Google is trying to destroy my marriage....

So, the last few days, Maria and the girls were on a road trip with some friends in Utah. Today they were coming home, and so Maria gave me a call before they left. Since I wasn't there to answer her call, she left a message, and my voice mail messages are always transcribed by Google Voice and the text is sent to my email. This is what Google Voice said that Maria said:

"Hey Larry, hi call me. I'm calling to let you know that weird leaving Saint George. Right now it's 12 30California time And And I'll call you later. I love you. Not. Bye"


This broke my heart... I mean, who's Larry??!!! and that's cruel that she'd say "I love you! Not!" So after weeping bitterly for an hour, I listened to her cruel message, only to find that Google Voice had lied to me. Click here to listen to what she really said.

La Vaquita sonriente

A Anabelle le gustan mucho las vacas y cuando vio este disfraze de vaquita no pude resister comprarselo ya que estaba va de repetir "mu, mu, mu" en toda la tienda.

Pasamos el dia de las brujas con Bennett y Jenn en su casa en Encinitas. Anabelle la paso re bien ya que adora a sus primos, Tori y Thomas.

un poquito de tranquilidad

El 15 de Septiembre fue mi cumpleaños. Fue un dia muy especial. En la mañana Nate me llevo a un restaurante muy buena donde sirven uno de los mejors desallunos del area. Despues del desalluno tome una siesta ya que la comida me dejo super relajada. En la tarde Nate me sorprendio con una pequeña escurcion al mar en ¨Kayaks¨.¨ Fue una experiencia maravillosa ya que el agua estaba bien clara y pudimos ver una gran variedad de pez incluyendo un grupo de tiburones. Esta clase de tiburones solo comen animales muertos en el fondo del mar, les dicen tiburones leopardos. leopard sharks
Para terminar la noche con broche de oro Nate preparo una cena especial a la cual invito a un pequeño grupo de amigos. Este cumpleaños fue uno de los mas especiales que he disfrutado, no solo porque Nate preparo todo tan bien, si no tambien porque Anabel cumpleo 18 meses este dia. Esto fue algo especial ya que ahora ya es suficientemente grande para atender la guarderia de la Iglesia. Lo que quiere decir que ahora podemos asistir a nuestras clases los Domingos despues de nuestra reunion sacramental. La primera vez que Anabelle asistio a la guarderia tuvimos que salirnos a escondidas para que no llorara. Tenemos que admitir que antes de hir a nuestra clases tomamos una pequeña pausa.

bebadaba doobadooba babaduba.... amen!

Esta tarde invitamos a Anabelle a la Noche de Hogar (normalmente se duerma antes de que empecemos). María empezó a orar así que Anabelle se dobló la cabeza, cruzó los brazos, y se cerró los ojos. Despues de algunos segundos de la oración oímos bebadaba doobadooba babaduba bamamadubba mubbabeba.... amen! Entonces Anabelle se subió para recojer una galleta y esperó hasta que María terminó de orar... Pero yo empecé a reír a la primera oración de Anabelle. ¡Queríamos mucho a ella!

Lasik

Well, Maria got lasik! She keeps reminding me that she can now see better with no help then I can with my contacts in... but now she can't use the excuse that she can't read whenever we're doing our evening scripture study. Since Anabelle always wants to be like Maria, she's now dropped her glasses fettish, but now is always trying to get ahold of Maria's eyedrops to put them in her eyes!

Hanging Out with Grandma

While at the grandparent's house we decided to brave the extreme southern Utah temperature and so we hiked up to the Red Cliffs Area, which when we hiked it one winter it had a beautiful stream and some really cool waterfalls. We found out, though, in August there's only one brown-green pool at the base of where a waterfall normally is... the stream was all dried up. It was still a nice hike, though, and afterwards we got some frozen custard from the place I worked at back in 1996. Anabelle loved that part!

Vacation time leads to idle hands for Daddy

What do you get when you vacation in a city where it is over 100 degrees outside? Well, you do get either crazy parents or an entertained little girl... or as in our case, both!

I did get to see several pretty sunrises from my parent's house, though, thanks to Anabelle... I've to sit her down and talk to her about how vacations and weekends are synonymous with "sleep-in-days" but she still insists on forcing us to adhere to her "early to bed, early to rise" philosophy.

Pippo!!

