friends, flowers, and sprinklers...

One of my favorite people and her family have been visiting San Antonio this past week. Jess and I were roommates at BYU for 3 years.... it's fun to catch up with old roomies! I finally got to meet baby Taggert. He's such a cutie. Luke thinks he is pretty great too... keeps talking about "baby Tagg". Last night we went to dinner with their family at Papasitos (longest wait there EVER!!) Seriously, we called in at 6:30 to put our name on the list, arrived around 7:15, and didn't leave until after 10:00! Jenni introduced me to Papasito's Chicken Morelia tacos when we moved to Texas... MMmmm.. I wanted them SO BAD last night... searched the menu for them... and they're not there anymore!!! SAD DAY!!!! They were my favorite. Apparently the restaurant stopped making them about 6 months ago. Annoying! They won't make them anymore. Anyway, the tacos I ended up getting were good but nothing near good old Morelia tacos! I guess that's enough about the tacos... haha. Here are some pictures we took of the cuties... Tagg and Luke...














Other things we've been up to...
Yard work! Our poor lawn had been neglected all winter and over the past few weeks we've been trying to bring it back to life. We have planted new flowers, fertilized, and cleaned things up. Hopefully it starts looking better! Luke had lots of fun helping! He gets excited when we turn on the sprinklers too. Can't keep himself out of them! He tells me at least ten times during the day.. "a go outside an get wet?!" "and mama get wet!? and dada get wet!?" He LOVES watching us get wet. Jake is a good sport about it and plays in the sprinklers with him. I'm usually not in a sprinkler mood :)
These little star flowers are my favorite. We planted some Zinnias and Geraniums too. Lets hope they live! Seems like the only thing we don't kill at our house is Lantana. Oh, and we got a little carried away at the store with baby girl things already. Went to go and "look" at things and came home with a bedding set and a dress. I'll post a pic of the bedding later... it's so cute!... pink, brown, and white... polka dots, stripes, and flowers. Ya, we're just a little excited! ;)

Baby is a....

Girl!!! With 17 votes for girl and 10 for boy, the majority guessed right on the little poll thing. :) Good job guys! This pregnancy is just the same, if not easier then my first, so I figured it had to be a boy. It's fun to be wrong sometimes! We're excited for our little girl to come join the family! Can't wait!

Scary??...

When we took Luke to see Horton Hears a Who he FREAKED OUT when the preview for Ice Age 3 came on. really. I've never heard him scream like that. This boy is never scared of things. This wasn't a crying sort of scream... more like I'm scared-for-my-life scared scream that didn't end until the preview was over. His little body was totally shaking. So sad. At the theater, he relaxed soon after the preview was over. For those who haven't seen this movie trailer, here it is... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44t77yLtudE&feature=related
We thought maybe the loud theater sound system freaked him out. Nope. We can't figure out what is so scary about this except for maybe he's afraid of falling?? Or maybe the squirrel is somehow scary? Anyway, we sort of forgot about that until yesterday. We were watching movie trailers on the computer and came across Ice Age 3 again. Luke started screaming hysterically when it came on. Freaked out just like at the movie theater. Screaming, shaking, covering his eyes, everything. He wouldn't even come near the computer for the rest of the day (and he had only watched the first little bit of said preview). Jake asked him about the scary squirrel movie before bed last night and he started crying and freaking out yet again. We're going to be avoiding Ice Age now. Why is it so terrifying??...

Cutie #2...

So, two weeks from today we find out if our little family addition will be a girl or a boy. Woo hoo! I found out Luke was a little boy when I was 19 weeks along, so it was unexpected and exciting when my Dr. scheduled my ultrasound for 18 weeks this time around! I'm so impatient with this... don't know how people wait to find out when the baby is actually born. I see fun things about #2 being either a girl or a boy. Would love for Luke to have a little brother to play with, and it would be fun to see what life with a little girl is like too. I just want to know! :) So, I put a poll up in the corner... what do you think this little one is?

Spring Break in Washington...

