Blogging is like writing in your journal....(prepare yourself, this is a long one)

For those of you who don't know Tasha's mom was the most recent contributor to this blog. I want to thank her for getting me going on this again and for making our big announcement. We had almost come to the point where we were just going to wait until after she was born, but at the prompting and prodding of many, decided we shouldn't wait that long.

I think I feel safe to say that my blog has replaced my journal and just like my journal, it is updated far to infrequently. See, there have been several times in my life where I have been really good about writing in my journal and it feels so nice and it's fun to look back on, but after it's been so long you kind of feel like you have too much to catch up on, so you don't write. (Don't tell me you haven't felt the same way at some point in your life).

Well, just like I eventually got around to writing in my journal even though it had been a long time (sometimes over a year), I will now update our blog. And just like my journal, there will be many fun details left out, not necessarily because I've forgotten them, but mostly because of time constraints (both yours and mine).

Anyway, there have clearly been some big events in our family. First, Tasha IS pregnant with our second daughter and due in 3 weeks (from yesterday) - September 3rd. Our plan is to have our baby Annie on September 9th though as 09/09/09 could possibly be one of the coolest birthdays ever. We will keep you posted on that, I promise. :) (I would include a picture of my pregnant beauty, but you all know how hard it is to get a pregnant woman to allow you to take her picture.....).

So, on to the next big event, I got a new job. I now work for a start-up company called BizVision (www.bizvision.com). I manage the customer support and also get to wear a few other hats because we are still such a small company. My main responsibilities include editing videos, converting videos to different files, handling calls & emails from our customers, and serving as the company jester. It's been tons of fun! I get to work with a good friend and there is certainly lots to do. There are two parts to our company: online videos for trainings and continuing education. The site I listed above will show you the training video side of our company. Basically we offer on-demand videos to anyone at a low cost instead of requiring people to purchase the rights to show a DVD (very expensive) in a training. It's pretty cool, but our main focus in on the continuing education side of things. Our main client is ACPEN (Accountants Continuing Professional Education Network) and we host webcasts for accountants across the country. We work with almost all of the State accounting societies in providing them with a smooth webcast. It's a great job and I'm very much enjoying it. (I would work on putting up some work pictures, but that probably wouldn't be very entertaining.)

Okay, enough of the boring information stuff.... Here are the fun things, with pictures.

Iin February I won a tent trailer! I put my name in at the RV Expo this spring and sure enough, of the 5,000 or so entries, I was the one picked. It's pretty dang awesome. It retailed at just over $8,500 so all I had to do was cover the taxes and she was mine. I love it (as does Emma!). Below are some pictures (sorry the top portion of this post was few in pictures).




We play games and Emma has her own special bed on one side, while Tasha and I sleep on the other. It's been tons of fun and we're excited for the years of memories we will have with it.

How does Emma really feel about sleeping in the tent trailer?

Emma has become quite the reader and we have some great videos of it (I don't actually know how to upload videos, so Tasha will have to either show me how or put those up, but we'll get them up). Emma is also potty-trained! Very exciting, particularly with the prospect of Annie coming along soon with diapers aplenty. We're both excited Emma is out of diapers now and are glad we won't have 2 babies in diapers.

Below is a picture of one of Emma's classic "silly faces." She usually reverts to this one when we tell her to pull a silly face.


Emma really likes anything she can put on her lips (lip gloss, chaptstick, ice cream, otter pops) but this is one of our favorite little Emma surprises in the last little while. Didn't she do such a good job?

Meet Emma's first crush. His name is Dane. He is a good friend of mine from high school and we saw him at a party a while back and he and Emma had a great time. About 2 months later I said we were going to see some of my friends and Emma piped in, "Are we going to see Dane?" She had only met him once for probably 20 minutes, but really took a liking to him. We've seen him since this time and she shyly said hi and told him to watch her as she slid down the slide into the pool. It's pretty dang funnyto see her around him!

Tasha had her 25th birthday and we had a great time. I had to work, but I had breakfast brought over for her and arranged for her friends to take her to a surprise lunch to Cafe Rio. We then ate at a yummy new Italian restaurant in Provo, Gloria's Little Italy. We really liked it and had a lot of fun trying to do our (my) best Italian accent. Last year I got Tasha season tickets to the Pioneer Theater Company (in Salt Lake, highly recommend it, we loved it!), but since we'll be having the baby in September that wasn't going to work, so I got her a deep freeze instead. She's wanted one for a long time, so we finally did it and have enjoyed having room to store otter pops, ice cream, meat, and a few vegetables. Below is her cake that my sister Angie made from scratch and I decorated.

Emma and I are the ones who vacuum most of the time in our house and she loves it. We have a little extension that we hook the vacuum hose up to that she pushes around while I push the vacuum around. It's funny to see the things she likes to do (laundry, vacuuming, baking, sweeping, and she keeps talking about changing diapers).


Emma sneaks more than I do when she bakes with Tasha. It's really fun to see them enjoy doing so many things together. We've loved seeing Emma's relationship grow with Tasha as I've been working more consistent hours and it's cute to see how much fun they have together.


Tasha surprised me for my birthday by picking me up from work and taking me to Wendover (I had won 2 free nights on the radio, I know, big surprise). We had a good time seeing the intricacies of Wendover. They had plastic grass. They had some of the brightest neon lights we've ever seen. It was great! She packed one of my favorite ice creams on ice (didn't actually keep it frozen, so we had chocolate drinks), we ate at Subway, and enjoyed our free night in the Monte Carlo Casino Hotel in Wendover. Below are some of our favorite pictures.



Not sure if this was an April Fools joke or if it was done on accident, but our alarm was set to go off at Midnight. We had just fallen asleep when it went off right at 12:00 AM. I was so mad, I squoze the alarm clock until it stopped its annoying buzzing. Tasha laughed and said, "happy birthday." Of course, I had just fallen asleep again when 10 minutes later it went off again. Apparentely I had only hit the snooze button. I almost through it across the room, but decided I'd just turn it off instead.



This pretty well describes Wendover and the surrounding areas. We thought "Just ahead" might have been a bit of a stretch. We decided against going onto the next town, even though it has an awesome name.


Tasha got me one of my favorite things ever: eternal ice cream. We love this ice cream maker and it's been fun to have ice cream on demand.



Emma and I went on our first date together. She has always said she wants to go on a date with daddy because I always go on dates with mommy. Well, we finally did it and had a great time. We went to Carl's Jr., played on the play place (sort of, she was too little at the time), and got ice cream from Macey's. It was great fun! Here are a couple of pictures from our date.


Can you guess which one is mine and which one is Emma's?


Emma liked it.


Well, much like my journal entries, I have gone on far too long and probably missed out on lots of things, but as it's late at night (also the only time I ever update my journal) I put a lot in here and didn't do anything in chronological order, but more in order of when the thoughts came to me.

Thanks for your patience as I've let dust gather on this once frequently updated blog. I'll do better moving forward. We're excited for the addition of baby Annie to our family and we'll keep you posted on how things go in the coming weeks. Until next time, whenever that might be.....Hopefully I don't get too far behind.