Alcatraz

One of my favorite parts of our trip was our visit to Alcatraz.

It was really fun to see all of these historical places. Christy and I were really lucky to have the chance to spend this time with Matt and Meshelle.

We got to see some really cool sites and spend some quality time deciding with each other what direction we want to take in our lives.

It was a very needed vacation that really taught us what is important to us.

Doesn't Christy look super tough holding up San Francisco with her bare hands. She doesn't even look like she is breaking a sweat.

I think that our favorite part of the trip, however, was going home. We were happy to come back and get into our regular routine. When Christy got home, she looked a lot like these Sea Lions that hang out next to Pier 39 at Fisherman's wharf. She slept for hours.

Oakland Temple

While in the Bay area, Christy and I got to visit the Oakland temple.

It was really beautiful.

We made a goal when we first got married that whenever we are near a temple on vacation we will do whatever we can to make sure that we spend some time there. We've been pretty good with that. Oakland was a fun one with a great view.

Mr. 757 - "Barry Bonds Breaks the record again"

While in San Francisco we were present when Barry Bonds made history. He broke his own record.

It happened during the bottom of the first inning and Christy and I were actually walking up to our seats and didn't get to see the record get broken (you know, pregnancy and all), but we heard the stadium go wild.

We got some great pictures before we left early though.

It was a ton of fun. (however, Christy doesn't like this picture because she says that it makes her face look fat, even though I think that she looks amazing)

Golden Gate Bridge

Another cool thing that we got to visit while we were in San Francisco was the Golden Gate Bridge.

It was a little overcast, but was still really beautiful.

Christy took this one. It was so cool that I thought it could be used as a postcard.

Didn't I tell you before that we are in Love?

This was another good Postcard one.

And this is how it looks driving over it.

The Cool Ships of Fisherman's Wharf

One of the coolest things that we did while visiting San Francisco was to take a tour of the old Ships at Fisherman's Wharf. It was a blast. This is a good example of an old dock.

This is just a picture to show you how in love Christy and I are. (Do you notice I have my eyes open?)

I got really excited looking at all the cool engine parts of the tug boat.

I thought that this picture is a pretty good pregnancy picture... Hey Honey, at least you are not as big as the tugboat.

Since we were in San Francisco, I thought I should include at least one picture where I looked like a gay guy. Just kidding, I don't know what I was doing in this picture, but it is a good one of all of the boys.

Here's a good one of Christy and the Eureka. It was pretty windy out there, so I gave her my jacket... really she took it, but we're still in love afterward.

Man the rigging!

Help, I can't move this... I'm pregnant!

Pretty cool little captain's cabin eh... I like the model showing it off...

I got a little tired on the ship, so I thought I would sit down and take a rest.

I'd make a good captain.

We had a pretty good view of the Bay Bridge from the docks.

See, I told you we were in love!

You can see it in our eyes.

And here we are at Pier 39 with Alcatraz as a backdrop.

Watch for more of Alcatraz to come.

Trolley Ride

One of the first excursions of our trip was a ride on the famous San Francisco Trolley out to Fisherman's Warf. We all were pretty excited about it as you can see in this picture of Matt and I.

Christy was really excited about this picture!

Riding the trolley was a lot of fun. Matt and I got to stand on the footboards on the outside of the Trolley and after a minute the guy got mad at me for having my backpack sticking out too far.

Christy Meshelle and the Con-Man (Conner) were sitting just inside the trolley from us.

I think that the Con man liked this new experience.

Here are some good pictures of the view of San Francisco.

Above is a good view of Downtown San Francisco down the hill from the Trolley.
Below is "the crookedest street in America" I forgot the actual name.

We had a pretty fun Trolley ride.

The big road trip... San Francisco Here we come!

Recently, Christy and I were invited to go to San Francisco with my brother Matt and his wife Meshelle so that I could attend a Law conference with him. Although I never did get to go to any of the conference with him, the trip ended up being a great chance for Christy and I to get away and relax. Some of the best part of it was the road trip. Originally we were going to leave at around 7 am and drive all day but, as the night before came around, we realized that we were so excited to get away that we ended up leaving around 12 am and driving through the night.
Kyle did most of the driving through the night, with a few hours break while Christy drove, and then Christy got up around dawn and drove until we got to the big California cities.

