My Little Beethoven

We went up to Hooper today for some much needed family time. We went to church with my mom and Kerry, and Tanner. It's always fun to visit my old ward. I never feel like a visitor there. Lincoln was an angel at church. Probably because he got a nap in the car on the way there, and because Grandma always packs the yummiest treats. I didn't feel like I had to wrestle him at all, what a relief. After church my mom had fixed a tasty dinner. While we were waiting for it to be ready, Lincoln roamed the house (which he loves to do at Grandma's because pretty much anything he can get in to is free game) and discovered a wonderful treasure: the piano. I'll have to remind him when he's older and I'm harping on him to practice every day, that he used to love it and had to be dragged away kicking and screaming.

Baby Steps

A New Focus

So, a lot lately (at least as far as this pregnancy is concerned) I've been focusing a lot on how not healthy I feel. Well, today I decided to take a new approach. I have currently redirected my thoughts to one of my favorite topics: baby names!!!!! I checked out a book on baby names from the library today, here are a few of the new names I like, as well as the old ones I've always liked. Some of the ones that have been rattling around in my head a little longer I've also attached middle names to. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

Boy Names
Grady
Angus Kelly
Malcolm
Owen Ryan
Seamus (pronounced Shay-mus)
Oliver
Atticus
Patrick
Micah
Marius
Phineas
Thaddeas
Cornell
Ivan
Levi Stewart
Hamilton (nn. Hammie)
Boston Charles
Isaac

Girl Names
Jasper
Basil
Emerson
Satchel
Sawyer
Eleanor (nn. Nora)
Ava
Avi Lael
Eden
Hadley Harrison
Lexington (nn. Lexi)
Adalynn
Azure
Ellyette (nn. Elly)

I've found a few trends in my naming philosophy. #1 I like unusual, but not too-far-out-there names for both boys and girls. #2 I've been really liking the Irish names lately for some reason, especially the boy names. #3 I don't like very many girly girl names, probably a result of my detestation (is that a word? It is now.) for pink, girly, fluffy, frilly things.

For those of you that are seriously freaking out, wondering how I could possibly name my little boy Angus or my little girl Hadley (both names are on the top of my list by the way, I really like them both a lot), Aaron will come through and veto most, if not all, the names on my list in due time (like as soon as he sees it), so don't worry. This is merely a sampling of what our children would be named if the naming of them were solely up to me. :)

Aaron's Life As of Late

This is just a small sampling of what Aaron has been doing in his homework this evening:

Gx=Nxx-brx- a 1 x- a 2 …x- a j G x N x x b r x a 1 x a 2 … x a j (12)

Somewhat more special care must be taken to find the partial fraction expansion. The non-repeated terms are expanded as before, but for the repeated root, an extra fraction is added for each instance of the repeated root:

Gx= β 0 x-br+ β 1 x-br-1+…+ β r - 1 x-b+ α 1 x- a 1 + α 2 x- a 2 +…+ α j x- a j G x β 0 x b r β 1 x b r 1 … β r - 1 x b α 1 x a 1 α 2 x a 2 … α j x a j (13)

All of the alpha constants can be found using the non-repeated roots method above. Finding the beta coefficients (which are due to the repeated root) has the same Heaviside feel to it, except that this time we will add a twist by using the derivative to eliminate some unwanted terms.
Starting off directly with the cover-up method, we can find β 0 β 0 . By multiplying both sides by x-br x b r , we'll get:
x-brGx= β 0 + β 1 x-b+…+ β r - 1 x-br-1+ α 1 x-brx- a 1 + α 2 x-brx- a 2 +…+ α j x-brx- a j x b r G x β 0
β 1 x b … β r - 1 x b r 1 α 1 x b r x a 1
α 2 x b r x a 2 … α j x b r x a j (14)

Now that we have "covered up" the x-br x b r term in the denominator of Gx G x , we plug in x=b x b to each side; this cancels every term on the right-hand side except for β 0 β 0 , leaving the formula
β 0 =x-brGxx=b β 0 x b x b r G x (15)

Just glancing at it makes me want to curl up in the fetal position on the floor and never come out. That is why I'm an English Major :)

*Aaron says the equations didn't copy right, but I can't tell the difference.

