Jeff Bezos

Justin had a nice day at work yesterday. He and the 50 other MBA interns got to sit in a room and listen to Jeff Bezos (CEO of Amazon) speak. He said that it was very interesting and he thoroughly enjoyed it. Justin got the best seat in the house, front and center. And notice Jeff's stance. This is one of his trademarks....the crossed legs.

Justin also got to experience one of Jeff's other trademarks, his VLL (very loud laughs). He's a neat guy!

Justin's right behind Jeff's head in this group picture.


Justin just told me this story about this last picture last night, and I just thought it was so funny. Jeff Bezos is this really down to earth guy, despite being a very high profile CEO. They took the group picture above as Jeff was rushing off to a meeting. But after it was taken, Jeff said that it wasn't good enough. There wasn't enough energy. So he wanted another picture taken. Then he put his arms up and started yelling "Yeaaaaah!" So everyone else tried to mimic him. It's blurry, but it was such an unexpected thing for a CEO to do. It definitely took everyone by surprise!

More Flowers!

Pike's Place is just the best for flowers! We got these for a steal. Love it!

They make great photography subjects because they hold so still!

Our Sailing Adventure

On Saturday we had a great day! We had plans to go sailing with the rest of the Amazon MBA interns and take the kids to Keith and Lisa's house to have a fun day playing. We did have a little hitch as we were trying to hurry down to the van. We discovered that the elevators were not working, so we did 15 flights of stairs with the kids and finally found our way into the parking garage. But we were able to get the kids to the cousins' and then hurry back to Seattle for our sailing excursion.

Amazon had chartered two sailboats to fit everyone. We decided to go on the slightly larger one called "Obsession." It was just huge, measuring at 70 feet in length and the mast is 92 feet tall. We fit about 40 people on it and set off for 2 hours of sailing!

It was a beautiful day to be out on the water. We are always surprised how much cooler it can be when you get out there and add some wind. But the sun was nice and warm. They had lots of food and drinks downstairs and we really enjoyed being out and talking with so many people.

This is the other slightly smaller sailboat sailing by us as we were making out way out into the bay.


Once we got the two sails up and caught the wind we really started flying! And the sailboat really tipped quite a bit. They made sure to tell us that anything left lying around (purses, cell phones, sunglasses, etc.) would probably fall right off the boat into the water. They only intended to go back and rescue anything overboard if it was alive.



I was definitely sporting the wind-blown look!

After 2 hours of sailing, we docked at Bainbridge Island and went to a great Mexican restaurant (that is actually owned by people from Arizona, so it was good food!) with everyone. It was a great afternoon socializing and looking at some of the unique shops they have there. Then Justin and I took the ferry back over to Seattle. It was such a fun day!

When we got back to the cousins' house to eat dinner and get the kids, they were just having a ball. They spent most of the day outside, which I'm so thankful for because there just isn't any grass to run around on close to us. Katelyn probably sat in this blue car for at least 10 minutes. She thought it was the neatest thing!

Of course the girls were out as soon as we left for the drive home. They had played hard all day, but they had such a good time!

BYU Baby

Brandon loves to play with Katelyn and put his hat on her. This particular time Katelyn left it on her head for quite a while. I think she likes being like her big brother.

Brandon and Lindsey are definitely ready for the BYU football season to start. Brandon frequently talks about how he is going to wear his new hat to the football game. And any time Lindsey hears us talking about BYU football she says, "Gooooo Cougars!" I'm glad they are enjoying the BYU experience so much!

Seattle Center Fountain

This morning we ventured out to the Seattle Center with some ladies in the ward. It was a beautiful day to be outside! The big fountain was a bit intimidating to the kids. It would do little squirts, but then the music would start and the big water show would start. We had a few close calls to being drenched. Brandon got wet in the big fountain, but Lindsey had no intention of getting close to it when the big jets were on. I barely got her to get close enough to touch the dome when the jets were turned off.

After a little while we found a very nice little wading pool nearby that was much better for the little ones. Lindsey jumped right in and splashed away.


I helped Katelyn walk around in the water and we even tucked in her skirt to avoid her getting soaked, but the water was just too tempting.

I eventually gave up and she got completely wet and loved every minute of it!

Library afternoon

I just love it when we get back from the library. These kids love to read, and they especially love new books. This is the welcome sight that met my eyes after an afternoon library trip:

They will read new books for a long time.

And then there's Katelyn. One of her favorite things to do is to get into the kids' closet and pull out some of her favorite toys, one of which happens to be Lindsey's tea set. She loves dumping everything out and then putting things back in, even if they don't belong.


Afternoons like this are the best!

