There has been much to celebrate this past week. On the 20^th was Jack’s first birthday. Of course we were excited to celebrate Jack being in our lives for a year and are so grateful to have him as our son and look forward to many more years of joy to come. Thank you to everyone for your gifts, cards, calls, and texts. He (and we) are loving the new toys and books to play with.

What I was looking forward to the most was the cake; it is my first on in Maryland and was so much fun. I was having such a hard time figuring out what to do and had so many different plans, but ended up just using color. The colors red, yellow, blue, and green are used to decorate his room and so I thought it would be appropriate for his cake. So many artificial colors can’t be too good for you, but all things in moderation. Jack ate it, but didn’t go crazy about it. So now we have a one-year old, and by all accounts he is officially a toddler. (The celebration was spread over a few days so he is wearing different clothes in all the pictures in case you were wondering.)

Like most everyone else, we celebrated Easter weekend. It was actually quite spiritual for me as well; I was surprised at how affected I was despite the weekend being so busy. We had stake conference and our relief society was put in charge of preparing a meal for the visiting authority and other priesthood leaders so I was busy with that, and Chris was in charge of a baptism that was a big deal for our ward, and Jack had to tag along with everything so he had no semblance of a normal schedule. But the evening session, the baptism, and the sacrament meeting from the previous week were all so good. It all reaffirmed what we believe and know to be true so it was great. Then to really celebrate we were so fortunate to have an awesome dinner with some friends out here. So much good food (ham!) and great company. Although it was a busy, crazy weekend, it was a perfect Easter.

 

Chris and I also had the opportunity to celebrate our anniversary for the first time. We have now been married three years. For our first anniversary Chris’s parents were in town for his graduation, and for our second, my parents we in town because it was five days after Jack was born. We were able to go out to eat (thanks to our Christmas present-thanks Tom and Marel!) and I was able to fulfill a life long dream of eating filet minon. And it was great. Chris got a steak and liked it as well. Apparently the 3^rd anniversary gift is supposed to be leather, so we ate beef.

Earth day was also in there somewhere, we try to do our part everyday so nothing special here.

Happy everything!

A zooy spring break

Since moving to Maryland we have had many new and interesting experiences. One such new feature of life here is that I get a spring break. This may not seem like a big deal to some, but if you or anyone you know has gone to BYU for school you know that they don't believe in spring break. Here in Maryland however, they lock the doors of the buildings and stop the campus buses from running which meant I had no option but  to break my habit of not having spring break. 

It was, in fact, quite nice to work from home. The only down side was that the weather got steadily colder as the week went by. It was as if BYU was reaching a cold hand down from the mountains to remind me that spring breaks should not be. Despite the weather we did have some fun. And, to help us have that fun my parents and brother came to visit for a long weekend. Hilary still had to babysit on weekdays, but we did all go to the National Zoo on Saturday.

The first neat thing about the zoo is that it is free. The second is they have large letters which spell "ZOO" in which you can have your picture taken. After that, you can see animals. Or if you are particularly lucky you might see a cute eleven month old walking around  wearing a cute hat (and large coat.) I learned this from the other zoo goers that day, many of whom made sure to let us know that Jack or his hat were cute. (Somehow they neglected to mention his father.)

Now, as a parent, I know that the main purpose of bringing a very young child to some neat place like the National Zoo is to later be able to say things like,"you've seen Pandas before. Don't you remember?" Even better is to have physical evidence, like the following pictures. In the years to come I plan to make great us of them to tell Jack about how last time we took him to see Pandas he wasn't even interested in them. 

One interesting fiction we learned at the Zoo was that due to large national deficit they now require the zoo inmates to earn their keep by doing work for the government. For instance the Pandas now act as parcel inspectors for the zoo post office. I admire their zeal for the work, but to be quite candid I think they got carried away. After the inspection both the parcel and its contents were quite the worse for wear.

Although the Pandas didn't really catch Jack's fancy, he really liked the elephants. This one was neat because it walked around swinging its trunk and then drank in a splashy way.

Jack also went to see the octopus demonstration, although he quickly decided that walking around the other exhibits while the crowd was by the octopus was a better idea. The octopus itself was from the pacific northwest, so Jack felt a close kinship to it.

The zoo also has a growing family of lions. We spent some time watching the young cubs sneak up on and ambush their dad. Jack liked that idea, but what really caught his interest at the zoo was the manhole cover. On our way from the primates to the lions Jack stopped to bend down and touch a manhole cover. Apparently, it was soooo neat that he sat down on it and investigated more closely. Pictured below Jack and his uncle Nathaniel discuss the pros and cons of manhole covers in general and this one in specific. 

After becoming an expert on zoo manholes we eventually had to head home. Jack was fine with riding the metro as long as he was able to stand and yell. He also much prefers riding above ground so he can see the world going by outside.

All in all, I think Jack and my parents enjoyed my spring break quite a lot. In fact, Jack had such a good time that he convinced his other grandparents that they needed to visit him too. I think he really likes all the attention. 

And he is demanding more and more attention these days. Recently he discovered how to climb the stairs. Unfortunately he has no going down the stairs skills. So, we now have baby gates to keep him from making unescorted ascents. He has also taken to walking while carrying an object in each hand. He will, for instance, pick up a pair of shoes one in each hand and carry them to the kitchen where he will drop the them on the floor. Jack is also starting to mimic some sounds. He has a stuffed cow that moos, and he now also moos. He has named everything that he likes dada. For instance banana is dada. Applesauce is dada. Going outside is dada. Daddy is dada. Mommy is dada. And meat is Ga. This seems to be his own invention. One day after every bite of meat he would say Ga! Since then all means have become Ga.

So anyway, that's the news on the Jack front. As for the rest of us, Hilary continues to work miracles at home including some exquisitely delicious meals and I'm still going to school. How is it going? Well, most days its pretty dada.