Elmer's at a Glance

About 9 months has passed since my last post. Lame, I know. I've heard it from many people, which is why I am finally writing this post now - to get all of you off my back :)

Us at a glance . . . after a fun-filled summer in Cincinnati, we've moved our little family to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for the next adventurous chapter of our lives. We live in the top floor of an old old house, with our new good friends, the Olsen's, right below us.


Brent

Brent is currently a student at Carnegie Mellon University pursuing a master's in Entertainment Technology. Pretty much, he's having a lot of fun while learning to create opportunities for others to have a lot of fun as well. For any of you who have either read or seen "The Last Lecture" and know who Randy Pausch is, you have heard a little about the ETC (Entertainment Technology Center), as he was one of the founders of it. For any of you who haven't, I strongly advise you to to either watch this or check out his book from the library. He was a truly inspiring man. His time management lecture was also amazing if any of you are interested.

So, as most graduate students, Brent is super busy and rarely at home. Abby and I miss him, but we are happy for him. He is loving what he is learning and always excited to go to class or work on one of his projects, regardless of the fact that he only got 4 or so hours of sleep.

When you walk into the ETC, you feel like you are on the set of a film, or inside a video game, as there are props and movie figures surrounding you. Even the girls bathroom is painted to make you feel like you are inside a game of PacMan.

Here are a few pictures taken inside the ETC:

Abby's always a little intimidated by these guys
because when you get close R2-D2 turns on and starts moving around a bit.

Posing with the Star Wars Crew

This is the first thing you see as you walk of the elevator.
It's hard to tell in this picture, but when you are there it feels
like you've stepped straight into Star Trek or something.

Here's some pics from the student lounge:

Free Skeeball

A Big Screen to watch movies or play Rock Band on, along with pretty
much anything else you can imagine that would be fun . . .
Foosball, Air hockey, Ping Pong, Scooters, Board Games, etc.

Abby

Abby turned 18 months old the 23rd of last month. She has a super sweet personality with a sassy undercurrent. She loves to watch movies. Some of her favorites are Ratatouille, The Incredibles, Fantasia, and Robots. She also loves to color. Anytime she finds a crayon or pen she wants me to get her some paper so she can draw. She, of course, only knows how to scribble, but she will often point to a scribble on the paper and say something like "eyes" or "mouse" so I think she really is trying to draw something. She also loves to wear hats. The red one in this picture is her favorite.

My parents came to Pittsburgh the beginning of October to visit and then Abby and I flew back to Utah with them and stayed there for 9 days. Abby had the time of her life. She absolutely loves Nauboo, my parents dog and spent hours playing with him and laughing. She has missed him a lot since we've come back and frequently points at the computer asking to see "Boo" (sometimes we talk to him over Skype along with my parents, and sometimes I show her the videos from when we were in Utah and she was playing with him.) She loved spending time both mine and Brent's parents. She especially loves her "Pa" (my dad) and asks about him a lot too

Abby was a cowgirl for Halloween and loved trick-or-treating. We taught her to say "Yee-hah!" (although, it sounded more like "Ha-Ha!") and "Trick-or-Treat". We didn't go out until 7:15pm because some of Brent's classmates were over filming in our house and they were using Abby in their film. Unfortunately, most people in our neighborhood stopped giving out candy at 7:00, so we were only able to find a few houses for Abby to go to. She still had a blast though and got more candy than she needs. We also went to an ETC party that night with her. It was funny, because she would be shy with most of the people, but, if they had a mask on, she would totally let down her guard and interact with them. She especially liked one of the guys who was dressed up as the Ninja Turtle, Leonardo.

So, here is a picture description of Abby. I got sick of messing with the format, so please forgive me for the messiness of the pictures.

Me

The biggest portion of my time is spent playing, coloring, reading, blowing bubbles, knocking down blocks, and going for walks with Abby. And, of course, cleaning up after all of our activities.

The past year I've gained a love for cooking. I love to do restaurant knockoff's like Sweet Onion Chicken Quesadillas (Bajios) or Fire Roasted Tomato Soup (Paradise Cafe). One of my favorite recipe websites is MayoClinic.com because they have good recipes that they've turned healthy. While we were in Cincinnati, we made friends with an Indian woman who bought some indian spices for me and gave me some recipes for authentic dishes. My dad introduced us to Indian food a few years back and we love it, but can't afford to go out, so it's been fun to cook it and enjoy it.

