamiliar with that term, it's the last hurrah/vacation before you have a cute little baby to pack around with you).

Just outside Yellowstone, and all over inside Yellowstone, there was a lot of road construction. About halfway through the day we were stopped for what seemed like an eternity on our way to Old Faithful. We thought they were doing major road construction. Turns out the stop wasn't because of construction at all!

Apparently buffalo don't move very fast.

For friends and family that keep bugging me for more belly shots, here's one we took at the top of the hill by Jenny Lake in Jackson hole. This is at about 32 weeks.

In between the family reunion and the babymoon we got to visit my grandma in Logan and Keith's grandparents in Rexburg. After the trip to Yellowstone we also had a mini family reunion with Keith's family. (Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures at any of the family reunions or with my grandma.) Here's one of us with Keith's grandparents...

During the trip I also got to meet up with all of my old roommates, first Kelly and Sarah (unfortunately I forgot to bring my camera) and then with my pregnant former roomie, Katie, a few days later. When Katie and I met we did what pregnant ladies do, we went straight to the bathroom, walked through Baby Gap, went to the bathroom, and then got some ice cream, then stopped by the bathroom one more time for good measure (ok maybe that's an exaggeration, but not too much!).

During the trip we also got to hang out with our good friends Geoff and Loni (Keith insists I mention that her real name is actually Lonners). Loni is pregnant with twins and Keith is so jealous! Geoff's brother Bryan was nice enough to save us great seats by the Hinckley Alumni building for the Stadium of Fire fireworks show.

Ready to Roll

2010-06-15T06:13:00.000-07:00

Keith's gearing up for his first Father's Day. We've got the stroller, but it seems like something's still missing.

Wedding Pics

2010-06-08T19:19:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I got to tag along and help take some wedding pictures for a family in our ward. It was a lot of fun, probably because I didn't have the stress of being the main photographer. Here are some of my favorites:

Belly Pic - 28 Weeks

2010-06-06T21:12:00.000-07:00

Per Dee dee's request, here's another belly picture update:)

Shout out to the Mini Van

2010-05-25T20:58:00.001-07:00

Thanks to my sister Jenn for posting this hilarious video. It brings me back to the good old days of rolling with my friends in my parents mini van.