Saturday, October 31, 2015

Happy Halloween!

So, we are wrapping up Paul's first Halloween.  We had a lot of fun.  We didn't know for sure what we were going to dress up as but the Chandler's sent us a little lion suit for Paul.  At first, we weren't sure he would wear it because the weather is still so warm but we tried it on him one day and it was too cute to pass up.  Being that it is our first Halloween with a child, I really wanted to do a fun family costume so I asked my mom to make me a Dorothy costume and a scarecrow so we could be a Wizard of Oz family. 
It turned out really fun.  We (especially Paul) were a big hit at the ward party.  A little princess told me I was really pretty too, though.  And, our primary class kids mostly didn't even know what the Wizard of Oz is (kids these days). 
The ward Trunk or Treat is a huge deal, with hundreds of people including members friends and families and people who never come out to church so it was pretty crowded.  We had dinner and  a little carnival where Paul tried the fishing game and caught a glow bracelet.  Then we did trunk or treat. 






Then tonight, Halloween night, we got together with Nathan and Erica for dinner and passing out candy.  We decided to do it at our place since we have a real house now and hoped to get some trick or treaters.  We got Sophie and Paul into costumes for a few pictures but it was just too hot in the house to stay dressed up.  Then we hung out and waited for the masses.  We got about 70 trick or treaters! Good thing we over prepared with the candy.  We have been in apartments for the last few years so it was really fun to see all the kids dressed up and get to experience that part of Halloween again. 

Happy Halloween! Now we wait till next year when the kids are old enough to trick or treat!

Thursday, October 15, 2015

Fall Break Fun

Last week was Cliff's fall break.  We were trying to think of fun things we could do that didn't involve flying, hotel stays, lots of money, ect.  A while back, I had seen someone share some pictures of 10 things to do in Prescott, AZ.  It looked awesome.  One lake in particular, Watson Lake, looked like it would be a beautiful hike.  With it being only 2 hours away and considerably cooler than Phoenix, it made the perfect day trip.

The hike around the lake was about 4.8 miles and had a lot of changes of scenery.  We hiked through some trees, around the lake on rocks, across a bridge, by the dam, next to a green algae creek.  This was Paul's long awaited first hiking trip (you just don't take a baby out hiking in 110-120* summer).  He loved it.  Cliff carried him facing out the whole way and he loves being outside and looking around.  He didn't even mind keeping his sunglasses on the entire day.

Ready to get hiking!



Last year for fall break, we headed to California and enjoyed a couple days at Redondo Beach and then visited my old mission comp Whitney and her husband Kyler.  We really miss living near the Ocean and before work trips to the beach from days past on Jeju Island so we decided another fall break beach trip was in order.   This time, we headed out in the morning, spent the afternoon at Huntington beach, and then headed to Whit and Kyler's for a couple nights.

This handsome guy HATED when the waves came in and hit his feet.

On the other hand, this other handsome guy loves playing in huge waves.

The waves look tiny in this picture, but there were actually way huge ones, too.

A quick group shot after church.
All in all, we had an awesome fall break.  We (mainly Cliff) got quite a few little projects done around the house, spent some much loved family time, and had a nice little trip.

Monday, September 7, 2015

Back to Adventuring

Last weekend, we finally went to do our first post baby canyon.  It has been a while, especially for me considering Paul is 3 months old and my last canyon was at like 30 weeks pregnant.  It was hard to leave Paul but it was awesome to get out on an adventure.

We spent the night at Grandma and Grandpa Swenson's house up in Payson and then met our friends in the morning at a canyon just a half hour away called Christopher Creek.  It was a fun Canyon with lots of swimming, some water slides, a few little cliff jumps, and some rappels.










Payson is so different from down here in the valley.  It was nice to be up in cooler weather and greener pastures.  

Paul had a fun day with Grandma and Grandpa and only screamed when she tried to feed him a bottle but he really enjoyed spending time outside with her since he barely ever gets to go out in the heat of the valley. 

All around we had a great weekend filled with adventure, fun, friends, family, and delicious home cooked meals from Grandma and even s'mores in the fire pit.  Can't wait for our next trip up there!

