Goodbye Nick and Sarah

As many of you know - Dustin's youngest sister Sarah and her new husband Nick have been living with us this summer. They were married in April and were looking for a place to stay for the summer while on break from school...well...the wheels got turning in our minds and came up with a win-win scenario for us all! Nick and Sarah lived in our basement, Nick got a summer job at Cabela's and Sarah watched Zachary all summer while Jen was at work. Now it is time for Nick and Sarah to head back to BYU Idaho to finish their degrees (Sarah has one semester left, Nick has two semesters left). We are sad...we don't want Nick and Sarah to go! We have really been spoiled this summer having them around, here is a sample:

• Sarah takes Zach on LONG stroller walks during the day, he has the tan legs to prove it!
  
• Sarah has dinner ready almost every weeknight by the time Dustin and Jen get home from work...we aren't talking mac-n-cheese here...we are talking real meals cooked from scratch.


• Our front and back yard have BEAUTIFUL flowers - all thanks to Sarah the horticulture major. We actually had someone stop in front of our house and take pictures (while we were doing yard work) because they liked the way it looked and wanted to incorporate it with their landscape plans. Maybe we should have charged them for the picture ;)


• Nick mows our lawn...some how we just come home and it is done...we've never asked him to do it.


• Everyone has improved in guitar hero - Dustin had some competition with Nick and Sarah.


• Jen had a shopping partner - Sarah!
  
• Sometimes it is just nice having an extra set of hands to help out on getting stuff done, doing everything alone gets kind of hard with a baby to entertain as well.
  

We know Nick and Sarah aren't too excited to head back to their 550 sqft student apartment - I guess staying in ~1700 square foot basement with your own bathroom, kitchenette with a mini fridge always stocked with sodas, unlimited internet access, 65 inch TV with DirecTV, Wii, and a PS3 will do that to you :).....but they know they are always welcome to come visit us when ever they want (it is only a 4.5 hour drive!).

As a "Thank you" gift to Nick and Sarah for all they helped us with this summer we gave them a Wii....not only will having a Wii make them the coolest student married couple at BYU Idaho, they can keep practicing their guitar hero....

Zach wanted the string....kept him entertained for a while!

Don't you love the shocked look in Sarah's face?

Zach with his Uncle Nick

Here are some snapshots of Nick and Sarah this summer:

The 2nd tooth as arrived!

We can physically see tooth #2! It is right next to tooth #1....so that means both bottom front teeth have broken through! We still haven't been able to capture a good picture of tooth #1....try holding open the mouth of a 7 month old long enough to snap a shot....yeah that ain't happening!

Walmart Adventure

I HATE shopping at Walmart. I really never minded it until we moved to Utah. The closest Walmart is in American Fork - they can not keep the shelves stocked with food and they never have enough cashiers (some times I spend more time waiting in line to pay than I actually spend getting the items I need to buy!). So why go to a store that is always out of what is on my list to buy and takes to long to get out of - convenience. Last night was an evening of convenience. I had to pick up a prescription at Walgreens...and realized I needed some food items for Zach - Walmart is across the street from Walgreens and it was just Jen and Zachary on this road trip. I cringed, but decided to go for the Walmart to make my evening of errands complete.

The 10 minutes of walking through the aisles wasn't too bad, Zach was entertained by everyone walking around and luckily the few items I needed to purchase were "in stock". We were just about to head to check out and Zach's face turned bright red. I thought he was about to scream since he has been dealing with a bought of constipation lately (hence the trip to walmart for specific baby food items recommended by the pediatrician). I picked him up out of the shopping cart seat, put his head on my shoulder...just as he proceeds to throw up his dinner that was eaten an hour earlier....all over my shoulder and projectiles on to the floor....in WALMART!

So what would you do? The only thought I had running through my head was "well I guess I am buying some paper towels now too....". Luckily there was a paper towel dispenser WITH PAPER TOWELS IN IT at the end of the aisle...so the mess on the floor was quickly wiped up. I walked up the check stand (which was thankfully short on this day) payed and we left. Zach slept on the way home and all I could think about is getting home and changing my shirt because I smelled like throw up.

...and that was my Walmart Adventure.....

What is your fancy....

Jen has been a diet coke fan for ages....recently she tried a diet pepsi and now wants to convert. I am not sure if pepsi changed their formula in the past couple of years...but a diet pepsi just tastes a bit more refreshing than a diet coke. The sad part is 99.9% of places you go only serve coke products to drink....Jen was jumping for joy when she had lunch at Applebee's this week and they serve PEPSI products! So what is your preference...diet coke or diet pepsi?

Dustin is a Dr. Pepper lover....some times he is torn between Dr. Pepper and Mountian Dew (depends on what the occasion is that calls for the caffine - long afternoon of meetings at work calls for a Mountain Dew....dinner with the wife calls for a Dr. Pepper). So what is your preference....Dr. Pepper or Mountain Dew?

It is HERE!

Zachary's 1st tooth has FINALLY broken through! It is on the bottom in the middle...just feels like a sharp point at the moment...we will share a picture once it gets to a point where you can actually see it!

A little piece of TEXAS!

We miss Texas-we have no problems admitting it, but just when we think we have a grasp on reality (living in Utah)...our friends in Austin remind us of what we left.....this week it was Texas BBQ! Kwang - thank you thank you thank you for the lovely package. The UPS man had a HUGE grin in his face when he dropped off our large box of SALT LICK BBQ! The box contained a brisket, sausage and ribs - all fully cooked, they just needed to be heated up. Oh and of course Salt Lick BBQ sauce! We decided to freeze the ribs and sausage for now....we can't devour all this Texas goodness in one sitting! The brisket has sat in our fridge for a couple of days now...waiting, just waiting for us to heat it up and serve it Texas style. Today was the day...it truly was an afternoon event!

