I got tagged...

So I finally have some time to think about another post on our blog. This week has been crazy. Anyway, my sister Jen tagged me to say some interesting things about me. So here goes...

1. I love to go window shopping. Trevor soon realized when we got married that when I saw something in a store and said, "That's really cool!" or "That's really pretty" it doesn't necessarily mean I want to buy it or own it. I think this might have been due to the fact that growing up in Arizona my siblings and I would go shopping a lot (because what else do you do when it's hot outside?) and I didn't really have money to buy anything.

2. Trevor and I like to have random contests such as seeing who can...

• Find the oldest book in a library
• Guess how much a certain article of clothing costs at Neiman Marcus outlet
  
• Express our love to the other person in a mathematical limit approaching infinity the fastest
  

3. I am really bad at taking pictures. I always bring my digital camera places in hopes that I take pictures but I never take very many. This will hopefully change once we have a baby.

4. I like sitting in a parked car with the engine off while it is raining outside.

5. I'm slowly getting over my phobia about drinking spoiled milk. I cannot drink milk if I see it sitting out and I don't know how long it has been unrefrigerated. At least I'm now willing to have milk be outside of the fridge for longer than 5 minutes. I used to think all milk smelled spoiled and I had to have someone else smell it for me to see if it was okay to drink. I also couldn't drink milk straight, but this has improved over the last couple years. I still prefer water to milk, but I don't feel like gagging anymore when drinking a glass of milk.

6. I have a tendency to skim to later parts of a book while I'm reading it to see what is going to happen. For example, if someone is dying I'll look ahead and see if that person is still talking later in the book. I mean, it's not like I know HOW so-and-so made it out of the cave of wonders alive, I just know they did. Trevor doesn't understand my logic in this, but it really does put my mind at ease. I don't like suspense. That's the hard thing about movies... you can't do that.

I think that's enough... Hope everyone has a great week!

One of these semesters is not like the others!

It was confirmed today that I will NOT be having a final this semester for my class! WAHOO!!! This is my first semester EVER without finals! I just have a paper and presentation due on Thursday and then I can continue working on my thesis. My professor said that if we all did well enough on the last exam then we wouldn't have a final. Well, the students know that just means he didn't want to take the time to write a final, but we aren't complaining one bit!

Unfortunately I can't say the same for Trevor, but at least he only has 3 finals instead of the usual 5 or 6. We will definitely be celebrating on Dec. 21st as we drive to Arizona!

Some Internet Information

This post is actually to let you know about a recent post by Trevor on his blog for a class. It's some facts about the Internet. Maybe some or most things you already knew about, but it doesn't hurt to make sure people are aware of these kinds of things.

Also, Trevor showed me this Firefox extension (add-on) that helps block some advertisements shown on websites. I really like having it installed and it makes my Internet experience more pleasant. It only works in Firefox, though, so sorry if you use Explorer, Safari, or another web browser.

Sorry for the lack of postings lately. Trevor has three projects due on Thursday and I have a project due on Thursday as well. Finals are the following week! Then Christmas is almost here!!!

Thanksgiving Extravaganza!

Ah, Thanksgiving! The beginning of the magical season of Christmas. We had a great Thanksgiving week. Trevor's parents drove to Provo from CA and were able to spend the week with the family. All of Trevor's siblings are living in Provo except for his oldest sister. We were able to see them almost every day and visit, play games, and eat good food. I must say it was really nice not to worry about traveling this holiday with it being so short!

Even though this week has been extremely stressful for me preparing a paper for submission to a journal, I was still able to find time to be with family throughout the week. On Thursday morning, we went early to Trevor's grandparents' home so I could "fix up" the gingerbread house I gave his grandparents last Christmas. It wasn't in terrible shape except for broken icicles, some fallen candies, and the back window completed melted off into a big clump of hard candy. At least it was the back window and not the front window! Trevor kept asking if there was anything we could do to fix the window and I told him, "no way jose". Well, I didn't use those exact words, but I told him there was nothing I could do. I couldn't even remove the rock hard candy gloop because it was stuck to the side of the house and cardboard (sorry I didn't take a picture of it). I actually thought it looked kind of comical, though I'm sure Grandma Aurora wouldn't agree with me.

