Danny, Jessi & Oliver

My Little Helper

2012-02-09T10:03:00.000-08:00

Ollie loves to help. He's so funny.

- At least once a day he goes and gets all of the vacuum attachments and hands them to me or just goes around scooting them on the carpet making vacuum noises.

- When I take him around to do my job cleaning our apartment building he needs to have a paper towel to help wash windows, or the broom to drag around and sweep.

- He knows where we keep our dust pan and pulls it out for me all of the time. The other day when he was with me cleaning the laundry room he kept taking the dust pan and banging it in the garbage can like I do to get the dirt out.

- He also knows where the garbage can is kept, and even though it is in a child proofed cabinet he will open it the crack that he can and shove any little tiny piece of garbage he finds in it.

- He picks things up off the ground for me when I drop them (this one is certainly appreciated at this point in pregnancy!).

- He hands me the rag to wash his face when he's done eating.

I love it all. My little brother Conrad says it's the "first child syndrome" and that first born babies are born helpers. Whatever. I just think he's the best. I hope he wants to help out even more when his little sister is born.

(I swear he has other clothes. He just happens to always being wearing the same ones when I take pictures of him. Oh well.)

Did we tell you?

2012-02-09T08:53:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure I announced it to you all over blogging (because Facebook isn't enough), but Danny has been accepted to medical school at the University of Washington! Hurray! We are so happy and feel so blessed. We were pretty much planning on waiting another year - Danny was days away from signing up for an expensive MCAT prep course because he was sure the interview didn't go well at UW and we just hadn't heard from the U of U yet. But then, he got a call from his UW interviewer the day after his interview! We were both shocked and crying and happy and Ollie was also crying because it was dinner time and he was in his high chair without food because Danny and I were too excited. It was a great night.

So currently, we are just waiting to find out which campus Danny will b

e attending. They have a satellite campus here in Spokane that you can attend as a first year student but we won't find out until April if they assigned us to stay here or to go to Seattle. We would love to stay here near our friends a

nd family for another year, but we are just so grateful to be accepted at all.

Anyhow, most of you knew all of this, and what I really wanted to do was to share these photos with you. I think he might beat Danny to being Dr. Olson.

2012-01-13T14:38:00.000-08:00

This little guy loves apples. I was trying to feed him apple sauce while I ate my own apple and he was really unhappy about that. Therefore, he took over my snack. Then finished his.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-16T22:17:00.000-08:00

These are my attempts at artistic photos of our beautiful Christmas tree. It makes me so happy every day.

One day I was in Hobby Lobby and started tearing up because I really really wanted one and I'm pregnant so I cry over silly things. But alas, we had no room in our apartment for a tree what with a business and a baby and just living. And I knew we had no room.

I came home and was telling Danny about how silly I was being at the store, crying while looking at Christmas trees. And he agreed I was silly. And then that wonderful husband of mine left later in the week to get some groceries for me and came home with a tiny 4.5 foot fake tree. Just the perfect size to fit on top of our filing cabinet, hence out of the way of everything. And making me happy every day.

Children

2011-11-15T07:46:00.000-08:00

As members of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we are blessed to have the knowledge that Christ has established prophets and apostles on the Earth for us today. The first weekend of every April and October is reserved for a worldwide General Conference where these special witnesses of the Lord give talks that are broadcast to every continent. Then, the next month, their words are distributed to members in written form in a church magazine called the Ensign. I am so grateful for the wise and inspired counsel that is given to us from these conferences that applies so directly to our day and the specific challenges we face.

This morning I was reading one of my favorite talk's from this last October's General Conference. It is by Elder Neil L. Andersen of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles titled Children. As we are preparing for the birth of our second child in just a few months it was encouraging to me to listen to and read his words, and I would like to share some of them with you.

"Many voices in the world today marginalize the importance of having children or suggest delaying or limiting children in a family. My daughters recently referred me to a blog written by a Christian mother (not of our faith) with five children. She commented, '[Growing] up in this culture, it is very hard to get a biblical perspective on motherhood...Children rank way below college. Below world travel for sure. Below the ability to go out and night at your leisure. Below honing your body at the gym. Below any job you may have or hope to get.' She then adds: "Motherhood is not a hobby, it is a calling. You do not collect children because they are cuter than stamps. It is not something to do if you can squeeze the time in. It is what God gave you time for.'"

"Across the wold, this is a time of economic instability and financial uncertainty. In April general conference, President Thomas S. Monson said: 'If you are concerned about providing financially for a wife and family, may I assure you that there is no shame in a couple having to scrimp and save. It is generally during these challenging times that you will grow closer together as your learn to sacrifice and to make difficult decisions.'"

Elder Andersen then gives many examples from the scriptures of faithful couples bearing children during times of hardship, ending with the most supreme example of all: In the most beloved story of a baby's birth, there was no decorated nursery or designer crib - only a manger for the Savior of the world."