Shark Bait Mu-Ha-Ha

It exists! Shark Bait is really in there. Yup, that's right I am officially really pregnant. My first doctor's appointment was on Monday and it was all good news, thank goodness. First off, I got to hear the heart beat. I always love that. And second, there was only one heart beat (meaning I'm only having one baby.) Whew. Everything looked good. The doc said the heart beat was nice and strong, and it was the right size to be 14 weeks along, and that I should expect to have a nice boring pregnancy. Oh, he also said that because Lincoln came 10 days early that's a really good indicator that this baby won't go up to or past it's due date either. The due date being March 24th. So it's all good. Now I just have to get through the rest of this pregnancy.

This time around has been a lot harder than when I was pregnant with Lincoln. With Lincoln all I really remember is that I was always tired, like sleepy tired. And I'd just lie down, have a 3 hour nap and I'd be good to go. But this time, not only is a 3 hour nap a laughable concept with Lincoln around, but I've been a lot sicker. My nausea is slowly but surely fading away (thank goodness), but this last week or so there have been other issues. Like today for instance...I almost passed out at the grocery store. My friend and I were checking out a new farmer's market grocery store that opened recently, and while I was standing in line to pay all of a sudden the room started spinning and I crouched down. The cashier asked if I was alright, and I told her I was really dizzy. She said I should go sit down on the chairs outside. I gave Suzy my credit card so she could pay for my groceries and went out and sat down. When Suzy came out with her cart and mine, I fished out a banana and ate it. That made me feel somewhat better. At least I felt like I could drive home safely. But thank goodness I was with Suzy. I think we've decided that this has something to do with my blood sugar levels. I guess I need to be better about eating more frequently and about carrying around a snack with me at all times, just in case. But seriously, it's so annoying. Not to mention scary. And it never happened to me when I was pregnant with Lincoln, but lately it seems to be happening alot. Not quite as bad as at the store today though.

You Know You're In Trouble When...

You walk into the kitchen and you see this! Lincoln on the table. I swear this kid is part cat. And he gets it from his father. Apparently Lincoln has learned how to climb up onto the kitchen chair and then onto the table. Joy for me. I suppose he'll be sitting up on the refrigerator next. :)

Moving on to more exciting topics, we had a pretty great weekend. It started on campus on Thursday. BYUSA (which is the BYU student association) was having a big to-do to get everyone to register to vote. It went on all week, and every day they gave out different free stuff, well on Thursday, the day Aaron and I decided to register, the free item was cotton candy! Yay! Pure sugar, who doesn't love it? Well, Aaron doesn't, and neither does Lincoln, but that was fine because I didn't even have to share!


On Friday Aaron came home at 3:00pm whoo-hoo. That was probably the best treat of the whole weekend right there. We sat out on the grass for awhile while Lincoln played, and just relaxed. It was nice. On our way into the house I decided to see what it would be like to "walk in Aaron's shoes". Too bad I can't even get my poor little short leg over the crossbar, let alone get my butt on the seat. Then we had to run some papers up to the Student Health Center, and on the way home we stopped at my new favorite dessert place on the planet. It's called Yoasis. It's frozen yogurt and they put fruit and granola and stuff like that on top. Simple, yet delectable! I'm addicted already. But the fun part is they hand you out a calendar and every day they have some weird way to get either a free topping or a free mini yogurt. For example, there's joke day, tell the cashier a joke, get a free topping. Pajama Day, wear your pj's get a free mini yogurt. And many other wonderful days such as this. It's a college student's paradise. Or at least it's mine. Yum! I highly recommend discovering if there is a Yoasis near you.


Friday night was Fall Fest, the welcome back party on campus for all the students. Mainly we were in because they were serving free pizza. It didn't start until 8:00pm though, way past Lincoln's bed time. But we really couldn't pass up the free pizza. So we put Lincoln down for a nap at 6:00pm woke him up at 7:15pm and drove up to campus, got there by 7:25pm, scoped out where they would be serving the pizza and got in line. Actually, we created the line, because we were definitely the first ones in it. Boo-yah! Talk about nerds! But hey, we got our pizza first, and we got it hot, so whose complaining? We're married anyway, it's not like we have to make a good impression.

Saturday night we had tickets to the O.C. Tanner Gift of Music at the Conference Center in Salt Lake. The concert was the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the Utah Symphony Orchestra featuring Brian Stokes Mitchell, and Denys (I'm having trouble remembering her last name at the moment). We went with Aaron's twin brother Kelly and his date Rachel. It was a great concert! It was themed "American Songbook" so they did a bunch of patriotic songs, and also a bunch of songs that have been popular throughout American history. And thank you, thank you, thank you, Aunt Debby for watching Lincoln so that Aaron and I could go on a real date! And thanks Mom for the tickets, I'm glad you had other plans so we could enjoy a nice evening out!