Thanksgiving dinner was really nice. We had about 25 adults and lots of kids at Trevor's grandparents' home. Trevor and I made pineapple cheese salad and everyone really liked it. I was so proud of myself for not having any dessert! To be honest I didn't even crave it. I guess it helps to go "cold turkey" on sweets and never cheat. After dinner and dishes were done, we gathered together around the grand piano and some people got up and sang solos or duets. Everyone did incredible and it was so fun to listen to them. I love being part of a musical family!

On Black Friday, Trevor and I went shopping for maternity clothes and an area rug. I bought a lot of nice clothes on clearance that hopefully I can wear for a while! We also bought a rug we both really like and got it for 55% off. I've been wanting to get one for a while but couldn't justify spending the money on it. I have been waiting for Black Friday so we could find one that was a lot cheaper and still pretty good quality.

I'm looking forward to the next month or so! We are really excited to go to Arizona for Christmas and see more family! There aren't many weeks left of school!

Oh yeah, and GO BYU Cougars for winning against the Utah Utes today!!! :0)

Internet Radio

So this might not be new to anyone else, but if it wasn't for Trevor I would have never heard about it. There is this internet radio website called Pandora that Trevor and I really like. Basically you enter in a song or artist that you want to listen to and then it creates your own radio station choosing music similar to the one you entered. You can let them know whether you like the song or not and it caters the music to that as well. If you don't give a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" on the song, then it just continues to explore new areas of music. If you leave it alone for too long, then it can really get off track (although the website has really improved this feature lately). It's kind of fun because you hear new songs that you may have never heard before. You can also add more artists or songs to a certain station if you like. You can also have lots of different stations like "Abba", "Celine Dion", "George Strait", "Jack Johnson", "Enya", "Yo Yo Ma", and "Jackson 5 Christmas" and you can change the station depending on what you feel like listening to. If you create an account, it remembers all your stations and preferences you have previously created.

Note: If you give too many "Thumbs down", then it will eventually just play the song you are on. You can only skip a certain number of songs (although I found a way around this if you click on a different station you created and then go back to the original station it gives you a new song).

Anyway, maybe give it a try if you like listening to music while you are on the computer or near the Internet. I have found that some artists give better mixes of music than others, so you may have to do some trial and error before you get a mix of songs you like.

Oh! And there aren't any commercials interrupting the music!!! They show ads on their website, but I don't even keep the window on the main screen so I don't notice them.

Californ-I-A here we come!

So after giving it a lot of prayer and thought, Trevor and I decided to accept the internship offer from Microsoft! He will start June 3, 2008 and it is a three-month internship. I don't know how we are going to handle moving with a brand new baby, but we will do it nonetheless. It will definitely be a whole new adventure for the both of us!

Surfin' Safari!

So what a whirlwind this weekend has been! Trevor kept asking his recruiter at Microsoft about when he is going to get a second interview. They finally put his request on rush and he heard back last Thursday. He gave them four potential dates when he could fly out for an interview-- Monday, Nov. 12, as his first pick. Turns out they were able to schedule an interview for him on Monday and he flew to Mountain View, CA Sunday afternoon. Here is a map of where Mountain View is located (it's right near San Jose), because quite frankly I would have no idea if I didn't look on a map! (Hint: Click on the minus sign to zoom out)


View Larger Map

He had four one-hour grueling interviews on Monday and then flew back Monday night to Salt Lake City. Of course, he impressed the interviewers so much his recruiter called him back today and extended him an offer to intern there this summer! It pays a little bit more than what Amazon.com was offering with practically the same benefits and it is SO much closer to both our families, which was one thing we realized last summer was important to us. Mountain View is about 5 1/2 hours driving from Trevor's parents and 11 hours to my parents.

