Where's Uncle Josh?

We recently had a visit from Chris and Audra before they flew to the east coast for Chris's recreation guru conference. Elsa walked in the door and I gave her a big hello and a hug, and the first thing she said was, "Where's Uncle Josh?" We were sorry to disappoint.

Elsa liked giving baby Afton sweet kisses. On her part, Afton just kept trying to lick Elsa like Elsa was one of her toys. I explained this to Chris, and Elsa said, "I'm not a toy!" She clarified that she was a girl.


Gibson and Afton enjoyed getting reaquainted.


I tried to get a picture of Elsa's cute grin, but the camera took FOREVER. Thus we caught the blink. I then asked Elsa to "smile big" for me.


I didn't know that "smile big" was what Chris and Audra say to get this smile. It cracked me up. I must say, I'm in love with those big blue eyes and long gorgeous eyelashes.

I've been tagged -- back to the glory days!

LHS class of ’96!

DID YOU DATE SOMEONE FROM HIGH SCHOOL? Yes.

WHAT KIND OF CAR DID YOU DRIVE? 1970 lime green/yellow Chevrolet truck (which, incidentally, my mother also drove in high school). I had to sit on a pillow to sit high enough to see over the steering wheel. It got 8 miles to the gallon. It also had a gun rack. I drove it until I melted its axel… Then I drove a red Ford Ranger with a white stripe (an ’86, I believe). It may have had a gun rack too.

WHAT WAS YOUR MOST EMBARRASSING MOMENT IN HIGH SCHOOL? Hm…I block these out. I know I burned my neck on a curling iron the day of prom and so it looked like I had a hickey.

WERE YOU A PARTY ANIMAL? No.

WERE YOU CONSIDERED A FLIRT? I highly doubt it.

WERE YOU IN BAND, ORCHESTRA, OR CHOIR? Band. I was even a drum major.

WERE YOU A NERD? Maybe. I prefer to think of myself as “academic”…just shy of being a bona fide nerd but not a really obvious one? Okay, who are we kidding? I was on the honor roll and a marching band drum major. Yes.

WERE YOU ON ANY VARSITY TEAMS? Oh no. I have no athletic skill. I lettered in academics, band, and speech. (See supra, “WERE YOU A NERD?”)

DID YOU EVER GET SUSPENDED OR EXPELLED? Sorry. No. Very boring.

CAN YOU SING THE FIGHT SONG? No, but I don’t think it had words. We used the Notre Dame fight song at LHS (which I could play on the flute at one point and which I conducted frequently before football games).

WHO WERE YOUR FAVORITE TEACHERS? Mr. Howell (my band director), Mr. Sebastian (my history teacher), Mr. Cahill (my English teacher)

WHERE DID YOU SIT DURING LUNCH? On campus (or at the seminary building on occasion) but rarely in the cafeteria for whatever reason.

SCHOOL MASCOT? Tigers

DID YOU GO TO THE HOMECOMING? WITH WHO? I don’t think so…

IF YOU COULD GO BACK AND DO IT ALL AGAIN, WOULD YOU? I had fun in high school, but no. I miss driving trucks, though.

WHERE DID YOU GO ON SR. SKIP DAY? Up and down the Willamette River on a riverboat.

WERE YOU IN ANY CLUBS? Speech club, NHS, band. I did student government one year.

HAVE YOU GAINED SOME WEIGHT SINCE THEN? Oddly enough, a couple years ago I lost the weight I started gaining in high school. (when I came back from Korea at age 23 I weighed as much as I did at the end of my pregnancy with Afton…in both cases, I gained 40% of my body weight…Nursing was an easier diet…)

WHO WAS YOUR PROM DATE? Sophomore year, Jessop. Junior year, Eric. Senior year I didn’t go because I qualified for state in speech (and didn’t really have a prospect for a date anyway ☺ -- easy decision). Tony was prom king at PG high. I wasn’t that cool.

WHAT CLIQUES WERE YOU IN? Does band count? I never felt all that exclusive.

O.K. I tag Tony (but I doubt he’ll do it), all my relatives and friends who check our blog.

It's the Great Pumpkin Patch, Afton Elizabeth

On Monday night we ventured out with Afton to visit a pumpkin patch for Family Night. It was a beautiful fall night and we are pretty sure Afton couldn't have cared less about being there. However, in the attempt to create memories which we can later regale Afton with, we braved the trip down I-15 at rush hour and found some Great Pumpkins which Linus would be proud of.


As you can all see, Afton was practically jumping out of her carseat to begin the excursion.

Afton soon warmed up to the pumpkins and Heather flashed a coy look to the camera.

