April Recapitulation

Late report. Sorry. We just haven't been able to find the time to write this up until tonight. Everything is going well and we have had another busy month.

April started with April Fool's Day thinking Holli was going to get her mission call that day, prepared for any nonsense that may come because of the day, and even met at Red Robin to hear the news, but alas it was a day late. But the great news is she is going to the Roseville CA mission.

We had another adventure with General Conference. Hilary dropped the nephews off and we had a slumber party over at our townhouse. Once the parent's left, the party started, according to the boys. We spent all night playing Wii. At 10:00 Mandee and Camshaft were ready to go to bed, so they put the Clone Wars series on, hoping the boys would fall asleep, but they both outlasted their aunt and uncle and didn't actually doze off until well after midnight. The rest of General Conference was good too, if not quite as exciting. We had the boys over once again later in the month, this time along with Heidi. They boys had a blast, but Heidi was very melancholy. It was the longest that she had ever been without her Mom! But she did pretty good and only cried a little bit.

Mandee's Mom and Dad came to town to visit Easter weekend to take Holli through the temple. We also had everyone, including the Villasmils, over for easter dinner. The food was good. The rest of the week was spent getting more last-minute prep done for the May wedding.

As far as excursions go, this month was fairly quiet. We did take a trip up to Morgan and Devil's Slide and had lunch at Steph's Diner, which is owned by Camshaft's good friend JR. We drove around the town and Camshaft showed Mandee all his old stomping grounds like the school, fair grounds, Como, and Commercial Street.

So anyway, that's the month in a nutshell. Hopefully, we will get May's update out a bit sooner in the month.

March Rehash

So, another month has come and gone. We stay busy and try our best to enjoy life like always.

The month started with the baby blessing of our new little niece, Ruby, the first day of the month. It was great to see Camshaft's family and the old friends that gathered for this special day.

In fact, we did a lot with the family over the past month, and saw pretty much everyone at one time or another, except Mandee's Mom and Dad in Seattle, that didn't quite make it down this past month. Some of the activities included Chelle's birthday, Greg staying a night to go to a job convention, Patrick, Michelle, and Sean coming over for a game night, and going up to Mt. Green for St. Patrick's day to visit Camshaft's parents and partake of the Irish feast that Camshaft's mom had made.

We also had Holli at the house for a weekend and went to the Gateway to hang out for an afternoon. Lunch was furnished by Costa Vida and the entertainment by the Clark Planetarium. We saw Under the Sea 3D. Getting memberships for the Clark Planetarium has been a great investment. For only $25/year, we have made it worth the price at least 2 times over and have seen a ton of cool an interesting movies and laser shows while visiting. It's become one of our favorite dates.

Mid-month, Disney on Ice was also in town. We went down with Holli, Victor, and Chelle to Energy Solutions Arena and watched the show. Mandee had a great time, and Camshaft had a good time hanging out with Mandee, and hey, at least he got nachos. And he got to make fun of Holli's Flounder hat.

Another one of our favorite hang-outs, the Terrace playhouse, had been playing the Music Man, so we decided to go and check it out. It was not our favorite, and like always, Mandee enjoyed it a little more than Camshaft. But it was very well produced, and was one of the more elaborate and larger plays we have seen there. Camshaft could not help quoting the Simpsons episode "Marge vs. the Monorail" every chance he got.

We are also working on a new Wii game. We beat Dokapon Kingdom, so we bought Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time (almost takes two breaths to say) for our Wii and DS so we can play with each other simultaneously. There's still a lot left to do, as we bought it towards the end of the month, so we will be working on it for a while yet.



So that's about it. We are excited for April (Conference, Easter, mission calls, wedding prep) and will keep posting about what we are doing.

February Rundown

Well, things are finally calming down a bit since the hectic months surrounding our wedding. In February we had a bit more time to relax (and no one with major illnesses), but we did do some fun things.

Valentine's Day ended up being a lot of fun for both of us We went up to Cache valley to the Providence Inn and spent the weekend up there. It was a really nice bed and breakfast that not only included the room, but also all the popcorn, hot chocolate and cookies that you could eat, as well as free DVDs to play in the rooms.