So what would Trevor be doing this summer you ask? Well, he would be working with the PowerPoint team (about 26 programmers total) and they said he would be working on real projects (things people actually see). He also said the Microsoft campus there is really nice. While I can only imagine how incredibly expensive it would be to live there, I think this summer will give us a good indication of whether or not it might be a place we want to end up. With Apple, Google, AOL, Firefox, VeriSign, and Yahoo being right in the neighborhood, there are lots of possibilities for work.

So now we just have to pray about it and make the decision before Friday. I just think this is so awesome and I am so proud of him!

Nausicaa

So has anyone else ever felt the need to name their fetus? Trevor and I did because it didn't feel real to call our unborn child "the baby" or "it" (I also felt weird saying "he or she"). So we came up with the name "Nausicaa". It's from a Hayao Miyazaki film called Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. It's a Japanese animation film and a movie Trevor and I enjoyed watching. Mainly we picked the name because it sounded so much like "nausea" and that was all I could think about at the time. Even though I'm feeling better, the name has stuck and it's a little more real to us now. Although, I'm sure it won't really be real until Nausicaa's born.

Oh, and don't worry... we don't plan to give Nausicaa a Japanese name when he/she is born. :0)

Special Halloween Treat

In honor of Halloween, here is a really interesting edited trailer for Mary Poppins. It shows you how you can take a movie, edit it just right, put scary music in the background, and it makes the movie seem totally different. Trevor and I laugh really hard whenever we watch this because the movie Mary Poppins isn't like this at all!

Here's Scary Mary:



I've now had my "scary fix" for the whole year! :0)

Happy Halloween from the Florence's!

So Trevor and I have had some exciting things happen to us recently.

First of all, Trevor got into graduate school at BYU!!! Hooray! He will start his Master's program in January. We are so excited to almost be done with school. Two more years will fly by, right?!

Second, Trevor and I recently received new callings as Gospel Doctrine teachers. We are excited for this new experience. I've never had a teaching calling before so this is kind of a stressful but good experience for me. You always learn so much more preparing for a lesson than just listening to it.

Third, Trevor received an offer from Amazon to intern there again in Seattle this upcoming summer. He is also trying to get an internship with Microsoft as they are a little bit closer to family (Silicon Valley, CA), but they are being extremely slow about his second interview. He would have to fly out to Washington to interview and they haven't scheduled his interview date yet.

I know there was something else I wanted to mention... Oh yeah... I'm pregnant!!! I'm due May 5th and am about 13 weeks along. Yesterday we had a doctor's appointment and our nurse practitioner was supposed to hear the baby's heartbeat, but she had a really hard time finding it. She said I probably have a tilted uterus and the baby was in the back more. I came to find out this morning that both my sisters have a tilted uterus as well, along with my Grandma Black. It runs in the family... So lucky for me I got to have an ultrasound! I wasn't supposed to have one until 20 weeks, but they wanted to make sure everything was okay. Sure enough there is a baby in my tummy (sometimes I did wonder...) and we saw the heart fluttering at a normal pace. It was incredible! Seeing a baby move inside you is... I don't know how to describe it but I'm sure those who have had kids know how we're feeling. Anyway, Trevor and I were both very relieved that our baby appears to be in fine health. It made all those weeks with morning sickness (actually it was 24 hours/day) worth it!

Just to prove we aren't making this up, here is a picture of our ultrasound. He/she looks just like Trevor! :0) (Sorry if the picture is kind of dark...)

Some criminals pay their price the dumb way...

Trevor showed me this article the other day and we both got a good laugh out of it. Some criminals don't really think before they act (which is a good thing I guess for the rest of the public!).

View article here

A random tip for cleaning/cooking

Trevor and I decided we needed to do some cleaning in our apartment this morning. It reminded me of some tips that we do while cleaning so the fumes are not so strong. If you light a candle and leave it burning in the room while you clean, it burns all the fumes and you can't smell them anymore. It works even faster if you walk around the room with the candle. Then you don't feel sick while cleaning (well, I am sick after breathing in those fumes). It works especially well when mopping the kitchen floor or cleaning the bathtub where the fumes seem to be the strongest. Also, if you have problems cutting onions, light a candle and place it right by you while cutting the onion. It burns all the fumes and you won't have any tears.

