Lil Update

Dang, I'm a lousy blogger these days. So I've been going through my old blog entries- copying them so I have a backup and attaching labels to each entry. It's fun reading through them. This morning I copied and labeled entries from Feb. 2007 where we went to Burroughs Burros and I won the squirt gun war...good times. I was wondering where the old blogs are for Bit of Whit, The Fruit Roll up and Pdub's blog. There are some good reads in those. Politics just really bother me these days. I get pretty upset so I have to control how much I read, watch, and listen to about politics. This is a really important election, though. I keep feeling the urge of wanting to do everything I can to make sure Obama isn't re-elected and we take the Senate. The tough part is figuring out what I can do to help. I love my family. It's awesome coming home everyday to Emmy and Jimmer.

2 months!

Well 2 months ago we were at the hospital as Emmy was going into labor. It's crazy to think how fast it's gone and how much I forgot what it was like when it was just the two of us. I'm so blessed to have Jimmer in my life, I feel like I've changed a lot in the past two months...for the better. It's just awesome being a dad! It has helped me understand better the love Heavenly Father has for his children. I'm not completely sure he's my kid because I don't think he looks like me. I'm not sure he's Emmy's kid either cause he doesn't look like her. None of our families claim him either- with Emmy's family saying he looks like me and my family all saying he looks like her. But, ya know, I still love the little guy and just assume he's mine.

He's been smiling and coo-ing a lot. He has a lot of different type of smiles- he does this smile that's kind of like a sarcastic, making fun of you-type smile. My favorite is when his whole face smiles. It's fun to see his personality, it's like, "oh, there you are Jimmer, where have you been?" It's fun that he's starting to respond to us. So I'm trying to do exercises with him where I lift him up like 10 or so times. If I keep it up and do that his whole life, imagine how strong I'll be when he's 18!!

Jimmer's first trip to the Temple.

A couple things about Jimmer:

-He grunts all the time, a few of the videos show that too. We're not sure if that's a normal thing with other newborns, but this kid is always doing it.

-He gets the jimmy leg a lot.

-The whole soft spot in the head kind of disturbs me. I mean, I can see his pulse through his head. I got a haircut this last week and the girl who gave it to me said she was born without a soft spot and had to have 7 surgeries because of it, so I guess I'm grateful for it.

-He's not doing the mouth shiver as much as when he was first born, but he still does it quite a bit.

-Again, not sure if these things are normal with other babies, but when you lay him down to change him or put him in the crib he'll turn his head back and forth over and over, it's pretty funny.

-He likes sticking up his arm like the black power sign.

-He's outgrown his newborn clothes and is doing pretty good with his 3-6 month clothes. He's not growing out of the clothes wide-wise, but length-wise. Go figure, I got a tall son.

-His hair is starting to come in better. It's kind of coming in blond and light brown. I was born brown and then went blonde until I was like 6 or 7, so I dunno, we'll see.

Utter tings:

-Really glad it's spring/summer. I like the springs a lot here in Utah! I love it when it's nice down in the valley but still a lot of snow on the mountains. Today it's nice, cool, crisp, weather. It's great.

-Playin softball this summer for intramurals, it's my last chance to get a t-shirt, man I want one!

-Taking out our fence, putting in a nice white vinyl fence. It's become quite the project because of all the vines back there. The roots grow deep. This fence is the one of the major steps of our plan to really beautify our yard.

-I don't know what it is, but the last 2 days it seems like everyone in Provo is out on the roads, it's just been so packed on the roads. Provo is a growin methinks.

-Getting pretty excited for jet skiing and then college football--seriously, the best time of year!

-I'm venturing into the computer building world. I guess it doesn't take that long to do, so I've been buying parts that Emily's bro, David, is showing me to buy. He'll show me how to put together the computer and hopefully I can make a few hundred. Trying to build up our jet ski fund. It was around $800, lost a few hundred in some stock gambles I took. If anybody reading this wants to donate to my jet ski fund, please feel welcome to.

-Been riding the good ole scooter to work and softball games...it's so fun. Man I love that thing when it works.

-So we're tentatively scheduling a trip to Europe next year. I think the plan is to do Holland for like 5 days and then SW Germany, Luxembourg, and Paris for like 7 days. If anybody is interested in doing the second part with us, let us know.

-Shout out to Alan and Nieman for getting engaged!

Chillax

Ok, so I stole the title from Becca's gmail status, who stole it from the Office, I'm guessing. We got pictures!!!!!


Snowboardin it up!

Cilia got a little dog- Toby, and he's 6 weeks old

Holy cow I love this dog

I would totally understand if you didn't look at anymore pictures

Busted! You're so in trouble!

