Batchelor Pad?

Kristin took a trip out to see her family and attend a wedding in Michigan. She is going to be gone for a full 14 days and I miss her already. While she is gone I am in full study mode as classes have finished and I have 4 finals over a three week period. Making the most of this time, I thought I would focus on things I would enjoy by my self. Here is a summary of how those have turned out:

Cooking whatever crazy food I want: It's definitely more fun to impress Kristin with my cooking than impressing myself.

Not having the blankets stolen from me at night: Not having anyone to steal the blankets.

Playing the Wii: The dog doesn't care if I scored high in bowling.

No crying baby: Never get to hear my crying baby, smell his little head, or make him laugh.

Watch an action movie: What good is a guy movie if it can't drive your wife crazy.

Being able to study at home: Parker isn't as good as Kristin at pretending to be interested in cool legal theories.

Speaking of Parker, he also misses Mom and Owen because I just sit on the couch and read all day.


Needless to say, I miss Kristin and really appreciate all the joy she brings to my life. It's also really hard to be away from Owen when he is at such a fun age. I can't imagine how hard it is for servicemen to go on tour and leave their families for months on end.

That being said, I have managed to have fun. I invented a great new pasta recipe with mushrooms, artichoke hearts, spinach, and garlic. Not to mention I did manage to get a really good score in Wii bowling. Tonight I might take all of Owen's bath toys and recreate the Battle of Midway in the bath. Then I'll dress Parker up like Godzilla and throw him in the mix as well. See you later.

Spring Break at the Coast

We headed to the coast for a couple of days for Spring Break to play on the beach and to sightsee. First, we stopped off at a little lake to let Parker practice his swimming skills. It was his first time swimming, and the water was really, really cold. But I think he enjoyed himself.



Then we went to Florence, where the sand dunes meet the ocean. It's really neat to see people riding dirt bikes right onto the beaches. Parker absolutely loves the sand, he runs around like a crazy dog the whole time we're there. Now we realize that taking Owen places really limits the activities we can do. It was a little rainy and windy the second day, so we couldn't beach comb as much as would have liked to.




Later on, we went to dinner in Newport at this nice beachside restaurant. We watched the sun set as we were eating, it was very pretty and romantic. Overall, it was a great little vacation from the norm.

Water Baby?

We took Owen swimming for the first time yesterday. He really enjoyed the water and didn't fuss at all. The whole time he seemed not to know what to think about it so he just stayed still. Like any good parents, we dunked him underwater. Getting ready, going swimming, showing our "off season" bodies, and driving back home with wet pants was worth it in order to see the following seven seconds of video.

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Parker's favorite place

Parker just loves when he gets to go play with his friends at the dog park. It's great for us too, because he wears off some, I repeat, some of his energy. It's basically just a section of a huge park that is fenced off where dogs run and play together while the owners make uncomfortable small talk about each others dogs, or the weather. The area is pretty big, maybe 2-3 acres of grass, mud, trees and picnic tables. Every now and then, some naive family thinks it's a good idea to have a picnic lunch there, but they soon find out that the picnic tables and anything on those tables really belong to the dogs. They also have sprinklers and little doggie swimming pools to cool off in, and they get used quite often. There are usually between 10 and 30 dogs there on any given day and they are all going crazy, chasing each other and wrestling. I once saw this old lady get taken out by a Great Dane that wasn't watching where he was running. He hit her from behind and she went flying through the air. Luckily, she wasn't seriously hurt. It can be a hectic place. Here are some cool pictures that Blake snapped during the craziness that is the dog park.

This German Shepard was chasing Parker until Parker tripped over his own paws and got run over.

Stopping for a drink.
Here they go again.




Finally tuckered out.

One of my friends invited me to play in a flag football tournament this past Saturday. My only experience playing football is one season of flag football. Quite frankly, I like playing football but I don't know much about plays. I'm also in really bad shape since I haven't been exercising. We got to play at Autzen Stadium. It was really cool playing on the turf. We played three games yesterday and for the most part I played a marginal role, but I did manage to bring down a long touchdown pass while being covered by 3 defenders. I felt like Randy Moss for 10 seconds. I'm paying the price today though. My body is really sore. I have been riding my bike to school a lot this past week so maybe I'll lose a few pounds before summer.

Don't blink, you might miss me.

This is pretty much how I felt the whole time.

Owen has been having a tough time getting filled up on formula alone, so our pediatrician told us we could start feeding him rice cereal. So here are some pictures of his first "real food." At first he really didn't know what to do, but after awhile he really started to eat fast. Sadly, I had already taken the camera away when he finally got the hang of it.

Owen's First Game

Last Saturday we headed up to Portland with our friends Landon and Heather to watch a BYU - University of Portland baseball game. BYU lost pretty bad, and it was hard to watch towards the end, but it was a beautiful spring-like day so we were just happy to be outside. (I know it looks bad that Blake and I are wearing jackets and Owen is in short-sleeves, but it was actually quite warm, and Owen has wearing a jacket or a blanket most of the time.)
After the game, we went to IKEA to buy a bookcase and a few other things and to try some Swedish meatballs which were pretty good, but I still don't get the obsession over them.
It was a great day, and it made us really excited for Spring. Especially Blake, he's getting the itch to play softball. And I'm getting excited about going for bike rides all along the trails here with Owen in the little bike trailer behind me. Pictures of those activities to come.

Babysitting the boys

We watched Owen's friend, Dallin, the other night, and it was a lot of fun. As you can see in this picture, they were both going crazy. We could hardly keep them under control. Okay, maybe it wasn't that crazy, but it was fun. Dallin's parents are Landon and Heather, they are also 1st year law students from Utah, and they live in the same apartment complex as us. It's fun having them around, because they're our friends and because we exchange babysitting. Which is really nice. Owen is 3 1/2 months and Dallin is about 6 1/2 months. The age difference seems huge right now, but eventually, you won't even be able to tell.

Look at how Owen is pointing at Dallin like, "It was his fault".

I guess the camera was more interesting than the book.