Thursday, June 18, 2015

In Which We Post a Whole Lot of Baby Pictures

We did a fun little photo shoot (on our own, we didn't pay nobody, and that's obvious, but I think they're still cute) a couple weeks ago while Paul was still small. He's growing so fast! He's already gained more than three pounds and is still growing! Anyway, we just took some fun pictures in the house and now we want to show them to you!

This is him wearing the puppy hat that one of Nancy's coworkers crocheted for him.


Usually they do these kinds of pictures in a basket. We didn't have a basket and figured a big kitchen pot would work just fine.


Awesome.


I think he kind of looks like Gollum in this one. Nancy disagrees.




This one turned out AWESOME.


Nancy pointed out that this is perfect aside from the creepy pillow on my shirt.



CANYON BABY!


He was totally cool with wearing this harness. Give it a few years and we'll have him in a real one.






So, that's that! We love him a ton and he's so fun to have with us! So, for those who were looking for more baby pictures, maybe now you're satiated for a while. For those who are tired of baby pictures, TOO BAD! No one's forcing you to look at them for goodness sake! That being said, that's all I've got for the moment. This is Captain Danger out.

Saturday, May 23, 2015

In Which We End Up With a Tiny Person

So, this happened:


Our baby Paul is finally here! He actually ended up coming a few days early. He was due on the 22nd of May, and he arrived at 4:28 am on Tuesday, May 19. He came early because Nancy's doctor decided that she needed to be induced because of high blood pressure. She was afraid it was preeclampsia, but Nancy didn't have any of the other symptoms. Turned out what she actually had was what they call gestational hypertension. Either way, it meant that we got to see our baby boy three days sooner! Nancy's doctor's appointment was in the morning, and she was sent straight to the hospital from there. I was at work, proctoring a test, and when I got Nancy's text, I told one of my administrators, "So, there's a bit of a complication, here. My wife is on the way to the hospital to have our baby." My boss told me to go, though it turned out I could have stayed at school all day. I was glad I went anyway, because I didn't want Nancy to be alone in the hospital. We spent the entire day in the hospital watching HGTV and waiting for lab results to come back on Nancy's blood to know what they were going to do. Then they FINALLY got the ball rolling around 5:00 in the afternoon. To give you some perspective, we got to the hospital around 10:00 in the morning. Nancy responded well to the drugs (She loved her epidural. She had some contractions without it, and they were punctuated with phrases like, "Why would anyone ever do this?") and Paul arrived just a few hours later! Here are some pictures from right after he was born:

Mom and baby! Nancy says that she looks pretty good for just pushing out a baby. I'm inclined to agree.

Notice the fantasticness of my hair. Also notice the clothes I'm wearing. I came straight from school and thus I wore those clothes for three days straight.

Even right at the beginning he had his eyes open and was looking around!

That's his GPS tracker attached to his navel (so people can't steal him) and the thing on his chest is a temperature probe. They
were warming him up under a heat lamp.
Since Nancy had to be on Magnesium Sulfate during delivery and tested positive for group b strep, we had to stay in the hospital at least 48 hours after delivery.  Then after that was up, they decided they still wanted to monitor her blood pressure and put her on bp meds, so we were there even longer. On Wednesday night Nancy's mom came, so I went back to work on Thursday, thinking naively that they would be at home by the time I got off. It turns out that hospitals are super slow. I had plenty of time to leave school and go to the hospital and even hang around for a bit before we finally got to leave. Here's a picture of that:

Paul didn't love his carseat that first time. He's cool with it now.
So now we have our awesome baby at home! He's super cute and we love him a lot! It's true what they say about babies not sleeping much (at least not much at night) but every time he looks at you with those eyes in that face he just melts your heart! (and this is coming from me, remember). We're super glad we have him. Basically, I can't stop taking pictures of him. I'll bet most of my Facebook friends are already tired of seeing pictures of him. But, here are a few more pictures! (They're not in order.)

Chillin' with dad.


Swaddled up in his crib.

THAT FACE!

Ready to go on his first walk (he fell asleep)


Ready to go to bed!


So, there's the story of how we ended up with a new, tiny person living in our house. Updates will continue to flow in as we continue to do awesome things, now with a new baby to be awesome with us! This is Captain Danger out.