“that belongs in a museum!” new

This is very very late… but Alexis and I have moved back to Boise.  We’re living in Eagle, pretty close to everyone.  It’s nice, and definitely easier.  More to follow.  

Updated pictures are posted at pix.ckburgess.com

So…

Alexis and I went home for Thanksgiving this year.  It was very fun and nice to get away from work and be back home.  We had delicious food and got to see everyone.  Alexis loves Adam and he was able to persuade her to finally walk.  YES!!!  She’s been taking lots of steps here and there, but never seemed to have the confidence to do it on her own, so it was very exciting.  She is running all over the place now.  Very exciting and cute.  I’m very happy about not having to carry her everywhere, though my right arm is getting freakishly strong.

Aside from Alexis walking, not much else is new.  Since we do live in Salt Lake, there has been tons of snow in the past couple days.  Not bad, but very cold and annoying.  It takes a really long time to get anywhere and everyone has been skipping work to go skiing/snowboarding.  Work and everything else has been good though.  I think that’s all I’ve got… here are some pictures…

I realize that it has been months. We’ve had a lot of stuff going on, so I’ll try to cover it…

To start with, our best friend JJ died. This was probably a couple months ago, and we don’t like to talk about it, but a couple people have wanted to hear about it. We don’t know exactly what happened, we just came home and he was sleeping in his bed, but never woke up. Very very sad. The only explanation we may have is some trash he could’ve eaten (but he’s eaten everything and been fine), or the heart problems that plague Jack Russells. We had a little funeral for him and Cole dug him buried him in hundred degree weather.

After a while, I couldn’t handle the quiet any more and went searching for a new friend. I found Lola at the scary shelter (West Valley, of course) where she was the only dog not barking and screaming for attention. Instead, she was sitting in the back of her cage shaking… which is exactly what she did for the first week at home. From what I know of her, she’s about 4, has gingivitis (sad!!, but we she is going to the dentist soon), and appears to have been abused. She’s pretty beat up and is still really afraid of sudden movements and people in general. Lola is another Jack Russell, but is a completely different. She’s extremely calm and lazy: she won’t even fetch and sometimes has smashes into the side of the bed several times before making it up. Overall, she’s very sweet, but it is still a little strange not to see JJ’s little head poking out from under the covers at night.

On a much much happier note…

Probably the biggest of the events would be our wedding. We had a small outdoor ceremony in Boise (beautiful flowers thanks to the ridiculously hard work of Dad and the crew at home) and an hopen house following. It was really nice to be back home, and everything went very smoothly. Nadine and Sandy are mostly to thank for that since, after a certain point, I kind of avoided all of it. We tried to get as much taken care of before leaving Utah as possible, but there was still a lot of running around and preparation after arriving in Boise. I think it turned out very well. Cole, who I think was a little freaked out, didn’t really know a lot of the details and was quite surprised at how well it looked. Good thing he has so much faith in my planning abilities… haha. It really wasn’t me doing much at the end.

We (meaning myself, Dad, Cole, Sandy) started by making all the invitations. The mass production was mainly done at the cabin, yay! While we were there, Alexis turned one. She’s getting so big, it’s ridiculous. She enjoyed her cupcake and had a really good time playing up there. For more, check Dad and Sandy’s blog, here.

On a side note, Cole and I took Alexis to the doctor today for her wellness check and her shots. Shots, obviously, were not her favorite. But, everything else is going well. She’s developing well and knows lots of words for her age. She’s up to 20.5 pounds (25th percentile), and 31.5 inches tall (95th percentile). Again, she’s tall and skinny. Hopefully her freakishly long (and chubby) legs are a reason she isn’t walking yet, who knows. In addition to the roaring, she now says hat, head, cup, up (she can only make so many sounds), and can tell us where her nose is and what the doggie says.