I don't know if any of you have ever shopped at the grocery store Aldi before, but it is one of my favorite places. It is super cheap because they don't offer name brand foods, but for the most part, their stuff is really good. They even offer a double back guarantee, so if you don't like anything you buy they will both replace it and give you your money back. Aldi has been a life-saver to our grocery budget because most Pittsburgh grocery stores are much more expensive than we are used to.

Life

I figured it’s about time I initiate myself back into the blogging world. I’ll start with an update on our lives.

We left Florida the end of November and moved in with my parents in Sandy for the few months we will be here in Utah. We had a great December celebrating Christmas and spending time with family. Abby loved Christmas time with all the lights, music, and wrapping paper.

Once January hit things started getting busy. Brent went back to school for his last semester at BYU. He also spent all of December and January preparing his portfolio and all the other necesary things for his graduate school applications (I had no idea how much work those things can be!) He's applying to do a Master's in Interaction Design. We're now just waiting to see if we'll be going to Pittsburgh, Chicago, Atlanta, or Gainesville in the fall (assuming life doesn't take some other unexpected turn).

I started back to work at BioMeridian part-time last month as well. I go into the office on Tuesdays and Thursdays and also do some work from home whenever I can. It is very different from when I was there 10 months ago, but seems to be going well so far. Pretty much the entire company's changed since I was there last - there are only 5 or 6 people that I worked with before that are still there. I miss the old crew, but feel blessed to have a job that is so willing to work with my schedule.

Abby is almost 10 months old now and also has a very busy schedule. Her days usually consist of playing with the dogs and cat, removing as many toys and books out of the boxes and drawers as possible, taking anyone who will hold her hands and help her walk on a guided tour around the house, playing the piano, crawling up the stairs, giggling, fake coughing, and much more. She also has an affinity for eating, if you couldn't already guess by her chubby cheeks. She is pretty stable and can take a couple of steps by herself, but isn't really trying to hard to completely walk by herself. She'd rather we keep helping her.

Temple Square

(after living in FL, the snow was a bit of a shock to us)

We're trying to get Abby ready to hit the slopes with

us in a few years when we can actually afford passes again!

Beanie Buddies

"Daddy, can I please come to school with you?"

Chasing after the dog

LDS Draper Temple Open House

We had to take a bus up to the temple open house,

and Abby had a blast hanging on the back of the seats.

Riding Grandpa's bike around the house

"MMMMM....."

Momma's Girl

Kisses for Everyone

Our adorable little kiss

The weekend before Halloween we went to a neighborhood Halloween Party with Brent's co-worker Stacey. Halloween is always a big deal for Stacey's family and must always include creative homemade costumes (usually made out of felt). She got us in on it, so we went over to her house a couple hours before the party and threw together this little kiss costume for Abby. I have to give her the majority of the credit for the assembly though.

Brent and I wore costumes that she had made in the past, a whoopie cushion and Vanillaroma Car Scent, and Stacey dressed up as the Travelocity Gnome. The party was a progressive dinner that we moved from house to house for each course and Stacey made a prop to have at each house . . . mushrooms, a yellow suitcase, and a rake. It was hilarious! She motivated me to get into Halloween a little more in the future because it sure made things fun.

The felt family

Stacey and Brent had me try on the gnome costume after the party. I think my bubbly cheeks worked a little too well. We decided I'd made a great Santa Claus if I wasn't a girl.

The day before Halloween we went to our wards Trunk-or-treat. It was a lot of fun. Brent and I are the Nursery Teacher's in our ward so it was fun to see all the little kids dressed up in their costumes.

On Halloween, We had our friends Mike and Casey come over for dinner (I made the traditional Elmer Halloween Beef Stew and Breadsticks). We have been watching the Lost series' together every week since we moved in. We are on the second series right now, but needed to watch a few more episodes in order to finish before we move in a few weeks. So, we watched 3 episodes of Lost that night. They were pretty intense episodes, so I think they qualified as good Halloween material.