This is all that comes to mind right now. I'm not a huge fan of collecting candles for decoration, but boy do they come in handy when I clean or cook!

Conversations between a Computer Scientist and Statistician

It's always been a joy for me to talk to someone who enjoys the technical/math side of life. I mean, doesn't everyone wish to express their love for someone in terms of limits of infinity such as

love =

discuss the limitless possibilities of LaTeX, visualize life in a 2 or 4-dimensional world, prove that nothing is truly random in this world, or describe the effects of programming nirvana?

One of my most memorable conversations we had was when we were signing our contract for our apartment. Our manager came in the room and asked us what we were talking about. Sheepishly we replied, "Oh, just random number generators..." I think that really caught him off guard! He was probably wondering, "Who are these people that are going to be living above me?"

I'm afraid our future kids have no hope for being normal... How can they when they are going to have the most well-designed experiments for Science Fairs. Picture little Timmy in a high pitch voice, "I designed a 2^3 factorial experiment with 2 replicates, 2 blocks, and three center points. I found there to be a significant interaction effect between plant fertilizer and the type of soil used. Furthermore, I found curvature to be significant so I would recommend extending this experiment and perform a response surface rotatable central composite design." Or Trevor teaching young Janet to learn how to program in Java before she learns to ride a bike.

But we have fun. Everyone has their quarks, and that's what makes us all unique!

Things you suddenly really appreciate...

So Trevor and I had an unfortunate experience happen to us today. Last night after watching General Conference at Kathryn's home, we looked in our freezer and noticed our food wasn't as frozen as usual. I thought it was just because we had left the freezer door partially open on accident. It sounded like it was working fine as the motor was running and air was blowing, so I made sure the door was shut tight and went to bed.

In the morning I checked on the freezer and, alas, the food was even more thawed! Basically, our fridge and freezer died. Well, I don't know exactly what's wrong with it, but it doesn't keep anything cold. We lost almost all the food in our freezer (which was a great loss for us because we had it stocked full of food). At least we were able to notice the problem early enough and store some perishables in our neighbor's fridge. You don't really appreciate having refrigeration until you lose it.

With it being Sunday, we didn't expect our manager to take care of it today, but they said that they are going to certainly take care of it tomorrow. Hopefully it will be tomorrow morning instead of tomorrow evening... I have learned to appreciate my fridge and freezer a little bit more! It's been something I've taken for granted in the past. So the next time you walk by your fridge, be sure to give it a nice pat and say, "Thank you for working so hard to keep our food cold!" :0)

On a happier note... Today is our 2 year anniversary of getting engaged! It happened between the morning and afternoon sessions of Conference. In remembrance of our engagement, here is the website we showed when we first got engaged.

My trip to Cambridge!

This weekend I had the privilege of flying to Cambridge, MA for a conference held at Harvard University. While it was an extremely short trip getting in Friday night and leaving Sunday afternoon, I had a great time looking at some of the sites around the area. I also really enjoyed the conference held that Saturday. It was called the "New England Symposium on Statistics in Sports." There was a nice mixture of professionals and academic attending. For example, there was a columnist from the New York Times, an analyst for the Denver Nuggets, some pretty famous academic statisticians, someone from the US National Olympic Committee, etc. One thing I noticed from the conference is that most people are interested in three sports: basketball, baseball, and football. I enjoyed sharing my poster with people and hope that they gleaned some knowledge from it.

So after walking around Harvard campus, I realized that while BYU is a very clean nice campus, it is nothing compared to the architectural beauty of Harvard. It was so nice to walk around campus Sunday morning while there weren't many students around. I tried to take lots of pictures. Sorry I'm not in any of them--I was the one taking all of them. If you would like to see more pictures, you can click on the link to the right that says "pictures".

