It's a ......

Amy, Cami, and I went to the doctors for our 20 week ultra sound. We were really excited to find out if Cami was going to have a brother or a sister.

We are excited to annouce that we are going to have another little girl. We think it is wonderful since Cami will be able to have a little sister she can become best friends with.

Everything is going well at this point. Amy is feeling very healthy. She is going to Yoga 3 times a week. She is actually getting very "ripped". I think that I definitly need to go to Yoga with her.

Cami loves Yoga day because she gets to go to the little day care area. She always pulls Amy towards the door and is off playing as soon as she gets in. I guess that will work out well for when she can finally go to Nursery. I can't wait........

Speaking of Nursery, Amy just got a new calling as second couselor in the Primary. She is excited that she doesn't have to teach Relief Society anymore, even though if you press her she will admit she liked it. She is also very excited to be able to spend time teaching kids about our Savior Jesus Christ and His church. She will do a great job.


Our New Little Princess ......

Our Memorial Day Weekend

We had a wonderful Memorial Day Weekend.

We spent Saturday checking out 5 of the Metro parks. You may be asking yourself "Metro parks, what's that?" I know that we did.

Metro parks are wonderful.. There are 12 of them in the Greater Detroit area. They are a lot like a state park, but they are usually only for day use. They usually cover several thousand acres and have either a river going through them or several lakes. There are picnic areas, playgrounds, pools, golf courses, and our favorite, bike paths.

We ended up taking several good rides Saturday, stopping frequently to let Cami play on the slides (her favorite new thing to do outside next to bubbles). It is really funny to watch her go down the slide because she says "WEEEEEEE" all the way down. It is really cute.

Monday, we spend the day at one of the Metroparks with our friends. A group of 9 families got together for a "bring your own meat" BBQ. We had fun sitting around, talking, eating, and enjoying the beautiful day.

We hope that everyone else had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend.

Fun trip to Florida

Towards the end of May, we took a quick trip down to Jacksonville, Florida for my sister's wedding. We were so excited for her and her son Kyle. We were also very excited to meet Jim and his kids Marissa and Dillon.

We had a great time getting to be with family and getting to know the new members of our family. The wedding was simple and went smoothly..... At least from our perspective.

We then had a great time playing with the kids and seeing Star Wars.

I think all three of us really enjoyed the sunshine. Michigan weather was still hovering in the 50's, and the Florida sunny 80's was very pleasant.

We really had a great time with my family at the beach. This was Cami's first trip to the beach where the water was warm enough to actually get in. Our brave little girl just walked right on in....until she got plowed by a wave...oh good times :) She was tough and stayed at it.

I thought it was really fun to watch her loose her balance as the waves went back out. She would get all dizzy and just fall over. She loved it.

She also really loved the sand. Thankfully she wasn't into eating it.

Overall, we had a great time! Just wish we could have stayed longer.



Cami at the Jacksonville, Florida beach


Cami and her cousin Jakob (Gotta love the hats)

Week of May 8 - 14

Well hopefully everyone has received word of our exciting news. We are happy that Cami is going to have a little brother.....or sister (we won't find out for another month). We are also very thankful that Amy's health is doing good (she is past the morning sickness now - but it sure made the nine hour drive to Washington, D.C. interesting).

I must admit that we are a little nervous about having two kids running around the house. Cami is enough work to keep us both busy. I don't know how our mothers survived.

This week has been for the most part, uneventful. We have been taking advantage of the warm weather when we get it. We have take a few more bike rides. Cami absolutely loves her trailer. Whenever we say we are going to leave, she heads straight for the trailer instead of the car.

On Saturday night we rode our bikes over to the grocery store. We got a bite to eat at a food place in the strip mall and then went to the store for groceries. The trailer converts easily into a stroller, so we locked up our bikes and took the stroller inside. We actually used it as a shopping cart, piling stuff inside next to Cami and in the pockets (remember it is a double stroller). Cami had a lot of fun trying to get all the fruits and vegetables out of their plastic bags.

After checking out, we went outside, rearranged things a bit to give Cami a more comfortable ride, and hooked it back up to my bike. I must admit it was harder to get up to speed with an additional 40 lbs of stuff in the trailer. We even stopped on the way home to get a video. It was great way to spend the evening together.

As I mentioned earlier, we are only getting warm weather occasionally. It was rainy and cold on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday morning. Since working in the yard or on cars was out of the question, we took the opportunity to work on our downstairs bathroom. We now have a new wall including mudding and tapping. We also repainted the ceiling and walls. We managed to get the cabinet and sink (with all the plumbing) and a new light put in. The final thing we did was finish ripping out the old flooring and preparing it for tiles. We will have to work on that after our trip.