When people are shocked to discover we are already expecting our next child when Oliver is so young, it's wonderful to know that we are doing as we are commanded to multiply and replenish the earth. We have prayed about our little family and are so excited to know that the Lord is willing to bless us with at least this one more little baby - and we hope to have more. I love this gospel and the beautiful principles it teaches, especially about families.

Bump

2011-11-12T11:02:00.000-08:00

This pregnancy is going fast! Halfway to baby already! We found on on this past Wednesday that we are having a girl and we are so excited. Sorry that all of my pictures are in nasty work out clothes. That's just usually when Danny and I go "Whoa! You (I) look pregnant! Let's take a picture!"

14 weeks(ish)

(Almost) 20 weeks

In other news, this little guy took his first unassisted steps today! And then refused to do so again, but still! Look out world - he here comes!

Happy Halloween

2011-11-04T13:18:00.000-07:00

I need training on how to get my pictures in the right order without deleting them all.

So...before I was ever pregnant with Oliver, Danny and I had a discussion about Halloween costumes and how fun it would be to dress up like Christmas when we had a little guy and I was pregnant. Danny would be the tree, our child would be the star on top and ride on Dad's shoulders, and I would be the present as I would be carrying our unborn child.

Fast forward to this year, and we had the perfect circumstances for this family costume. And no one knew I was pregnant yet, so it was a baby announcement to our ward as well.

Montana

2011-10-10T10:10:00.000-07:00

In August we went with my whole family on a little trip to Montana and Glacier National Park. My parents had some friends in their ward who rented their cabin to us and we had a great time. Glacier was beautiful!

Poor Ollie guy had a rough trip. He got a window slammed on his little fingers during the boat tour we took, he got sunburnt, and got his first earache all while we were there. But he was a trooper, and other than those minor mishaps we had so much fun just being together, playing games, hiking, swimming, kayaking, camp firing, and eating eating eating.

Cannon Beach

2011-10-06T20:15:00.000-07:00

We had a great trip to Cannon Beach, Oregon back in July with Danny's family. It was so much fun and I just found the pictures on our old camera so I thought I would post some really quick.

Reading

2011-10-06T20:03:00.000-07:00

As I was helping Danny get out the door for school this morning I hadn't heard from Ollie for awhile so I checked in his room to see what he was doing. I found him laid out on his belly with his head down reading his new book he got for his birthday. Of course, he got distracted and looked up when I got the camera out but this picture is pretty darn cute too.

Happy Birthday, Son!

2011-10-06T18:57:00.000-07:00

Oliver turned one year old on September 30, 2011. Almost a week ago now. We celebrated by going to the doctor to get his one year shots. He was a great sport - didn't cry for more than a minute. He definitely got his pain tolerance

from his dad.

But we did have a great big-boy-one-year-old party on Sunday after General Conference (which was so good on Saturday.

Sunday....Ollie didn't nap very well, so mom didn't watch

conference very well). See pictures below of the family bash.

Thanks to Danny's sister-in-law Bre for being our photographer for the evening!

Look at those cute cousins - the kids were all so excited for the cake all day long.

This kid cracks me up

2011-06-21T16:36:00.000-07:00

Mother's Day

2011-05-09T08:13:00.000-07:00

Happy Mother's Day, yesterday! What a great day to be celebrated and honored for a job I love more than anything in the world. My sweet husband made me crepes for lunch and bought me this:

I'm so excited! I've been listening to audiobooks on my brother's old iPod shuffle and so every time I would accidentally bump a button it would be impossible to find my place again.

We spent the afternoon with Danny's mom. We made her some dinner (with ingredients she left on the counter for us - she made it pretty easy. What a mom!) and talked to his brother Jon who is coming home from a mission next month. It was a really nice afternoon.

My mom had a specific request for a Mother's Day gift - she wanted a piece of poetry from each of her kids. She told us it didn't have to be long, could be silly or sweet. I decided I wanted to get all of the poetry from my brothers and make some scrap book pages she could keep for a long time. I've been wanting to learn to make beautiful things and this seemed like a good opportunity to get some craft supplies and get started.

I think we were all surprised by the sweet and sentimental things we wrote about our mom. I even wrote a silly little one for Oliver. We met up with Jackson at my parent's house last night and Conrad joined us on the webcam and we all read our poems to my mom. It was really sweet and I think she was very touched.

Here are my pages I made - and I have to say I am very proud of my first venture into scrapbooking.

What a great thing to be a mother - and especially to this little guy! He makes every day joyful! I tell Danny all the time that we have such a great life. I am so grateful to my Heavenly Father for the chance to be a part of an eternal family with people I love so much. And I am especially grateful to my mother and all she has done for me.

