Charlotte and Seth, DC Temple

I'll let Melissa fill you in about the wedding, when she gets a minute...

Seth and his family are from Ireland and the newlyweds will be living there as well. At the wedding we were given this "Real Shamrock" which is a wild shamrock from the highways and byeways of Ireland. St. Patrick introduced this little plant to Ireland in 433AD. This shamrock encasing has on it the inscription "Remember that happiness is a means of travel, not a destination." We're going to miss Charlotte and Seth, and hope to be able to visit them in that beautiful country someday.

Ashlee (Cutler) Morris' Wedding Shower

More of Mel's Masterpieces

Melissa finished her cake class but not without a couple more creations to capture. She made a cake in her class where the teacher forced them to design a big freaky clown thing sitting on the edge of the cake, before the class ended Melissa had removed freaky clown dude in preparation to make a cake for me to take to my work. After she got home from the class she threw the design of this cake together in minutes. My co-workers were amazed, and it was a great-tasting cake.

The final cake assignment was to design a bunny rabbit, and Melissa did an excellent job. She's well on her way to wedding cake design world. Or at least she'll be making great cakes for our children's birthdays someday.

Road Trip to Philadelphia (Mar. 1, 2008)

Melissa and I took a weekend road trip to Philadelphia because I've never been there and because my cousin Tom Wakefield's son Adam had a birthday party the Sunday that we were there (happy birthday Adam!). We stayed at the Wakefield's place the night we were there.

The Wakefield's were great tour guides for us ALL day Saturday, they knew their way around and all the tricks of Philly (like picking up tickets to Constitution Hall early), and they have such a cute family, it was great to hang out with them for the weekend, so thanks for everything Tom and Heather. Check out their Blog.

We had way too many photos to post on our blog from this trip, so we threw 39 into the slide show at the bottom of this post, so you don't miss out on all the great pictures.

Milanesas

Melissa whipped up some Argentine food one night. It's this weird stuff called broccoli, cauliflower, and potatoes. Oh yeah and these things called milanesas, and they are choice. Even though broccoli and cauliflower aren't necessarily Argentine foods, nor are they meant to accompany the milanesas, health conscious we are, and our vegetables we eat—Argentine or not.

Happy Leap Year

Melissa is taking a cake decorating class, so we were very blessed this particular year that it's a leap year so that Melissa had something specific to design her cake for, which we took to a Leap Year Day party with friends in the ward, where Melissa's cake earned rave reviews. And it only took 10 days to make :) j/k Mel, only about 3.

Kamikaze Lincoln

Apparently our turtle doesn't like "Lincoln's Park" anymore. He successfully jumped over the edge, twice, but only made it all the way to the ground once. For any of you who haven't seen him for a while, he's grown a TON, (maybe you can tell from the photos) so a drop to the ground isn't going to happen lightly. Both incidences happened while we were at work.

The first jump happened while I was on the phone with Melissa on my way home from work; she said, "Hey, where's Lincoln?" Being that there's nowhere for him to hide his huge hero-in-a-half-shell self in a 20-gallon tank, I told her he must have jumped out. Melissa found him lodged between the wall and the shelf that his tank is on (see photo to know how high up his tank is), suspended above the ground, scared spitless, and breathing like he was hating life...poor thing. He had white paint markings on his shell from the wall for a while, thanks to suicide attempt #1. The second incident happened when I walked in the door from work, and was on the phone with Melissa, I said, "Hey, where's Lincoln?".....enter attempt #2. So I looked to his favorite spot under the couch and there he was, like nothing happened. Silly turtle...kamikaze-ing is for psychos.

How he got out: when his water's high, he can apparently grab onto the filter and pull him self up and—as we now know—over. Once so innocent, now so rebellious. Needless to say, he's lost all high water level privileges. Who knew a Chinatown reptile could end up being so clever. Any advice on how to deal with a turtle with suicidal tendencies?

The Treehouse: White to RED

Extreme Home Makeover: Level 1.
Includes: new brushed metal fixtures to hold certain key bathroom items; classic ruby red paint to kick the kitchen up a notch; new light fixture in the kitchen.

Lessons learned:
1. Red paint actually comes magenta in the can. This will change with dry time and extra coats. 3 of them.
2. Painter's tape is not foolproof and should not be trusted or taken advantage of.
3. Touch up paint should match previous paint.
4. Sharp ceiling spikes are unsafe, unnecessary, and hurt BAD.
5. You can't start painting mid-President's Day Monday and be done President's Day evening. Especially for "deep base" colors. Shoot for 2 days.
6. You learn a lot about previous tenants when you try to paint over their paint job.
7. Installing a ceiling light fixture IS rocket science. And it can light your house on fire.
8. If you have to move your stove for any reason, it turns out you CAN'T plug it into any regular socket. Have you seen the size of that thing?
9. It also turns out that microwaving the same meal you would have made on the stove top is just as good. Who'da thought?
10. A power drill would be a good Christmas gift next year.

Here's our experience in photos, and for the record, we LOVE the new look.

National Geographic Museum Frog Exhibit

Frogs :)

And friends! We went with some friends to the Nat'l Geographic Museum and had fun learning new random facts about frogs. Such as the huge African toad that will attack even humans if they come near, latch onto them with their massive jaws, and not let go until they are pried off. Or the "Gigolo Frog" (Nat'l Geographic said it, not me) that finds one mate, makes frog eggs with her, then find another mate that he tricks into making more frog eggs with so that the first mate'babies, now hatched, can have the second mate's eggs for food and EAT them all. A user and a loser. What a punk!

Or the fact that some desert frogs store water in their bladders in time of drought to have water built up. Apparently the aborigines would stick the tail end of the frog in their mouths and squeeze the frog's stomach to let the water into their mouths...gross. As Shiloh said "we actually call that water something else..." And we learned that the most poisonous animal on earth is a poison dart frog, who has enough poison in its body to kill 10,000 mice or 200 people, or something like that. I think I learned that in 3rd grade during our Rain forest section, but you know, live and forget, learn and re-learn.

The last photo was supposed to be taken of all our feet over the Nat'l Geographic seal, but Jon of course had to move the camera up to take a candid of our unexpectant faces. So unattractive. Thanks Jon.

IHOP National Pancake Day

So, we departed for IHOP to get some free pancakes, but thanks to the worst ice storm of the year, we ended up eating free pancakes at the Smith residence. Let it not be said the Smith's don't celebrate National Pancake Day.

Photoshop 101

Jon had the opportunity to teach and inspire up and coming Photoshop users at the Mount Vernon Stake Arts Festival. Melissa's the one with the chalkboard art skills. I don't know why the yellow picture, it makes Jon look like some professor from the time of discolored photos, the glasses may or may not aid in that look as well. After the class Melissa practiced the piano as Jon practiced his photography. Melissa's famous one-eye look successfully captured.