I immediately set out to find the right pumpkin. Given the fact it takes me 10-15 minutes to pick out the right apples, pears, oranges, other produce at the store (Heather just loves this), there was a real possibility that finding an acceptable gourd may have taken me a good couple of hours.

Luckily, I found one relatively quickly.

We then set out to find Afton's pumpkin. She liked this giant albino pumpkin.

It's the Great Pumpkin, Afton Elizabeth Cont'd

One of these is not a pumpkin.....


One of these is in the 2nd percentile of its respective weight class.....


One of these is worried that her parents are going to leave her with a bunch of large orange spherical objects...


Finally, mom came to save sweet baby Afton.


We had a great time at the pumpkin patch. We are excited for next year when Afton is actually the same size, or even bigger, than the majority of the pumpkins there.

Fun with Grandpa Grover & Grandma Ive

On Saturday night, Afton got to spend long overdue quality time with her Grandpa Grover and Grandma Ive. She had a fun time with them and we found that Afton often had the same facial expressions as her Grandpa. Afton is already anticipating her next trip to see them.

Zucchini Growers Unite

Its that glorious time of the year when our thoughts are turned to fall: the changing of the leaves, the crisp autumn air, apples, trick-or-treating, and loads of zucchini being passed around between friends and neighbors as if it were the common cold.

I have a love/hate relationship with the zucchini. I love it because it grows even when I am actively trying to kill it. No joke, I tried for years to kill my dad's zucchini plants growing up for fun but to no avail. Its like Brittany Spears or those Work and the Glory books, they just won't go away. I hate the zucchini because...well, I have never really liked the taste all that much. I dreaded the zucchini casserole which would invariably make its appearance on our dinner table each fall (I blame Sylvia for this one - she liked the casserole and it was one of the like 4 dishes she knew how to cook growing up. Actually, I may be giving Dill too much credit here, I think she only knew how to cook 3 different things. I'm not counting ramen noodles Dill.)

I was always entertained growing up as our kindly neighbors and ecclesiastical counterparts would give us zucchini just like we would give our zucchini to others as well. It was one of those exchanges where both parties were too embarassed to decline the zucchini so they take it and then try to pass it off to someone else; a lot like the regifting that goes on during the Holidays. I believe at one point in 1989 we ended up getting a zucchini from one of dad's friends in Brazil that had actually originated in our garden in Utah. (That may be a bit of an exaggeration.)

Anyway, rather than continue regifting the zucchini each year, why not take advantage of its prolific growth (I actually looked up zucchini on Wikipedia, and it noted its "overwhelming production."*) and help those who don't have anything to eat. Just think, Utah alone could probably produce like 12 megatons of zucchini and we could petition the Church to send it to those in need. The relief packs they send out to hurricane victims would include: water purification tablets, a flashlight, a 22-lb zucchini, and directions from some kindly relief society president in Tremonton on how to turn that zucchini into a ham radio MacGyver style. To facilitate this idea, I propose the Perpetual Zucchini Fund (PZF), where tons of zucchini are stored to help others, and then those people can eventually grow gardens of their own and donate their zucchini. I think this idea has some real traction, and if any venture capitalists are out there, you know where I can be reached.

*: Yes, I took time out of my work day to look up zucchini on wikipedia. I'm sure my client won't mind when I bill it the .2 for "legal research."

Is it blog-worthy?

Now that we've joined the blogosphere, we feel as if we should be posting something rather frequently. But, sometimes our life doesn't seem all that blog-worthy. Here's the highlights from the last couple weeks while we had our blogging hiatus.
Afton rolled over for the first time. Afton was also mad as #@%* when she completed this milestone and found herself on her tummy. She hates being on her tummy. She has not yet repeated the rollover.

Heather attended her Korea Taejon Mission Reunion and had a great time catching up with friends, some of whom she hadn't seen in three or four years. Afton (surprisingly) did not not have an overstimulation-induced meltdown despite all the people and noise. When some of the Koreans there found out that Afton's daddy was Korean, their first response was, "Wow, her eyes are REALLY big."

Tony did not attend the above-mentioned reunion because he had to work--although he somehow was able to recount much of the VP debate that took place at the same time as the reunion... Actually, we can't give him a bad time about this one. It is true that Tony *loves* being the one Korean man at these Korean reunions that can't speak the language, can't use chopsticks, and can't stand the food, but this reunion coincided with Tony's second trial in the past two months. He was up and out the door by 6:30 a.m. on Thursday and Friday and home late. Given Tony's charm, charisma, and razor-wit, we are sure the judge will rule in his client's favor.