After spending a couple days at Fish Lake, we went to my parent's place in St. George for ~5 more days. There I showed Anabelle a small book about hippos and she fell in love with them, but started calling them "Pippo... Wawa!" which is translated "Hippo! It lives in the water!" Then I found a stuffed hippo and taught her that hippos also love to slide up and down the banister... she, however, taught herself that they also like to be thrown down the stairs.

* 3 cheers for blogspot!!! I was always bugged by the links to dirty videos that Youtube kept putting on the end of Anabelle's videos, so I'm happy that blogspot now has their own video thing... but they won't center the videos for you... I had to manually type in the html to do it my self... so I guess it's only two cheers for blogspot...

Fish Lake, Where Daddy Taught Anabelle to Throw Rocks into the Lake and Florentina Taught her to Eat Them

We went to Fish Lake (just NW of Capital Reef National Park) this past August with my family. We had a lot a fun there... Anabelle and I threw lots of rocks into the water. Anabelle also had a ton of fun with her cousins Pioter and Florentina (she keeps saying Pioter's name over and over again... she really liked him). The only bad part of the trip stems from the fact that Anabanana can't sleep in the same room with us, so we set up a play crib in our bathroom. A minute or two after she went to sleep there, we realized that we had a problem... her crib took up the whole bathroom, which means that we had a very uncomfortable night and very full bladders.

The next day we went on a short hike with Randall (my little brother) and Clara who had come all the way out from Boston. It was great catching up with them.

A Anabelle le encanta ir con su papi a la iglesia

Puesto que las reuniones nuestros están en la tarde, cada Domingo dejo que María se duerma mientras Anabelle y yo vamos a la iglesia para hacer cosas para mi llamamiento. Allí, Anabelle le gusta hacer varias cosas. Mientras yo trabajo a Anabelle le gusta jugar con varias cosas, lo que incluye: comerse el papel pegajoso, pintar con lapiceros, subirse al escritorio, jugar con el "mouse" y teclado de la computadora, tirar todo en el basurero y correr por toda la Iglesia cuando dejo la puerta abierta de la oficina. Y a perdi la cuenta de cuantas veces alguien a entrado a la oficina con Anabelle de la mano y me preguntan: "Es esta su nena? Ella estaba 1) tratando de salirse a la calle 2) corriendo en la sala sacramental 3) de subirse en todos los muebles.

¡Tenemos playa y no la tienes! :b.. . . .

Usualmente me toca trabajar los Sabados, pero el Sabado pasado me tome el dia libe ya que Anabelle y Maria hivan a hirce de viaje por un par de semanas a Washington, DC a visitar a los abuelos. Maria queria limpiar la casa hantes de salir, asi que me lleve a Anabelle ya que es mas facil limpiar sin ella.
Cuando llegamos a la playa Anabelle tenia miedo de meterse al agua. Se metia un poco pero no mas veia que el agua venia hacia ella se corria hacia mi con miedo. Al fin, antes de hirnos empezo a calmarse e incluso empezo a correr directamente hacia las olas sin miedo y riendose. Incluso tuvo que tomarle de la mano varias vecez ya que se estaba metiendo mas ondo hacia olas tan altas como ella.

No hay que pasar el aspirador por la césped

Rompí el aspirador, así que cuando queríamos limpiar, tuvimos que tomar prestado el aspirador de nuestros vecinos. Pero al llevarlo a la casa, Anabelle lo tomó y no quiso que ayudaramos con llevarlo.

la Banana en el Zoologico de DC

Durante nuestro viaje al zoologico de Washington DC, Anabelle fue tratada como una reina. No tuvo que caminar ni un paso ya que fue cargado por su tio y tia todo el tiempo. Sus animales preferidos fueron el elefante y los monos ya que se parecen mucho a sus parientes (no solo es broma). No, la verdad es que a ella le gusta imitar los sonidos y gestos que hacen esos dos animales.

Los Mejores 9 los los 9 que han pasado

I always hate it when I'm reading a friend's blog and come to super long posts.... well, I don't learn from others' mistakes well, so here's a long post... I was thinking today about how my life has been so blessed with good things, great experiences and not-so-fun learning experiences... It's been 9 years since I finished highschool (good riddance), so I want to count down my favorite 9 experiences, periods of time, etc. since I would trade these past 9 years for anything.

