Sara & Andy's Wedding

I guess I'm post happy today=) I thought I'd squeeze one more in while it's still fresh on my mind. We went to Stanley, Idaho this weekend for one of my best friends, Andy's wedding. It was absolutely beautiful up there! They were married in front of Stanley Lake and it was such a peaceful and calm atmosphere. Andy's little brother Dillon played his 12 string guitar before and after the ceremony to serenade the perfect tone.

Sara and Andy exchanging rings

You can see the view better from this shot

They provided a shuttle to and from the lake. That was Stella's favorite part. She squeeled and giggled the whole way which provided entertainment for the rest of the passengers.

Little girl on the Prairie

I didn't know the colors before hand, but Stella matched quite nicely

Cutting the Cake

We decided to camp out that night instead of getting a hotel. The day was so nice and hot, but at night it cooled off to 34 degrees. Don't worry grandparents, Stella was bundled up into a little cocoon and didn't move all night long. David and I on the other hand...brrrr

David calls me a granola

Stella had another successful camping trip. She was so good on the 7 hour car ride back too, fussing a little here and there of course but so were David and I :)

We stopped along the way and decided to go fishing too, and....

I caught one! don't get too impressed though, this was the only one, and it's a little small. But we still had fun anyway.

CONGRATULATIONS SARA & ANDY

Graduation, camping, hiking...

Hello everyone, sorry it's been a while since our last post. So far this has been an awesome summer and we've been so busy. Luckily, we (mostly David) stopped to take a couple of pictures along the way.

The end of May my little sister, Jessy, graduated from Bonneville High School so we went up to Idaho Falls for that. My Dad and Mary also came from California and it was a lot of fun having everyone there.

My dad thought that it would be a good idea to go camping, so we went to the City of Rocks which David and I got really excited about because it's known for it's rock climbing. David bought a book kind of like a guide for the rating and routes of all the rocks. We only ended up doing one climb, unfortunately it rained off and on while we were there, but we are excited to go back and try it again soon.

It was Stella's first camping trip and she did great. She loved being outside. Since she had just learned to crawl she got frustrated at times since we wouldn't put her down to explore. Other than that she had a great time with her cousins and Nana and Papa.

Here are just a couple of pictures of the City of Rocks. These pictures don't do it justice though, it was amazing. And driving there, this place pops up out of no where and is just shocking once you arrive.

We thought this one looked like a gigantic nose. Can you imagine climbing some of these though? We saw some hard core climbers just scurry up the rocks, it was very impressive. Made me go home and start doing push ups and pull ups!!

The first of June, Hill Air Force Base where David works, had an Air show. I should have David write this part of it because he'd be able to tell you all the planes, jets and helicopters that were there. He was so funny, he was like a little boy at Christmas time looking at all the aircrafts.

Stella, me and Gran-apple

These were what stuck out most of all to me. The Zero and the Hellcat. They did a simulation of Pearl Harbor and how our Hellcats were so much faster than the Zero's.

Explosions. Always cool.

Stella eating some lunch with the rest of us.

Eventually we had to leave the airshow because some of the jets would fly so low to the ground and be so noisy, you could feel your ribs vibrating. This of course scared Stella to death. So we went to a spot just around the corner of where we live and camped out there as we watched the grand finale of the Thunderbirds.

We've done a couple of hikes. The first was to Donut Falls. We went with Gran-apple, Grandpa Steve and his parents. Usually you can hike up the falls but it's so early in the year, all the snow run off makes it really cold. Gran-apple and Steve did it anyway while the rest of us watched.

We've also hiked through Taylor canyon, or pass or something?? Those pictures are on our phones though, we sort of ran out of space on our camera's... Sorry!

I always include the random pics of stella... enjoy

She's still iffy with the grass. When she crawls through it she won't crawl on her knee's. This last weekend she stood up on her own and balanced really well from sitting in the grass, I think she just wanted off.

From crawling to balancing... now driving

Watch out!!

Some updates and shout outs:

We will be moving August 1st to Sugarhouse area. David has a chance to complete his Masters in Mechanical Engineering in a years time through his work so we'll be moving to be closer to the University of Utah. We picked out a cute little place that's a little smaller than where we are at, but we're excited to move and feel good about the neighborhood and the change of scenery.

We also became Scuba certified this last month. We had classes every Monday and Wednesday for three weeks. This is something we are so excited about, it's on our list of goals. And this is where the shout outs come in. Thank you so so much to Emily, Brad and Ava for watching Stella on our monday classes. You guys were so sweet and I felt so comfortable leaving her with you. And also to David's Aunt Audrey for watching her on wednesdays. You were so willing and happy to do it. And David's sister, Neechie for watching her when we went to the Crater, you rock! Thanks so much you guys, it meant a lot to us!!