Fall in Orlando

When we went to Pittsburgh a few weeks ago we were surpised to see that cold really does still exist, because we'd felt nothing close to it for the few months we've lived here in Orlando. It was so fun to see the leaves changing colors in PA while we drove through the mountains and remember that is fall. I felt kind of sad to come back to, what we consider, the land of eternal summer. However, this week the weather has actually begun to cool down here in Florida. In fact, I felt a little cold last night when Brent and I went for a walk. And, there is even one type of tree here that has begun to change colors. It's so fun! If any of you ever consider visiting Orlando, I would recommend coming around this time . . . the weather cools down and the tourists slow down. It's beautiful!

The last couple of months

The short movie below shows a small bit of what we've been up to the last couple of months. Brent's birthday was actually at the end of August, so those pictures are quite late. We celebrated by going to Tallahassee and staying with his sister, Melanie, and her family. It was a lot of fun.

Of course, most of the other pictures are of Abby . . . we don't seem to take too many of ourselves. I know she is the one you want to see, anyways.

Good Times

Pittsburgh

I've got some major catching up to do about the past two months, but here's the first post of a few to come over the next few days . .

About two weeks ago we met my parents in Pittsburgh so that we could visit Carnegie Mellon University. We (I say we because it makes me feel involved, but I really mean Brent) are currently considering a Master's Degree in Interaction Design. It is a relatively new degree in the United States and CMU is really the only one with a program. Brent told my Dad about it this summer and my Dad got really excited about it too, so he offered to fly us up so we could check it out and see what we think.

While we were there, Brent went to some classes and met with a couple advisors, professors, and students to find out about Interaction Design as well as a couple other programs the University offers. We also discovered two other degrees while we were there that are similar to Interaction Design that Brent is looking in to now as well. I hope it all works out because I think Interaction Design is a degree Brent would really enjoy.

We were also excited to see what Pittsburgh is like, as we may be living there for a couple of years. I actually liked it quite a bit. CMU is a little removed from the actual downtown of Pittsburgh and is located right next to the University of Pittsburgh. So, as you can imagine, with two adjacent universities there are students everywhere. It seemed kinda fun that we would be able to walk pretty much any place we needed to go - grocery stores, church, park, etc.

It was a lot of fun to see my parent's while we were there. During the few days of our trip, we, of course, also went on some fun adventures. We got to see Fallingwater (which was the one thing Brent insisted on doing while we were there), which is a famous home that was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. It is an incredibly beautiful home built over a small waterfall. The house is built as if it is part of the environment. The trees and plants around the home were all changing colors and were awesome. There is no season change here in Florida, everything seems to look the same all the time, so it was so fun to be able to see Fall. There are books written about the beauty and details of Fallingwater, so I'm not going to go in to any more detail you can read the books if you want. But I will say that it is pretty amazing and well worth the trip if you are ever in the area.

While Brent was busy, my Parents, Abby, and I went down to Hershey, PA and went through the chocolate museum and store. We also drove through a couple of Amish towns. It was really neat to see people driving around in buggies and plowing their fields using horses. The women and girls were all wearing bonnets and the men and boys wear short hats. It felt like we were driving through Little House on the Prairie. I'm very intrigued by the way they live, and would love to try it out if I could. They are very impressive people.

Pittsburgh celebrated it's 250 year anniversary while we were there. On Saturday night that did a huge firework show. It was honestly the coolest fireworks I have ever seen. We stood on a bridge over the river, which is right next to the city, as we watched them. The fireworks lasted 30 minutes and were shot off from a park near the river as well as many of the big city buildings. It was so cool to see the fireworks reflecting off both the water in the river and the glass buildings. It got really cold while we were out and we didn't have a good coat for Abby so I zipped her up with me in my jacket - she was a really good sport about it all and loved watching the fireworks go off.

I won't say any more, except thank you Mom and Dad! Now here goes the pictures . . .

This is the only picture we have of us at the University.
It's inside the ETC (Entertainment Traning Center)

Cool plate glass building Downtown

Helping Grandma at the chocolate factory

Clockin' out on her first big work day!

Who doesn't love Reese's?

"Move over Grandpa, I'll take it from here!"

Imitating my Dad, who always sleeps with a sock
over his eyes and a pillow on his stomach.

Together at Fallingwater. They don't let babies on the tour so my
parents watched her in the visitors center while we went through, and then they went on the tour right after us. They don't let you take pictures inside the house, but our camera died so it didn't really matter anyways.

Fallingwater