It's Back

We've been without a computer for a couple weeks which is miserable. Fortunately I have one at work to help satisfy the electronic addiction we all seem to be suffering these days. Shalaine on the other hand had to quit blogging cold turkey which was pretty tough. Sometimes I would come home from work to find her in the fetal position on the floor shaking. Lying next to her would be a cereal box that she had fashioned into a computer monitor, but alas she would not be able to pull up anything.blogspot.com. Oddly, the only screen she could get was the Honey Bunches of Oats home page. Anyway, after getting our power supply replaced, the computer has returned home. Here are a couple videos. We spent last weekend in Orange County so the Great-Grandma's could visit with Axel. We hung out with Brooke and Dave Friday night, played a little password, talked diapers, teething, and tried to distinguish who the babies resembled most. Saturday we went to South Coast to look at expensive stuff that's not worth the money. However, the Merry-Go-Round only cost a buck so we purchased a ticket and took Axel on his first ride. Grabbed lunch at Lawreys, for which we were scolded by Grandma Everson, as the Prime Rib Sandwhich at R&D's is 10 times better, allegedly. For some reason I usually prefer to eat whatever product comes as a result of the R&D, but I hear this place is worth a try so next time we're down we'll give it a shot. Saturday night Grandma Everson took over as baby sitter and we went and saw Juno with Jon and Louann. Refer to Dro's blog for more details on the night, and a movie review. I give it four stars though. Good flick. It's good to be back in the blogosphere. I know I'm logged in under Shalaine's account, but this is Cort.



Here's some exciting footage from Grandma Green's. We had some tasty chicken and mashed potato's, watched some Lakers, BYU Volleyball, and had a good visit.



Till next time. Blog be with you.

Cort

P words.

Politics is one of the more boring P words for young girls like me. Let's talk platinum and preference! I've decided to follow in the steps of my ever changing sisters and dye my hair. I went platinum blonde last week, and i'm diggin it. Also i went to preference last night with my friend garrett (yeah i know...berit and garrett...ha.) Very fun. Tuxes are the best thing that's ever happened to man's wardrobe.

Let's Talk Politics

Shalaine and I have become quite the political junkies lately. This happens to me whenever the presidential election rolls around, but this year having a horse to pull for makes it that much more interesting. 8 years ago I wasn't all that excited about Bush, but thought Gore was a too much of a robot who we had had in the whitehouse as VP for the previous 8 years. Bush was likeable and conservative so I pulled for him, and ended up really getting into the debates and the race. 2008 is here now and the Bush era is coming to a close. Which brings me to the theme of this year's primaries in both parties. CHANGE. You hear this buzzword constantly in the campaigns of Mitt and Barako. I realized a few months ago that there really is something to be said of change...and it's actually one of the reasons I wasn't a huge fan of Bush originally. If Hillary Clinton gets the Democratic nomination, which looks likely right now, and she goes on to win the election something rather dangerous happens. Say she serves 2 terms and is in office till 2016. Our country will have been led by only 2 families since 1992, the Bush's and the Clintons. That's a period of 24 years. When Bush was running in 2000 I thought to myself, "wouldn't it be a good idea to elect a different republican nominee than the son of our last Republican president?" It's like we had King George and then Prince George Jr. And now this year we're looking at the possibility of King Bill and Queen Hill. Fortunately our government is organized to work against any sort of royalty or dictatorial power, but I think it's an interesting observation, and perhaps speaks to a sort of comfort zone that America is afraid to step out of.