We ended up making this freakin cool little bed in the back of the car so that when one of us wasn't driving the other one could be sleeping. This ended up being a great thing for Christy's pregnant legs... (she seems to have quite the case of edema with her pregnancy and sitting in a car for a long time can be really bad for that).
This is a picture of what the weather started being like when we got into the San Francisco Bay area.
I thought this was a super cool part of the bay. Christy thought it was kinda boring.
Here's another example of Christy's comment on our previous blog about how we've got this weird habit of taking pictures of each other when we are driving... I was probably telling Christy about one of my philosophies and that's probably why she was so bored that she took this picture.

Nate's Tiny Little Shorts

So, I know it may come as a surprise to many of you, but we are actually going to be adding some more posts to this board, and it hasn't been a month yet! The bad news is that we left our Camera in Kyle's shorts the other day and it went into the washing machine and got ruined. I don't believe that we are going to be able to replace it anytime soon, so posts after today will probably need to be writing only for a while. The first of today is about Kyle's little brother Nate and the awesome Parade he was in.

As a pre-story to understand how Nate was in a Parade, we should explain how Nate became the Student Body Treasurer at his Jr. High School this school year (2007-2008). Following his "tiny little shorts campaign," patterned after the NBA finals commercials with Dewayne Wade and Charles Barkley and including posters with Nate wearing a pair of tiny little shorts, Nate got the most votes of any of the kids running for office.

In most situations, this would be reason to believe that Nate would be the Student Body President. Nate thought otherwise though... He wanted to enter Student Government with style. In his interview with the teachers, who determine which position they will appoint the winners to, Nathan told them, when being asked if he thought himself more of a leader or a follower, that "the last time (he) was a leader things kinda fell apart, so probably more of a follower."

A few days later he found out that he was the new school treasurer.


Well, since he was in SG, he got to be in the Spanish Fork Fiesta days parade. If you look in the picture above you can see him with his hat crooked on the back of the firetruck. As the truck was coming up, Kyle made sure to yell at the top of his lungs "Nate show us your tiny little shorts" two or three times. (Nate and Christy weren't too happy with Kyle after that.)
After Nate went by the parade included a number of cannons and guns. Here are some pictures of how Nan, Kyle's little sister, and My parents neighbor Jacob handled the sound of things.
Now, Jacob was born in Haiti, where noises of cannons have a different significance than they do here in America, but my question is, "what's Nan's deal?"...
I guess old habits just never die. (Don't you think her hat is super cool too...)

VA Family

We got to spend a little extra time with my sister Jackie and her family during our vacation. We drove up to Busch Gardens for a family trip and my brother James was supposed to join us at the park the next day with his girlfriend and my dad. His car ended up having some pretty big problems and it broke down as they were driving up to Williamsburg. We had to spend an extra night and a whole day trying to figure out what was wrong with the car. In the end, we had to just drive back to Roanoke, pick up a truck and a car dolly. Then my dad, brother and brother-in-law Tony all drove back the 4 hours to get the car.

Here is our nephew Ayden. We were waiting for everyone to finish showering so we could go get started at Busch Gardens. He was very patiently waiting and watching tv. He and his sister Arieanna were watching Disney Playhouse or something like that and following along with Mickey as he tried to help Donald find his missing lion.

Here they are watching Mickey.

Ayden really likes to get his picture taken. Can't ya tell?

At the end of each episode, there is a song that the kids watching can dance and sing along with. Here Ayden and Ari are dancing together.

More cute dancing.

Before we could go to Busch Gardens, Ari had to get her hair off her neck. She didn't want to let her mom do it so I asked if I could and this is what we came up with. She loved the little side ponytail and they went perfectly with her diva sunglasses.

Here is the one and only picture we took while in the park. The kids rode this ride two times; it was so much fun. They were pulling on the reigns and telling the horses to 'gettyup'.

While the men tried to fix the car, we used the hotel swimming pool and used our time wisely. Here is my oldest niece Jossie holding her little brother Ayden.

Arieanna doesn't know how to swim. This is how she looked most of the time. All the rest of the time, she was yelling at Kyle or I to come get her and take her out into the deep end so she could be near her sister and aunt Taylor. We tried to teach her some techniques for swimming but she didn't really catch on. Hopefully she will soon.

Ayden had the cutest little swim preserver. It was like a wet suit. On the top half, there were tons of little floaties and then the shorts were on the bottom. It was really snug on him but so dang cute. He kept hollering at me to come to him so he could jump in from the side of the pool. It was really great to see my nieces and nephews. It was even better this time because they remembered who I was and they even remembered Kyle from meeting him at Christmas.