Sorry, I guess I'm on a Roll

I'm not a kill-joy. Really I'm not. I like to have as much fun as the next person, but seriously I read an article in the good old Ogden Standard Examiner that I thought was simply ridiculous and I can't pass up this opportunity to share my thoughts. First I'll post the article so that you all have the great pleasure of being able to read it.

FRONTPAGE: Weber High Wins Jessica / Text-message blitz brings singer to high school in radio contest Tuesday, September 16, 2008By DI LEWIS & JANAE FRANCIS Standard-Examiner staff

PLEASANT VIEW -- "Keep texting for Jessica!" was the mantra repeated by many Weber High School students throughout the last week. And it worked.
Actor/singer Jessica Simpson made a brief Monday morning appearance for an audience of 1,800 at Weber High as the prize for the winning school in a K-Bull 93 FM texting contest.
Weber beat out second-place Fremont High School by about 250,000 texts, coming in the winner with a total of 571,795.
Pat Garrett, afternoon deejay for K-Bull, said the station got more than 1 million texts.
"It's absolutely amazing. We've got moms over here saying, 'We want to see her, too. We're paying the bills,' " Garrett said.
While senior Liz Jessop said she thought the contest was more about beating rival Fremont High than seeing Simpson, she was still excited.
Senior Jonathan Androtti said, "We hate Fremont and (Simpson's) hot."
Simpson arrived at 11:30 a.m. to talk to student body officers and the two most prolific texters, then moved to the gym, where the rest of the student body greeted her with a deafening roar.
Several members of the media were frustrated at being shut out of the school by Simpson's staff after having been told by the radio station that they would be allowed into her presentation.
In her trademark Texan drawl, Simpson fielded a few questions from students, giving answers that could barely be heard above the cheering.
She talked about high school, dealing with public scrutiny with the help of family, friends and faith, her move to country music, and her relationship with Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo.
"I just like ridin' in the car and talkin' and pullin' over and kissin'," she said, when asked about her most exciting date with Romo.
A handful of students received hugs and kisses on the cheek from Simpson. She laughed after giving one boy a hug, saying, "I think he's shaking."
Students were shown the video for Simpson's latest single "Come on Over," from her new country music album, which Simpson calls her "best album yet."
About 25 minutes after she entered the gym, Simpson was ushered out again.
Senior Kylie Spilker was the second-place texter with more than 18,000 texts in the last week.
She said Simpson's visit was "way cool" and the time she spent texting between classes, at lunch and at home was worth getting a hug from the superstar.
However, Spilker said she had to be "very sneaky" to avoid getting her phone confiscated under the school's classtime cell-phone ban.
"I love her. I mean, she's just about the prettiest lady in the world."
Josh Naylor, a Weber junior, sent more than 23,000 texts to propel himself to first place so he could meet Simpson.
Both Naylor and Spilker said unlimited texting plans were key to their success.
But even with the flood of messages pouring into K-Bull, teachers said they didn't really think the contest distracted students.
Don Kenyon, who teaches business, said most teachers kept the school's cell-phone ban in place during the last week, but a few allowed students to send texts if they were for the contest.
Special-education teacher Connie Perry said she thinks more phones were taken away from students in the last week than during any other time.
"We see that (Simpson's visit) as a spectacular, fun way for Weber High to kick off Homecoming Week," said Weber School District spokesman Nate Taggart, "but it's not the type of distraction we'd want to occur on a regular basis."

Where do I even start with this? How about the ridiculous waste of time sending 571,795 text messages is. Not to mention the kid that sent 23,000 all by himself. 23,000 text messages, in 7 days. Now if my little computer calculator is working correctly that means he sent on average 3,285.7 texts every day. I hope he has an unlimited texting plan. But ok, I'll give them a break they are high school kids. But what about the moms? "Oh we'll help you text since we pay for it, and we'd love to have some skanky pop star come and talk to you about how she makes out with her football star boyfriend on the side of the road." Um, where's the educational value in that might I ask? I'm sure glad our tax dollars support the public school system so they can provide this kind of "education" for the kids. I don't know, maybe I'm being too harsh here, maybe she said something else that really was inspiring in some way, but all I'm going off of is what the article said.