This week we are going to Florida to attend my sister's wedding. We are supper excited for her and Kyle (and Jim, Dillon, and Marissa) to start their new lives together. We can't wait to meet everyone and hang out. It should be a nice break and a good time. We hope to enjoy family and warm weather.

We hope everyone is doing well. We were excited to hear about how well John did in the triathalon. He did a great job and all his hard work is paying off.

Don't hesitate to leave feedback on this blog thing. It would be fun to see what everyone has to say.

Our Trip To Washington, D.C.

We just wanted to share some pictures from our trip to Washington, D.C. We had a great time, even though the weather wasn't that good.

We did a little bit of everything. We went to the Smithsonian's American History and Life Science museums, Arlington National Cemetery. One night, we left Cami with Brent's parents who where with us on the trip and walked around all of the monuments with Kate Despain. We had some great food and we took some time to relax. Like I said, I little bit of everything.

Anyway, here are some pictures.


The White House...George was going to show us around, but some guy named Putin interrupted us.


Cami and Brent...I am not sure which smile is cheezier


The Lincoln Memorial at Night. It was a great walk.


Jefferson Memorial...Too bad the Cherry Blossoms were not out yet


Outside of the Jefferson Memorial...It is very beautiful...Even if it was freezing.



Washington, D.C. Temple on a cloudy day


Mt. Vernon - George Washington actually lived in this very house....imagine that


We had a great time. It was a lot of fun. It made us very thankful for those who have come before us and have made this country such a great place to live.

You know you are fat.....

You know you are over weight when your pregnant wife asks your 15 month old daughter "where is the baby?" and the little one walks up to you, tries to lift your shirt, and says "Baby" in the sweetest voice imaginable .......

Mother's Day

I hope that Amy enjoyed her special day, she defintely deserved it.

I told her the night before that if she got up with Cami, I would take her bike back to the store. In the past, she has gotten up before I ever heard Cami get up. I guess she took the threat to heart because she slept in till 9:30, a record so far this year.

I then made her French Toast, her favorite breakfast and got Cami changed for church. I even told her that I would change all the diapers, which ended up including two very foul smelling ones.

At church, we took turns keeping Cami entertained during Sacrament and Sunday School. I must admit that I enjoyed sitting with Amy again after having been in Primary for so long. I then took Cami with me to Priesthood (or at least moved our stuff to the room before wearing out the carpet in the hallway). This allowed Amy to enjoy her first Relief Society lesson in a long time.

After church, we had 5 couples over for dinner. I did most of the cooking....Shrimp Diane. (Best seafood dish ever). We really enjoyed their company and shared our exciting news with them.

All in all, it was a great Sunday. I hope that Amy enjoyed it.

In the Beginning

In the Beginning
I have been trying to determine how to best keep in contact with family and friends and decided that we would try using a blog. I must admit I got this idea from our friends who recently moved to China. It sounds simple enough, its flexible, and we can share it with all our friends and family. Not the real trick will be making the time to keep it updated.

So, where do I begin......

Amy stays home every day with Cami, which I think they both love. They have a wonderful bond and Amy is an awesome mom. Amy gets out during the week with friends and play groups, shopping, and errands. She has also become quit the Yoga-er going 3 times a week. She has gotten really flexible and really strong. She is so tough.

Cami spends her days playing, learning, and growing. I must admit that I have the best daughter in the world. She seems to be always happy (which she gets from me) and she can make friends instantly with anyone (which she also gets from me). She is curious about everything, and she has this really funny face that she makes when she is about to get into mischief, which seems to be every other minute (she gets that from her mom).

We are grateful that she has been really healthily lately. She is extremely tall for her age (She gets that from her mom), off the chart, but she is only 25% in weight (She gets that from me). The funny thing is that she can really pack it away. It is not uncommon for her to literally eat as much as her mother. She can eat a banana, a whole peanut butter sandwich, half a glass of chocolate milk, and a small bowl of vegetables, all for lunch. The only complaint she has right now is that she is getting all four of her first molars at the same time, and it has been going on for 4 weeks. Her and her parents are ready for those teeth poke through.

She loves to be outside, she loves peas, broccoli, and cheese, she loves reading books, playing with "Farmer Tad", and balls or balloons, they are the same thing to her. She definitely brings joy and happiness into our home. She just recently learned where "Cami's Head" is, she follows directions like "Go get Daddy's shoes", she loves "head, shoulder, knees, and toes", and she absolutely goes crazy over dogs.

We are currently living in Canton, MI and we absolutely love it. Michigan is very green, has more coast line than California, and has wonderful seasons (yes, all 4 of them), even if they are kind of mixed up. (For those who hadn't hear, we got 5 inches of snow 1.5 weeks ago and we still had frost on the ground this morning.