Back to the wedding. We were lucky to have a lot of help and a lot of people come to see/support us. We had Cole’s family as well as our neighbors drive up from Utah, Kim and Winny in from Seattle, Engs from Canada and eveyrwhere else, and a lot of people driving from all over town. I was very very excited to see everyone–it’s been forever, so thank you. While I really didn’t want a fancy, over-the-top wedding, I did get the nice celebration that I wanted. Yummy food, and we got to see lots of people we like. The high school and Asian reunions were funny to see.

We stopped at Mom’s house the day before the wedding and caught a little bit of the Olympics. Cole said something to the extent of, “It felt so weird– sitting in a room full of Asians watching Asians… I’ve never been the minority before…”. Ha. The house also got toilet papered while we were there, which was kind of funny since it was probably not even 10 pm.

We haven’t gotten pictures from our photographer yet, but I’ll be sure to put them up and send out copies to those that want them when we do. Here are just a couple.

After the wedding (Aug. 9th), we left Alexis with Dad, Sandy and the twins (sadly, she refused to learn to walk from them) who were nice enough to watch her. They said she was good; I don’t know how much of that we believe. For our few days off, we went up to the cabin in Donnelly. We love the lake and the mountains, and the relaxation was perfect. Cole and I got to jet ski, swim, bike, ice skate and obsess over Michael Phelps and the entire US team at the Olympics. He’s a freak of nature, by the way. It was perfect. We love it up there.

And now, sadly, we are back in Utah and both back to work. School is starting next week though; we are both really excited. Me more than Cole I guess. We were lucky enough to get Alexis into a really good childcare program on campus for the few hours a week that I will be in class. I’m a little afraid of daycare, but hopefully it will help her gain some much needed social skills and it will be really nice to be learning things again.

And to Nadine… Probably the strangest thing to happen so far is my new hobby. Haha, as much as I hate it (and really, I do), I’ve been going to the gym and running. Seriously. For all those who know me, they should be well aware of my aversion to any physical activity. But, I’ve been bored and sitting on the couch eating ice cream hasn’t been cutting it. So ha Nadine, I’m up to about 5 miles a day, almost every day. It wouldn’t happen without the iPod. Within the last week, I’ve watched the first Harry Potter and have made it through a good portion of the first Lord of the Rings.

This is probably the longest blog <ever>, and hopefully I’ve gone over some of the more important points of our lives. Again, thanks so much to everyone for coming to the wedding and for all your help.

Today we decided to get an annual membership to the Hogle Zoo. Since it is only five minutes away, we will

definitely be visiting more. Alexis seemed a lot more into it than before, which was fun to watch. It was a nice day, finally over 60 and not

snowing (shocking). Needless to say, there were a lot of other people that were eager to get out of the house too.

Meanwhile at the house…

We got Alexis a walker and she has been running around the house. Everywhere I turn, there she is at my feet. She’s pretty good at

maneuvering– the walker isn’t small, and only the front two wheels move, so she has learned how to back up and turn and make it through the halls and in and out of rooms. It’s pretty impressive. She’s also made the realization that she has teeth, and is going through crackers and cereal like crazy.

As far as Cole and I go, we got Guitar Hero a couple weeks ago. After spending hours decking out our guitars, we started playing… pretty much nonstop. Unlike Cole, I am not so into eighties hair metal, grunge, and nineties punk, so it was a little tough as I knew probably not even ten percent of the songs, while he knew them all. Although, it was a little sad for me to find out that I knew all the Iron Maiden songs and the majority of their lyrics. We did start up a band and finally beat it on medium. Yes!!

Aside from that, everything is just work and wait until we can stop working.

Hi all –

Sandy/I had a quick trip to UT and dropped in on Kim/Cole/Alexis (and JJ) to say hello.  This is the short video we took.  Pictures can be seen here.

[quicktime]http://blog.ckburgess.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/alexis2.mov[/quicktime]

Thanks for accomodating the impromptu visit.  See you next in Boise.

