Fun, busy week

It has been a great week that was full of activity. This sort of week is better summed up in pictures than in words, so without any further ado, here they are...

We went to the zoo on Monday and saw a lot of cool animals. Evelyn loved the monkeys as they ran around the cages, and would giggle out loud when one came close to her. We took a lot of really good pictures, but then I accidentally erased them (hint: don't press the "delete all" button on the camera).

I worked a lot for Habitat. It has been fun so far, and I am learning a lot. Up until now I have done every stage of construction on a house from the digging of the foundation to the completion of the framing to the plumbing and finish work. Here are pictures of houses I have worked on in various stages.

This is the Lake Erie Nature and Science center. It is a free place to go to, and features a Zoo, several fun exhibits, and learning activities for kids (and adults). There is also a great beach right next to it, which makes it easy to hit both in one trip.

This is Rachel's imitation of a Vulture.

...and here is Me and Ev in a giant garden pail!

Speaking of beaches, it has become one of our favorite activities to go to the beach and read Kelly's book. We have scoped out all of the beaches around here, and our favorites are:

• Edgewater State Park: There is a big area for frisbee and stuff, and a pretty big (but dirty) beach swimming area. There are also a lot of sailboats to watch as they come in and out of the marina.
• Cleveland Lakefront State Park: This is right at the top of MLK Blvd. While it doesn't have a swimming area, it is a great place for a picnic and is the closest to our home. It also has a cement fishing pier that is usually a nice private place to sit and watch the waves of Lake Erie.
• Headlands Beach State Park: Easily the best for swimming. The beaches and water are cleaner since it is away from the city, and there is more swimming area than anywhere else. The downside is that it takes time to get there.
• Cleveland Metro Park and Nature Center: This is the one by the Nature Center. It has a decent swim area, and beautiful views from the top of the "seaside" cliffs where there is a picnic area.
  

This is the West Side Market. It is a like a permanent farmer's market (apparently one of the best in the country) with a lot of cheap food and things that you can't buy elsewhere. We got some really good dried fruit and some awesome mangoes. Dried strawberries are so so good!


Our home stays very cool in the summer, but last night it became pretty hot. We found that standing in a bath of cold water while brushing our teeth really helps cool us off. Are we weird? I think that is undeniable. The point is, however, that we are not hot anymore.

Here's Evelyn helping with the laundry. She is as cute as ever. She has actually started a new game that she plays with herself. When we are in any public place she will select a "target" and stare at them until they look her way, at which time she flashes them the biggest Sesame Street smile ever. It never fails to get a smile back, and sometimes even a laugh. It is obvious that she makes a lot of people happy with her smiles. The things we can learn from a 4 month old child!

God Bless America

Here's a quick update, and then a lot of pictures from Texas. As mentioned in the last post, I came home on Tuesday while Rachel and Evelyn stayed in Houston. I spent my time working with Habitat for Humanity, tying up loose ends with my research, and working my job at the medical school. I also studied a lot for boards (which sort of freak me out).

Meanwhile, Rachel was having fun with Deanna and Dave and their kids. The highlight of the week for her was the Nature Museum, where they had all sorts of exhibits, a cool movie about the Galapagos Islands, and a "butterfly room" where there are thousands of butterflies that fly all around and land on you and stuff. It sounds pretty neat. She also went swimming a lot and watched movies in their theatre room which features a large projector screen and surround sound.

Rachel came home on Friday (the 4th of July), and after such a long flight was a little worn out (and Evelyn was really worn out) so we went home and had a relaxing night. On Saturday we celebrated Independence day. In the afternoon we went to the beach at Lake Erie and had grilled hamburgers, watermelon, and apple pie. Then we went to Crocker Park and watched a concert from the Cleveland Pops Orchestra and watched a firework show afterwords.

About the fireworks...The show was awesome. The fireworks were lower and closer than I have ever experienced- so close that some people got hit by the sparks. It was pretty exciting to say the least. Also, Evelyn loved it. We were a bit apprehensive to see how she would react, but she handled it great! She smiled and laughed through the entire show and was mesmerized by all of the lights in the sky. After the show, all the people around us mentioned how cute she was, some even mentioning that they had more fun watching Evelyn than the fireworks. The only sad thing about the entire thing was that we forgot to bring our camera.

