Seth

Seth continues to be a dream baby. He sleeps well, he eats well--loves all fruits and vegetables. He's happy almost all the time. And he's so adorable! We all love him so much.

• He loves to read books. Since he could hold a book, he can be entertained literally for hours with his bucket of books. He opens and turns the pages and "reads" aloud to himself.
• He copies words and sounds. He doesn't like to talk on demand, but some of the words he's said are Jesus (this is the word he says the clearest), silky (gigi), dada, mama, kids
• He is walking and running and almost jumping. He loves to walk up and down uneven surfaces. When we go to the park he loves going up and down the curbs as much as climbing on the playground.
• He loves being let free in the backyard
• He gets really happy when Rachel gets home from school and gives her lots of hugs.
• He loves to play with things we use a lot--the phone, the computer keyboard and mouse, the piano
• He doesn't love strangers. He doesn't like going to the childcare at the gym at all, so I try not to take him much. He doesn't like babysitters. And he's even wary of family when they come to visit for the first couple of days.
• He loves to throw balls and stack blocks.

Danny's Baptism

Danny was baptized on May 1. We're so proud of him. He's such a wonderful boy. Gma Zonda and Gpa Cliff and Dustin, Kristal and Casey came and Gma Linda and Trina. We left the younger kids at home for lunch so it was just a special time for Danny. He requested that we got to Red Lobster for his lunch-he loves seafood and wanted to try lobster. He ordered a huge plate with lobster tail and two kinds of shrimp. He loved it. And Aaron and Rachel loved his leftovers!

The baptism started at 4:00. Everything went great. He said he felt the spirit there and he was happy. He taught family home evening on the Monday after so it was great to hear him talk about it. He has a great testimony that just keeps growing.

After the baptism we all went to Uswirl--the kid's favorite ice cream place. He got a few gifts--a CTR tie and a book for him to write his memories in and Rachel made him a new pillow case. Sandy and May, our wonderful next-door neighbors came. We were so glad they could make it. They seemed to enjoy it, although it was a little crowded and there was a lot of shuffling of rooms because it was a stake baptism and there were several kids being baptized this month. But they were genuinely interested and happy to be there.

Triathlon #3

I decided to compete in another triathlon last Saturday (April 17) down at Lake Mead. This was my third in six months. It was my best performance yet, even though I didn't train for 3-4 weeks prior to the race due to an injury. I placed 86 out of 161 (117/242 overall and 14th out of 24 for my age group) for males in the sprint competition - middle of the pack.

The water in the lake was 60 degrees at start time. I sure was happy that I paid the money (even if it was $50) to rent a wetsuit and avoid symptoms of hypothermia. I swam the same route in October for my first triathlon and this time I was able to shave nearly 4 minutes off of my time. I'm sure the buoyancy of the wet suit had nothing to do with it.

The bike course was pleasant, too. We rode for 20km along Lakeshore rd. Elevation gains were tame in comparison to having to bike up to Boulder City like the Pumpkinman Triathlon.

The running portion went well. I ran along the unpaved shores of Lake Mead for about 1.5km out of the 5km. The remaining distance was on pavement.

I got to carpool with one of my friends who is building up his resume to compete on the USAF's Triathlon Team. He's competing once a month at the Olympic distance (1500m swim, 40km bike, 10km run - twice the distance I do in the sprints) and puts up some awesome times. You've got to have some stamina for those distances.

Here are my times:
Overall - 1:43:01
Swim (750m) - 20:57
Transition 1 - 4:18
Bike (20km) - 48:23 (15.4 MPH)
Transition 2 - 2:31
Run (5km) - 26:55 (8:41 mile pace)

Here is the link to my event photos and here's another for my friend (I make a cameo in his photos where he is helping me out with my wetsuit).

The Anatomy of a Cow

This was a video from our San Diego/La Jolla visit that we took a year ago. I see a future for Aaron in the medical field

Rachelisms

I don't know what goes on in Rachel's brain most of the time, but it seems like it would be an awesome place to visit. She has a unique and humorous way of communicating things.

Here are a couple of examples:

I just got some new running shoes and decided to get some inserts for them. Rachel saw the inserts and exclaimed "Ohhh, are these comfortable pads?"

Rachel once clarified the mystery of the postscript like this "P.S. is a short way of saying I forgot something."

"Usually animal's bums are under their tails, so it won't be embarrasing for them."


These quotes remind me of a three year-old Danny telling us "Did you know that if you step on a bug it stops moving?"

When Hugs Go Wild

We spent part of this past Sunday enjoying the nice day on the Las Vegas temple grounds. I decided to take photos and videos of the kids when I caught this one tape (memory stick?). I had to share.



Note how Aaron's zombie arms go up at the end of the video. Calling his name out clearly has an effect on him.

Not so much.