Alexis is almost 8 months; it’s going by fast. She’s still working on her crawling and walking skills, and is getting pretty at both. Her feet don’t seem to have really grown at all– she still wears her newborn shoes– which may be making it a little difficult for her to balance. Who knows, she still hasn’t figured out that she can walk with her whole foot, not just on her tiptoes anyway. Even so, it’s coming along well. She’s doing pretty well at walking around and jumping in her crib.

She has also finally started to eat vegetables and pretty much any food she can get her hands on, which has been a nice change. Alexis already has her 2 bottom teeth and her top front teeth are coming in, so we now have to be careful about getting our hands anywhere near her mouth: they are sharp and she bites hard.

However, Alexis is still the happiest baby around. We’ve been able to have people over and go to a couple work parties well past her bedtime and she’s been very well behaved through it all, lots of times also trying to join in the conversation.

That’s about it. We haven’t been doing much, just working and playing Wii, pretty exciting. We also really like It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, funny show, we watch it a lot.

As we all know, it is coming out May 22. Cole and I are super excited, and were even more excited to finally find a trailer and Harrison Ford in action. YES!!!!!!!

WATCH NOW

Yay for new furniture!  FINALLY, we have some storage and everything has a home (as opposed to the floor).

I love IKEA.  However, when buying these shelves, I did not realize instructions were not included.  What was included, however, were about 50 small attaching pieces, at least 20 boards, 3 boxes, and again, no instructions.  2 trips to IKEA (located in Draper… it’s not close), 4 hours, 3 exchanged pieces, and 2 hours of assembly later, our beautiful shelves were born.  Note that they are not small– they are about 6′ x 6′.  And that the first time we started making them, we made the horrible horrible mistake of doing so in our living room.  Which is a hallway and horrible angle away from our bedroom.

This week, I spent a couple days refinishing one of Cole’s old dresser’s for Alexis.  If you haven’t seen it before, imagine an old oak dresser covered in sharpie and drawings, covered by a layer of paint.  Now imagine the sharpie soaking through the paint.  This project also required a lot of time– lots of sanding, filling holes, drilling holes, sanding, priming, sanding, painting, sanding, taping, painting, sanding, sealing, sanding, sealing, and finally just attaching new handles.  I think it lookes much better (I regret now not taking a before picture, because now all you can see is the after).  I think the entire paint department of Home Depot knows me now.

I think Alexis’s room might finally be done.

We are all good.  Alexis is getting big and so close to crawling.  She can push herself up, I guess she just doesn’t realize her legs actually have to push her forward.  She’s such a happy baby– I honestly don’t think we’ve heard her cry for about 2 weeks– the occassional whimper, but that’s it.  She’s been doing incredibly well with her eating, though she still hates vegetables.

This year we had a nice quiet Christmas at home opening presents and playing in the snow. Alexis had fun (I think) opening presents and definitely likes playing with her new toys. It’s perfect for her short attention span.

We also spent a few hours up in Clearfield with Cole’s family, who liked to see her.

So Alexis is about 6 months old now. We recently took her to her doctor’s checkup. Apparently she is in the 90th percentile for height (a giant), and the 20th for weight (a skinny giant). She’s 25? inches tall and almost 15 pounds. She eats a ton all the time and is super strong. Alexis has always loved standing, and can now support herself on whatever she can reach, and has almost mastered sitting on her own. As far as the rolling over goes, she can do it, but won’t unless there is a toy or something that she really wants to get.

The hand-eye coordination has gotten much better, which has been both helpful and entertaining. Alexis is finally starting to play with her toys, and it has been nice that she will finally hold her own bottle and feed herself. We’ve started the transition to baby food and sippy cups. She doesn’t know what to think of it, but I’m guessing she’s not too happy about all the changes. Either way, it’s been interesting to watch her try.

Finally! She got her room decorated. We got lots of animal wall stickers and her room is now a jungle. Needless to say, it looks much much better. As will the pictures of her room at some point.