Happy Birthday to my Beautiful Elisha!!!

Today is Elisha's 28th birthday. In honor of her birthday I want to post something really sentimental and mushy, so consider yourself warned. I am so excited because this is the age that she will be when she becomes a mom. That will probably be the best part of year 28 for her, so I figure I will make a list of the best parts of the other 27 years. Sadly, I wasn't around for all of them so during the years I wasn't around for I will improvise.

• Age 0: She was born. Ahhhh.
• Age 1: She probably started doing really cute things that I really appreciate like eating solid foods, walking, and talking.
• Age 2: Hopefully she was potty trained around this time. Another thing I'm really grateful for.
  
• Age 3: I don't know what kids this age do, and I certainly don't know what Elisha was doing then, but I shall mention how I love her pretty blue eyes; I'm sure she had those back then.
• Age 4: By now, Elisha was a big sister, so I'm sure she was learning to be the caring person that she is.
• Age 5: This is probably when Elisha started school. That's good, she's smart, I like that.
• Age 7: I think it was around this age that Elisha stole a Christmas present from her sister and she didn't get caught for another 20 years. That's my kind of woman.
• Age 8: Elisha was baptized. That sets the stage for some really important things to come.
• Age 9: Something important probably happened. I like her hair.
• Age 10: More important stuff. Elisha lived in California when she was a kid. Maybe this was the year they moved back. (I'm pretty sure she was a lot younger.) If so, this was a very important event for me.
• Age 11: Something else extraordinary happened in her life. I missed it. I like the way she's always happy, even when she's not.
• Age 12: She graduated primary. That's a big deal. I told you the baptism thing would come back.
• Age 13: I think this is the time her youngest brother was born. Elisha had to change his diapers, which will be helpful since she has graciously agreed to change all of our children's diapers.
• Age 14: The best part of this year was when she volunteered at the Bountiful Temple open house, and possibly met the man of her dreams.
• Age 15: This year's highlight was when Elisha stopped playing with Barbies and started to notice boys. Okay, well the boy thing probably doesn't happen for awhile yet.
• Age 16: Elisha got her driver's license. Without it driving to see me wouldn't have been possible.
• Age 17: I'll say the biggie this year was the Young Womanhood Award. Although, I really have no idea when she actually received it.
• Age 18: Elisha graduates high school! Go Vikings!
• Age 19: She takes her first American Sign Language course. This changes her life forever.
• Age 20: College graduation, part 1. Elisha is an interpreter now. The steps have been taken to eventually meet me.
• Age 21: November 22, 2002, she meets the man of her dreams. Two days later she meets me. Just kidding. This is the year that we are formally introduced.
• Age 22: Elisha goes on a mission. Yeah, Brasil! Again, the baptism returns.
• Age 23: Elisha spends the whole year in Brasil. The highlight? Getting letters from me.
• Age 24: Too many wonderful things to choose from. Is it coming home from her mission? Beginning to date me? I'm going to go with the homecoming dance, which is the night we became engaged.
• Age 25: Marrying me, of course!
• Age 26: The whole year is a blur. The best part? Buying a house? Deciding to begin trying for children? I don't know, as long as it was something to do with me.
• Age 27: Finding out she is pregnant.
• Age 28: The age at which she becomes a mom.

Pretty cool life, huh? I really like how the last few years have gone. I know it's a giant list, but Elisha is an awesome person and she deserves this much attention. In fact she deserves even more! Happy Birthday!

The Human Race Machine

On campus this week we had the honor of being visited by The Human Race Machine. This machine is a little photo booth that will take a picture of you and then change the image to have the features of a different race. I was required to do it for a class that I have, but I thought it was kinda fun and interesting to see how I looked. So I decided to share the images with everyone else.

The last post was a little experiment to see if anyone recognized me. I guess all it did was scare Elisha a little bit. That picture was me as a middle-Eastern person. I think it was the best and most realistic looking one.
The middle-Eastern look wasn't so good for Elisha though. I'm blaming the machine, not Elisha or the features of middle-Eastern people.

I also think I look pretty good as a black guy, but the look didn't go so well for Elisha, again the machine.
The machine could also age you up to 25 years. In this area Elisha fared really well, but me? Not so much.
I guess I'm pretty lucky, my wife is still really hot after 25 more years of putting up with me. I just hope that she's happy with that wrinkley old guy.

The funniest part about the machine is that it doesn't ask what race you are to begin with, so it will change you to your own race. As it turns out, I am a very ugly white dude:

Do You Know This Guy?

So I was surfing the internet and I came across this picture. The guy looks really familiar to me, but I just can't figure out where I know him from. So I decided to post it and see if I could get some help from my friends.

Whoever he is, I'm pretty sure he is a really awesome guy.

Belly Update!

After nearly three weeks: Finally an update. I think this is a picture at about 24 weeks.

Some of you may be thinking that it has been so long that we must have a baby by now, and that is the reason for not updating the picture of the belly, but alas, the baby has not come yet. We still have 3 more months!

This little fact scares Elisha, but only when the ladies in Relief Society say that she looks like she is due any day now. I really wouldn't mind if the time was now, I would love to get the waiting over with, but I know that it is a great thing that the baby isn't due until 2 weeks after finals.

Please note the side pictures. I got this idea from someone else's blog, I thought it helped to see the progression of the size. We will still try to keep a somewhat-regular update in the posts as well.

Happy Groundhog Day!

Okay, I know that Groundhog Day was over a week ago, but I didn't want to let it pass without mention.

I love this holiday. (It's not really a holiday, it's an observance, but I think school should be closed for it anyway.) It may seem silly, and no one really believes that a little rodent really has the power to decide our weather fate for the next six weeks, but I just love the concept. I love that on this day, February 2nd, we collectively put our hope into something. For one tiny moment early in the morning we all hold our breath and hope that the groundhog will see what we want him to see. I think that if, as a nation, we were willing to focus as a whole on a single goal more often, maybe things might be different in this world.

Or maybe I just like that once a year I have an excuse to watch this hilarious movie. I actually think about it every year, but this year is only the second time that I've actually seen Groundhog Day on Groundhog Day. We had a fun little get together for dinner and a movie. It ended up being a nice little triple date with the Owens', the Radford's and ourselves. I think the guys would be up for doing it every year, but Tycee and Elisha didn't seem to enjoy the repetitive nature of the film.

By the way, I guess this year our little friend has decided that we deserve six more weeks of winter. Oh, well. I guess we will just have to wait 'til March 20th for the first day of spring. Unless you live in St. George, where spring always starts a little early.