I miss you Amber!

He's the Logan in Logandale

I have so many memories of Logandale Nevada. This is where I first met Amber's Family. I went to her prom there in 1998. It was hard on all of us when the Asays packed up and moved to New Mexico. When we decided on naming Logan, we never made the connection with Logandale, but it is fitting. Logandale will always be special to us.

A few miles from the Asay house, there is this great spot to go shooting. It became a tradition whenever we were all together to go out and have clay pigeon shooting contests. I was never any good, but the competition was always pretty tight between the Asay boys. Then one day, Bri got a hold of a shot gun and gave all of the boys a run for their money. Logan tried his hand at throwing pigeons...

Logandale is pretty small and I often get in trouble with Amber's mom for poking fun. There are no signal lights in Logandale, and there is only one stop sign. I was in town for the grand opening of the McDonalds... I could go on but I would probably get into trouble. Bottom line though, Logandale was a great place to be. There is a great small town feel and everyone knew everyone.

First week without Amber

It feels like it has been a long time since I posted anything. Amber took Logan and went to Vegas for a bridal shower for her sister a week and a half ago and she took the camera with her, so with no Logan to take pictures of, and no camera to take pictures with, I kind of slacked off on the blog. I joined up with Amber and Logan in Utah for the weekend of the wedding and everything went well. It was fun to be back in Utah to see old friends and to spend time with family and to support Bri. The weekend went really fast and before I knew it I was flying home to Maryland. The week that Amber was gone, I tried to keep busy around here. I went over to Monica and Peter's place for a delicious four course BBQ and then Bern and Eric had me over the next night for burgers and hot dogs. It was the first time since I left Utah that I felt like was home. I am so grateful for the wonderful friends that we have made out here. I hate being away from Amber. I spent 3 months away from her back in 2005 and ever since, I can hardly stand to be away for a day. It sure made it easier having people here to support me. Now I have another week ahead of me before I fly to California to meet up with Amber, Logan and my family. I can hardly wait to see them all again and to finally bring Amber back home!

Jim as Dwight

Question: What kind of bear is best?

I love this show!

You Never Give Me Your Money

Another awesome song from Troubleclef and the Beatles. You have to double click on the post to get it to play.

Less than 3 weeks to go!!

We are all getting excited for upcoming trip to Disneyland. We are meeting my parents and sisters and brother-in-law there and will be spending a little over a week enjoying the park. This will be Logans second time there. We took him last summer and he loved looking around at all of the fun sights. I think he will enjoy it even more this time now that he can walk and ride some of the rides. He is crazy about elephants so I am sure we will be riding Dumbo till we are all dizzy.

Hooray for Halo!

Since we moved to Maryland we haven't been able to throw the Halo parties that we used to. It seems like every Saturday night we used to get everyone over to our apartment and move the couches and hook up 3 or 4 Xbox systems and stay up all night playing capture the flag. Our favorite map was/is "hang em high" (pictured below) It seems like that was the only map we ever played and we got so good at that map that sometimes games would last hours. Once we moved we attempted to hook up over the internet and play but, only Halo 2 works online and our favorite map is only on Halo 1. Well, I guess that enough people complained and the developers finally put out a new map that is modeled after the original (pictured above). We are excited to hook up soon and see if it is as fun as the original. Sorry for the sudden splurge of geekyness, I will try to keep it in check in the future.

End of the Ring Pop

A couple of days ago, Logan wanted to play with the ring from the ring pop that Dana sent for Valentine's day. It is really cool, there is a red blinking light that flashes, in fact, before we figured out how to turn it off, it really freaked me out one night when I got up to get a drink. I was half asleep and when I got into the kitchen and the whole room was flashing red, I thought there was a bomb or something... I was so out of it that it made sense... Anyways, back to the real story. Logan was playing with this in the bathroom. From the other room I heard the toilet flush ( Amber lets Logan flush the toilet as part of his pre-potty training) We usually keep the door shut so when I heard the toilet flush I ran in to find that he had thrown his ring in and flushed it. Well, It was fun while it lasted. Maybe some poor sap at a sewage treatment plant somewhere will get freaked out when he is confronted with the flashing red light...

