Working In the Garage

Maya decided that it would be fun to work on painting in the garage yesterday afternoon. She painted and I worked on cleaning the garage. We pulled out the old space heater to make it warm and cranked up the tunes on the radio and had a great. We both agreed that it would be cool to convert the garage into an art studio.

Just Like the Old Days

The ski run

The jump

and the not-so-perfect landiing!

I had the chance to go sking last week during our visit to Salt Lake City and here are a few pictures to document how it all went down. The one think I learned was that I can't jump like I use to!

Maya & Maya

For Christmas Maya got a tire horse and decided to also name her Maya. She loves to ride Maya and would spend every minute of everyday swinging on her if she could. On Saturday the weather finally warmed up enough to go outside and play, so the first thing Maya wanted to do was swing on Maya. I spend 2 hours outside pushing her on her horse. That girl loves to be outside!

A New Band?

I just bought the "Everything All the Time" album from Band of Horses and I'm digging it a lot. A few months ago Natalie downloaded their newest album Cease to Exist and I liked it so much I thought I would try their older stuff. I highly recommend both albums.

My Car Turns 100k

During my morning commute today, my car finally hit 100k miles. I have been watching the odometer for the last week in anticipation of the big moment only to be disappointed when I noticed that I missed it due to me singing along to some random song on the radio while trying to make the morning commute more bearable. When I looked down the odometer read 100,002. I guess I will just have to wait another 100k!

Here are some of the car highlights over the years:

• Bought the car in 2002 with 29k miles for $7k


• Put 3,381 gallons of gas in the tank for a total cost of $8,452 over the last 6 years


• Spent over $7,200 on car insurance


• Spent a total of 1,578 hours or 66 days driving in the car


• Natalie was rear-ended only once in the car when maya was 6 weeks old


• I only rear-ended someone once in the car


• Brought Maya home from hospital in the car


• Took many road trips in the car


• Drove for 2 long weeks one winter with the moon roof stuck open which was very cold. I had to pay a sketchy chop shop in North Austin cash to close it. The option was $50 to close it or $800 to fix it. I chose the $50 option.


• Paid a chop-shop cash for a very interesting tint job in North Las Vegas. I wanted a light tint and came a way with dark limo tint. At least it keeps the car cool in the summer.

For the most part the Malibu has been a good reliable car without many problems. I can only hope for another 100k miles!

Wilco on Tour!

Anyone one who knows me well, knows that I love to listen to Wilco. I have been know to listen to them for months and months at a time. It looks like they are on tour again, but so far no tour date has been set for Austin. It looks like Houston is the closest they will come on March 7th. Man I would love to see them again!

Week in Review

Here are a few things that happened this week:

• Visited the Oakland Temple during my business trip to San Francisco. The temple was closed for it's annual cleaning, so I walked the grounds and visited the Visitor Center. I was able to see a first edition Book of Mormon for the first time which I thought was pretty cool.


• Ate the best peanut butter cup dessert in the world. The last time I was in San Francisco I went to the Fog City Diner and had their peanut butter cup dessert and I have been dreaming about them ever since. Sometimes things aren't as good as you remember them when you go back, but it was even better the second time! I can't wait to go back to San Francisco so that I can have them again. I am a sucker for peanut butter and chocolate.


• Got bumped of my flight from San Francisco to Austin and ended up spending the night in some hotel in Dallas. I arrived at the hotel at 1:30 AM and left at 5:45 AM. I guess it was worth the $300 travel voucher even though I am know a little sick.


• Ate two times at Zocalo Cafe, a Mexican restaurant in Austin that we just discovered. The food is great and I can't wait to go back and have another chicken burrito.


• Played the game of Uno with Maya after church today. She loves this game and is really good at it. We played 8 games and she won 6 of them. She has come up with a very clever strategy that almost always guarantees her a win if she gets the right card. It was a blast playing a few games with her.


• We decided to take a drive on Saturday morning around some neighborhoods in Austin that we have never visited. It was so much fun hanging out together. I think the best part for the kids were the Slurpee that we got them at the gas station. Mason ended up wearing half of his Slurpee on his face and shirt. The best part for me was just being back in Austin with Natalie and the Kids.


• Since I was sick most the weekend I took a long nap on Saturday afternoon. If felt so good to get a little bit of extra sleep. Natalie claims that I snored the whole time I was asleep which I have been know to do, but man it felt good to sleep for 4 hours!


• I spend most of Sunday with Mason as were both sick. Natalie took Maya to church and Mason and I stayed home. It was fun to hang out with him. We played blocks and read a few books and he even let me rock him in the rocker. He is growing up so fast so I have to take advantage of every moment with him.


• Finished watching Arrested Development again. I vote this the best TV show ever. Natalie and I both decided that we need to watch all of the episodes at least once a year. This was our second go around and it was just as good as the first time. If you have not seen Arrested Development I recommend that you do.

It was a good week and my favorite part was coming home to see everyone after being gone all week in San Francisco.