BBQ a la Mexicana

This weekend, we were invited to a Mexican BBQ! Rocio (in the back doing all the work) invited us, along with her neighbors, and her daughter Maribel & her fiance Pablo (next to Vanessa). It was AMAZING!! I think I must have eaten ten tacos...barbequed tortillas are even better than normal ones. It has been really fun to be able to do stuff with Rocio and Maribel, and we are really happy that Maribel has found such a great guy. Rocio is working at a Hawaiian restaurant now, and she invited us to come eat there last Friday. They had a live Hawaiian band complete with hula dancers. Vanessa kept walking right up to the dancers, sticking her little bum out, and swaying her hips back and forth. I wish we would have had the camera.

Here are some of Vanessa's latest "conversations" with us:

At the park on the swing

Vanessa: Harder!

Me: Do you want me to push you harder?

Vanessa: O.K. (after being pushed hard). Oh my gosh! (with both hands on her cheeks)

While I was changing a poopy diaper

Vanessa: Vanessa poopy all the time!

Walking to the car while all dressed up

Lisa: Vanessa, you're so cute.

Vanessa: I cute! I cute! I pretty! I good!

While she was laying in bed with Lisa and me

Me: Vanessa, can I have a hug?

Vanessa: No, no, no!

Me: What do you mean, no?

Vanessa: I mean no, no, no!

I'm really enjoying the phase she is in right now, although I have to be really careful what I say. Because of me, some of her new words are "dangit", "holy crap", and "fart". I guess that's why the next one is a girl instead of a boy.

I have seen into the future...

Alright, you'll have to forgive the random and perhaps very cheesy post. Yesterday I got my April Martha Stewart Living magazine (a wonderful gift from Matt). I flipped to the first couple pages, and there it was. If I could draw a picture of what Vanessa will look like in 2-3 years, this ad picture would be it. Call me crazy. Maybe I'm just seeing it with "Mommy eyes" but this girl looks a lot like Vanessa!

There and back again...a Vanessa tale

If this post is half as long as our travels, it will take about two weeks to read. Now that you're warned, here goes. After about a month's worth of travel, interviews, and sight seeing, we are all excited to be back in Utah (which is a rare thing to be excited about). I was pretty nervous about all the grad school interviews, so I decided to take my little cheerleader with me to keep me company. She was an awesome travel buddy! We had a lot of fun spending time together. We started our trip by flying to Maryland and meeting up with Tia (Angelene), whom Vanessa had been talking about for a week leading up to our trip. Tia took Vanessa to the zoo while I flew to Lexington, KY (not the nicest city in the country) for an interview at UK. The next day, I went to Virginia Tech for a long, stressful interview, and was very happy when Tia and Vanessa picked me up to take me sight seeing. We first went to Arlington Cemetary where of 290,000 veterans and their family members are buried.

This is the view from Robert E. Lee's house. All the white in the background are headstones (probably not even 1/4 of all the graves)

The next day, we headed to the National Mall, which is where all the monuments and museums are located.

Vanessa touching the Washington Monument

World War II Monument (each one of those stars represents 100 lives lost; total 404,000 lives)

Lincoln Memorial (Vanessa thought he was Jesus)

The White House (Vanessa was really stoked at this point)

Later that night, we went to see the temple. As you drive up to it, it literally looks like it is coming straight up out of the freeway directly in front of you. It has apparently been the cause of multiple car accidents, which of course provided many opportunities for priesthood blessings that resulted in amazing conversion stories (maybe not so much the last part).

This is actually the short side of the temple. It is seven stories tall!

After returning from the east coast, we stopped for a short breather in Utah, and my interview with BYU, before setting out for the west coast. On the way, I had a phone interview with Nebraska in a Wal-Mart parking lot. We made it to California just in time for record breaking heat, which was very welcomed. While I was at my interview with Loma Linda, Lisa and Vanessa got to visit with Gah Mah T, Aunt Khaki, Emy, and Puppy.

Vanessa and Emily

Quite possibly Vanessa's favorite part of the trip; swinging while smelling "fowers"

At Uncle Dale's work (Chapparral)

Then we headed back to Utah. The next day, Lisa got some sweet 3-D pictures of our little, squished, Nicole.

That weird shadow is not her evil twin...it's the placenta

And finally, on Tuesday we received the news we had been waiting for!

We'll be Cougars for two more years!!