First Picnic of the Year

2011-04-09T17:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was beautiful! So we packed up a lunch (okay, Danny packed the lunch) and headed for the park. It was the first time Ollie had spent outside out of a car seat or stroller, and we think he liked it. He even got to go down the slide with Dad! What a day!

Crawling Practice

2011-04-05T18:03:00.001-07:00

It's too bad you can't see his face, he was laughing so much. Funny little man.

Crawling Practice Part 2

2011-04-05T17:53:00.000-07:00

Spring Break

2011-03-29T08:09:00.000-07:00

Last week was Danny's Spring Break. It was great because he didn't have classes, but it was still a lot of studying for him as the MCAT is only 6 weeks away! Yikes! But we scheduled something to do with family or friends for each night and still had our free subscription to NetFlix, so we had a good time. One day he brought me these pretty flowers.

And one day I got our very first Bountiful Basket! How fun!

And also, sweet little Ollie boy got his first tooth. What a great week!

Oliver's Blessing Day

2011-03-25T16:07:00.000-07:00

I never posted any pictures from Ollie's blessing day, so I thought I would put some up. Danny's great sister-inlaw Bre took these for us. He was blessed right after Thanksgiving in hopes that we could get some more family here, and Danny's brother Mike and his wife Madison were able to make it!

Good Morning Sunshine

2011-02-17T07:29:00.001-08:00

Ollie woke up screaming at 1am because he had rolled onto his belly and couldn't get back over. Then this morning I find him like this, mind that I had laid him down with his head the completely opposite direction and in the middle of the crib.

Don't Judge Us

2011-02-17T07:25:00.001-08:00

It was just so funny. And when he was in the box, he was just fine until I got the camera out.

Update

2011-02-16T09:01:00.000-08:00

Life has been fun and busy - as usual. We love love love being parents - especially now that we can get some more sleep! Danny is working hard studying for his classes and to take the MCAT in May. He takes a practice test every other weekend and has been doing great.

I'm busy with the business. It's fun and frustrating and requires so much more time than I put into it. The most difficult part by far is the website. I want to make it look more professional but I don't know how. We were going to hire a guy to do it but that fell through. Here is the link if anyone wants to take a look and tell me who can fix it for me:)

www.acbouquet.com

Our Favorite Little Ollie Boy

2011-02-16T08:51:00.000-08:00

Ollie is getting so big every day. His recent feats:

Rolling over (only when no one is looking)

Eating solid foods (ie very runny rice cereal)

Grabbing at everything I try to work on with him in my lap

Leaning forward and hitting his head on the table when I try to work on anything with him in my lap

Doing that thing with his lips where he makes a funny noise by pushing air through them when they're closed and spitting a lot (what would you call that?)

Falling asleep on his own for naps AND at night

Sleeping 12 hours a night (or at least we think he does, we started sleeping with the bedroom doors shut)

Pooping close to 80 times per day

Sucking his thumb

I swear he smiles all the time - just not for the camera.

Ojo Gets His First Taste of Solid Food

2011-02-16T08:41:00.000-08:00

We bought Ojo a high chair and gave him his first taste of rice cereal on Saturday. He definitely prefers eating his bib, but we're making progress every day.

So big!

2011-01-18T10:13:00.000-08:00

Who said he could get big so fast? I think it should not be allowed.

AC Bouquet

2010-12-15T09:36:00.000-08:00

So, we bought a business. It's really fun. We have a website (www.acbouquet.com) and we sell candy bouquets and then build and ship them out to whoever bought them. So if you're looking for Christmas gift ideas...I know a website you can check out....

It's very exciting and fun, however our apartment is tiny...this is how it looked when we were moving things in. It was a little cramping before we moved in a home based business.

Here are a few of the first bouquets we built:

Funny Boy

2010-12-15T09:24:00.001-08:00

Look at this cute little guy.

Danny and I heard Oliver fussing in the other room so I went to get him and this is what I found:

The funny little guy had squirmed out of his blankets and halfway out of his pajamas and just started laughing as soon as I walked in. He's hilarious.

Big Day

2010-11-20T10:43:00.001-08:00

Yesterday was a big day. We started off at 5am (well, 3:30am for Oliver and I) and headed to the hospital by 5:30 for me to check into surgery. I had a minor operation done to remove an ovarian cyst and we were home by 12pm, and my sweet hubby got to take care of a loopy wife coming out of anesthesia and a 7 week old baby for the day. He was a champ, and so was Ojo. The baby made it pretty easy on us and Danny mostly let me sleep the whole day, he packed Ojo to school, the pharmacy, and out to his parent's house where he picked

up the second part of our big day - a new computer!

I've never been a fan of Apple computers - more like loathed them. But Danny has been slowly converting me over the past almost two years - and I'm converted. I especially love the big screen - who would have thought working on a 27 inch screen would be so fun?