While up there, Camshaft decided to take Mandee on a tour of all of his old haunts while at USU. We drove by all his old apartments and walked around campus (Which has changed a lot since he attended school there, with the new library and whatnot). We had dinner and lunch at the Bluebird and El Toro Viejo, before ending up at Hilary and Mark's for a good visit with them and the kids.

Mandee's family also made a trip to Utah again to help out with Chelle's wedding. The boys and girls went their separate ways for much of the visit, but we got together again to eat at Golden Dynasy and to go see the 3D movie Coraline. The design and the 3D was cool and we decided we didn't hate it, but it was really wierd and didn't explain a lot of things. Also, really not a movie for kids, as there is a lot of creepiness all over.

But other than that, we have been settling in on a routine, inviting family to come over when they are in town or available, and just going to work and enjoying each other's company. We have been playing a lot of Dokapon Kingdom on the Wii, Mandee has been quilting and cross stitching, while Camshaft plays Warhammer: Age of Reckoning with his boyz on Thursday nights.

So that's that. Hope everyone else is doing well these days.

January Round-Up!

Ok, Let's see, what did we do in January?

Well, for New Year's we ended up at Chelle's house celebrating with her, Victor, Greg and Holli. Camshaft somehow convinced them to try out the new edition of one of his favorite board games, Talisman! And they actually kind of liked it, at least they said they did. We spent the night and woke up early. Mandee went with the girls to shop and quilt, and Camshaft went up to Mt. Green to hang with his boyz.

And big news! Patrick and Michelle had their baby, a sweet little blonde baby girl named Ruby. We are an aunt and uncle again!

We also saw the movie Bride Wars with Mandee's sisters. Reviews were very mixed. Mandee thought it was entertaining. Camshaft can't quite put into words what he thought of it, but it was pretty much all negative. But it was fun to spend an evening together.

Little Heidi also had her birthday! She turned 1. We got her a Glow Worm, which she really seemed to like. We had a good time seeing Camshaft's family.

Mandee's mom also came up from Seattle to help Chelle prepare for her wedding. Mandee tagged along while Camshaft went and hung with his boyz. See Chelle and Holli's blogs for more details!

We have been trying to see most of the plays at the Washigton Terrace Playhouse since we started dating. Right now they are playing Blithe Spirit. It was an interesting crowd. Looks like there was some sort of high school drama conference going on. Luckily, they seemed at least somewhat serious about it, and they were fairly well-behaved while the play was going. It was a funny story about an author, who's wife had died and had re-married, that invites a medium over to his house to do some research for a book that he's writing. Well, the medium ends up summoning the spirit of his dead wife to the house and hijinks ensue! We quite enjoyed this one and was one of Camshaft's favorite's so far.

As a wrap up, we went and toured the Draper Temple. What can you say about temples that hasn't already been said? It was very beautiful. Its dimensions were interesting though. They are saying that it isn't what they call a "small" temple, but it didn't seem full size either. Some of the remarkable features included, a baptismal font decorated with cattails (besides the regular bulls) two small ordinance rooms decorated with murals, and a spectacular chandalier in the celetial room.

After the temple, we drove up to Mt. Green and had a Chinese New Year's celebration with Camshaft's family. We enjoyed hot and sour soup, won tons, char siu bau, potstickers, sweet and sour chicken, orange beef, fried rice with lop charg (not sure how to spell that) and almond cookies. We enjoyed the rest of the evening with the family and played Crossbows and Catapults and Lego Star Wars with the boys. Oh and BTW, it is the Year of the Ox!

Well, we think that about covers everying for January! Hope everyone is having a great year so far!

Holidays Part II

OK, this may be another lame picture-less post. We are getting really good at forgetting our camera for everything.

So anyway, it's been a holly-jolly Christmas! Mandee's parents came down from Seattle, despite the horrible weather up there. Between all the cancelled flights and hazardous conditions, they were lucky enough to have had their flight scheduled in between one of the lulls in the weather up there.

We met up with them Christmas Eve for the Mandee's extended family's open house at her grandmother's. There was lots of good food, and we watched a movie that Chelle had put together about Grandma's Christmases many, many times and said hi to some of the uncles, aunts and cousins.

