Pictures from Vacation

Carter, Kyler (their cousin) and Jackson at the children's museum

Hallie and Grace Carter during his birthday party at Sarah's. Notice the movie is upside down.
Carter ready to blow out the candles on his backward cupcakes. We sang backwards too.
Jackson's cousin Ethan just loved him. Ethan was a cute little guy, always laughing.
Grace catching some z's at the zoo
All the children at home on the couch. Jackson's cheesing, and Carter's looking elsewhere, but Grace looked cute in this picture, so I wanted to post it. A little half-smile.

"Vacation", Vacation, "Vacation"

Well the month of July is almost over and it's been an interesting one for me. This is first full week of the month that I'm going to be in the office, and it's the last week of the month. The first week of the month I went to Utah for a team meeting with my group at work. When we get together for a team meeting there is a bit of work and play, but the work even, is just meetings and conversation, so it's kind of like a "Vacation" from the norm. Plus, I got to play 27 holes of golf that week, including 18 holes on my favorite course ever, Hobble Creek in Springville, UT. Then we played the newer "Mountain 9" at Cascade. That was a crazy course. Then it was the 4th of July weekend, then the next week, I was in the office for Mon-Tuesday and we left on Wednesday to drive up to Indiana for a week-long visit with my sisters Stephanie and Sarah and their families.

That was the actual vacation. It was a lot of fun. The children did really well on the 500 mile drive each way and we had a ton of fun while there. We we able to go to the children's museum, which was awesome. It's about 10 times as big as the one here in Atlanta, and much, much nicer. We also went to the zoo and it too, was much nicer than Zoo Atlanta. Sorry Atlanta, but you really need to pick it up on the family attractions! Tara and I were able to have a night getaway with just the baby which was nice, a little late 10 yr anniversary celebration. I was able to play another 18 holes of golf with my brother-in-law Chris and two of my nephews. That was a lot of fun.

On Carter's birthday, we had a cookout and my sister Sarah threw Carter a backwards birthday party. The streamers were on the floor and the balloons hanging from the ceiling, and everyone was wearing their shirts backwards. The cakes were upside-down cupcakes. It was very well done. Thanks again Sarah! We had an adult night out, and plenty of other time together as a family. Including pizza and bottle rockets the evening before we left. It was a lot of fun visiting with Sarah, Steph and their families. The children were all a lot of fun and great to spend time with everyone. I can't believe how big everyone is getting.

We got back on a Tuesday night and I was in the office for 3 days that week, then last Monday I left for a Mon-Thursday trip to Philadelphia to a client. Typically for me, a trip means I'm at the end of a project, so the time leading up to the trip is crunch-time and while I'm travelling, I'm testing and wrapping up code, and in the evenings while at a client site, I'm working to fix something so that it's corrected for the next day as we run into issues. This trip was just some assistance and training about some things that were already in place, so it was a very relaxing trip with a client that is very easy to work with, so it was another "Vacation". So it was 4 weeks with a total of 6 days in the office. Pretty nice for me. Of course, my two "Vacations" weren't such for Tara. When I was in Utah, the children definitely could have been better, but they went to bed and were much better for her last week. Can't believe we're almost in August already, school starts in less than 2 weeks for us, and this August is 4 years for me at this current position at work, and is my 10 year anniversary with LexisNexis. Crazy! Well, I'm going to post some pictures, but not part of this post, in a separate post. Also, got a new quote I've been meaning to add from Jackson, check it out.

Our Owl, Part 2

Well, if you have been reading our blog from the beginning you will remember that we have an owl that lives in the trees around our house. We find him very interesting, but when we found that he had killed one of the wild bunnies that live around us we were not really happy. We also assumed that he was the reason we had not seen any of the little chipmunks roaming around our back yard this spring.



So the other day Mark found the remains of an opposum in the back yard. We are more than happy for the owl to eat animals like this. When Mark shoveled it up to bury it he realized that it was just the skin of the end part of the possum.

We assumed that the owl ate everything else and left that part. Then we found this gross ball of stuff on the deck; which if you watch Dirty Jobs you might know what it is.

If you dont watch this show then you can go to this link and find out what the mysterious object is. (Or if you are like me and just want to watch Mike Rowe in action you can watch too.)

http://mefeedia.com/entry/dirty-jobs-owl-vomit/10375488/

Grace and Carter

Tara had some pictures of Grace (baby pics) and Carter (6 year old pics) done today. We were going to do all the children together, but Jackson has a rash, so we'll do all the children and Jackson (4 yrs old) soon. Some of these came out really great I think so I had to share.

We've Made it 10!