More pictures

2010-11-10T11:31:00.000-08:00

Six Weeks Old!!

2010-11-10T11:25:00.000-08:00

It's only been six weeks? We feel like we've had this little guy as a part of our family forever. Hope you enjoy some of my favorite pictures.

Is this not the stinking cutest baby ever?

2010-10-30T14:47:00.000-07:00

Oliver is one month old today! This is the sweet little guy yesterday, he just loves to lay on the floor by himself. Sometimes when we pick him up he cries until we lay him back down again, and then he's just content. And sometimes talkative.

Presenting...

2010-10-13T13:38:00.001-07:00

Oliver Joseph Olson!

Ollie was born on September 30, 2010 at 10:49am. He weighed 8 lbs 6 oz and was 21 inches long. We are so excited he is finally here! And has been here for almost two weeks, I can't believe it. He's getting bigger and more alert all of the time.

Things we love about our son:

He has the funniest high pitched cry/squeal when he's not really upset
The funny expressions he gets on his face
How he wraps his arm around yours when you hold him up to your chest
All that hair!
How his eyes get huge and his arms, fingers and legs stick straight out when he startles
He sleeps! Since about 5 days old I have had to wake him up to feed him in the middle of the night. What a blessing!

We couldn't be happier.

The Nursery

2010-09-22T10:47:00.001-07:00

Look! Two blog posts in a row! And this one has pictures. I can't figure out how to get the pictures from our camera onto the computer, but I did figure out how to use the camera and e-mail on my phone...and voila! I'm quite proud of myself. Here is the nursery, just waiting for baby. The rocking chair is a hand me down from my brother and sister in law - Chari and Joe -and the crib we actually bought ourselves - something we don't do very often with so much helpful family around! We are so grateful for all of the help and support we get!

Here is the other side of the nursery (the other side of the room is storage, I'll spare you). The dresser was a great $1 find at a garage sale by Danny's parents and the car seat is another of those great hand me downs from Chari and Joe.

My boss made this fun quilt for baby Oliver with the cowboys on it. And the cute one in the crib with the jungle animals Danny's momma made for him. It's so fun, she stitched messages into the quilting for him, it has his name, our names, and the words to "I am a Child of God."

Still Pregnant

2010-09-21T21:03:00.001-07:00

I'm not actually due until the 26th, but I was so counting on getting out little guy out early that it feels like it's taking forever.... However, I know at this point that it will be absolutely no more than 2.5 weeks from now, and that is a relief. We are so excited to have a son! Meanwhile I am getting huger (is that a word?) every day and don't fit into most of my maternity clothes anymore - so I'm stretching out Danny's clothes for him. Why on earth do they make men's clothes fit pregnant women so much better than women's clothes? I don't think I'll ever understand.

My boss at work has been great, she has me scheduled for like 3 hours per day so I get to get out of the house still but I don't wear myself out. Up until last week I was still working 10-12 hour days. Ugh!

Everyone cross your fingers little Oliver comes soon! We love him and can't wait for him to get here! Actually - it would be preferable if he came on Friday afternoon since Danny starts classes tomorrow. We'd love to have the weekend together. Thanks!

I hate coming up with titles for these things...

2010-06-18T15:09:00.000-07:00

Here is our semi annual blog update... or at least it seems like that's about how often I write.

Danny and I are doing great! It's felt like we've really had a summer for the last week or so (although a cold one). I told Danny a few weeks ago that a girl at work had asked me to cover a shift for her in August and that she would be able to cover a Monday for me and he asked if she could do it the Monday after his finals so that we could maybe take a trip to Utah and see some friends. I thought it was a long shot but she agreed and I got someone to cover my Friday and we ended up with a long weekend! We left Thursday night at about 7pm and got into Idaho Falls at 4am. We visited with my grandparents for the day and then drove down to Salt Lake and visited friends and family in Utah Valley all weekend long. It made us so happy and we had so much fun, and also so sad because we miss having our good friends so nearby.

Now it's Friday again and I again have the day off work! Danny has had this week off of school because he is between quarters and we are family reunioning with his family all weekend. There has been a huge turnout already and more people just keep coming. Hooray for summertime and friends and family.

In other happenings, Danny has been released from the Elder's Quorum presidency and is now the eleven-year-old scout leader. He has only gone to scouts one time but is very excited about it. And my belly is getting rounder and rounder. I'm having strangers ask me frequently when my baby is due. It's a lot of fun. And he is a mover! Danny was able to feel the baby move for the first time a week ago. We can't wait for him to get here. We're still debating names but the current favorite is Oliver. We're open to ideas for middle names if anyone has any...