If you come visit us from Austin - you MUST bring some of this with you...no excuses - THEY SELL IT IN THE AIRPORT IN AUSTIN!

Ahhhh - lovely brisket....heating up to perfection!

All warmed up...getting sliced.

YUMMY!

Keeping with the Texas spirit - we cooked up some other goodies, all recipes from our friends in Texas. The menu included Mom Pinchot's homemade macaroni and cheese (thanks Pinzon family!) and Mango Margarita Pie (thanks Bigbee's!).

Zachary decided to have brisket shark for dinner. He can't seem to get enough of this shark.

There were four of us eating dinner and I don't even think we polished off 1/4 of this brisket. Brisket sandwiches for lunch all week - wahoo!!!!!

Uh - this is a fair?

Jen came across an advertisement for the Utah County fair (we live in Utah County) - the last day of the fair was today. They advertised it was "free"....which to us is odd-we have never been to a fair that was free. Well, good thing it was free because we would have been disappointed if we payed $$ to go to this! It was just a bit too small townish for us. We were just hoping for a bit more to do....we will hold out for the State Fair which starts in just a few weeks. Here is a bit on things we thought were cool:

Big tank...Dustin stratically parked the car right by this thing....you think he still has army blood in him?

What the heck is this? They were so cute...but we have never seen anything like this before!

This is the LARGEST cabbage we have ever SEEN! It was larger than our supersized soda we were carrying around!

Zach got to pet his first rooster! Luckily he didn't try and pull out any feathers!

Lots of sheep at this place - Zach wanted to pull its ears.

Feeding the cow - our child has no fear!

Sick in August?

When ever we think about getting "sick" it seems like it is always winter time...so who would have thought we all would get a cold in August? It started last Wednesday when Dustin we thought had the flu - he stayed home from work for one day. Then ended up getting really congested, but after about three days felt 100% better. So now comes Monday - Zach has a major runny nose. We think (hope) it is because he is teething....he has all the other symptoms of teething. So Zach didn't sleep through the night on Sunday, Monday or Tuesday (which makes for a cranky mom and dad!) Now..today is Thursday and Jen has the runny nose! Hopefully things "get better" in the next day so we can enjoy our weekend!

Hmmmm....too big?

Do you think he has outgrown his swing yet?

A new toy for teething

One of these days Zach's first tooth is going to make an appearance. We are thinking soon, he has been chomping non-stop the last few days, grabbing both his ears and starting to get a runny nose. He chews on one toy for a few minutes then gets bored with it and moves on to the next toy...until this....

Yes - this was Dustin's "choice" of toys to buy at the aquarium today. It's a shark for the pool that squirts water at you when you squeeze it. Honestly this is the best $15 we have spent! Zach started chewing on the shark as soon as we got in the car and he as been chewing on this all afternoon! The plastic the shark is made out of is perfect for his gnawing gums. This shark has other uses as well:

Ride on toy - perfect size for Zach

Toy to keep him entertained while mom and dad eat dinner

Toy to annoy the crap out of our cat Sammie!

Of course we also used our camcorder to record some of this as well, check it out:

The Living Planet Aquarium

Today we took Zachary to a local aquarium - there is one in Sandy, only about 15 miles from our house. Now this isn't anything like Sea world - on the outside it actually looks like an old grocery story that they converted to this local aquarium. They had quite a bit of stuff....tons of fish, squid, octopus, sea horses, stingray (which you can "touch") and starfish (which you can also "touch"). We ended up buying a year pass so we can bring Zach back as much as we want in the next year - if we go a second time in the next year the 1 year pass pays for itself - kind of hard to pass up! Zachary LOVED this place, he was squealing up a storm by the time we left!

New challenge

So we were looking over our blog the other day and realized most of it is about Zachary. We got to talking about "other" things we can blog about that don't involve Zach....we didn't come up with much! It is true that once you have a kid that becomes your life...which right now we are just enjoying...so we don't mind all that much! But here as an attempt at an offical - "nothing about Zachary" blog entry!

We both have been kind of drooling over the Apple iphones ever since they were released about a year ago. Our 1st excuse not to run out and purchase one was the internet on the phone was only available on AT&T's slow network - we had no problems waiting until a 3G version was available. As many of you know, that happened July 11th! So now we are trying to justify spending the $300 for each phone and have an increase in our monthly cell phone bill (maybe $30 more month). This is what we have come up with so far....

We have been married almost 7 years (this October!) and we have the waist lines to prove it! We have accepted the fact that we will never get back to our "thinnest" time of our lives - but dropping some excess pounds is desired by the both of us. So we have decided that we will only buy the new iphone if/when we lose the pounds we no longer want. Dustin wants to lose 20 lbs, Jen wants to lose 35 lbs. Lets see how long this takes us!

Tired boy...

So Zach was just having fun in his jumper this morning while Jen was doing stuff around the house....then it got quiet...for a bit of time...this is what Jen saw:

A passed out child! This is the first time Zach has fallen asleep playing by himself! Jen got him out of the jumper and transfered him to his crib without him waking up! Tuckered out Zachary!

Gray Look-alike Meter @ 6 months

Well - we figured it was time to try this out again since Zach looks more grown up than ever now. Looks like it is a tie!

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