Anyway, here are a lot of pictures...

Here we are getting ready for Eva's first swimming experience. The top picture is a classic Evelyn pose. She loves to have her hands clasped in front of her with an innocent expression on her face. She is proudly modeling the swimming suit from Grandma Hazard (Thanks Grandma)!

Evelyn didn't show much reaction to the water in the beginning, but as time went on she became more interested and really enjoyed kicking her feet.

Evelyn played hard and soon became tired. She almost fell asleep in the floaty, and she cuddled up in the soft warm towel.

As long as we were in Texas, we had to do something "cow-boyish." Here's me and Evelyn riding a bronze donkey (this is one of Rachel's favorite pictures).

Here is the Nature Center where Rachel went. The top picture is in the butterfly room, and the bottom one is Ashton and Savanna by a rock formation (God is a great artist, isn't he?)

Evelyn is becoming mobile. This video was shot a few weeks ago. Now she is all over the place. It is not uncommon to come into a room where we left her on the floor to find her hiding under a table, or stuck in a corner, or even in an entirely different room. It's funny to watch her move, because she doesn't use her arms at all. They sort of just hang there and she scoots along on her face using her legs to push.

Here's a cute video of Evelyn being happy. She was giggling just before the video was taken, but she became a little camera shy and resorted to happy shrieking (like a bird) instead.

Visiting The Lone Star State

Well, it has been quite the week for us. Everything was pretty much normal until Tuesday night. That was when Rachel packed her suitcases to get ready for the big RID conference she was going to (big conference for ASL interpreters). She’s been way excited about this conference for a long time, and the big day was finally here.

The next morning we left ridiculously early in the morning to get her to the airport on time. There, she said good-bye to me and Evelyn and she was off for an adventure. The conference was in Houston, and according to Rachel, it was fabulous. Every night she called me and told me about the new things she was learning.

One of the days she went to a day-long review session for the NIC test, which she is taking later this year. For those of you who don’t know, the NIC test is a multi-day test that will certify an interpreter at the highest level and allow them to interpret anywhere in the United States (it preempts any state certification requirements). It’s a serious test, but I think that Rach is feeling more confident about it after going to workshops like this. She also went to a workshop about interpreting in drug abuse and Alcoholics Anonymous settings which that taught her how to use profanity in sign language (among other things)!

If you want more details about the conference, you’ll have to talk to Rach.

Meanwhile, I was at home with Evelyn. Thanks to some friends who watched her for a couple of hours every morning, this was actually a lot more manageable than I was expecting. Actually, Eva and I had a lot of fun hanging out together. She is a really good baby.

On Saturday, Evelyn and I left the house again at an insanely early time. First we took a walk down to the train station and took the train to the airport. Then, we flew down to Houston to meet Rachel and Deanna and Dave’s family. The next couple of days were full of fun and relaxation as we hung out with them in their beautiful Houston home. Ashton and Savannah are awesome kids and there was never a dull moment for the whole time we were there.

Now it is Tuesday and I am back in the airport. Rachel and Evelyn will stay in Houston for the week while I go back to work. It was so fun to be able to visit Diana and Dave and we will definitively try to visit them more. Now it is time to recuperate and prepare for our next big trip to Colorado for the Hazard family reunion.

-Sorry, no pictures this week because Rachel still has the camera in Texas, and I have the computer here in Ohio. We'll make up for it next week.  Next week we will have an overload of pictures, and we will have that video we promised last week. 

Post #80!

Logan is an amazing person and a wonderful blogger. He generally runs the show when it comes to blogging. This week he turned the computer over to me.

Logan had a fun week. His research is finished for the summer, and this week he has been spending a little bit more time in the anatamy lab. I must admit, I am glad it is him working there and not me. I get squeamish when he just talks about what he has been doing. He is currently working with a partner to disect cadavers for anatamy classes to use when school starts again. Logan is enjoying this job and he is learning a lot.

On Wednesday, Logan volunteered with Habitat for Humanity for the first time (I am excited to join him one day when we figure out babysitting for Ev). He had a great time working on the foundation for the house and swinging buckets full of dirt up a ladder (only three of the guys there were strong enough for that job, so he had his work cut out for him). He also had a good bike ride. He rode about twelve miles round trip. His bike has been getting a lot of good use.