Baby blog

2010-04-15T20:22:00.000-07:00

So, for those of you who maybe don't check facebook....we're having a baby! We're due September 26 and very very excited. The appointment to find out if it's a girl baby or a boy baby is set for April 29 but at our last appointment the ultrasound tech said she was about 70% sure it's a boy. Hooray! We love baby boys!

Recent Happenings

2010-02-11T19:39:00.000-08:00

1. Danny changed majors. He is no longer a pre-nursing major, but pre-med. If all goes as planned he will have two more years of undergrad, the MCAT, and then med school. We're hoping for UW because he could possibly do the first year here in Spokane at a satellite campus, we would get in-state tuition, and it's a great medical school. Then again, we would love to go somewhere else for a few years also.

2. I reached my six month mark at work! I now have insurance coverage and got a raise. It's still crazy, and some days are harder than others but for the most part I really like it. The hardest part is finding time to do the really cool things that I am assigned to do. Between supervising visits and supervising and scheduling staff I rarely have time to look for grants, develop new programs, or develop new trainings.

3. Danny got offered a position to do research with his chemistry professor at EWU. We don't know many details yet, but there is a possibility that it will be a paid position and it will look great on applications for med schools.

4. I'm teaching the crazy crazy sunbeams at church on Sundays. I love them, but I come home very ready for a nap on Sundays. The CTR 6 class I had last year made me laugh like crazy and energized me most weeks - these kids just exhaust me. And make me laugh too.

5. My dad has been out of work for the past few months but had an interview on Tuesday and thinks that there may soon be an offer on the table. Cross your fingers!

6. We booked tickets to go to Europe! We're leaving on March 18th to fly to Rome. We'll spend a few days there then take a night train up to Munich where Danny's aunt and uncle will (hopefully) pick us up and we'll spend a week with them at their home on the Army base in Southern Germany. Danny's parents are coming with us and we're going to have an amazing time. I can't wait. Although I can't imagine how exhausting the first day back at work will be after flying in at midnight the night before. Who needs recovery time?

Marathon Blog

2009-12-05T16:15:00.000-08:00

Meaning I will post marathon pictures and it will be a very long posting since I haven't posted since...August. I had to check to see how long it had been.

First off, the marathon was mostly a success! We ran at the end of August on probably the coolest day of the summer. We were very lucky. We started out from our apartment parking lot at 5:30am in just a little bit of rain. We ran through downtown to the Centennial Trail in Riverfront park. From there we followed the trail through Spokane Valley, past Liberty Lake and Stateline, and we finished in Post Falls, ID for a grand total of 26.2 miles (or so we guessed on the whole point-two thing). We had arranged beforehand for my Dad to meet us at Sullivan road in the Valley for some water and a snack, but through some miscommunication (consisting of my Dad writing down Sullivan when I talked to him but waiting for us at Harvard about six miles farther down because he remembered wrong) we got it a little later at Barker road once we got the miscommunication cleared up. To this point we were feeling great. It had been raining for most of the morning and we had gone about 19 miles. At about mile 20 my right knee started hurting and by mile 22 I couldn't run without feeling like it was going to give out. So my sweet husband walked the last four miles with me and my parents and little brother held up a tape for us to run through at the finish line. And then we went home and Danny watched Lord of the Rings while I slept. Then we went to Tomato Street. End of Marathon Day. Oh and we made t-shirts.

Next on the list: we went to Mexico! It was a blast. We were in Puerto Vallarta for a week in September. You can see our pictures here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2290353&id=17805371&l=54b22d72d6.

Fast forward: we had a group Thanksgiving. We are grateful for both of our families who like each other enough to celebrate holidays together. My little brother Conrad came home from school at BYU-ID and Jackson came over from North Spokane and we all had Thanksgiving dinner at Mom and Dad Olson's with Chari and Joe and kids. Speaking of Chari and Joe, we have a new niece! Abigail was born two weeks ago and we love her so much!

Last on the list of things that I can think of to update is my job. I am still at Fulcrum supervising visits for parents and kids but things are looking up. I've been promoted to the Assitant Director of the Interchange. I now provide staff training and supervision, am putting together an agency policy book, developing a therapeutic visit program, and hopefully - if we get the grant money for it - I will be going to Indianapolis in February to start to develop a program for fatherhood classes. I'm very excited about the things I am getting to do.

That's the most interesting highlights I can think of from the past few months. Thanks to those of you who stuck around unti the end of the post!

Oh My Busy

2009-08-05T20:34:00.001-07:00

Life is busy and life is fun. I finally got a job and started last Monday. This is the first time since then that I have been online. It's been that busy. I know.

My job is lame-o. I supervise visits between children and non-custodial parents and write down every word that comes out of their mouths and narrate everything that they do for hours at a time. I should start asking them to slow down, my hands feel broken. But good news, I have another job interview tomorrow. I really never wanted this one even before I applied for it but I was getting very bored at home and making zero cash. So now I baby sit parents with their kids. Cross your fingers for me on this job interview!