This is called the "Old Burying Ground" and is found right by Harvard campus. The sign said it was a "burial place of early settlers, tory landowners and slaves, soldiers, presidents of Harvard, and prominent men of Cambridge. 1635." Most of the writing on the headstones had worn away.

Here is a picture of an administration building. Let's play, "Name that Column Type!" See if you can guess the three types of columns that are displayed in the following pictures. (Kathryn and Steven--this is for you!)

I wanted to get some of the architecture up close. This building was called "Memorial Hall". It was probably one of my favorite buildings there.


Here is another picture of the same building farther away.


Here is a picture of the hotel I stayed at, "The Sheraton Commander". I am standing pretty close to Harvard campus while taking this picture.

Here is a picture of their main library (I'm assuming it is the main library. It was a huge building!) Here is another column type you can try and identify!
This reminded me of the old angel Moroni on the Nauvoo temple. It was on top of a church building.
Here is the third and final column type. I thought it was cool I found all three Greek column types around campus!

While most of the campus looks old, there were a select few buildings that were noticeably newer than the rest. This is the science center and the building in which the conference was held. I kind of wish they kept with the old brick style...
The only thing that would have made the trip even better was if Trevor could have come! The night before I left I was really wishing we had just spent the money and bought him a plane ticket. We will have to make a trip back east when we have more time to see the sites.

You're a Good Man Charlie Brown!

On Saturday, Trevor, Summer (Trevor's sister), Kathryn and I went and saw "You're a Good Man Charlie Brown" at BYU. Trevor's brother, Hank, was Snoopy in the play and did a fantastic job (he's getting his BFA in Acting at BYU)! It's a really fun play to go and see and the music is awesome to listen to! We have the CD and love listening to it! We actually love to listen to lots of Broadway musicals like "Little Shop of Horrors", "Secret Garden", and well... those are the only ones we actually own, but we hope to build our music library of musical/Broadway soundtracks someday!

Here is a picture of Summer, Hank, Trevor, and I after the play.

Lots O' Random Memories

So I was in a time of reflection and looked at all my old pictures on my computer. I thought it would be fun to post some of these memories for others to remember and enjoy. Sometimes it's good for me to stop and remember what is most important in life--my family!


This was taken at the Landmark restaurant Christmas of 2004. My mom made a gingerbread house for a contest in Mesa, AZ and she won a gift certificate to the landmark! We went and saw the Christmas lights at the temple afterwards.

I don't really know what was going on in this picture at my wedding... I'll leave it up to the viewer to decide. Neither my mom nor I remember this picture being taken!

Here is Jen and Kathryn at my parent's home in Mesa right before Steven and Jessica's wedding.

This was taken while we were setting up for the luncheon after Steven and Jessica's wedding. It's a good thing Jessica Sharp wasn't looking at Trevor behind her!

This is Steven with Davin, Don Jr., and Dustin (Jen's kids) when we surprised Jen's family and flew out to Tennessee for Julie's baby blessing.

This is all of Trevor's siblings at Heather's wedding. It's the last time all of his siblings were together. (Right to left is Leah, Summer, Mandy, Heather, Hank, and Trevor)

How could anyone not love the s'more nativity set Steven put together one Christmas?

Here are the three couples of Chatham #15 and #22 that were eventually married. Maria and Stephanie were my roommates freshman year, and Eric and Ryan were Trevor's roommates that year as well and also his cousins. We had a reunion after Trevor and I were married and this was taken at that get-together. Everyone's personality shines through
This was taken at my Aunt Becky's house when everyone came up for my graduation at BYU April 2006.

Here is Trevor and I when we stopped in Winter Quarters on our trip to Nauvoo for the Walker family reunion. That was a long but fun drive with Kathryn!

Here is Kathryn with Taylor and Jonathan (Sarah's boys) at Nauvoo admiring the horses. Jessica, Kathryn, and I gave Sarah the afternoon off and took her boys to see some sites.

