Lucas Andrew Nielson

Lucas was born this morning at 6:26 am, weighing 7 pounds 14 ounces and measuring 19 inches long. He's our biggest baby, beating out Josh's record by 3 ounces.

Ensign Peak trek

We decided to hike Ensign Peak last saturday for some family fun, to test the new lens, get some exercise, and hopefully put Erin into Labor. We accomplished all of that except putting her into labor. It was a 3 hour round trip when a healthy adult can usually do it in 1, but it was a lot of fun.

I'm not so happy with some of the pictures - they're not really prize-winners, but they're good memories just the same.

Grrrr

My Barbecue and my Lense on my Expensive DSLR both decided to break yesterday. We (okay, mostly me) were not happy. On the good side of things, I have a hint of a hope of being able to catch up on things at work soon. :)

Another milestone

Josh asked to use the potty and then made good on the threat today! He looked at me and said "potty" so I followed him in there, helped him with his pants, and he sat down and peed! Yay!!!

Of course, Emma was trained before Levi came and then backslid for a while, so I won't get my hopes up too high for Josh being completely, permanently trained by the time Luke comes but it's a start!

Less than a week

In just under a week, my decade long struggle will be over. I started college in January, 2000 - roughly two months after getting home from my mission. At 8pm this Thursday (or hopefully slightly sooner) I will finish my last final in my last class. Ever. (Unless I choose to get a Masters, but that's not likely...).

Along the way I've earned 2 associates degrees (General Studies and Computer Science) and Thursday will wrap up my Bachelor's degree in Mass Communication.

I was thinking about it today and I am so used to having so much to do and working so much with so little time that I'm not sure I'm going to know what to do. Without school filling all my weekday evenings, I'm going to want to do even more home improvement projects, but with the minivan we just bought, that won't be likely. I used to joke that my Dad doesn't know how to sit still and relax and I think I'm starting to notice that tendency in myself as well. I'm pretty proud of that.

Erin and I were talking about how to pay for the van and thought maybe I should get a second job. That just doesn't feel right to either of us though, so we're going to have her work a bit more and I'll take care of the kids in the evenings while she works. It'll be nice to hang out with them a bit more and have time with the whole fam on the weekends.

I can't wait to be done with School! I have one more assignment to do and a whole bunch of reading and studying for finals, but it seems I have a horrible case of senior-itis. :) I love it!

The other Professional Lagoon Pics this year

There were quite a few to choose from the one I put up in my post a day or two ago was the one we chose as our 8x10. Here are all of them:

Lagoon Day again

Last year I wrote about how Amazing it was that we made it through the day with no one really crying or whining and that the kids shocked us by riding a bunch of the really-little kid rides without crying or whining.

This year they took it to a new level. Not only did they not whine and cry, but they went on more adult rides.





Josh? Not so much a fan of the Bumper cars. Or was it more that he was not so much a fan of Emma's Driving. Either way...

And the other really cool thing for the day? Losing 80 pounds since our visit last year meant that I could fit on every ride in Kiddie Land that we tried that would allow adults on. THAT was cool. And it allowed me to take both Emma and Levi on the sky ride while Erin and Josh headed to the parking lot to change a diaper.

All in all, a pretty great day.

Professional Lagoon Pics

Thought it would be fun to show these together. Last year's pic followed by this year's:

Not that much change in anyone but me, but it's still fun to see the difference. Also, it's interesting that there's a difference in the tones - this year's pic was put through a Sepia filter in Photoshop. Last year's is a scan from the sepia image created at Lagoon's photo place.

Nielson Family night pictures

More to come when it's not so late and I'm not so tired.