No rolling pin

This last Sunday we had to cancel our plans to go out and do our ward missionary calling and found ourselves with some free time! So we decided to invite the other two single BYU MBA's here over for dinner. We had been meaning to do it, but our Sundays have been very full. We had a nice, relaxing afternoon of working on dinner together. We worked on making pork chops, homemade mashed potatoes and yummy gravy from the pork chop sauce, fresh asparagus from Pike's Place market, homemade bread sticks and brownies to eat with our vanilla ice cream for dessert. Justin and Brandon helped me in kitchen while the girls had a nice nap. When it came time to roll out the dough for our bread sticks, I realized that our furnished apartment didn't come with a rolling pin. We brainstormed a few ideas of what we could use as a substitute. Here's what we came up with:

It is an unopened V8 can from the refrigerator. I took off the label and washed it. It ended up working great! Brandon and Lindsey helped to push it around and flatten the dough. Then Brandon cut the slices, Lindsey picked them up, then Justin dipped them in butter and arranged them on the pan. They made a great bread stick team!

Our dinner turned out to be a great success. We had a lovely evening with Ryan and Michael and enjoyed a nice Sunday dinner once again.

Katelyn is standing by herself!

This last week Katelyn has picked up a great skill. She has been able to pull herself up to a stand for a little while now, but she's figured how to stand up all by herself, not holding on to anyone. As you can see in the little video, she's very proud of herself! Please excuse her attire. This was taken the morning after the 4th of July. We had just put Katelyn to bed in her watermelon-covered clothes the night before because she was just so tired from a busy day. I think we were in the middle of a wardrobe change when she started standing up and I had to grab the camera!

She starts clapping every time she stands up by herself and starts laughing. Brandon and Lindsey usually join in with a rousing applause. It's so cute! She has attempted a few steps on her own, so I am anticipating that she will catch on to walking very soon. Hopefully we'll be able to catch a bit of that on camera.

I can't believe my baby is growing up!

4th of July Weekend

This weekend was very fun. I woke up early in the morning with Katelyn and we enjoyed a beautiful view. People were out on the water enjoying the cool breeze.

Katelyn and I enjoyed some time playing together before the rest of the family woke up.

Yes, that is a sword I made for Brandon out of the Crispix box. Sweet baby!

We eventually got moving and got everyone dressed in patriotic attire for the day.

And then we headed off to Justin's cousin's house (Collins and Cameron) and met his other cousins there (Keith and Lisa).

We had a fun day there doing a BBQ, having a very patriotic dessert,


swimming, making paper airplanes and letting the kids play. I do have to say, this is the coolest 4th of July I've ever experienced. It was downright cool at the pool, despite the heated water!


After wards we headed home to watch fireworks from our place. This sunset picture is just for Justin's mom. She didn't see any pretty sunsets when she was here. They are different than Arizona sunsets, but very pretty still!


Seattle does 2 big fireworks shows, one from the lake on the east side of Seattle, on one from the bay on the west side. We were hoping that we'd have the perfect view of the bay show from our apartment, but Justin ran over to another building to see where the barge was and it was just out of sight behind a neighboring building. But we did get to see them. We just went to another building and viewed them from the floor-to-ceiling windows in their elevator area. It was a nice place to be. Brandon and Lindsey thought they were so pretty. Lindsey's favorites were the pink and purple ones, and the heart shaped ones. I always think of my sister Erin on the 4th, because it's her birthday. She always gets fireworks to celebrate! (Love you Erin!)

On Saturday we decided to go to the Pacific Science Center. It was really neat.


They've got lots of fun things there. The dinosaurs made them a bit nervous. They were moving and making noises.


Pretty big footprint!


The kids really liked the play area where they could play with water and just climb in and out of things. That was Katelyn's favorite part!



Big praying mantis!


Our favorite thing was going into the butterfly room. Very neat! There were probably hundreds of butterflies flying around in there. They even landed on us, which the kids weren't too excited about, but it really was amazing.

All in all, another busy, fun weekend!

The Pirates are Coming!

This last week we had a special ship come into Elliott Bay (where we live) for a boat show. We heard that it was supposed to make its appearance at about 3:30, so Brandon and I kept our eyes peeled all afternoon. At about 4:00, we noticed some helicopters circling close to the water, so I got the kids' shoes on and we walked out to the waterfront.

The procession was neat to watch. The big ship was led by a whole line of US Coast Guard ships, of course the first one being the "fire boats" that we see out on the water periodically here. It belongs to the fire station on Pier 54. They have the normal fire trucks, ambulances, but they also have a couple of fire boats that they can use to spray water for a very long distance. They really put on a show!

Then came the ship that we went out there to see. It didn't have the big sails up, which I was kind of hoping for, but it was neat to see the men standing on the masts. Isn't that crazy? I think I would be terrified! (Enlarge the picture to look at them.)

The funny part is that when Brandon saw the ship he said, "The pirates are coming!" And I couldn't convince him otherwise. So just so you all know, we have pirates here in Seattle. But I think they're probably very nice!