the stork is bringing a...

the news is out - we're going to have a baby boy! i'll post pictures of the ultrasound later. our baby boy was definitely not trying to hide, not shy at all...

safford christmas 2008

my grandparents have been up here for the past week and grana joy showed me this video that she made of her christmas celebration 2008 at her home in safford, arizona.
my uncle kent and his family and my uncle mons and his family were all there.
enjoy!

"everything we do is music"

check out my sister-in-law's blog for a report on a pre-school that i helped out with :)

what a cruel joke nature plays on me! me, who used to have a steel bladder and could hold it all day if i wanted to. me, who used to never wake up in the night to pee. why me?!!! i now have to pee every hour or two!!! is that nature's idea of a good laugh?! oh, the cruelty to women!! the inhumanity!!!

the exquisitely resplendent tree

so i know that these pictures might look almost exactly the same, but they are not. i took about a billion pictures of this tree, taking several steps to my left after every shot, so these are different and my two favorite close-ups of this tree.
*sigh* exquisite, isn't it?
*sigh* resplendent, isn't it?
and here's a similar shot to that which now sits at the top of my blog. *sigh*
exquisitely resplendent... *sigh*

snow machining in the teton valley of idaho

after christmas shawn took me on a little snow machining ride. he'd been going out almost every day but i hadn't gone with him until this point. it was a blast! all the farm fields are covered in snow and so the sky's the limit on where you can go. we took off towards the bitch creek bridge (and yes, that really is what the name of the creek is). this used to be a railroad bridge back in the day and then just existed. shawn almost slid off of it on his motorcycle several years before he met me. i'm glad he didn't. it's a lonnngggg way down. this area has been in the works to be a national park for a while but i guess it's finally going to happen next year. awesome trails have been put in on old farm roads for hiking and biking and, in the winter, snowmachining. the bridge now has a nice railing on it, which i'm grateful for. no more almost-gone-over-the-edge accidents for shawn!
i kept waiting to get the perfect shot of the tetons as we were riding and i decided that i should've stopped sooner since they were getting so far away so i finally told shawn to stop so that i could get a picture of them. they really are irregularly shaped mountains and quite stunning.
and here's shawn taking the same picture with his camera.
while crossing some fields i saw the most exquisite tree so i hopped off the machine and told shawn to come back and get me after i got some good pictures. he took off, grateful for the chance to really ride!
and here he is riding. he told me to get my camera out and get a picture of him in the air. he was like a little boy - so cute! "watch me do this, becca!" "and this!"

family potluck

the saturday after christmas shawn's aunt arranged for everyone to meet at the church for a family potluck get-together. here is the crew! there were only a few missing from that side of the family (shawn's dad's family). it was a great time and fun to see everyone and all the expanding families! :)
i'm wearing my new coat that shawn got me for christmas. i love it!! thanks shawn!