Heh heh heh! Oh what Sarah and John never knew! The boys dressed themselves in costume clothing at Nauvoo. I thought they looked quite cute! :0)

This was a bouquet of flowers Trevor bought me for my 21st birthday. Aren't they beautiful! I received them while I was teaching a stats lab. I was a little overwhelmed!


This is Trevor's grandpa (mother's father) Blaine Bradshaw. We all just call him "Pa" for short. He lives in Sun City West Arizona, so we try and visit him whenever we go visit the Black family. He just turned 90 this year!

Here is Trevor and I at Heather's (Trevor's sister) wedding. Her professional photographer took this one.



This was taken at the Newport Beach temple when Trevor's sister, Leah, and husband Martin were sealed together. It was a wonderful time for his family and one that I won't forget because it was only two days before Trevor and I were married. It was the first sealing I attended.

Some pics from the past 3 weeks or so...

So I'm trying to be good and update our blog on a frequent basis. Here are some pictures we have taken from California, Arizona, and Utah.

This was possibly the cutest thing ever while we were in California. Summer and Leah were trying to show Katya how to Irish dance. I wish I could have got a picture with her sticking her leg out trying to do it, but she only did it for a little while.


From left to right here is Summer (Trevor's sister), Hank (Trevor's brother), Leah (Hank's wife), and Katya (Leah and Martin's daughter).


Trevor and I went to Knottsberry Farm while we were in California. Neither of us had been there before and it was half the price of Disneyland. This was called the Perilous Plunge and the ride is just as it sounds. We were both completely soaking wet after this ride, but it was way fun! It also helped to keep us cool the rest of the day!

Here is one of those random items they have at amusement parks specifically for taking pictures I believe...

This ride was called the Xcelerator. You started the ride going 80 MPH in 0-2 seconds and up this loop thing and then down again. I can't believe I actually went on it, but it was way fun!
This was the part of the ride I felt like I was going to die.

Here's an overhead shot of Knottsberry Farm from of the rides that basically just takes you slowly up and then back down again. It's mainly for viewing pleasure.


Here is Trevor and I in Tucson Arizona where we saw Steven and Jessica's new apartment and also went to Colossal Caves with Sarah, John and their children Jonathan, Taylor, and Thomas. It was a lot of fun and my first time being in a cave!
This is back in Provo for Alicey's 1st birthday party! I can't believe how old she is getting! Summer was feeding her some dinner in this picture.

Here is the cute cake Heather decorated for Alicey's birthday!

Can you tell Alicey liked the cake and ice cream? :0)

Certain assumptions you can't make about a ward campout...

So Trevor and I had an interesting night last night. Our ward had a campout south of Provo by Hobble Creek Canyon and we decided it would be fun to go and meet new people in our ward. Well, last Sunday we only stayed for Sacrament meeting because we went to our cousin Molly and Taylor's blessing of their new daughter Andie. After the meeting was over, we found some maps in the back of the chapel and assumed they were directions to the campout. We grabbed one and left to make it in time for the other ward.

So Friday rolls around and we realized we didn't remember what time the activity started at. I looked on our ward's website located at lds.org and saw the campout posted from 4 pm Friday until 3 pm Saturday. We left our home about 5:00 figuring it was okay we were going to be late for this activity.

We followed the directions exactly as they were given and were so confused when we finally got to the end of the directions. We ended up at this place with a big sign that said "Grandpa's Shining Mountain: The Laughing Place". There were also No Trespassing signs lining the turnoff. Being a little confused because the directions said to look for sign called "Grandpa's Shining Mountain", we decided to enter anyway and see if we could find our ward there. I wish I had taken a picture, but I didn't feel comfortable doing it with the no trespassing signs all around.