We'll be using our new skills this coming month. We're going to the Catalina Islands, yeah!!

inuvik

what's up people. it's david this time. i decided to show everyone some of my pics from my trip up to canada for work. it was awesome. it took 3 days to fly up there, but it was worth it. i flew from salt lake, to denver, to edmonton, to yellowkife, to norman wells, to inuvik, and finally to the radar site on cape parry. this is a statue of a polar bear and a seal in the airport in yellowknife.
this next pic is in inuvik, one of canada's northern most cities. its on the western side of canada kind of close to alaska just south of the arctic ocean. you can't see it very well, but this is the begining of one of the ice roads you hear about. this dude in the white truck was throwing big rocks out there to decide if he wanted to drive out there or not. crazy fool. the black dot in the ice is a little ski boat frozen out there.

i took this little plane to the radar site. it was about an hour and half ride. kind of a cool little plane though. they call it a twin otter.

the radar sites come with their own runway, usually, and in this picture you can see two “trains” as they call them which are the two long rows of building. the radar is in the tall golf ball, and the other two radomes are the communication stuff. as you can see, its right on the edge of the arctic ocean. pretty cold. i got off the plane and the wind was blowing like crazy. with the wind chill it probably was close to minus 15. not too bad right for may? Idaho is worse.

this is my little project. a little door to fill a hole in the wall. its meant to keep the snow out, but open up when the Air Conditioner turns on. yeah, the AC. so it worked really well. this was the main reason I was up there. there was a bunch of other stuff to keep me busy cause it really only took a few minutes to install these.

this is another picture of the radar. the tower its sitting on has been there since the fifties and the radar is as old as I am. so there is enough stuff breaking on them for me to figure out how to fix.

so on the way out, I decided that instead of taking the plane, I wanted to take a ride in the helicopter. it was leaving at the same time so I convinced the HVAC guy to trade me seats. so since it was my first time and I was so stoked about it, they let me ride shotgun.

we took off and flew over the arctic ocean a ways. these are the smoking hills. you can see a big crack in the ice. they were saying the ice they drilled through at the site was seven feet thick. we could see a bunch of seals though chillin out on the ice. I couldn’t get a very good picture though. no polar bears. I was hoping one would jump out and get some lunch. we did see a herd of muskox though. they are an interesting looking beast. look it up if you’ve never heard of them. we circled around and chased them a little bit in the helicopter.

this is a picture of pretty much everything I saw from the two and a half hour helicopter ride. a lot of nothing. there were a ton of lakes and rivers, some baby pine trees, but other than that, there wasn’t very much.

probably one of the weirdest things I saw, except for the drunken Eskimo, was the sun. this picture was taken before I went to bed the last night. it was around 11:30 at night and its not really even close to setting. the sun would supposedly set around 2 am and would rise before 5 am. it was crazy. I never saw it dark at all. even if I woke up in the middle of the night, I would look at the window and still see that it was light outside. all the windows had big heavy shades on them so you could get to sleep. I thought it was kinda cool. it would be late, but it seamed like I had a bunch of energy cause it was still bright outside. kind of a weird feeling.

that was about the end of my adventures. I took a ton of pictures that turned out really cool, but its hard to tell on a blog. it was an awesome trip. it was good to get home. stella was the coolest. her and Julia picked me up from the airport and she was pretty excited to see me. except for when she saw her bottle, then she was more excited to see it. funny baby.

Small steps...

Hello everyone!! The weather has been so nice, we've been finding ourselves outside...instead of inside...updating our blog ;) Stella has had a lot of firsts lately. She started crawling just a few nights ago. She gets a little upset, usually because David or I are coaxing her with a toy and keep pulling it further and further away. Mean hu? So she'll last a few 'steps' forward then get frustrated and start crying.

Crawling or not, she'll find her way across the room. Never on her stomach of course, no no, she still hates being on her tummy. She learned awful fast how to push herself up into the sitting position.

While in the tub the other night she pulled herself up on the side of the tub into the standing position. As if she's known how to do it all along. Which I am wondering how long she's been able to do it, because when I go get her in the mornings or from naps, she's got her hands on the rail, sitting up, and her head pokin' out like she's been waiting a lifetime.

She's momma's walking buddy in the mornings and daddy's biggest soccer fan when he plays his games during the weekdays. And she's so content to watch us play tennis as the ball goes back and forth and back and forth... oo a treat... back and forth... oo a toy....

She's also mastered picking up all foods and putting them in her mouth. Even small peas and slippery bananas. In fact she prefers to feed herself. She's an awesome little eater. She'll sit in her highchair while I cook dinner and make wonderful conversation.

I'm expecting her to stand by herself any day now as she raises her knees off the ground and pushes further and further back with her hands. Well, stand or do a summer sault!

I can't believe she's almost 9 months old!

Hope you enjoy the pictures. We took them this last sunday outside of our apartment after church.