Happy Easter

We hope everyone had a great Easter. As for us we had fun starting some new traditions with Ava. Even though Ava isn't even a year old yet, I think she had fun getting an Easter basket, wearing her new Easter dress (I think I enjoyed that tradition more than Ava though), and going on her first Easter egg hunt. Ava has a love hate relationship with grass...well, more of a hate relationship :) She usually is crawling all over our apartment, but once you place her on the grass she doesn't move an inch. With Josh's help, Ava was able to walk over to her eggs. She had a fun time placing the eggs in her basket and then dumping them all out. She actually did that all day. She even figured out how to get her Cheerios out of the eggs by throwing them really hard against the kitchen floor.



When we were talking to my in-laws on the phone, my father-in-law asked what was the real reason we celebrated Easter. Josh said it was for the candy. But all jokes aside, Easter is a great time to remember our Savior's love and how much he has done for us. How blessed are we to have the blessings of the atonement in our lives. It is so great to know that because the Savior died on the cross and rose again, we will also get to live again with our families. What a priceless gift.

I married a rock star!

A few of you may be a little confused by the title, but I'll get to that in a few minutes. Last night Josh's work held an officewarming. They recently moved into a new building and wanted an excuse to party! (the new digs is the building on the left)


Free food, free babysitting, extra time with Josh...no brainer. I left Ava with a babysitter, took the Bart into the city, and was ready for some fun. After some yummy food (including a chocolate fountain...oh yeah!) and socializing it was time for the real fun to start...it was time to play Rock Band. For those who are unfamiliar with the game, it's where you get to become the rock god that you've always wanted to be.

I know that my mom probably has no idea what I'm talking about. So if you already know how to play, just totally skip this paragraph :) So, Mom, there can be 4 players in each band. You need a bassist, guitarist, drummer, and a singer. Then you get to pick the song you want to preform. On the screen the game tells each player what notes to push on their instrument or what words to sing.


I guess the employees are hardcore Rock Band players. The day of the party everyone split into bands, held practices, made costumes, and even planned their stage entrances. I assure you that they do actually work at work. But it is nice that they are able to take some time out of their super busy and stressful workday to have some fun.

All night I was waiting for The Grip to perform...I heard that the bassist was H-O-T! I am glad to say that he didn't disappoint. Here is Josh rocking out with a few of his coworkers.


Josh played double duty as bassist and backup singer. He just couldn't help himself...they were playing a song from Smashing Pumpkins. If any of you knew Josh is high school, they were his favorite band....well, besides the Dixie Chicks :)


You rocked babe! I am totally the president of your fan club!

Heaven on a mattress

This isn't just another cute picture of Ava. It's a cute picture of Ava sitting on our fabulous, super luxurious, new queen size bed! For those of you who may not know, when Josh and I got married his parents were kind enough to give us one of their full size beds. (yep, you read that right, a full) Being poor college students we took it willingly. I grew up sleeping on a Queen...all by myself. So I must admit that it did take some time to adjust to sharing a full size bed, but we got used to it. After 3 1/2 years Josh and I finally decided it was time to retire our faithful mattress. After anxiously waiting to go to bed all day, it was finally time to give it a try. After sliding under our new, crisp white, silky sheets I was in love. If Ava would allow me, I would of stayed there all day! If you try calling me early in the morning and I don't answer, you know where I'll be!

We miss Daddy

Recently when Josh leaves for work little Ava bug has started to cry. So yesterday we decided if Daddy wasn't going to come to us, we'd go to him! Not wanting to brave the Bart ride and the big scary city alone, we asked Melissa and her daughter Olivia to come too. Her husband also works at the same place as Josh. So along with Melissa and Olivia we took the trek into San Francisco. The Bart ride wasn't too bad. Ava was buckled in her stroller the whole time. I just had to remember to put the brake on!

Once in the city we walked the few blocks from the Bart station to Josh's new building. His company just moved to a new building a few weeks ago. Wow! Let me just say they sure moved up to a nicer place. They even have a doorman...well, doorwoman :)

Here is Josh and Ava at his desk. His desk is actually pretty boring. I need to get him some pictures to put up!



After showing us his desk, the next stop on the tour was of course the area where they get to play Xbox. It's just a little inlet right off the work area. But it has bean bags, a projector and of course an Xbox. Here is Ava and Olivia getting in on the fun.


After getting a tour of the new space it was time for lunch. My favorite sandwich place in the city is Boxed Foods. The Chicken Salad sandwich is worth the whole trek. The best part of the sandwich is that they add sliced apples on it. Interesting, but totally yummy! Enough about the sandwich, after grabbing our food we took it and ate outside at Union Square.


After dropping the boys back at work we decided to help jump start the economy. How can you not go into the city and go shopping. Especially since Josh's work is only a few blocks from all of the flagship stores. Flagship stores, for those of you who don't know, are stores were they get all the new merchandise first, carry more items, and are just huge. Gap and Old Navy have flagship stores in SF. The Old Navy store is 3 stories and a mile wide :) Okay, not really a mile wide, but I bet it's close. We spent an hour just at Old Navy. Let's just say by the end of the trip, Ava was exhausted. I don't know how she did it, because the Bart is pretty loud, but she slept halfway home.

Two peas from the same pod

It's amazing just how similar they really are!

Parenting Guide

You all are probably wondering how on earth Josh and I raised such a smart, gorgeous, well adjusted little girl of 10 months of age. Well it took a lot of trial and error, but I think we finally came up with a few guidelines that really seem to work.












I usually am not a fan of forwards, but this one was just too good to pass up. Thanks Jared for emailing it to us. Hope you all got a good kick out of it as well!

Lions, Tigers and Bears...Girafees too!

This past Wed. a small group of sisters from the ward got together and decided to go to the San Francisco Zoo. The first Wed. of the month everyone gets in FREE. I couldn't resist! I was all prepared to be fighting the crowds to see the animals, but since the zoo is humongous we really didn't have too much of a problem.

Our first stop was the petting zoo. Since Ava didn't seem to interested in petting the very overweight and aggressive sheep, we stayed at the duck pond for most of it. She absolutely loved watching the ducks.

After the petting zoo we went around to the animals that we wanted to see. We saw polar bears.

We saw this...


We saw this...


This...

But the best exibit was the girafees. So sorry in advance for the multiple pics of them, but I couldn't decide which ones to put up :)

This past week has been extrememly busy. From going to Santa Cruz, being in charge of mutual, going to the zoo, and going to the fabulous outlet mall today, I am exhausted. Josh and I are planning on just taking it easy this weekend.

Update: Josh just got asked to give a talk this upcoming Sunday. So it looks like I'll be the only one trying to relax this weekend!

Ava's first trip to the beach

When the local weatherman mentioned how great the weather was going to be this past weekend, we knew we had to go to the beach. So we packed everything up and took a day trip to Santa Cruz. It is just a little over an hour away. All in all it was a really fun day. This was Ava's first trip to the beach. At first she wanted nothing to do with the sand and wouldn't leave the blanket. But after a few minutes we couldn't stop her from trying to put handfuls of sand in her mouth. We even caught her trying to lick the remaining remnants of sand off her hands. Yuck!