So now I work a full time job and a part time job. Danny goes to school full time and works part time. We're both marathon training and running for miles and miles. And we clean horse stables every week. And Danny just got called to be in the Elders Quorm Presidency. We're busy. But we're getting the hang of it and it's good to have lots of things to do. We see each other mostly on the weekends and we cram them full.

The Fourth in Idaho Falls

2009-07-06T21:32:00.000-07:00

This weekend was the Miller grandparent's 60 wedding anniversary celebration/reunion/4th of July celebration. Danny and I carpooled with my parents and two brothers (a very crowded Suburban) to southern Idaho on Friday. We stopped at Fairmont hot springs (who does that in July?) for a very hot afternoon swim to break up the long drive.

My cousin Robin and her husband Scott graciously let us stay at their house and borrow their car so we could get back and forth to grandma and grandpa's. We stayed in their three-year-old son Matt's room and he was our best friend while we were at their house ("Hey, I can ride a two wheeler" "Hey, I can put on my own shirt" "Hey, my shirt has Micky Mouse on it. And on the back" "Hey, this is my motorcycle" "Hey, I'll go get my cars" "Hey, this is where my baby sleeps") but when we were at the reunion with everyone he avoided us at all costs.

Every time I go to a family reunion a whole new generation of little kids have been born to my older cousins so I have to relearn the older ones and learn all of the new ones. There were about a billion kids under 6 there and one of them loved Danny. She would grab his hand and lead him around when I wasn't around and give him looks across the yard when I was. Had she not been family and 19 years younger than my husband I might have been worried. She was cute.

My dad made a very long slide show full at least 10 pictures of each and every child, grand child, and great grand child of my grandparents. It was fun, but the room was stinking hot and crawling with children when we were watching it - the kids got a little out of hand and one poor little boy got punched in the face by his younger girl cousin.

It was only a one day reunion and we finished it by bailing on the fireworks down town. Luckily one of the neighbors - we suspect the local bishop - but on a better arial and illegal fireworks show than the city did and we watched it from the driveway.

I was sick the whole time.

All in all, it was a great trip. Danny was a great sport and played wonderfully with all of the little kids, made small talk with the aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins and wrestled with my brothers in the back yard. Lucky us, we're headed back for the next family reunion in southern Idaho next month.

6 Months!

2009-06-28T12:53:00.000-07:00

Happy half anniversary to us! We made it six months and still love each other - so that's good. Yesterday was officially six months but we were baby sitting and marathon training so we celebrated on Friday. We had a picnic at Manito Park and walked through the rose gardens and Japanese gardens. It was so fun. Then we used our wedding present gift card to Applebees for dessert (not a great selection of desserts there - I don't recommend the place at all, actually.) And we rented a movie from RedBox - Ironman. It was just a good day. And in the morning my sweet husband got up before I did and was back from the store with roses and donuts before I got out of bed for our real half anniversary day. I have pictures, but currently the camera is somewhere upstairs and I don't want to go get it. This is the lazy man's post today.

Grape or Cherry? Both Favorites

2009-06-13T22:06:00.000-07:00

The past few days have been pretty awesome. Last night was our celebratory graduation dinner with the Miller family and we all enjoyed. Momma Miller, Jessi, and Jessi's brother Conrad are have all/are going to all graduate this spring, so we decided to celebrate in a big way. We all piled into the Suburban and headed out to Wolf Lodge Inn in CDA and for any of you who have never had the chance to eat there, I highly recommend it. I'm actually salivating as I relive the experience... The food was amazing, the atmosphere was very laid back and cool, the area was very pretty, and the food was amazing. I can't say that I've ever eaten a better steak, or better halibut, or better shrimp, or a better baked potato, or have ever had a bigger stomach ache. It was a great time for all and congrats again to a family of graduates! YAY FOR MY WIFE! With tummies full of yummy food, we went to bed to prepare for a long day of marathon training and garage saling at the annual LIBERTY LAKE GARAGE SALE!

Turns out that sleeping with multiple pounds of beef in your stomach is not very, well, possible. We both woke up miserable and were late for the sale. Once we got ourselves out of bed and out to Liberty Lake, the streets were already lined with crowds of people and cars. I didn't even realize that LL had that many people in it! There are tons of houses, but I rarely see people out in the neighborhoods when we're visiting the in laws. We walked around and found a few deals of our own, making our first furniture purchases as a married couple ever. It was really funny to see the different styles people tried to use while selling their merchandise. Some people had their stuff marked super high and wanted to bargain on everything while others had everything dirt cheap and were basically asking us to take stuff. We found an entertainment center that we like that was mark at $200.00 dollars, which was way too high for our frugal budget, so Jessi bravely offered him $100.00 for it. He sized us up, talked to his wife and countered with $120.00. We just walked away and as we were leaving after finding something better and cooler than that for only $35.00, we saw that hadn't sold yet and had been remarked to $90.00. Should've taken our $100... I hope that it sits in his garage till next year and no one buys it then either...