Eighty percent of the population of Michigan lives in the southeast near Detroit. The whole upper part of Michigan and the Upper Peninsula are great places to visit.....If we ever got around to it. There are 12 large Metroparks (think State Parks) within an hours drive of our home and plenty of other places to visit too.

We generally spend our weekends in one of three ways. First, we hang out at home and do chores. Odds are all families do this once in a while.

Second, we stay home and work on cool projects. My first love is woodworking. So far since moving in, I have collected 6 saws, 1 router, 1 router table, 2 sanders, 1 compressor, 3 nail guns, a collection of clamps, and various other tools. I even talked my friend into keeping his drill press at my house. Now all I need is a planer, joiner, band saw....

Amy has encouraged my hobby because I make cool things for the house. I have made 6 picture frames, a toy box, and some book shelves (also a router table). Unfortunately, the list for new pieces is larger than the completed list and includes an entertainment center, more picture frames, a toddler bed, end tables.....

I have also used my tools for other large projects around the house. Last April I decided to remodel the main bathroom while Amy was away for a week. I worked evening and night on it, and with the help of some friends, completed about 95% of it. We love the new look and it has really added to the house. I have also build food storage shelves, garage storage, and we are in the middle of redoing our basement bathroom. Thanks to a leaking dishwasher, this current project was not by choice.

The third way we spend our weekend is out and about. One of our favorite things to do is geocaching. (Check out www.geocaching.com for more details) Basically, we take our hand held GPS unit and search for hidden "treasures" throughout the city. We love this activity because it allows us to get out doors and be active, always leads us to parks and places that we didn't even know existed, and allows us to spend time together with family and friends. In fact we managed to get a few friends addicted to it last year.

In all our geocaching last year, the one thing we always wanted to do was go bike riding. So, this year for Mother's day (yes, Amy did receive her gift early) we got Amy a new bike and Cami a trailer. We have great hopes of throwing everything in the back of the truck and finding some great bike paths to explore and parks to see. Of course we will also take along our GPS unit so we can find a few caches along the way.

We also really love the Ward that we are in. We have found some good friends here in Canton (although they will never be able to replace some other certain friends of ours). We usually get together 1 - 3 times a week to play games, talk, and enjoy each other's company. I also get to play basketball twice a week with the men of the ward.

Our church callings are enjoyable, but keep us busy. Amy is currently a teacher in Relief Society. She will tell you that she hates it, but she really does a great job and she is really growing. She is also on the Relief Society Activities committee and has to do the food for all the activities. The best part for me is when she brings home any of the leftovers :) As if that is not enough, she gets to wrestle with Cami for the last 2 hours of church. Come on nursery..........

I have been teaching in Primary for the last 1.5 years (the nine year old boys), but was just released last week. I enjoyed watching the boys learn and grow in the gospel. They were always teaching me how to be more Christ like.

I am also the Bear Den leader, which I will continue to do through the summer. While it is not easy keeping 10 nine year old boys under control on a weeknight, I do have a lot of fun with them. In fact, last week we had a great time at our Pine Wood Derby and a few weeks before that we had a great time with our marshmallow shooters. Thanks for the great idea Mom (Rice).

I also unexpectedly found out during church what my next calling will be. There was some miscommunication and they sustained me to a calling I hadn't been told about....Family History Specialist. I am actually excited as it will help me get back to working on my family history.

As for working at a large automotive OEM ...... I must admit that I have good days and bad days. I really like the type of work I am doing. Being part of an interdisciplinary team developing consumer products is challenging and fun. I really enjoy the larger picture that comes from these kind of assignments (as opposed to designing fasteners or components under the hood).

I guess the downsides are working at such a large company where there is more red tape than I ever imagined, top down decision making (seems like there are about 15 people that actually make decisions), and the churn on the decision that do get made (we are constantly revisiting decisions and it can take weeks if not months to actually get a truly final decision).

It is also a challenge to remain upbeat and excited about the future with the general business challenges the company is currently facing. There are no luxuries at work and it is even nearly impossible to find office supplies and a clean bathroom. The old timers are always talking about the "good old days" when we were making money left and right. Now people are just thankful we get our paycheck every month.

We know that we were suppose to come to Michigan for a reason. However, we are now beginning to ask if we have accomplished what we were suppose to accomplish and if it is time to truly think about moving on.

I guess we will see what the future holds. If I follow through with my plans, you will be able to read about what happens to us right here, shortly after it happens.

We hope everyone is doing well and enjoying this wonderful life. We are very grateful for all that we have, especially for our family and friends.

Brent, Amy, and Cami