Now to this years race. It looks to me like Romney will win Florida. A huge boost to his campaign, making him at least equal with McCain as the front runner. He's had the most momentum over the last week in the poll, passing up McCain in many of them...although McCain still holds a .5 point advantage in the RCP average of all the polls. Realclearpolitics.com has become my new favorite website. Romney clearly won the debate on Thursday night in Florida, andthe results of that win haven't yet shown up on the polls. I think polls that come out on Monday will show Romney ahead by a one or two points, and he will carry that momentum into Tuesdays primary. This makes the race a two man race. Gulianni screwed himself by not participating in the earlier primaries. Huckabust is fading as he's not able to win the support of anyone but those who speak in tongues and play the guitar in church every Sunday. As long as the Economy remains the central issue in this primary, Romney I think will win the nominee. He seems much more comfortable and likable right now, and he's finally portraying Presidential potential whenever he's in debates or interviews. If we have any sort of terrorist attack anywhere in the world, then this will help McCain as terrorism may overtake the economy as the central issue. Anyway, Shalaine and I will be glued to the TV Tuesday evening watching the Florida results come back. My prediction....Romney 31, McCain 27, Gulianni 16, Huck 14.

Here's the Dland Video. You would never know it's Disneyland, but that's okay.



Here he is sitting in his bumbo playing in his ball pit.



Sorry it took so long to get these up. Enjoy.

Cort

D-land Video

Big News

WARNING! This is exciting news, but it may also lead to some depression as it may be construed as evidence of Axel growing up before your eyes, except that he's not really before your eyes, he's far away from your eyes, which is why it might cause some depression. The first tooth has busted through! Axel's been a little more fussy lately than usual because he's teething. A combination of Oral Gel, which is this nasty numbing agent you rub on his gums, and baby tylenol at night has kept him comfortable despite really hard white things trying to break through his gums. A couple days ago, however, Shalaine stuck her finger in his mouth and was literally punctured by the sharpest little dagger you could imagine. It was really sharp. He has sanded it down a little now by chewing on anything he can get his mouth on including books, morracas (sp?), seatbelts, my Robert Talbot ties, and church pews. I'm not sure if this has come early, or if this is about average in terms of when teeth start showing. Axel's friend Rell is 8 months old and still doesn't have any teeth, but then again his tongue is not seperated from his gums, so he's got other things to worry about. So that's about it. Shalaine and I promise to try to make it up to Utah in the near future. Not sure when though. So that's about it. The tooth isn't visible enough to get a good picture of, and Axel sticks his tongue out a lot so it's hard to snap a shot or else we'd post one.

Axel also had his first trip to Disneyland last week. Shalaine took a little video that we'll try to post soon, but our computer is acting like a re-re these days so it's made it difficult.

hm....

Dad's in the other room talking to cort about how boring our family is...this face means I'm slightly offended.

Look at this cool pix of Beau and his partners at the big Christmas event!

Pappy is sad...he needs an Axel fix!

Lovers, breakfast, and 23.

Everyone has all these crazy adventures! Meanwhile, I'm kinda stuck here in alpine, but seriously could not be more content with my somewhat uneventful life. Except for the 3 zits, and coldsore that I have right now, but other than that I am good. Anyway-I have nothing exciting to write about, so here are some pictures of random things I have to say. First of all-I took thise at the reunion. Jordan, Jamie, and Bree all fell asleep this way...precious. Secondly-I had to show mom what a healthy breakfast I had in honor of her while out of the state last week. I had oatmeal(and mexicans don't have brown sugar to put on top....apparently. Boring), and fruit, and yogurt, and a muffin. So healthy. And so yummy. My last pointless comment is that the number 23 is everywhere and keeps popping up in my life. I look at the clock at least 5 times a day to find the minute hand on the 23. Also, just today I found out as I arrived at my new sunday school class that we are in room number 23. This is a picture of when we went bowling and when I looked up, we were at lane 23. And then we parked at portal number 23 last week. Last night I won 750,000$ from case 23 on online Deal or No Deal(unlike cort, I didn't actually win any real money). And that's tyler's number. And I think I'm in love. FYI he made 29 points at Friday's game...so proud :) K I just wanted to write something...hopefully life will start getting exciting soon and I will have important things to say. Axel is SO cute...and I show him off to everyone. Pretty sure you guys should come visit here soon. There's lots of nice snow to welcome you. Au revoir!