For the love! Life seriously can't get any better up there.

I did it! I'm a boarder.

Hey there, boarder.

Attaboy, Cannon.

They're not glasses, they're shades...

Yo

Cannon's trying to strangle himself.

Here Kyle! Proof that Alan pushed over Becca

Fleece it up

My computer has been down for awhile so I didn't think I could post pictures, but I figured out I can still get my pictures by uploading them onto campus computers. But yeah, I have a lot of pictures.

Haha, I love this picture. This is on the way to stake conference.


Utah can have a cool sky too.


Playing Risk on Cannon's computer

Met up with my Uganda peeps.

Colby's car.

Playing this fun winking game at the Bishop's house.

Attaboy Mitt.

Whenever I chat with Carrie on gmail, two text boxes always come up.

Me and Barack Hussein Obama.

Little la likes her beef jerky. Colbers doesn't like getting his picture taken.

My sweet ride for a month. A 2008 Toyota Prius Hybrid. I should have taken some pictures on the inside.

I spied on the enemy. Mr. Huckabigot.

I walked downstairs in the morning and what did I see? A lamp magneted onto the ceiling. And Miss Jenny creepily standing there.

Eating with Apartment #3. We celebrated the joining of our two apartments through Kecca's (Kyle and Becca) engagement. Soon we'll all be roommates-in-law.

Mitt won Michigan. So we celebrated at Del Taco. Attaboy Del Taco.

A wicked cool sunset while walking home from campus.

Contra-dancing. Which has nothing to do with the nintendo game, I found out.

Wow, Tricia got taken out by a Wyoming mile marker #138.

We rocked the caucus.

The other side of the gym had a Ron Paul and a Thompson section. Our whole side was pretty much Mitt Romney. We had some fun chants across the court.

We were talking to Cannon, who we thought was in bed, but then he came upstairs, but it seriously looks like he's in there.

Adam and Cannon being boys.

The Nation of F6

I need to take a break from my paper. Here are some scriptures that I really like:

2 Nephi 29:5, 14

5 O ye Gentiles, have ye remembered the Jews, mine ancient covenant people? Nay; but ye have cursed them, and have hated them, and have not sought to recover them. But behold, I will return all these things upon your own heads; for I the Lord have not forgotten my people.

14 And it shall come to pass that my people, which are of the house of Israel, shall be gathered home unto the lands of their possessions; and my word also shall be gathered in one. And I will show unto them that fight against my word and against my people, who are of the house of Israel, that I am God, and that I covenanted with Abraham that I would remember his seed forever.

Psalm 9:10,

10 And they that know thy name will put their trust in thee: for thou, Lord, hast not forsaken them that seek thee.

Isn't that awesome?! What an awesome covenant. He'll always remember us. No relationship on earth will be as special as the one with the Lord. Too often we forget him through our hectic lives, and we always forget about these covenants and we forget that he is able to do anything. We forget to keep the commandments and then just trust in him. It's hard. Life is hard, it won't get any easier. But scriptures like these always help.

What is Kosovo thinking?! For them to declare themself a country is almost as dumb as F6 becoming a country inside of moon apartments (we came really close to separating from the U.S. and becoming independent). Ok, so it's not as dumb, and I do understand that it's really hard for Kosovars to trust the Serbian government after the genocide in the 90s, but I wonder how much they've thought this out. There are only 2 million people, 10% Serbs. They have 60% unemployment, though that number is probably lower due to the black market. They have no access to the sea, no resources, they are a moutainous country. They don't have any money, they have to rely on foreign aid and foreign troops to protect themselves. I mean, what do they honestly have going for them? How are they honestly going to be able to support themselves? How are they going to find a niche in the world market. Maybe if they joined Albania, but that is very unlikely. Frankly, I think the nation of F6 had a better chance of surviving. We were 100% employed, we had things we could offer the world market, we were able to defend ourselves (Gavin is really big), um, we had cool resources like a tv, nintendo, a funny dishwasher, a toilet that would randomnly flush, a weird heater, cool wallpaper, and plenty of newspapers. We had the capabilities to install surveillance if we wanted. We could have possibly gotten nuclear weapons with some "aggressive negotiations." We had lots of food and our country wasn't mountainous.

Yeah, we would last longer than Kosovo.

Things I'm loving about college right now

Alan's blog format is pretty tight, so I'm going to copy it for this post.