Ten years ago today on a hot, smoky day in Orlando, FL (fires in North FL), Tara and I were sealed for time and all eternity in the Orlando, FL Temple. Ten years later we're here now with four beatiful children! What a great ten years that it has been in retrospective. Thought I'd share a bit about our beginnings.

In January of 1998, Tara and I were both at BYU but didn't know each other yet. I had a Book of Mormon religion class as the Joseph Smith Building (JSB). For those who don't know much about the JSB is the religion building, and there are study tables in a common area, however it's very quite, almost like a library. I had a free hour before the class, and sat down the first week of the semester to study. I looked up and was taken aback by a beautiful young lady sitting across the table from me. She was wearing a white button up shirt with blue jeans, had short brown hair, astoundingly beautiful eyes and a wonderful smile. I was smitten! The problem was, that I was here in this quite room and didn't get up the nerve to talk to her.

For the next few weeks, I looked for opportunities during this hour break to find her and maybe meet her. Days passed where she wasn't there, or I coundn't sit near her. The idea of just walking up to her and introducing myself in the middle of this very quite atmosphere was very daunting. Then one day I decided that I was going to meet her. I circled the building and found that she was sitting right outside my class in the hall. I made my way and found a seat right across from her and sat there trying to get up the nerve to say something. Right when I'm finally about to say something, a girl (Tara's roommate at the time) comes up and begins to talk to her, and talks to her for the next few minutes until class starts. So I go disappointedly to my Book of Mormon class.

My professor lectures on, as I ignore him sitting engrossed in thought about what to do next to meet this girl. Then I decide to do something completely immature (all though for some stupid reason at the time I didn't think so): I'll write her a note. I guess the idea of handing her something rather than walking up to her and talking seemed less daunting and an accomplishable task. So I wrote her the following note:



After class ended, I walked out of my class in into hers across the hall. I walked right up to her and held out the note and handed it to her, and I think just said "This is for you. Have a great day" smiled and walked out, hoping I wasn't sweating and that you couldn't see my heart beating. She took the note stuck it in her pocket and didn't read it until an hour later! Then she decided the next day after discussing it with her roommates a bunch to go ahead and email me. (Regardless to say, I was checking my email every hour). In her email, she asked me to call her. I did and we talked for a very long time that day, met the next day in person and had our first date that weekend. The rest of the story will get shortened to we fell in love in ways I'm still working to understand got engaged on March 31st (engagement picture below) and were married on June 26, 1998.

How grateful I am for Tara and the blessing she is to me. She has been perfect for me in so many ways that I feel that I would truly be lost with out her. Hopefully I have been half as good to her as she has been to me. So 10 years down, an eternity to go. Hope it continues to get better!

We're Still Here

Life's been busy lately, but I thought I'd get on and say we're still alive and well :-). The children are taking swimming lessons this week, which I think is great, because I'd like them to learn to swim a little better. I have always loved swimming and not been to afraid of the water, but the boys are a bit nervous, even with me, and don't like to put their heads in the water, so hopefully this will help with that.

I got to go to be a priesthood leader last week at Girl's Camp for a day. That was a lot of fun. We really have a great group of Young Women in our ward, and excellent leaders. I played some games with them, and just enjoyed chatting with the girls and the leaders and Paul Hailstone who was the other priesthood there. It was a Ward level girl's camp, so it was just our ward, and I think they did a great job. This Thursday, I'm also chaperoning on the youth temple trip, which I'm looking forward to. I haven't done that in probably five years. I love working with the youth, maybe I'll get a youth calling again someday. For now, I'll just get to call them for interviews with the Bishop (I'm the Executive Secretary).

Grace is doing good, except that she's decided to not sleep very well lately, which Tara isn't very happy with. So hopefully we can get that figured out. Babies develop good sleep patterns at around 10-12 weeks, so a bit more to go before she should get really good sleeping patterns. She's getting very big though. It seems like she's grown a ton each day before we get her up. She's really starting to smile a lot, and even make a few baby cooing noises now and then.

Well, that's all for now. I'll try and post some more later.

Grace's Blessing

On Sunday we blessed Grace. We were able to have her two Settle uncles, Grandfather and the Bishop stand in the circle with us. Hard to believe she's over a month old already. Life is starting to seem more normal with a fourth child now, although I'm not sure if Tara would say that or not. Tara's got a half saved draft of our now somewhat recent owl encounter, but I'll let her finish that post another day. Just a few pictures from yesterday at church of Grace in her blessing dress that Tara made, and blanket and booties that my mom made. Also a cute picture of her curled in a ball asleep on our bed.