California Trip

Mom and Dad went to California to celebrate the 100th anniversary of LACC, now known as SCUHS. Dad was honored with an award and they were happy to see many old friends back at the old Santa Gertrudes ward. The real highlight of the trip was getting to hang out with Esme.

Mom and Dad dressed up for the event

and greeting former colleagues and friends.

How cute is this baby??

Seriously, she is darling.

She got to go to the beach, the zoo, and Disneyland!

Esme loves animals, but it was very hot at the zoo.

Cute family picture!

Happy Birthday Annie!

Annie's birthday is July 11th, the day after Mom's birthday. Annie shares a lot of qualities with Mom--like organization, editing ability, and patience-- so it fits that they would almost share a birthday too.

Annie has been in our family almost 8 years! Its hard to believe, because she seems to fit right in. I am impressed with how well she can hold her own with Star Wars, Deep Thoughts, and Better Off Dead quotes. I don't think anyone could handle Roo's sci-fi obsession as well as she does. They are so cute together and really seem like they are a good fit for each others personalities. We are happy they found each other!

Annie also has awesome style. I remember one year for Papa's birthday party Annie wore a blue dress with yellow shoes. I have wanted yellow shoes ever since! She is always doing different styles with her beautiful curly hair and she can wear it short or long, bangs or not, straight or full and it always looks good! See picture below for evidence.

It was fun for us to come out to Houston and spend Christmas last year with Roo, Esme and Annie. She made delicious homemade candy and cooked a fancy Christmas Eve meal for us. We were most impressed with Annie's culinary skills--Roo you are spoiled! She even fixed up a cute little Christmas Tree for us. Other than the 70 degree weather, it really felt like Christmas!

Annie is not only a skilled chef, but she is a talented writer. I always get a little jealous when I read her blogs because she is able to convey her wit and intelligence so easily. I really think she should write a book one day.

Annie is last, but not least, an excellent mother to little Esme. It has to be hard for her being so far away from both sides of the family, with Roo gone at work all day. Annie constantly has to come up with new things for Esme to do, and she does. She reads Esme lots of books, takes her on long walks, and lets her pull everything out of the kitchen cupboards. You're doing such a great job Annie! Esme is spoiled too! :)

We hope you have an awesome birthday and that you are able to do something fun with Roo!

We love you!

Graduation(s)

This past Saturday, Mom and I went to my best friend Barbara's graduation from Idaho State University. Although the ceremony was long, we were happy to be there supporting Barbara. It was cool to watch ISU bestow their first ever honorary doctorate to Jakob Dylan, the lead singer of the Wallflowers. (If you are having early-nineties deja-vu, thats because he was really popular about 2 decades ago. For Idaho, a two decade lag in popular culture is pretty standard.) Dylan gave a questionable speech and then made up for it by wowing the audience with a special acoustic song he wrote just for the occasion. It felt like 1996 all over again!

Congratulations Barb!! :)

While we were looking for a camera to use at graduation, we found one that had been missing for over a year--ironically filled with pictures of not only my graduation last year, but Roo's Masters Degree graduation too! Most of you probably never got to see any of these pictures, so I thought I'd post them now. Let me apologize to Annie in advance for posting pictures of her at 9 months pregnant...

Roo graduated with a Masters Degree in Geophysics (I think) from University of Utah in May 2010, and Annie delivered baby Esme just a few weeks later.

I graduated with a Bachelors in Sociology from Idaho State University, also in May 2010.

We don't anticipate anymore graduations until 2013--when Sierra graduates from high school!

Esme's Visit

Last weekend we were lucky enough to have a visit from Roo, Annie and Esme! We haven't seen them since Christmas, so we were very surprised at how much Esme has grown.

Needless to say, she was very spoiled by her Tutu's and Aunt Nat all weekend. She did a great job of letting us hold her, and she was not too scared to be away from her Mommy. We think Skype has a lot to do with that.
She is very expressive and does funny things like shaking her head back and forth, randomly shrieking and squealing, and spinning around in circles while sitting on her butt. She is able to concentrate on things for long periods of time, which is very impressive for a nine month old. Esme is also very skilled kinetically--meaning she is very aware of her body. She has good dexterity with her fingers. Her balance and climbing abilities are very advanced. We think she will be walking before she turns 1 year old.

Roo & Annie were very excited to see their puppies! The puppies were very excited too...but mostly just because they had someone to play fetch with.

There was lots and lots of snow while they were visiting, which was probably a nice reminder for them to enjoy the heat and humidity of Houston.

Esme also LOVED to eat. She was very patient as Aunt Natalee and Grandma Tutu fed her baby food. She would hold very still and open her mouth as wide as she possibly could. Aunt Natalee couldn't feed her fast enough! Adorable!

We bought her one of those mesh teether things and she got to try her very fist strawberry! She liked it.

She also tried pineapple for the first time during her visit. Even though we thought Esme really liked it.... later on she (and her diaper) let us know that she actually did not.

Esme had lots of fun crawling around the open space of Grandpa and Grandma Tutu's house. We could not get enough of her hilarious crawling. She uses one leg normally and lets the other one trail behind. It reminded me of Quasimodo. Annie said she was taught by someone with a peg leg. What do you think??

Esme was glad that she got to spend some time with her Papa Tutu before he flew halfway across the globe! (More on that later).

We love you and miss you Papa Tutu!