A Mover and a Shaker...

We've got a wild one!  I'm only 16 weeks, but already I've felt Baby roll over, kick, and otherwise attack me from the inside out.

Kind of feels like my belly has become a popcorn popper. 

Only 2 weeks until we find out if this active baby is a ninja or a ballerina!

          

So that’s why Mormon missionaries are such babe-magnets!

I guess this Axe commercial is the real deal.  They didn’t get the name tag quite right and I must ask: just where is this elder’s companion?  But they did make the slogan at the end look a lot like the church’s logo, plus I think I made out a Book of Mormon for a split second .  The clip is pretty funny. Plus I just love the song.  It will probably make some people mad, but then again, a lot of us Mormons could stand to get a sense of humor about ourselves.  

Unfortunately, as any missionary or RM can attest, this effect is all too real (no Axe Body Spray needed).  Ironically, many of the missionaries in my mission used Axe religiously (pun definitely not intended).  Probably because it is relatively cheap (missionaries have tight budgets) but strong enough to cover up the hard day’s worth of smell that is inevitable after walking through the heat and humidity of the Philippine Islands.

Awkward Family Photos

April and I started following this site a couple of months ago.  I thought the premise would wear thin but we still find ourselves visiting about twice a week, especially now that we don't have TV. I laugh every time, it just never gets old.

http://awkwardfamilyphotos.com/

You owe it to yourself.

Seminary Graduation

It's been quite a year.  I can't tell you how proud we are of the kids and how much we will miss teaching them. Being a young Latter-day Saint in the middle of Los Angeles is not easy.  Our students have been the source of intense scrutiny and sometimes even derision from their classmates at their high schools.  This was especially true after the fallout over Proposition 8 where our students were in the unenviable position  of being targets simply for being members of their church, irrespective of their views.  The kids have been a source of  great strength to each other and to us as well.  

This was also a year in which April and I had some significant trials in our lives.  Being able to get up each morning to teach these students the Gospel and to feel of the spirit that they bring to class has helped to buoy us up through these challenging times.   We wish our graduates, and all of our students, a happy summer and a bright future.

Another Notch on the Belt

I love running with Nike. He can keep up with me any distance from 1-30 miles, doesn't care if I go fast or slow, and loves running as much as I do.  Even though he was sick today, he was so sad that I almost left him home that I had to take him running anyway. I have this great leash that I use to run with Nike. It has a padded belt that goes around me (gotta love hands-free), a pocket for bags and cell phone, and also a leash with a bungee cord to absorb some of the shock if Nike sees a squirrel. It works much better than just having a leash around my waist.

I've been trying to avoid it until this point, but the belt has gotten tighter and tighter in the last few weeks as the baby has been growing. I have been putting the leash up higher on my waist instead of sitting low on my hips.  Today, I finally stopped denying the fact that I was going to have to loosen the belt because today was the day I needed it. It's a good thing it fits up to 54 inch waist!

Saint Augustine's Carnival '09

We spent Friday evening at the carnival at the St. Augustine Parish down the street. 

We were most extied fo the Filipino food, which is the best I have ever had this side of the Pacific.

Our only disappointment was that there was no whack-a-mole this year, April is unbeatable.

Biking, hiking, and philosophizing

Because April is pregnant she wasn’t exactly up to running the LA Marathon this year so yesterday we rode the LA Bike Tour Marathon instead. The race started at 5:00 A.M. on Exposition Blvd at the USC campus. 

There were about ten thousand of us that rode the course which mostly followed the path the marathon runners took after we finished.

It was fun to get to ride through the streets of LA without any cars to contend with.

April waves as we ride through Korea Town

We missed Julie as she ran by USC but April caught up with her at about mile 14 to run with her for a few miles and to snap this photo.

Kristi was down in SoCal for the long weekend so we met up with her on Saturday and hiked the Baldy Mountain trail in the Angeles National Forest.

Tree hugger!

Really, the redwoods were beautiful.

 Afterwards April and Kristi dropped me off in Claremont so that I could catch the last plenary session of The Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology  conference that was held at Claremont Graduate University this year (or as April calls it “my little philosophy club”).  It really is “little,” there were probably only about fifty or so of us in the auditorium.  But most of big* names in Mormon philosophy were there.  Professor Bushman’s presentation was very good and I even ran into an old Utah philosophy buddy.

*relative to the very tiny group of people who are into this sort of stuff.

Does the baby look more like April or Steve?

Got to see Baby today.  Everything looks good; 2 arms, 2 legs, and A LOT of energy. 2 inches long already! The head is near the bottom and this is a profile shot. 

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

In the one short week between graduation and the start of California Barbri I tried to cram in as much non-legal reading as possible. I got about halfway through Beyond the Hundredth Meridian, Wallace Stegner’s biography of John Wesley Powell-which I am thoroughly enjoying. I read Dan Brown’s Digital Fortress. I also finished Malcolm Gladwell’s new book: Outliers; The Story of Success. I fell in love with Gladwell’s writing when I read The Tipping Point back when I got home from my mission. Blink was possibly even better and so is Outliers. For those Freakonomics fans out there, Gladwell’s books are must reads.

I wish I had more time to get in the details of Outliers. I would especially like to compare Gladwell’s discussion of “the trouble with geniuses” with the mismatch effect, which I worked with as a research assistant for its discoverer a couple of summers ago. But, alas, that will have to wait until I am finished with the Bar. So instead, enjoy one of my favorite Gladwell speeches: What we can learn from spaghetti sauce.

Earthquake

We were just hit by a 5.0 magnitude earthquake that was centered in Hawthorne. April and I along with my mom and Uncle Dave and Aunt Mary Lou were visiting relatives in Long Beach when the house began to shake. It lasted for 15 seconds or so, which seemed like a long time while the quake was happening. Even though tonight's earthquake was smaller than last July's quake, this one felt quite a bit stronger because we were so much closer to the epicenter. Fortunately tonights's quake wasn't too strong. In fact it was like a good roller coaster ride, just scary enough to be fun.