A Tent, A Pond, A Salad, A Dog

Summer is just about here and we are living it up! We love the warm weather and we try and get out and do fun things as a family when we can. Here are some of the things we have been up to recently.

We borrowed a tent from a neighbor and did our own little camp-out backyard style. It was fun, we roasted mash mellows over the stove and made smores, then "slept" in the tent. We all came back in to the house around 6 am and slept for a few more hours.



Here is the little pond by our house with tons of fish in it. The first time we went fishing here I caught a little one, but this week we had no such luck... I think its because we need to use some worms instead of the little plastic thing on the hook. Anyways, Marcia got these great pics of Sam and I trying our luck.





Here is the updated picture of the garden. Things are coming along and We have already made two salads and a few sandwiches out of the lettuce. The birds have enjoyed all the strawberries :(



Here is our neighbors dog. His name is coach. Sam loves to play with him. Marcia jokes that he is our dog, because we always get to play with him. The nice part is that we don't have to clean up after him or anything, so it works out very well.

Graduation Ceremony

2 weeks ago Dad flew out for my graduation ceremony. It was a great weekend, lots of fun. On Thursday we had a fancy dinner. Friday we had the actual ceremony. Saturday we put together the garage door opener, which I got for a graduation present from dad
(thanks again!), Marcia got me Zelda for the Wii (which is locked up till I get my thesis done. Our friends Jake and Jamie just got a boat and they invited us to go the lake. We did some wakeboarding, rafting and BBQ.

Here are some pictures from the graduation dinner. Sam was a little wild man, and Dad had to take him outside to feed the ducks so that we could get some peace and quiet at our table.




This is during the actual ceremony in salt lake. At this point the guy behind me is putting on my "Masters" hood. Honestly wearing the ropes and robes and hoods was quite uncomfortable, and I was relieved to take it all off at the end of the day. Its ironic how the more degrees and honers you achieve, the less comfortable your day will be.

To be honest, I didn't feel like I deserved that ceremony because I'm not done with my thesis yet. So the whole time I had this pit in my stomach, thinking "I really gotta finish that paper". But its coming along...slowly...but...surely.



This next one is of just the MBA students that graduated with me. We were the first three MBA grads of Neumont university.




Here is dad doing his magic with the garage door opener. It only took us the whole day to get it up! It was a good manly project, even Sam, without being asked went and got his play tools and helped out.




This last picture is of us at the lake, having our bbq. Sam had jumped in the water so we needed to change his clothes.

Garden

Here is my garden! I'm really excited about eating the fruits of the earth. In the lower third of the garden there are pumpkins and watermelons. Then in the middle third there are some strawberries and lettuce. The top third has tomatoes and broccoli. Just about everything is popping up out of the ground, so things are looking good!

Sam's Life as a Model Begins

This week Sam had a photo shoot for the Salt Lake Magazine. He has also just joined an modeling agency. Since he is ridiculously good looking we thought we'd put him in and see how he does.

Marcia's Birthday

I had a special birthday this year! I'm not going to tell you how old I am because you are not going to believe it. It was special because it was a "milestone" birthday and also because we got to celebrate it in our new house. It is a good thing that our house is bigger than our old condo because we wouldn't have room for everybody. There were about 70 people here. Mission companions, friends from our new and old ward and friends from random places. Thanks to everybody who came and also thanks for all the gifts and love.

Last Saturday of Class Ever!! (I hope)

I'm here in Managerial Accounting, and I should be paying attention, but I can't because its my last time to sit in class on a saturday!! Here is a picture of the building that I won't be coming back to many more times, and never again on a Saturday!


The only way I'm coming back to school on a Saturday is if I get another degree, and I don't think thats going to happen, just call me master and that'll do it!!

New House!!

For those of you who haven't seen our new house yet, here are some pics. We didn't want to put too many good pictures here, because we want you to come experience the house for yourself!

This first one is when Private First Class Don "arm-strength" Joshua Barrand came to our house for easter, and that was great! We loved seeing him! He was fit and trim and did some one-armed, clapping push-ups.



This is Sam's bathroom. I think Marcia did a great job with the decorations. Sam really likes the jungle theme. In fact we are working on potty training, and we tell Sam that there is a turtle in the toilet, and the turtle wants his poop and pee. So when Sam says that he wants to go to the bathroom, he says "I want to give some pee to the turtle". He has been doing well recently with going to the bathroom on the toilet.