That evening, we spent the night up with Camshaft's parents and spent the evening hanging out and playing games there with the whole family: Mom, Dad, all the siblings, their spouses, and the niece and nephews. The nephews were pretty wound up. At one point Brennan stated that he couldn't stand not opening a present for one more minute. Hilary finally relented and let them open the watches that they have been given. We think they were hoping for something a bit more exciting, like a video game or a toy, but when Camshaft asked if they would give him their watches, their answers were in the negative.

By 8:00 the next morning, the wrapping paper was coming off of presents at a frenzied pace. The boys were definitely the most fun to watch. Decker was very enthused about a LEGO Batman game he got and Brennan was excited by pretty much everything he got, tools, a castle (That we spent 2 hours trying to put together), and a treasure box, complete with the requisite pirate plunder.



We spent the rest of the morning playing games, eating everything in sight, like Christmas ham and sweet rolls, and enjoying our time with family. In the early evening, we braved the conditions and headed to Ogden to Chelle's house, where we had Christmas II and opened all of the presents that we had given and received from Mandee's family.



The main activity of the evening ended up being watching Mamma Mia. The reviews were very mixed. Mandee loved it and Camshaft did a lot of eye rolling and sighing.



The ride home ended up being a white knuckle ride. By the time we got out towards the west side of Ogden to get on the interstate, the weather was awful, but we made it home, slowly and surely, just in time to go to bed and get ready for another fun-filled day in Mt. Green. We mostly did more of the same, played with the boys, and played games. We also broke out the new Cooking Mama, which everyone enjoyed.



Saturday was the big party with Mandee's family. They all headed over for an all-day party, where we spent the bulk of the day playing Rock Band, which Mandee's parent's had gotten us for Christmas. Too bad we don't have pictures, as we all pretty much made fools of ourselves. We also busted out Cooking Mama and Loaded Question while enjoying Mandee's pulled-pork sandwitches. Good times were had by all.

So anyway, there's our Christmas activities. Hope everyone had a good one as well. Here's to a happy 2009 for everyone.

Holidays Part 1

Yes, we know. We have been slackers. We keep putting off posting, because we are afraid we will foget something that we did.

But we'll just post what we remember and let it go at that.

It's been a fun month. The holidays are gearing up. Thanksgiving was a blast. After spending the night before with Mandee's incoming family at our house, we ended up at Mandee's aunt Julie's house for the big meal. And we do mean big. There were like 35 of us there. We ate and ate and ate and then went over to Chelle's house to visit with her new beau's family and with each other. The next day we ended up at Camshaft's parent's house and spent a nice afternoon with his family. We've been lucky to see them quite often and especially enjoy going up there when the niece and nephews are there. Heidi is so cute, Decker is so fun to play with and talk to, and Brennan is so funny.

We also made a trip to Temple Square with Mandee's parents, down from Seattle, and siblings to see the play "Savior of the World."
It was very well done, with a large cast and a very cool, modular set that they could transform into about everything. We enjoyed it very much and were glad it helped us keep focus on the most important aspect of the holidays.

After a meal at the Lion House and the play, we saw the lights at temple square and then headed down to Mandee's grandparent's house and stayed the night there. Here's a couple of shots of us at temple square, one with just us, and one with Mandee's whole fam (We stole from Chelle and Holli):







That weekend was also Mandee's birthday. We had a great time with everyone, and Mandee finally got her big mystery birthday present that Camshaft had been holding on to for about 5 months, a Nintendo Wii. It's been fun so far, although we've probably been spending too much time playing Lego Star Wars

Another highlight was going to the Scrooge: The Christmas Carol musical at the Washington Terrace Playhouse. We went along with Holli, Chelle, and Victor and had a good time. It was quite the production, and their big finale of the year, with a huge cast and lots and lots of musical numbers.

So anyway, that's all we can think of at the time. Things have been good and we are looking forward to spending the holidays with friends and family. Thanks for all your love and thoughts this holiday season.

We hope everyone has a merry Christmas and happy holidays.

The Wedding Pics

So they are finally here!

We think we will just let the pictures tell the story:























Sorry the format is off. It just doesn't seem to format well.

Thanks again everyone that was there for all your love and support. We wished we could have taken a day to spend with each of you and we miss all of you that we don't see as often as we would like.