An Axel a day keeps the frowns away

Here's the latest video of Axel getting a bath and in his new cool high chair. Jordan, I'm glad you got the book. I hope you like it. It's a pretty amazing story, but there are some gruesome details of that guys life that are pretty unbelievable. It's good to see you're having fun in NYC. Just an update on Shalaine's mom....she's getting released from the hospital tomorrow which is very exciting. She'll wait a couple weeks and then go back for a bone marrow transplant, but she's making some good progress. Shalaine and I had a goood week. I had one of my staff hand me a $100 bill for Christmas. The lady is 75 years old and makes $10 an hour, but has a huge heart and insisted on giving me a gift. So I finally accepted and promised to take Shalaine to a fancy dinner with the money. Then on Thursday I played 2 rounds of golf with Jon and some friends. I played really well and ended up taking home $100 from that as well, so I promised Shalaine to take her to an even nicer dinner. We were excited, but nervous cause you never know how the Ace is going to do in nice restaurants....and ususally people aren't too excited when they see us walk in with a baby to interrupt their nice dinner. But we braved one of our favorite restaurants - Firecliff, and splurged. The food was great and the bill was as beefy as Shalaine's 10oz Filet Minon, but Axel behaved perfectly so it all worked out. Here are the videos.



WARNING!!! Rated R for Nudity



Cort

NY, NY: The city so nice it's named twice

It's been a few days since anyone has posted so I guess I'm up. Here's what has been happening lately with me. First of all, I want to thank Cort for the amazing gift!! I have heard so much about that book and had really wanted to read it. It was sooooo cool to open it up and see a note from the author! How special! I've started reading it and he's already becoming my hero. THANKS!!!!!The reason I'm so frumpy in this picture is that I have done absolutely nothingggg today. I think I broke my foot or something so I've decided to try my best to stay off of it until I go see the doc on monday. So there's another reason I'm grateful to have this new book to read :)

Anyway, Rauna and Dane were here this whole past week and just left yesterday. We had a great time celebrating New Years and life in general. Here are some highlights:

We waited outside in the rain for 2 hours for this pizza. As you can see, Rauna's ready to eat. It's pretty good pizza but now I'm not sure it was THAT good. Anyway we finally made it inside and ate 3 whole pizzas (there were a couple others at the table). But after 2 hours in the rain, one does not hold back. We took a cab 3 blocks. That's how freezing it is in this place.

No soup for you...come back 1 year.

This is in front of the Stock Exchange. Usually they have a big american flag across the front of it, but at Christmas time they do it in lights.

NEW YEARS

Here we are on a friend's roof celebrating the New Year. My friend Thelma came up from DC for the festivities. We went to the Mormon party but decided there wasn't enough craziness (drunk people) there so had to go out dancing elsewhere afterward.

I would like to thank mom and dad for these pictures as they were taken with my new camera! It works like a dream! I've become really camera happy, so you can be expecting more to come.

Axel's New Wagon

Nice work on the recent blog posts everyone. I watched the T-Mobile tournament and was pretty impressed with Haas even though they couldn't pull out the victory. I don't know why he ever passed the ball. He should shoot everytime. That's what almost got them back in the game toward the end. It would help if someone on the team could have hit just a couple of the 20 3-pointers they threw up too. Oh well. It sounds like he's got a bright future, but after BYU's sorry loss to Boise State, maybe he'll be stearing away from becoming a Coug. Is he a senior or a Junior? Anyway, here is a little video we took this afternoon of Axel playing with his new Christmas present. He doesn't quite have the hang of it yet, but he stands up pretty good with it. Hope you guys enjoy it and don't get sick of the numerous Axel movies on this blog. The Flip Video thing really works nicely. I'm glad we were able to finally get it to the right address.

Here's the movie: