Hooray for Brigham!

Brigham is now home! Now Tommy and Ashley can feel like real new parents and not sleep at night :) Amber decided to pre-announce for Ashley...

Portland Trip: Cannon Beach and Cheese!

This is the third in a series of posts about our (now not so) recent Oregon trip.
For an overview of the whole trip, read Home from Oregon.
For the first installment, read Portland Trip: Silver Falls.
For the second installment, read Portland Trip: Children's Museum but no Zoo.

Wednesday started out with a drive towards the Oregon coast. Kelsey, Grandpa and Grandma Conder joined us for our trip. Our first stop was at a place called Cafe 18 that is at mile marker 18 on Route 26 where we ate breakfast. The breakfast was big and tasty and not at all healthy. They have these huge cinnamon rolls that are as big as a plate. I had a biscuits and gravy (hmmm) meal that came with eggs and other stuff and a side of corned beef hash. The meal was good but I wasn't a big fan of the very greasy hash.

Outside the restaurant were some relics from the era when the forests were free game for lumber companies. Tyler liked checking out a real train car.

Back into the car again after stuffing ourselves and onto the beach.

Tyler and I had a fun time walking around the shallow streamlet, picking up rocks, leaves and shells along the way. The water was cold, but not too bad and felt nice for a while. Eventually Tyler did start to get cold (mostly because his shorts got soaked from bending down to pick stuff up out of the water) but he had a lot of fun.

For those that haven't been there, the Oregon Coast is quite a windy place and a great place to fly a kite. So, we bought a kite and Tyler and I flew it for a while.

After that, the boys were pretty worn out (Alex spent his beach time with Grandma and Grandpa mostly) so we packed up and headed south a little ways to a place called Mo's there in Cannon Beach. Tyler and Alex were both so worn out though that they both fell asleep in the less than 10 minutes it took to get there. They slept through lunch, but we enjoyed some tasty clam chowder and fried clams. After lunch the next stop was Tillamook.

Hmmmm... cheese and ice cream. Although before we could get there, we were temporarily stopped by a car fire on the road. Thankfully we got there as they were getting things finished up so we didn't have to wait long. Once we got there, Tyler liked watching the cheese get moved around and packaged... and the interactive computer kiosk. The promise of ice cream got him to move along though.

It was a really fun day that wore us all out pretty good. But any day that ends in an ice cream cone can't be half bad!

Brian's Junior Recital on Friday Nov 2nd

This is mostly copied from an email that my parents sent out.

Brian's recital is this Friday November 2nd at 5:30pm in the Madsen Recital Hall of the Harris Fine Arts Center at BYU. The program is as follows:

Märchenbilder (Fairytale Pictures), op.113
Robert Schumann (1810-1856)

Nicht Schnell
Lebhaft
Rasch
Langsam, mit melancholischem Ausdruck

Suite for Viola and Piano
Ernest Bloch (1880-1959)

Lento
Allegro
Allegro ironico
Lento
Molto vivo

Brian will be recording the recital for use in summer music camp applications, so we would ask that no babies or children who wouldn't be able to sit quietly through the performance not be in the Recital Hall while he is playing.

Hope that some of you can come!

PG Orchestra Concert on October 26th

I decided to join the Pleasant Grove Orchestra this season and we have a concert this Friday. It's at 7pm in the Pleasant Grove High School auditorium (200 S 700 E) if you're interested in coming. It's not the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, or even the Utah Symphony, but it's free and it should be a decent concert. The program is as follows:

Dvorak's New World Symphony
Beethoven's Overture to the Creatures of Prometheus
Pachebel's Canon in D

Happy Birthday to Alex/Growing Up

I can't believe my little baby Alex turned one today.  When did that happen?

Alex very much enjoyed his birthday cupcake.  I don't know if the frosting was a good idea, but he went straight from the chair to the bathtub so it wasn't too bad.  As for presents, we got him a walker that turns into a wagon.  He really likes it and hopefully this will get him walking on his own soon.  He doesn't seem too interested in learning though as crawling gets him where he needs to go (which is usually to Mommy's pant leg).

Tyler is growing up too.  He decided the other night that he wanted to wear underpants to bed, not a diaper.  Two nights and so far so good. At this point I'd be willing to declare him "potty trained".  Of course there is still the occasional accident, but overall he's been doing a really good job.

My boys are growing up!