This kind of reminds me of an occasion when I was in high school. Chelsi maybe you'll remember, because I know we spent a lot of time in the journalism room discussing how stupid it was. Anyways when I was in high school I remember two different events that happened probably within a month of each other. The first event was that the history department invited a few WWII veterans who lived in the community to come and talk to the students about their experiences in the war. This mini assembly took place during school hours. Teachers were encouraged to let their students out of class to go and listen to these men. A few did, most teachers did not, and the majority of the student body did not get to hear what the veterans had to say. The second event was that a girl from Utah who had been on the TV show Survivor came to the school to do, I don't even remember what actually. But the whole school day got reorganized so that there could be an assembly in her honor.

Now don't get me wrong, it's cool that this girl got to be on Survivor and I suppose in some people's minds it's cool that Jessica Simpson got to be at Weber High for all of 25 minutes. But what I think is absolutely mind boggling is the emphasis the student body and especially the administration and staff put on the pop culture events, and how little attention is given to say the WWII veterans that came to speak when I was in high school. I think it was Chelsi, way back then, who said There will be a point in history when there are no WWII veterans left alive to come and speak, but there will always be pop stars out there. So I guess the point I'm trying to make isn't that I don't think fun things should happen in high school, but I do think that a lot of the time too big of a deal is made out of something that really has little or no value, and those things are often times put in place of the things that really do matter or could really make a difference.

*I was going to post a picture of Jessica, but I can't even find one in which she is wearing a decent amount of clothing.

My Political Gripes

Right off the bat I'm going to admit that I'm about as conservative as they come. So my first, but minor, political gripe is that for me and all my other fellow conservatives there really is no good choice in this election. Maybe we should break off and start our own party, who knows? But until that happens we are sitting here with two very dismal candidates in front of us, wondering if it would just be better not to vote, even though the American (not to mention the woman) in me is yelling that it is my patriotic duty to do so.

Maybe after reading this you'll call me a "single issue" person and therefore disregard what I have to say. However, I don't think I am a single issue person, it's just that there is one issue that has a lot more weight (in my mind) than a lot of the rest of the issues. Can you guess what I'm driving at? That's right, my issue is abortion. I think abortion is evil. Period.

So my big gripe for today has to to with Senator Obama. He is pro-choice. But that in itself is not enough to draw me out of my shell to type up this little post. A little while ago I heard a clip from a speech the Senator gave, he was discussing abortion and he said something very close to this (I may not have it exactly word for word, sorry about that I wish I did), "The first thing I'll do is to teach my girls morals. But if one of them ends up pregnant, I don't want them punished with a baby." This little comment really disturbed me. At first I thought it was just because he is for abortion, and as I have already stated how I feel about abortion, you can see why it would. But as I keep pondering this over and over in my mind, I've come to a decision about what I think, and why I don't like what Obama had to say. I'm going to try and relate it here as best I can and I hope it makes sense.

First of all, I want to make it very clear that I am not talking about people who have been raped or molested. That is a very different situation than what I am going to be talking about.

Second of all, babies are not a punishment. God doesn't say "Oh, you were bad, here's a baby, take that!" No. Rather babies are the consequence of an action. That action is sex. Sex is a big deal. The reason it is a big deal is because sex makes babies, in other words it creates human lives. You can't change it, it's a fact of life. It's kind of like lung cancer. If you smoke you get lung cancer. Does every single person who smokes get lung cancer? No. Does every single person who has sex get a baby? No. But these are the "risks" of these actions. When you say to yourself, I choose to have sex, you are accepting the possibility that you could get pregnant. Why? Because actions have consequences. If you don't want a baby, don't have sex. It's pretty simple: self control. So when Senator Obama says, "...but if they get pregnant, I don't want them punished with a baby." What I infer is that he doesn't want his daughters to be responsible for their actions. Instead they can remove the consequence by having an abortion. (Don't even get me started on the poor logic in that!) Um, that's pretty scary don't you think? What will our country be like if we have a president who doesn't believe his daughters/himself/people in general should be responsible for their actions? I can only imagine. That thought process is rampant enough in this country as it is. And Obama claims to be teaching his daughters morals! What a joke. Since when was murdering an innocent baby morally acceptable?

Maybe I've jumped off the deep end here, but I really don't think so. And so I'm left wondering, do I vote for McCain? I certainly can't vote for Obama. These are my political gripes for the day. We'll get back to the light-hearted, more-fun-to-read, normal stuff tomorrow, but today I had to get that off my chest.