9. Getting accepted into graduate school... that was a relief in Feb 2006 when I found out that I wouldn't have to find a job in sanitational engineering (garbage man) after all... however, I wouldn't wish the first year of grad school on even my worst enemy...

8. Summer studying in Israel, Jordan and Egypt (1998). Just after high school I studied at the BYU Jerusalem Center for a summer (my GPA never fully recovered, though...)

7. BYU - while I never intended on going there, I would not trade my educational experience with any other school... I had great teachers, true friends and expereinces I couldn't have had anywhere else. Best 6 years I've ever spent (I think I overstayed my welcome, though).

6. Family time and Road trips in Utah while at college there and in Washington while working there in 2005. I loved the countless trips to weddings, to national parks, and trips to nowhere in particular, but just to get away. I loved all of the trips with family or just the two of us .

5. Internships in Seattle and D.C. and living with Maria's family during it.

4. 2 years in Spain... While I struggled the first 6 months, the remaining 18 were the best 18 months of my life. I loved every day being able to get up and serve the people in Spain as a missionary. I loved the community service I participated in, the free smoking cessation courses I got to teach, the youth I got to help in the rough parts of town, the elderly people I got to serve, and most importantly the opportunities I had to share my testimony of how Christ is our Savior and that His church has been restored on the earth.

3. March 15th 2006... I hadn't been back from grad school interviews in Boston more than a couple days when Maria woke me up that morning, excited and nervous saying "Nate! Either I just wet the bed or my water just broke!" That was the first of what still seems like endless sleepless nights and continual chuckles about all the cute things Anabanana does and says.



2. July 25th 2003... I mean the 26th! sorry!... (quote from a mission reunion that got me in trouble)

1. Every day with my girls... I love them both with all my heart

¿Es tiempo para lucha libre o de acostarse? ¡Quizás los dos!

Anabelle has such a nurturing personality... or something. She is always so tender with other children and will comfort them and give kisses when they are sad. She also likes putting her animals down for a nap, and then she body slams them... poor unsuspecting animals...

Anabanana y el Tobogán a la Playa Cercana

Cuando fuimos a la playa hace poco Anabelle se porto un poco timida, pero al pasar el tiempo se acostumbro y despues de suvirse al resbaladero una vez, sel le paso lo timida. Despues ya no podiamos sacarla del parque ya que solo queria subir al resbaladero. Su obsesion con el resbaladero fue tal que ya ni quiso sentarse si no trato de bajar parada y por supuesto no pudo y se lastimo. Por supuesto despues de ese ultimo intento pensamos que seria mejor cambiar de local, pero no fue facil convencer a Anabelle que nos fueramos. Este es un clip de una de la miles de vecez que se subio al resbaladero.

Anabelle se a hecho amigos por todos lados, y una de sus amigas se llama Audrey. El fin de semana que celebramos "Memorial Day" (dia de recuerdo por todos aquellos que han dado su vida defendiendo su pais), tuvimos un pic-nic. Al final del pic-nic cuando hivamos de regreso a casa Anabelle y su nueva amiga Audrey hivan camiando juntas, cuando derepente Anabelle tomo de la mano a Audrey y empeso a jalarla. Le tomo un poco de tiempo a Nate sacar la camara para gravar pero logro captar los ultimos minutos. La mama de Audrey nos conto que ahora Audrey tambien hace lo mismo con sus otras amiguitas.

Un Mensaje de María

Maria escribió:
El año pasado ha sido una experiencia fenominal. No ha sido fácil, y a veces me he preguntado, "¿En qué nos hemos metido?" ¡Pero cuando miro a Anabelle y cuando me da una gran sonrisa, sé que no hay ningún lugar donde querría estar mas! Quiro mucho esa monita.

Being a stay-home-mom is the hardest job I've ever had; but it is also the most rewarding (and I have worked from everything including being a paralegal in a busy DC firm to an MTC teacher, so I don't say that lightly). Anabelle is now 14 months old and she is developing quite the personality. She knows about a dozen signs and about 40 words, so between signing and "talking" she makes her wishes pretty clear (most of the time). I must admit this has been my favorite stage in her short but very lively development. We are both learning so much. I can't wait to see what new surprises the coming years will bring.

Ya En Español

Por fin hemos enpezado un blog en Español. Vamos a intentar a traducir el blog que hemos escrito en Inglés.