So this was probably the hottest morning of the entire year up to this point. I don't know if this is actually true because I'm usually in class or at work in the morning hours, but it was the hottest morning of MY year so far. I'm not much of a shopper to begin with; I have a phobia of spending money. However, when I'm shopping AND it's super hot out, I don't last for long. After about an hour I was shot and ready to call it a day, so after checking a few more places for tennis rackets (which we never found, bummer) we headed back to home base. Upon arriving, we discovered a snow cone oasis! One of the Miller's family friends had set up shop at the bottom of the driveway and were selling little bits of grape, strawberry, bubble gum, black cherry, and pineapple heaven. Considering the circumstances, my black cherry snow cone may have rivaled my steak from the night before for the title of most satisfying things that I've consumed in the past 24 hours. With my new found energy we loaded up and headed home to take a nap. It wasn't all that much of a boost I guess. And marathon training didn't happen today. Not only does a gut full of steak keep you from sleeping, but it also keeps you from running. But lets look on the bright side, we got some cheap, used furniture that we actually own AND a free snow cone. All in all, a delicious day.

India

2009-06-08T14:18:00.000-07:00

Hello all. Sorry we take forever to update. First of all - good news! I'm going to graduate! I passed my scary orals exam last Thursday and just went to my last class. Now I just get to wait in the mail for my diploma and I'll be the real deal.

Second of all - we want to go to India! One of Danny's mission companions is starting a charity over there called LDS Charities to help Indian RMs start their own businesses - a mini business school, if you will. The missions in India are English speaking, so the returned missionaries come home with excellent English and people skills. They then go out and get jobs in call centers where they work 80 hours a week and therefore have very little time to serve in church leadership or to raise families in the church. So the idea is that with new business skills and micro crediting they will have the opportunity to be lucritive as well as serve and help with the growth of the church in India. We have volunteered our time to do some fundraising and then to spend a week or two doing interviewing of potential candidates for the program in August or September. In order to go over to help we need to raise between four and five thousand dollars by the end of the summer. We're very excited and we also need some good ideas of how to raise money and who to talk to. We'll keep you posted if we come up with any big events that you can come to.

Oh! And in other news: we moved. Not far - we still live in the low-income housing complex that I work at, but no longer in a studio. We now have two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living room, and a kitchen. It's a huge step up from the one room we were living in.

This is called putting off homework...

2009-05-05T14:07:00.000-07:00

I have no pictures. I have no exciting news. Just a great need to not be working on my presentation that I have to give tomorrow and have not yet started.

We had a great weekend. I intended to paint the office for work and we were both going to do homework but none of that got done. Danny and I don't get to see each other too much during the week because of school, work, internships, etc. so we bailed on almost all responsibility and just played.

Friday afternoon we went to the temple as usual and then A&W for root beer floats. And then to a fantastic pizza place downtown called Rocky Rococco's. And then we went to play lazer tag. It sounds like an expensive night, but we had coupons. And a blast. It was someone's birthday in our ward and they invited us to play lazer tag with them - we got 1st and 2nd out of the 31 players in our game and 3rd and 5th high scores for the whole day. We rock. Our code names were Samson and Delilah. And then I think it was that night we went home and watched The Secret Life of Bees and I just sobbed and sobbed. It's a great movie, but definitely a tear jerker.

Saturday morning is our long run day. I think I wrote in an earlier post that we are "in training" for a half maraton so on normal Saturday mornings we go run, and we like to go on the Centennial trail downtown instead of in the scary neighborhood where we live. However, when we do run in our scary neighborhood we have to take both our building key and our apartment key to get back in the building so we just take those two off of the keyring so we don't have to carry them all. This particular day we had driven downtown to the trail and therefore needed the car keys and not the apartment keys. We didn't realize until we had finished our run that we had the wrong keys. So we ran all the way back home and Danny got the car keys and ran back again to get the car while I took a shower. Our total mileage: Jessi 3.5 miles and Danny 5.5 miles. Turns out we're not training that hard yet.

We spent Saturday afternoon doing laundry and homework and then we went out to eat yet again. We were going out with my parents and met them at the Indian restaraunt that we were really excited to try. Danny and I got there before them and walked out after about 2 minutes. There was a terrible belly dancing show being performed by over-weight, middle aged white women. It was terrible. We tried to call my parents off to meet us somewhere else but they were determined to see the show for themselves. Once they got there it didn't take long to convince them that we go out for Mexican instead.