A Little Bit 'O This 'N That

The other day, Aaron came home from school exhausted. So, he stretched out on the floor and attempted (you'll see why it was merely an attempt in a minute) to rest. At first Lincoln was really cute, he went over to Aaron and laid down next to him and just stayed there for awhile. (Not long enough for me to grab the camera though.) Then Linc would get up, come over to me, then go back and lie down somewhere in Aaron's vicinity. It was adorable. Then the fun began. Lincoln decided he was tired of letting Aaron rest, I'm mean c'mon he'd had a good 15 minutes by then, so Lincoln took matters into his own hands. At first he tried the friendly face push to see if Aaron would get up. No response. Next, Lincoln rocked Aaron back and forth to try and see if there was any life left in him. Determining that there was not, Lincoln came to the conclusion that Aaron was an inanimate object and proceeded to climb back and forth over the top of him with great pleasure.

In other great news...today I went shopping! And I got to buy something, even better. Lincoln and I went to Shopko. They were having a 50% off sale on toddlers winter clothing, dangerous. But even more dangerous, they were also having a 40-80% off maternity clothes sale. SCORE! Now really, I'm not in that great of need for maternity clothes yet, although my tummy does have a little pooch already (it came so much sooner this go around), most of my pants still fit. My major problem however is that my bust has decided to bust out if you know what I mean, and most of my shirts are reaching the point of indecent. Seriously I feel like I got hit in the chest with a softball and swelled right up. The joys of being pregnant aye? So, in order to keep

myself modest, I bought a few tops to hold me over until October when Aaron's sister Stacey has her baby and sends all of her darling maternity clothes my way. The picture doesn't really do them justice, they are a lot cuter. And the very cutest one isn't pictured because it is currently on my person. Then of course there was Lincoln's well being to consider. I mean if I wait until winter to buy him winter clothes I'll pay full price for them, so I caved. Not to mention that I still haven't used the free 8x10 at Kiddie Kandids that Lincoln won and Tomato Days, and need an outfit for him to go it. So there you have it. All our major purchases. Even though I kind of spent a lot, it's about 1/2 of what I would have spent if I'd paid full price, so in my book that goes down as a steal. And well worth it.

Also, I know I've been promising a picture of the new do. I was trying to wait until Aaron was home to take the picture and my hair looked good at the same time (not as easy as it sounds, since Lincoln has discovered how to comb my hair and thinks it's great fun.) so that he could take a pic for me. But today I finally broke down and attempted to take the pictures myself. So here's my new hair cut! Yay! I really like it. So if you don't then don't say anything, you'll burst my bubble :) Just keep in mind that although my hair was done for the picture, my makeup was not,

so don't look at my face, just my hair! There is a side shot and a front shot, so you get the full effect. Well, except for the back I guess, but don't feel too bad, my hand mirror broke in the move, so I haven't seen the back yet either! Ha!

Back to School and the Rest of Our Week

Well, school officially started this week. Here is Aaron getting ready to jump on his bike and go to his first day of school. He said it was really weird to be going back after having 8 months off to do his internship, but I'm sure he'll get right back into the swing of things before too long.

Also this week we got sick. Blah! Aaron got a sore throat on Wednesday, and Lincoln and I managed to catch it by Thursday. It put kind of a damper on our unpacking, but we are glad to report that besides some runny noses and a little bit of coughing we are all back in good health.

Saturday we worked really hard on getting our apartment unpacked and cleaned. I'd say you can definitely see an improvement. Also on Saturday I got my hair cut! I've been threatening to for awhile now. It's short and different and I love it! I'll post some pics of it soon.

Sunday we decided to go to our ward for the first time (we've been in Hooper the last two Sundays). Our ward starts at 9:00am. We got up and got all ready and it was only 9:05, so we decided that even though the church is really close that we would drive to get there a little faster. When we pulled into the parking lot there was not another car to be seen. Oh man. Where was everyone? Aaron said he thought he's heard someone on campus say they were excited to hear Pres. Monson or someone speak, but hadn't thought much of it. So we decided since there definitely wasn't church in our building, that we would drive up to the Marriot Center to see if anything was going on. The closer we got to the Marriot Center, the more obvious it was that something was going on, because students were flocking in that general direction. We parked and got half way out (meaning Aaron and I got out but Lincoln was still in his carseat) and we took a good look at the flocks of people. There wasn't another child to be seen...these were all single studnets. Hmm.....what next? We called Kelly and asked him what was going on. He said it was regional Conference. Oh good, at least we were invited. Then we got to thinking about trying to contain Lincoln in the Marriot Center (stadium seating, cement stairs, lots of people packed really close together) for two hours, and decided it was a bad idea. So we called Aaron's Aunt Debby to see if we could go with them to their Stake Center. She agreed, and we got to enjoy Regional Conference.