To our surprise the place looked like someone's backyard. It was really small, had a trailer, an old jacuzzi, an outhouse, and some picnic benches. Not a single person was around. We even left the place, drove further up the road to see anything but couldn't so we went back and looked again. We kept thinking, "Yeah, The Laughing Place huh? They are just laughing at us!" We were so confused and couldn't get phone reception so we decided to leave. We figured we picked up a random map because it didn't say anything about the directions being for the campout. We had just assumed that's what they were for.

After driving for a little while back toward our home until we could get phone reception, we called someone from our ward and found out those were the correct directions, we just had the time wrong. It started at 6:30 pm. That's the last time I trust our ward's website! Not wanting to wait around and drive all the way back to that spot (I don't even know where everyone parked--there was no room!), we decided to just head back home and have our own date. We weren't planning on spending the night anyway. We went to Rumbi's for dinner, Best Buy and Michael's to window shop, checked out the movie "To Catch a Thief" from the library, and made really delicious smoothies. All in all it was a fun night, although we wish we could have gone to the activity. I learned my lesson that there are certain assumptions you shouldn't make about an activity without verifying with another person, otherwise you may end up at "Grandpa's Shining Mountain", where they are laughing at you. :0)

In honor of being Tukey's Turkeys...

So I just had the best bowling game of my life! I bowled a 161!!! I got 6 strikes and 3 of them were all in the last frame (3 strikes in a row is called a Turkey). So I guess I did it in honor of being one of Tukey's Turkeys, which is what all the statistics graduate students taking bowling this semester are calling ourselves. I think the rest of my bowling games this semester are all downhill from here... :0)

Our California Adventure!

Sorry it's been a while since our last entry, but I didn't have Internet our last week in Seattle and we have been so busy visiting family. Trevor and I had a good drive to California--we definitely noticed a difference in the greenery between Seattle and California! We only hit a lot of traffic in Portland Oregon (we managed to drive through right during rush hour), but other than that we had a great drive.

We are not in Seattle anymore! No more pine trees...

We have had a blast spending time with family. Trevor's sister and her family are here in town from Birmingham. This is the first time we have seen our niece Katya! She is a cutie and LOVES to be the center of attention.

Hank and Leah are also in town this week (they are driving Summer, Trevor's younger sister, to BYU next week).

Okay, I have to tell a cute story... so Leah and Martin went away on a little getaway for their anniversary yesterday and we watched their daughter Katya. Katya is a momma's girl and always has to make sure her mom is in sight. So when Leah and Martin left she cried and cried. Nobody could comfort her--except Trevor that is. She didn't want anyone else to hold her and it was so cute how she would follow him around and wail if she didn't know where he was. Apparently she adopted him as her temporary mom!

Here is Katya holding her arms out for Trevor.
Now she's happy!

Last night we went and visited Gordon and Chrissy last night which was a lot of fun! We loved their apartment--it was so cute!

We have had a really low-key week, but it has been such a relaxing vacation. It has mainly consisted of sitting around and talking, making food together, and playing games. His family is currently really into the game Settlers of Catan and they just played Cities and Knights of Catan the other day and loved it!

We are excited to go to Arizona on Saturday! I can't believe how fast this summer went, but we are anxious to get back to school.

Here are some more pictures of Seattle. This is the apartment complex we stayed in.

Here is another view of downtown Seattle. Bye Seattle! Hope to see you again! :0)

Some views of downtown Seattle

On Friday night, Trevor and I took some random pictures for fun around downtown Seattle. This one is a truck we saw with random toy cars glued to the top. It was so random, we couldn't pass up the opportunity to take a picture.

This is a picture of downtown Seattle taken on a pier close to our apartment. The arches in the background (Safeco field--baseball stadium) is right by where Trevor works.
We thought this was a cool sculpture right by Pike Place Market. It actually spins around when it gets windy. (That's Trevor holding his hands up.)

This is one of the famous "Pigs on Parade". every year they have a parade with lots of these pig statues doing different things. This one is either covered in mud or chocolate... they leave it up to the viewer to decide. They auction the pigs off to raise money to help keep Pike Place Market running. Some of them get pretty creative!

I'll try to take more pictures this week...