1) Having fun. College is the only place you can play 8-player Risk- through the laptop, connected to the tv, watch a movie on another tv, have warcraft music playing in the background, while simoltaneously eating Buffalo wings because it's Buffalo wings appreciation night.
College students always complain about messy apartments, messy rooms, too much school work, no time due to work and such, and being tired all the time due to going bed REALLY late. With all that in mind, what did we do last night? Del taco, Risk, car racing, swing dancing, and took a picture of a HUGE snowman. I was getting ready to study cause I saw all my roomies on their laptops, concentrating intensely. They must be doing homework right? Jared was on facebook, Alan was shopping on ebay, Cannon was playing Risk. Luckily Amanda was there reading the Ensign...I think that kept our apartment from being struck by lightning.
Went contra-dancing last Saturday. That was a lot of fun. Check out Amanda's blog for pictures:
http://www.eatingtoadsandsuch.blogspot.com/

2) Games. Oh the games. Haha, they really are a lot of fun.

3) Figuring out what to do with your life. I just went to the career fair. Hmmm, do I want to work for the FBI, CIA, Army, Guardian Financial Group, Goldman Sachs, or a scrap book company?

4) Soviet meetings. I can't say anymore.

5) Distractions from the presidential race. I'd probably go crazy and into depression if I were home and just concentrating on the political stuff. Luckily other things are keeping me distracted in a good way.

6) Passionate professors. My American Government professor is a hardcore conservative. He's a really funny guy with awesome arguments. Yesterday we watched a couple minutes of a documentary on Civil Rights. At the end he was just bawling. You could just tell how passionate he was about this issue and how much he cares about people. Sometimes conservatives get the stigma that they don't care about people. Politics is about helping people. He articulated that well.

7) Snow. Everytime it snows I feel like Mother Nature is sticking it to Algore. Plus it's just fun to have all these extra toys around. We played football last week---So much fun.

8) Frozen pizza. Del tacos.

9) Paul Brogan NBA rap on Youtube.

10) Awesome classes: National Security Affairs, Civil Wars, Political Violence, Islam & Politics, and American Government.

11) How much everyone here loves President Hinckley. All miss him and realize how great a person and servant he was.

I just like this picture



I forgot how much I don't like papers. I edited a paper for a Chinese student I taught in Holland and it wasn't fun. True, I don't get much out of Chinese environmental policy, but I kind of wish we didn't have English "rules" and could just say what we wanted. But I guess communication is better when we follow the same rules huh?

I love this college football season! Arizona beat Oregon last week, I think they're like the 6th top 5 team to get beat by an unranked team this year- CRAZY! It's just too bad we couldn't beat UCLA or Tulsa. If we wouldn't have lost to Tulsa I think we'd be in the top 15 sending us to a BCS bowl. We're not getting much love from the polls, though we finally got into the top 25. I think it's because we play on a network that is very limited. Poll voters, let alone BYU fans, can't watch the games because of the Mtn network. That is the worst thing that's happened to the MWC. It has hurt all the teams with getting into the top 25 and recruiting. I like the idea of going to the Big 12.

I think I have a man crush on John Beck. The guy is just an amazing quarterback and I still get goosebumps everytime I watch the "answered prayer" touchdown against Utah last year. Beck didn't do the best in his first start against the Eagles, but he'll most likely play out the rest of the season. I hope he tears it up in the NFL, I haen't really been interested in the NFL since Steve Young played.

So, I pretty much read every article that comes out about Mitt Romney online. I read through all the articles and the comments and there really is a lot of anti-Mormon stuff coming out in these articles and comments because of Mitt. A lot of it is about Joseph Smith. It's kinda strange reading this stuff from my "interested in politics" side instead of my "religious" side. A couple days ago, in my scripture study, I was reading a talk and it went into Joseph Smith's vision when he saw God and Jesus Christ. It was just a good experience where the Spirit confirmed once again, that Joseph Smith was a prophet. No matter how much others try to demonize him, he is the prophet of the Restoration and did God's work while he was here.

Well my mom wanted me to beef up this semester and it's worked. I'm around 166 now, about 20 pounds heavier than when I got home from Uganda. I eat a lot...and will eat a lot more during the holidays, but I'm doing my best to run and lift. See, the problem is that I'm flat. I was looking at high school pictures the other day and man was I skinny. So I like that I'm filled out more.

Cannon, usually you can't tell if he's in his bead or not because his bed is always made.


I think I've put this picture in my blog before, but it looks like it belongs in the Lord of the Rings

Yeah buddy. Coach Mendenhall.

33-31, Harline's still open! I doubt this year's game will compete with last year, but just as long as we win against the Yewts.

Ha, this was great, a bunch of us burned the Christmas tree up Rock Canyon.

Playin the guitar pretty high up.

I was going through these pictures with Trevor, our Rec Management class hiked up these slot canyons- Ding and Dang Canyons

Chattin with the kids in the IDP camp near Gulu.

Yes, those are really his legs

Pretty typical in Mukono- cows going onto the main road.