Congrats to Chris & Chelsea

Our cousins and good friends, Chris and Chelsea, received a new addition to their family this past tuesday. They named her Sydney Brooke. Mom and Baby are doing well and we are really excited to see her when we go to Utah this month.

She looks pretty cute all decked out in pink. I think I see some chelsea in her face...

Mission Update

I try to update David's page once a week. I just wanted to put a little something up on our page as well. It has been almost half a year since David left on his mission to Cuiaba Brazil. We were on our way out here to Maryland when he got his call and so I think our experience with him being gone is a little different than it has been for the folks at home. With the new rules, we get to email him every week, so it is kind of like he is in Utah still (minus the phone calls). I am 8 years older than David so it is kind of trippy to think about him being on his mission. That means I am getting old. He seems to be happy and doing well. We miss him often, especially having him over to the apartment to play games and watch movies. When we were still in Orem, he spent many nights sleeping on our couch so that he could stay up late playing with us. We also miss his humor and his eagerness to help out. I feel like I am writing about him as if he were dead... So let me just say that we really do feel the blessings of his service in our home and our family. We are inspired to be better examples and better people. We will be happy for him to come home!

Bri and Ryan's Wedding Announcement

We are all heading out to Utah for the wedding. Originally, they were going to come out to Maryland to work for a few months, but they changed their plans on us... We're pretty bummed about it. Congrats to the couple-to-be!

UVU!!!

I thought that this ad was funny, especially how they crossed out the blue on blueprint. I am really excited about UVSC becoming UVU. It was kind of frustrating while I was going there when they kept changing around which classes were required. I think it added a semester to my career...

The cool thing is I get a new diploma with UVU written on it!!

The Office - Dwight's Pepper Spray

Amber and I watched this last night and we almost woke up Logan because we were laughing so hard. Dwight can say whatever about Bono and Superman, He is my Hero!

Thanks for the Basket!

Bern and Erik gave us an easter basket for Logan and he loved it. All except for the plastic grass, He didn't like the feel of it on his hands. It was funny to see him weigh it out in his mind. Were the goodies and candy worth the uncomfort required to remove the grass to get to them? In the end, the desire for M&M s and rubber ducky won out. Thanks!!

Eggtastic

Logan starts on his masterpiece that was later sold to a russian museum for millions.

Sometimes the egg dying gets too hard to handle. This drives many to drinking.

We read on the package not to add vinegar to the pink tablet. But we are way smarter than the color experts at "Dudleys" so we added it anyways, thinking it would really make a potent mixture. We were wrong. The pink didn't really work out. But the blue and yellow were awesome.

Last but not least, Jocey got her annual butt-kicking on my easter egg. This was no easy feat. The eggs seemed impervious to the crayon. It took three tries to get it right. Looks like you lost again this year:)

Happy Easter!!

We miss the great times with Grandma Cottrell and the rest of the family, We are trying to keep the traditions alive. We colored eggs while listening to John Denver sing about mountains. We miss and love you all.

We enjoyed an egg fight of epic proportions. We changed the music to the Braveheart soundtrack for effect.

Logan walked away undefeated ultimate champion, and he didn't even have to use Grandma's wooden egg...

My new Toy

Have you ever tried sewing with a monkey on your shoulder? It is quite the experience, let me tell you...

I have been repairing torn pants by hand since we got married, and my fingers just couldn't take any more. So yesterday we broke down and got a Singer!! After spending 6 hours patching pants, Amber asked me if I was happy. I told her, "yes and no." It is one of those undescribable feelings that one only can experience through buying a machine that makes work more efficent. It is hard to get excited over a sewing machine, but hey, sure beats doing it with my fingers...

Go Korea!!!

Amber and I am doing some spring cleaning today and part of that was us finally going through our closet and drawers and taking out stuff we don't wear anymore.