Yesterday was one of the primary activities. Crystal did a great job planning, and everything turned out wonderfully! We had the theme "growing with the scriptures." The highlights were when the kids planted seeds and made dirt cups (pudding, crushed oreos, and gummy worms).

I have been going to the dental school to get my teeth fixed. Logan says I have dentes doentes (sick teeth in Portuguese). He enjoys saying this because it rhymes, but it isn't too far from the truth. I have had 'sick' teeth for as long as I can remember. I had a root canal on Thursday and have been in a fair amount of pain since then. Never fear! I have another dentist appointment on Monday. This is the last time you will hear about my appointments because it depresses me how many times I will be seeing my dentist (at least he is a good friend of ours).

We have gone to the beach a few times this week. We go in the afternoon and read to each other. We are enjoying my dad's book.

Eva has been as good as ever this week. We figured out why she sometimes becomes grumpy at church. Logan figured out that it is nap time for her, so now we take her outside, cover her carseat, and in about five minutes she is sound asleep. Hooray for small discoveries! She is also learning how to move around when she is on the floor. She spins in circles while on her back and always seems to find a corner to get stuck in. A few times this week I have heard her screaming in the living room, I rush in only to find she has rolled over onto her stomach. She used to be able to roll over both ways, but she is much better at getting onto her belly (which she hates). Sometimes she is quite calm, but most of the time she gets pretty distressed. Today she rolled over and made little squeeks. We looked over to find her with her bum in the air pushing with her feet. She hasn't figured out how to use her hands yet, but she moved about 6 inches forward (it took her a good five minutes). Morning times have become a joy with Ev. She wakes up and we can her giggles and shrieks coming from her crib for about fifteen minutes. This morning she started making sounds we had never heard before, and they sounded like the yip of a little lost puppy. Logan and I laid in bed and giggled as we listened to her. What a wonderful way to wake up!

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to all the fathers who are out there! This is my first "real" father's day and it is great being a dad. This day is actually extra special, because it was exactly one year ago today that we discovered that Evelyn was comming to join our family (but her name was Wiggle Bean back then). To celebrate the day, Rachel did a special family night about fathers, and then she gave me an excellent presant (see below), and then we had a BBQ with friends. Evelyn showed her appreciation by throwing up on me.

This week was also good for other reasons. On Tuesday we went to an orientation meeting for Habitat for Humanity. It's an organization that builds houses for needy people, and we are volunteering our time at some of the construction sites. It'll help people, and I think it will be a lot of fun too. Both of us are excited to learn how to build a house from the ground up.

On Friday I finished my research project. Hooray! Once I figured out what I was doing it went very fast. Now I have even more time to play. I also picked up another job at the school working with the anatomy department. It is a good job for a student-the pay is pretty good, I work whenever I want (and I don't work when I don't want), there is no minimum or maximum number of hours I have to work, and there are no deadlines.

Also, we went to the annual Strawberry festival on Saturday. There was a live band (local senior citizen group- they even had an accordian player), lots of booths with games and food and home-made jewlery, and of course strawberries. They also had a classic car show, but we came and left without getting the chance to see all of them. It was fun for the food and the carnival-like atmosphere. I love summer time here in Cleveland for all the festivals and events that are going on; it seems like every weekend we have a choice of two or three different things to attend.

One more thing. We love garage sells! We got a bunch of cute outfits for Eva, all for 50 cents each. Hooray! (On a side note, I want everyone to recognize how well I am able to use the words "cute" and "outfit." I think I'm getting the hang of this being-a-dad thing!)

Here are some cute pictures and a cute video of our beautiful girl.

This is the Strawberry festival. The little boy is Caleb Carpenter- we were babysitting him. The strawberry shortcake was so good!

The present that Rachel got me was a jigsaw. I've wanted one for a while now, so finally I had an excuse to get it.

Evelyn is a natural camper

It has been another great week of summer! This week has introduced us to the humidity of Cleveland. Last year we only had two or three days we needed our air conditioner, but this year we have already busted it out.

Evelyn is growing! She has only grown out of about three outifts, but she is starting to fit some of her three to six month clothes. It is fun to go through her closet and bring out her spring outfits. I have been keeping track of her growth with the pictures, but I have not been posting them. I need to get those up.