Sunday evening we had our friends Danny and Suzy Park and their little boy Nathan over for dinner. It was a lot of fun. I'm glad we have good friends that we can spend time with.

This is a picture of Lincoln and Nathan playing while we wait for the salmon to finish baking.

Hooper Tomato Days...at long last

After about 3 years of missing it for various reasons, we finally made it to Hooper Tomato Days, one of my all time favorite holidays. For you non-Hooper residents, let me explain. Every year on Labor Day weekend my little hometown of Hooper, Utah holds what is known as Tomato Days. Basically it's like a miniature fair. There's a rodeo, free dinner, they show a movie in the park, have a flag raising, contests for which farmer grew the largest produce, booths to sale produce, booths to sale crafts, game booths, carnival rides, food, food and more food, and arts and crafts contest, a baby contest, dog races, a 5k run, and lots of other things. It's all for the residents (or in our case former residents) of Hooper. I love it because, even if you don't know everyone at the park, you still know a lot of the people there, because it's all your friends and neighbors. Kids play, parents chat, you can buy cotton candy, and it's all a nice homey friendly environment. I love it! As I mentioned above, Aaron and I have missed it the last several years. And this year since we were in town and school hadn't started yet, we decided to go spend Labor Day weekend up at my parents house and attend Tomato Days.


Saturday night was the free dinner and movie in the park. We met Mom and Kerry and Kerry's sister Bev there. They served shredded pork sandwiches, corn on the cob, cookies, and of course, tomatoes. (Oh ya, and they call it Tomato Days because Hooper grows the best tomatoes in the world.) It was all very delicious. After dinner we played with Lincoln on the slide. Someone would let him loose at the top, and someone else would catch him at the bottom. He thought that was the funnest thing in the world. I love his face in the picture. Pure excitement. I think he's going to have adrenaline issues when he gets older. The weather looked a little if-ie so we decided not to stay and watch the movie in the park.

Monday morning was the baby contest. They split the babies up into age groups and into boys and girls. Lincoln was in the 9-17 month old boys. They were only allowed to wear their diapers. This picture is of Lincoln while we are waiting for our turn. He doesn't like to crawl on the hard floor, so he does his little Mogli walk instead. It's really funny.

This is us on the stage. My friends Kelsie Orrock and Natalie Dalpias and their babies Benson and Owen, were in our group too. It was so fun to see them again after so long. Kelsie is the girl to the left of me, Natalie is left of her, but she got cut out of the shot (sorry Nat!) I didn't get a good pic of all three of us :( There were several different categories for the babies to win. Most Hair, Curliest Hair, Least Hair, Biggest Eyes, Cutest Dimples, and then the Prince. There were a lot of really cute babies there, so I didn't know if we had a shot at anything. I mean, obviously I think that Lincoln is the cutest, but I'm pretty bias. The judges have a hard job, they just walk down the row of all these darling babies, really only get one look at them, and then have to make a decision. I don't envy them one bit. It would be hard. But because of this, you just have to remember that it's pretty arbitrary and doesn't mean a lot if you win. It's all just for fun.

Anyways, I was thinking that the only thing we had a shot for was maybe biggest eyes, and maybe least hair, because Lincoln definitely doesn't have the most hair, and what he does have isn't curly, and he doesn't have dimples either. So when we didn't get announced as the winner for least hair, or eyes, I figured oh well it was fun anyways. But then they announced the Prince and they called our number, and they said Lincoln's name. So Lincoln got to be the Prince of Hooper for a day! He got a cute little blue sash that said Prince on it, which he promptly ripped, a cool gift package with some books, a sippy cup, gold fish crackers, a toy, and some spoons, and my favorite a free 8x10 at Kiddie Kandids, and Lincoln's favorite 5 helium balloons. All in all it was definitely worth the $5 it cost to enter.

After we took Lincoln home for a nap and some lunch we headed back to the park to enjoy the festivities. Aaron couldn't resist taking a picture of me in this putrid purple hat. We saw a lot of old friends and had a lot of fun. Then we packed up and headed back to Provo. Once there we did some more unpacking of our apartment, and then went and had dinner with Aaron's Aunt Karen and cousins Bryan and Whitney, and Whitney's boyfriend Kirk, and Aaron's brother Kelly. It was good to see all those guys again. We've really missed having family close by.