October Celebrations

Here are some pictures from Malies special day. It was great having her birthday mid-week because we honestly treated it like a Saturday...except we still went to school. Basically, we didn't do any school work. The day-after wasn't so much fun (it involved a lot of make-up work, cramming, postponed tests, etc), but Wednesday was great! Here are some highlights:

A few weeks ago we were in Barns-n-Noble and Mallory spotted a Dr. Seuss book translated into Latin. She was pretty peeved that it was in a "dead language" and wasn't to be found in any other language! So, I did some research online. Come to find out, there are three Dr. Seuss books in Russian! Interesting Note: these books are illegal in Russia and any former Soviet Union states.

When we were on our honeymoon in San Diego, Mallory really wanted to rent a tandem bike. Time didn't really permit the activity, but I did make a mental note for a future date. So this is what we did! We just cruised around town. I don't know how many of you have ridden one before, but it was pretty wierd. Mallory insisted on sitting in front, which put me on the wobbly back seat. I felt like I was leaning the whole time! Mallory just informed me to inform you all that it wasn't wobbly because of her driving skills. That's just the way the seat is. A weak frame could also contribute to that. FYI.

We made a pit-stop at a friend's house to get some pictures taken. This friend actually lives in the same home that my Grandpa Mel Clark lived in when he attended Ricks back in the 1940's.

Don't we belong in a Mentos commercial?

We also rode to the Rexburg Nature Park which consisted of a lot of ponds, beautiful trees, and a TON of ducks. All different kinds too! It was really pretty because the trees are just starting to turn.

The sun was setting when I took this picture, but you can still get an idea of what season we are in.

See all the ducks?! There was a family that was feeding them, and the ducks were blitzing them from left to right, top to bottom...literally. The boy feeding them was so happy! When they ran out of food for the ducks, the ducks called it a day and departed. He started to cry. Ironically, the ducks must have smelt food because they swam to another family that came to feed them. Same thing happened there too.

Later on we got together with some friends and had cake and ice cream. No, I didn't make the cake. When I offered, she insisted "My Mom makes her cake." I did help get out the mixing bowls though. I guess that counts for "helping out". Haha.

Singing Happy Birthday!

She didn't get them all blown out in one breath due to technical difficulties. Chelsea commited "candle interference" and Mallory was granted a second shot to finish the job.

Later on, Chelsea inserted herself into every picture. There are about 2-3 more that include her standing somewhere in the picture.

Jo-nathan, Chelsea, and Kyle all enjoying the party.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MALIE!

I love you Malie.

Homemade Bread

I always look forward to the weekends for many reasons. Among the top reasons is Malie makes homemade bread every week! What an awesome wife =). We figure it's cheaper than buying from the store, and not to mention tastes far better than any bread you can buy. So, here are some pics from yesterday's session.

TEAM HOYT

This is incredible. We watched this in my Exceptional Students class yesterday, and it's just ridiculous what these men do. I don't know if you've ever heard of it, but it's always worth watching.

So, grab some popcorn and probably a box of tissues for most of you, and go here.

Gypped

Ya wanna hear a funny story? Here’s one:

After going to IF to spend the $150 in Target gift cards people so kindly gave us, we excitedly brought our loot home. I was in the bedroom unpacking some box or another, and Mike started in on the Target bags in the living room. We had bought a Clear2O – the much-more-reasonably-priced equivalent of the Brita Water Pitcher. He opened the product’s box and called out, “What the? Malie!” I came to the living room, and asked what it was. He held up a wrapped wedding gift. “So?” I said, thinking it was one of ours. He held up the Clear2O box and showed me the insides. It was full of crumpled newspaper and, until a moment before, the wrapped gift which looked very much like a book.

I was like, “Wow! Someone really ripped Target off.” Then, as it sunk in, “How do we even prove this wasn’t us?” Mike immediately jumped on his phone and called Target. He explained what we found and they told him to bring it in sometime soon and they would refund us. (Thanks heavens!) A bit later, Mike opened our new storage ottoman to stuff a blanket inside and found it filled with a bunch of – get this – little girls’ school supplies. Hello Kitty notepads, .5 mechanical pencil refills, pink mechanical pencils, pens with big tufts of feathers on the end; you name it, it was in there!

So Saturday we took them all back to Target. (Not the ottoman of course, just its contents.) We walked up to Customer Service and unloaded. The kid was like, “Oh, that’s not cool.” His manager walked in and asked what was wrong. The kid showed him all the junk. The manager said they’d been have problems with people filling storage ottomans with stuff and then buying them. The wedding gift, he had to admit, was a new one! He called up another manager and told her it was time to start enforcing a “check-inside-storage-ottomans-at-register” rule. No kidding!

Finally caught up!

Finally! We are finally caught up with our blog entries. We present to you...our apartment! These first photos are what we came home to after the honey moon. Disgusting, I know. It took us three days to finally clean and organize this mess. Here are the before and afters.

The living room.

Again, the living room/entry way.

Mallory, sorting through the mess in the kitchen.

Let me just say, we love our bed! It's so hard to get out of it in the mornings. That's how you know if you have a good bed or not.

Our dining area.

The "study/library".

Our current living room. Pretty cool huh?

San Diego Zoo

"If we don't have it...it probably doesn't exist." That's the slogan of the San Diego Zoo...printed nice and large on a billboard featuring a picture of a unicorn (not that they have one...but, ya know!) This was a really cool Zoo, by far the best I have ever seen.
This is the entrance to the Zoo. Very nicely crafted, I must say.

This little guy was trying to catch some sun and sleep. He was so funny!

This was probably my favorite. I loved these guys! The orangutans were sharing their cage with some chimp-like creatures. So an orangutan and his mother were wrestling/playing around for a while and then all the sudden the chimp jumped in and started rolling on the ground with them as well! We actually got a video of this, but have had some issues uploading videos. Any suggestions?

Malie found herself a little friend.

Yep, the primates were really fun to watch.

These pandas were really cool. They are the only captive pandas in the world who have successfully reproduced, that's a pretty neat feat.

So...so similar....

Do it Malie! Touch it!

Good Idea: Display beautiful birds. Bad Idea: Fill the cage with 200 birds and neglect to clean the cage three times a day. These guys reaked so bad!

These were funny looking.

Happy over there in the shade.

These grizzly bears were in the corner looking at something, not sure what. At least we got a nice rear-view.

This is us in the Fern Forrest area...it was so pretty there.

"Eh, she's talking to me....like she knowsss me."

Mighty python!

Doesn't it just look sad??

Croicky! We go' ou-a selves a croc!

A two headed snake!