Sunday was great as well. Danny and I work in the nursery at church and get to play with about 20 toddlers for two hours a week. We have a blast. However, one of the leaders got released last week abandoning the two of us keep the battle front on our own. We'll be fine. Pray for us. That evening we had an ice cream party with some people from our ward and finally started making some friends from church. We mostly only know their babies.

Thanks for reading this far. I think I can start my homework now.

Happy Easter!

2009-04-12T20:40:00.000-07:00

Happy Easter everyone. This is really great for us. Two posts in one week. We spent the day before Easter at Mom and Dad Olson's house having a monster egg hunt and potluck dinner with all of the family and some friends. These are some of the eggs - they're full of confetti. I've never seen a hunt like this before, you find the eggs and slam them on people's heads. It was great.
This is Danny. I write in blue. Easter at my parent's house is pretty much chaos. This year it was really toned down, only about 10 kids. As for these confetti eggs, they're what make the hunt interesting/fun for the adults. They're the only ones that the adults were allowed to pick up and with about 15 dozen of them spread throughout the yard, that means plenty of ammo.

If you look carefully, you can see about 3 pieces of confetti in Jessi's hair. This picture didn't convey the effect we'd hoped it would. But look close... really close. And use your imagination if you need to...

Easter was also my Dad's birthday and two days before Danny's birthday. So we spent Easter day at Mom and Dad Miller's house. Here is Danny with his birthday/Easter strawberry shortcake.
This was just a great moment in time for me. I was getting sung to with cake in front of me AND I'd just found the SPECIAL EASTER EGG! I had a chocolate bunny waiting for me in the other room. Wow, what an evening, and it's not even my real birthday for two more days!

What to say in a blog...

2009-04-09T15:09:00.000-07:00

So, Danny and I started taking pictures of things we do to post on this blog...and then we stopped. And I haven't posted the ones that we've taken. So, here's an update on somethings we've been up to.

We took my little brother Conrad and his cute date, Ellen, to a Plain White T's concert at the Knitting Factory and made him a dinner (my first pot roast ever - it was massive).

Danny helped me to make Easter decorations for our apartment to replace the St. Patrick's Day ones. He wasn't thrilled but didn't hate it too much once he found out how simple they were - he even came up with his own ideas. Maybe I will post pictures of those, they're cute.

We both started a new quarter at school. I have only two more classes until my MSW! Yay! Danny started at SCC with a plan to transfer to EWU in the Fall to take any prereqs he needs for the nursing program. It's interesting with me going to school in Cheney and working downtown, and Danny going to school in Spokane Valley and working on the South Hill and only one car. I'm becomming a master of the bus system around here.

We've started training for a half marathon that we want to put together for this summer. Anyone who would like to run it with us is invited, it's going to be on the Centennial Trail...somewhere...on some day in the summer....but it's going to be great. And we're ordering t-shirts.

I won the Miller family March Madness bracket tournament! The only one in my family who didn't have a clue about any of the teams playing and the only one who scored any points in the last three rounds of the tournament. Go me! I got some of the new premium M&Ms, a can of almond roca, and a Whitman's Sampler. Mmmm. I love March Madness now.

Danny and I got called to be nursery leaders. I'm pretty sure I never posted anything about that. We have about 17 toddlers split into two rooms. It's a blast. We play with play dough, rice, sing songs, and eat snacks. Absolutely the fastest church has ever gone in my life.

Well folks, I think that's about all I've got. Pictures will be posted of something at some later date. Promise.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

2009-03-18T17:11:00.000-07:00

Here it is. Your first insight to how the Olsons live. I decided to make all green food and put up some very ugly shamrocks I cut out of construction paper. Danny was a great sport and ate all of my green food, despite being nauseated to begin with. Flu season. Poor guy.

We had green kool aid, green blueberry muffins, green scrambled eggs and not ham, but sausage and olives and cheese, and pistacio pudding for desert. I made him a fruit smoothie later on but was merciful and let it be pink.

We also listened to Irish drinking songs, courtesy of Flogging Molly, and wore fun green clothes. We also watched 'Invincible' in which Danny pointed out that the team wore green uniforms. A perfect movie for the day. He's a good sport to play along with me.

We have a blog!

2009-03-06T21:01:00.000-08:00

Danny and I have now been married for well over two months - time to join the bloggers. Since it looks like we'll be spending the next several years in Spokane and away from many of our friends I figured this would be a way to keep in touch...as long as I keep up on it.

The latest and greatest news is that Danny has switched his major from civil engineering to nursing - thus our decision to stay in Spokane. We're currently working on finding out the prereqs and getting him applied to different schools and ready for school in about 3 weeks now. I'll be graduating in June with my masters in social work and looking for full-time work to support our happy little family so if you hear about any social work jobs...