Jake's much anticipated spring break came and went way too fast! We had tons of fun though! Friday the 28th, right after Jake got off school, we went straight to the airport and flew to Phoenix. Saturday we spent the day with the Smith side of the family. Luckily we barely caught Josh, Jenni, and the boys who were still visiting from CA until Sunday morning. We hung out with them along with the Arizona Smiths at the park. Jenni and I got away for a little bit to do some shopping... I found a cute jacket on super clearance. Score! Sunday we spent the day with the Gift side of the fam. Had a tasty BBQ and hung out with family and friends after church. Weather in AZ was perfect... not too hot yet. I took off for a run around 7 in the morning monday and it was gorgeous running weather... aaaa...I love that there is no humidity there! Monday we met Jake's old mission companion, Brigham, and his wife for lunch at good old Chipotle. The rest of the day we hung out with family. Tuesday morning Jake and I were off to Washington DC. Thanks a bunch to grandmas and grandpas for watching Luke so we could have the week to ourselves! Luke had fun being spoiled by the grandparents!
In DC we stayed with Brendon and Taryn. Brendon and Jake were roommates at BYU. They have visitors all the time lately, so they are the perfect hosts! Seriously! Pros. They gave us a list of everywhere they thought we should visit... and had tons of info about everything. It was great. Brendon has the awesome job of working on President Bush's speeches. Isn't that so cool!? Ya. So, he was able to give us some pretty awesome tours of the White House. I loved seeing all the entertaining rooms in the White House... the awesome flowers everywhere... things like the china various presidents have used. Thanks to Brendon we got to see the West Wing... stuff people don't get to see without White House connections. Pretty awesome. Anyway, thanks again guys for a fun time! We took a million pictures on our trip. Although I narrowed them down a lot to post there are still tons on here, so brace yourself for some favorites! :)
Here are some pics from the White House. Unfortunately, pictures are only allowed in the rose garden, the press room, and outside. Cameras weren't even allowed on our first white house tour.
Us... in the front yard of the White House...

Jake, Me, Taryn, and Brendon in the White House press room...

In the rose garden. The oval office is behind us.

Another cool oval office shot. The rose garden is so pretty... even at night!

Another rose garden pic...

the oval office...

West wing entrance...

On to other DC sites...

We ate at so many good places! Here's Jake at a Mexican restaurant we ate at the first day. I've learned to sit in the spot that has the view of the TV if ESPN is on... otherwise, that captures his attention... like it's doing here.

Washington National Monument....
We FROZE waiting for tickets in the morning to go up to the top of the monument. It was way cool though. The view is worth the wait.

Some shots from the top....
on this one you can see the Lincoln Memorial in the distance...

This view showed the White House...

View of the capital and some Smithsonian buildings...

It was Cherry Blossom festival while we were visiting! I'm glad we got to see the trees this time of year!

We waited a long time for Holocaust Memorial Museum tickets too... AMAZING museum. Just be warned... they spare no details about the Holocaust. Very eye-opening place.
Having fun riding the Metro!

One of our Metro cards... I'm dorky and like to keep stuff like this for scrapping! haha
I LOVE Cosi bagels!!!! We stopped here a couple of times. MMMmmm..

Jake in front of the Library of Congress...

an interior library shot. the architecture was so cool...

We took a tour of the Capitol and thought it was fun that Brigham Young is sitting in there!

Awesome artwork in the Capitol... this pic is of the dome inside...

Outside view of the Capitol...

Korean War Memorial...

Aaaa... more cherry blossoms!

Eating some great Thai food with Brendon and Taryn. Brendon found out earlier that day he's been accepted to Stanford for his MBA, so they're off to CA soon! Congrats again!

We took a tour of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. It was fun seeing how money is made!

I loved all the big old trees everywhere there! Such a nice change from the little scrubbies in TX! haha..

So many cool memorials

My favorite memorial... the Lincoln

We checked out Ford's theatre and the house across the st. where Lincoln died

Arlington National Cemetery

Tomb of the unknown soldier...

It started raining when we were at the cemetery... excuse the hair :)

A few pics from the Natural History Smithsonian...

Hope diamond..

Marie Antoinette's earrings....

dorks at the Imax...

Air and Space Smithsonian... I met a new friend...

stud in front of some planes...

American HIstory Smithsonian stuff...
Seinfield's puffy shirt and Mr. Roger's sweater...

George Washington's uniform and sword...

Nauvoo temple sunstone...

I was sort of skeptical about going to the International Spy Museum.. but now I'm SO glad we went! It was so cool! One of my favorite things that we did actually. All sorts of interesting espionage info and spy gear... go see it! We were there for pretty much all of Saturday before we left to go back to AZ.
outside the spy museum.. it's huge inside.

So, we ended up spending time at the White House (West and East wings), the Capitol, Bureau of Engraving and Printing, the Natural History Smithsonian, American History Smithsonian exhibit (the museum itself is being renovated right now), the Air and Space Smithsonian, the National Archives, the Holocaust Museum, International Spy Museum, Arlington Cemetary, the Jefferson, Lincoln, Vietnam, Korean, WW2, Washington, and FDR Monuments, and probably some things I am forgetting right now! It was a crazy week! We were literally running to and from different places to make appointment times and things.

We flew back to AZ Saturday night and stayed at my parents house. It was fun to be away for a little bit by ourselves but it was fun to get back to Luke. Sunday we flew back to TX... grandparents had talked about flying on planes quite a bit with Luke explaining to him where we went while he was at their house so he was so excited to fly on a plane and come back home! Loved looking out the plane window and was so good! Anyway, back to school and Texas life...