This week we did a lot of activities with the Bakers. Malcolm and Renee are two of our friends that live in the ward. On Monday we went up to Kirtland and visited the Temple. Malcolm is an aspiring photographer and we let him take pictures of whatever he wanted. We used some of his photo's in the blog.

Then, on Friday night we went on a campout with a few other couples. The campsite was located at the historic John Johnson farm, and it was neat to learn about the lifestyles of early saints in the area.We invited Malcolm to come along, then we threw him a surprise birthday party (we let our other friends know ahead of time and there were a lot of presents for him). Evelyn did a great job camping! She was happy the whole time and she still slept through the night. I think she inherited my trait for getting a TON of mosquito bites and Logan's trait for the bites not bothering her at all. We used bug spray, but I think it wore off through the night and pesky mosquitos let us join them for their dinner feast.

Logan created our first volume of The Hazard Chronicles. We decided to make a yearly book out of our blog entries. Logan printed all of the pictures and organized the book for us. We enjoyed looking back at our last year up until this Christmas. This is a fun tradition.

Logan and I have another tradition of reading books together. My dad recently finished his first book and we have begun reading that out loud together. It is very well written and fun to read. I recognize a lot about my dad and my childhood from little comments in his book.

All and all it has been a great week. I will now get to the pictures (there are a lot).

This week we took Evelyn on her very first camping trip. She loved it! There were six other families who went and we all had a great time (except maybe for the people with allergies- they were mowing the lawn and cutting hay for five hours straight while we were there).

If you looked for them, there were a lot of frogs. Here I am with a frog that I caught. Logan tried to take a video of the chase, but I wouldn't let him...Lets just say that it was very exciting.

We invited Malcolm to go with us and we threw him a surprise 9th birthday party. He was very surprised and happy when we brought out the cake and started singing "Happy Birthday"

Somehow, Logan became the target for all of the other kids when they got a hold of some water guns. He finally got a gun to fight back with and they had themselves a pretty fun water fight.

Here we are eating breakfast. We needed a griddle to cook on, so we went to the "mess hall" at the camp where they had working electricity. Oh yea- we are hard core campers!

These pictures were taken in Kirtland when we went with the Bakers.

And last, but certainly not least, we have our beautiful baby bug, all dressed up for church.

BBQs and Good Weather

We had a good week. I spent some time in the lab trying to figure out my project. I talked with a guy from the Materials Science department who said that the meathods we are using won't work, but other people insist that they will (although they don't know how- that's my job to figure out). It will be interesting to see what happens with this.

We are doing a lot of out-door cooking lately. I think that we use our little gas grill about as much as we use our oven at home. We have had some fun BBQ picnics with friends, as well as small mini-picnics with just us. There are so many parks around here, and the weather has been so nice that it is just too hard to stay inside.

Also, we planted our garden this last week. Well...sort of. We planted the tomatoes and bell peppers. Rachel still has some flowers to plant, but at least we got the important items (food) in the ground. Hopefully we will have fresh home-picked vegitables pretty soon.

Here are some pictures of our week:

I actually wrote about this place in the last post. It is very close to our house and looks like it will have some good climbs. We are trying to develop this area with some friends to provide quick access to good climbing.



Funny story- We were at a BBQ picnic with a bunch of friends and Evelyn started getting fussy. We determined that she was hungry, but to our dismay we had forgotten to pack a bottle. For a while it was looking like we would have to skip out early and head home. Then I tried giving her a watermellon to suck on. She loved it! As you can see in the second picture, she sucked it until the tip was nipple-shaped and then continued to suck the juice from it. She sucked the thing dry! What a resoursful baby we have. Fourty-five minutes later we finally went home and gave her some real food.

Here's Rachel preparing to plant a tomato. Due to the shade trees in our yard, we have had to do some searching to find a place that gets a lot of sun for the vegitables. Hopefully this will work.

Here's Rachel and Eva on Sunday afternoon when we had dinner and Family Night in the park. We tried making baby-back-ribs like the ones at Chili's. Rachel said they turned out perfect, and since she worked at Chili's for three years I'll take that as a compliment.

Evelyn is the cutest baby ever! This week I think she discovered her voice. She does the squawk thing for fifteen minutes at a time, just listening to her voice. At first we thought she was angry, but then she started smiling after each wild screech. I think she is just fascinated that she can make so much noise.