Cars and Company

Two fun things happened this weekend. First Stacie came down to visit us and secondly we test drove what we think will be our next car.

I have been friends with Stacie since we were little babies. It is so fun to get together with her.  I really miss all the friends I grew up with so it is fun to get to hang out with Stacie...it brings me back to the good times! We got ice cream at Dairy Queen, played a new card game, and I kicked Stac's butt in Boggle (she beat me last time so our next game will be the big tie breaker). Thanks for coming Stac, your welcome anytime!

Now onto the car part, it may come as a shock but we are looking at a Ford (gasp)!!! I know many of you are thinking, "how can a car guy like Jason be wanting a Ford?" Well I'll let Jason explain:

We find ourselves at a crossroad where we must get a new car (our 2 door Civic with 220,000 miles is just not big enough). We first wanted to get the new 2010 Honda Insight Hybrid or 2010 Toyota Prius (they come out Summer 2009). However unlike most people, Jason and I are the kind of people who buy one car every 10 years not every 3 years. Therefore a standard five passenger car isn't going to work for us a few years down the road. Our future need to seat more passengers forced us to confront the choice of Minivan vs. SUV. Jason just can't get passionate about minivans, and neither of us wants a gas guzzling, pain in the butt to haul kids around in SUV, so that led us to the 2009 Ford Flex. It came down to 8 things that made the Flex the best option for us: 

1. We like the funky 'Think Different' styling of the Flex
2. Ford is an American owned company
3. Ford just surpassed Toyota in J.D. power associates quality rankings
4. Ford is the only company to offer the Microsoft Sync system (about the only good thing to come out of Microsoft recently)
5. The Flex seats 7, tows 4500 lbs, and still gets 24mpg
6. It can be bought new for about 22k
7. All the reviewers love it, from Motor Trend to Car and Driver.
8. And finally, we took one for a 3 hour test drive on Saturday and we both loved it.

Picture of 2009 Ford Flex (we like this color)

Now check below for new pics of Ollie :)

My Cute Boys

I know every wife/mother thinks her husband/son are the cutest ever, well I am no exception.  I have the two best guys in my life!  Jason is such a great husband, I am so lucky to have him.  He works hard all week at work, in his calling, and then he comes home on the weekend and helps me with the baby and cleaning (and all the other things I can't manage to find the time to do).  I really appreciate everything he does for us, he is the best.  

And then there is Oliver.  I can hardly stand how cute he is.  He is so fun.  Everyday he is learning new tricks and growing so much.  He is such a good baby and has really eased me into this parenting thing (which I was completely terrified of before).  Anyway I am a lucky girl.  Here are some pictures.

My cute husband, our 5 year anniversary is this week

Jason has really wanted me to make him a 15 bean soup, so I finally got around to it today, when I woke up I found this, a bowl full of everything I need to make the soup, he does this kind of stuff all the time, I think it is so funny/cute

Look how long he is getting!

Playing with Mom's decorative gourds

Caught in the act!

I go to a new mothers group each week at the hospital where I delivered, Oliver and I have made some really great friends, this is Oliver with his little girlfriend Lodan

I wish I would have taken a picture of the whole crib, but this is Ollie in the morning after he has scooted himself into the very corner of his crib

Making Dad proud

Ollie hugging his Eeyore blankie

Emergency Preparedness

Jason suggested that I name this post something along the lines of 'bring it on' or 'we're ready for anything' but being the superstitious person that I am, I didn't want to jinx us. Jason has been on an Emergency preparedness kick lately and today one more piece of the plan arrived. These 6 containers have enough food to last us both for 3 months. We purchased them through The Ready Project and got a really good price ($500) due to a promotion they are running right now, and discount coupon 62316 (in case anyone else is interested). We also got a cooking stove, a water purifier, a lantern, and lots of propane bottles. We will soon add a shelf reliance food organizer, and another gun (he thinks he has fooled me into believing the gun is part of emergency preparedness, I'm pretty sure it is just Obama presidency preparedness).

Velodrome

Last summer while Jason was interning at Apple, he discovered that there was a Velodrome in San Jose, ever since then he has wanted to pay it a visit. So on Saturday Jason and Layne Caldwell decided to bike over to the Velodrome for a Saturday morning training class. Of course they got lost along the way, rode over 30 miles looking for it (it is 7 miles from our house), and arrived late for the class. But they did eventually find it and they both had a lot of fun. Jami wants to try riding next time we go, I'm not so sure about riding in a tight pack, at 30+mph, with no brakes. Jason says he would like to try racing at an amateur event in a few weeks (I can already hear him explaining to me why he NEEDS a track bike in order to start racing).  Anyway, here are a few pictures from the Velodrome and the rest are of Ollie, who turned three months old on Halloween.  He is such a joy!

Having so much fun

Riding hard

Jason speeding by

Layne and Jason are on the left

Happy boy, he just sits in this little chair while I take a shower each day

Dressed for church, I love sweater vests on little boys

Playing with Grandma

Ollie loves to sleep on people, that is when he gets his best naps, but I can't hold him that long during the day (and get anything done) so when Grandma Jan visits he gets lots of cuddly naps

Getting ready for a walk, he has a really small head so the hood doesn't quite fit

It looks like he is scratching Jason's back

In his new Bumbo chair (I LOVE craigslist), excuse the poor quality of the picture, I took it with my laptop, for video click here.

Did You?

Halloween 2008

We went home to hang out with family and friends for Halloween this year.  It was so fun.  Kelly and I drove up Thursday, and I dropped her off at her SIL, Jason took the train up Friday night.  Oliver was a peapod (the cutest peapod EVER!), Jason and I dressed up as mandarins, so our theme was fruits and veggies.  For those of you who don't know, Jason's dad has a mandarin farm so his sisters would wear these costumes when they sold mandarins, in case you were wondering, "where the heck do you get a mandarin costume?"  Friday night we went to our friends Chris and Megans.  Jason wasn't in yet so my sister Chrissy wore his costume.  It was lots of fun to see friends and catch up. Saturday Jason and his Mom hung out (at local bike shops, Jan is a good sport) while I went and saw High School Musical 3 with Letty, ummmm...we LOVED it!  I swear I am a 17 year old stuck in a 25 year old body, in 17 days it will be a 26 year old body. That night we headed to Austin and Ashleys for another Halloween party, where we had fun doing karaoke (I don't know how much everyone else enjoyed listening to us).  We got to spend lots of time with my parents and Jason's, it was great.  Ollie got tons and tons of attention.  He is such a good little baby, I love him so much.  He just goes with the flow and makes being his parents so fun!

Ok, Ollie rolled over the other day!  It took him like five minutes to get out of this position and it hasn't happened since so I kind of think it was a fluke.  I almost cried because 1. my baby is getting big and 2.  I am really scared for him to become mobile, then my job gets a lot harder :)

Alyssa holding Ollie in the dressing room at Target, she is such a good cousin

Our little peapod, sometimes he looks at people so intently

Me and my sisters

The dressed up people at Megan and Chris's

Me with my cousin Mary (who looked very creepy) and Chrissy

Fruits and Veggies

Me and Sarah Palin

Austin and Ashley were Princess Buttercup and Wesley, very cute!

Ollie chillin

Letty and I LOVE Zac Efron, he is such a stud muffin, and don't worry Jason knows about my crush on a younger man