I picked up this little beauty in Korea. Unfortunately, I have grown a tad since then. Logan looks good in it though!

Easter Package #1

Grandma and Grandpa Asay and Uncle Judd sent a fun package this week and Logan loved opening it up. He loves to play in the sand box outside, and we were just talking about getting him a pail and shovel. I am sure he is going to uses these often.

The snacks were also a big hit. He especially loved the marshmallows. He started laughing with excitement after eating one...

Hooray for easter. Thanks for the great package.

Easter Package #2

Thank you Grandma and Grandpa Cottrell for the great Playdoh toys!

We had lots of fun making noodles and bugs.

We really had fun playing. It was nice to have something to do inside while it was too cold to go outside.

It is April Right?

We woke up this morning to a light blanket of snow and frost. How much more of this can my poor Hyundai take?

The flowers were just starting to come up. We were going to go to DC to check out the cherry blossoms but, we didn't want to freeze to death, so it will just have to wait.

Haircut

Last night before bed, we decided it was time for Logan and me to get a trim. The best way for this to happen is for me to get in the tub and cut my hair while he watches, so he knows it doesn't hurt, then sit him on my lap and cut his. Just like last time, Logan freaked out a bit and lengthened the process by jerking his head around. Logan's hair is really fine and it is hard for me to get it all into the jaws of the clippers, so it is no easy task to accomplish. Poor Logan was crying throughout the entire ordeal, the hair stuck to his face where his tears had rolled down. After cutting his hair, I gave him a shower. When he was a baby, he used to love it when I gave him showers, he did not mind getting his head wet and sometimes he would just fall asleep. After he turned 1, he stopped liking the showers and has since become more partial to baths so he can play with all of his toys. So between getting his hair cut and taking a shower, the poor kid was a wreck. He had one of those cries that just breaks your heart, where he has uncontrollable gasps for air every few seconds. Amber was able to pull some magic mommy power and get him to settle down and go to sleep. This morning Amber called and said that the first thing that Logan did this morning was run into the bathroom where I had cut his hair the night before, opened up the shower curtain and said, "Daddy?" Amber told him that I was at work and he said, "oh." What a cute kid. I hope he didn't have nightmares about getting his hair cut. I remember being afraid to get my hair cut when I was young. I thought that it would hurt, and I believed it so strongly that I would terrify myself into hysteria before the cutting would even start.

빼빼로 Nummy Nummy

I brought home some Korean snacks called pepero. They are pretty much just chocolate covered pretzel sticks.

I think he likes them. Next up... Kimchi.

this was a first

Maybe daddy needs to change his music habits.

He did this for about 5 minutes in the middle of dinner. ??????

More Monkey Trouble

Mom, can I take the monkey outside with me please?..... Nope.

What do you mean I can't, we are best friends, I can't go out alone... Nope

But mom, I need to go outside, and I need to be with my monkey, so please let me go outside with the monkey... Nope

Poor kid got all worked up for this one. After all of that drama, he needed a hug to feel okay enough to ask about the monkey one more time...

wheelbarrel team

He is surprisingly fast on his hands.

My Current Dream Car

either one will do, but I don't think that the Lambo is realistic...

Biking Around Lake Elkhorn

Here is the only map I could find of the lake, It is a pretty small lake but very scenic with thousands of trees and a path that makes you feel like you are in a forest. There are ducks, swans, and turtles enjoying the lake. Many people fish there, but I haven't seen anyone catch anything. Their are over 10 miles of trails that weave around the lake and surrounding area. The main trail that circles the lake is 1.8 miles and has several inclines and declines. Today we circled it 3 times on our bikes at a pretty good pace.

Here is a pic we took last fall of the lake, the leaves are all gone now, and with the warm weather continuing, the trees will soon be green again.

Logan was a little upset that he had to wear a helmet, but he forgot about it after Amber started down the trail. He loved having the wind in his face. Our legs and butts are sore but we will all sleep well tonight. Hopefully we will be able to go again soon.