New Shoes

Our little lady is already wearing heels:

Chop Wizard

Its Saturday, so its time for some infomercial fun!



We have one of these, but never realized it was from an infomercial until it was on TV today. It really is the most wonderful thing ever and everyone needs one. Rush out and get yours now!!

We don't have one of these:


but it looks just as useful. Ellen seems to like hers:



Awesome.

UTA Fun!!

I was almost stuck on this exact train this morning:


I waited about 20 minutes for it at the Clearfield station, then gave up and just drove to work instead. After seeing this story, I'm especially glad I did, because if I'd waited for the train, I would have been stuck in Woods Cross for an additional 1.5 hours and not made it to work until after 10:30.

The Office

In honor of The Office (which premiers tomorrow night) and our recent subscription to Netflix, which allows me to watch just about anything (including past seasons of The Office) online and on demand, I'm posting what remains one of the funniest things I've ever seen in my life:

Rachel's Babies

Rachel got "creative" with her dolls today:
If she turns out to be a serial killer, this will probably have been the first sign.

NPR Cutbacks...

Saw this on The Onion this morning.
Unless you're an avid NPR listener, this probably won't make a lot of sense, bit it's funny nonetheless:

Cash-Strapped NPR Launches 'A Couple Things Considered'

WASHINGTON—Facing major cutbacks, National Public Radio has been forced to retool and relaunch its popular program All Things Considered as a truncated newscast that now only considers a couple, maybe three things per show. "We'd love to consider all things, but the reality is we no longer have the resources necessary to do so," host Michele Norris said following the new show's first broadcast, in which rising gas prices and jazz legend Wynton Marsalis were considered. "We'll still be able to mention six or seven things, gloss over four, and reference five, but we cannot afford to give every single thing our full consideration. Perhaps we were biting off more than we could chew in the first place." A Couple Things Considered is just one of many new shows brought about by budget constraints, along with NPR's recently launched Bicycle Talk and Public Radio International's This Tri-State Area Life.

Food Storage Saturday

Bought a bunch of stuff from Winegar's case lot sale to replenish our food storage closet:

Bought, trimmed fat from and repackaged for freezing 80 pound of chicken breasts:

Next time you meet a boneless skinless chicken breast, realize that this in not the way it came off the chicken and someone did a lot of work to get it this way:

Bought more water:
Re-stocked the freezer with frozen veggies (pre-chicken):
Went to the garden and picked another load of tomatoes and peppers while Rachel played in the dirt. She is a mess here, but the picture doesn't really show it.

New Toys:

Laundry helper

Rachel loves to "help" do the laundry:

While bored at work today, I noticed that our blog needed updating, so I figured I'd favor you all with a classic commercial from SNL:

Eleven Wal-Mart bags full of tomatoes from the garden: zero dollars
9+ Hours of blanching, peeling, cutting, straining and bottling: zero dollars
Dozens of bottles of tomatoes, salsa and pizza sauce that we an use all winter and know that we grew ourselves: Priceless.

Rachel Singing

While we were trying to get her ready for church this morning, Rachel performed a free concert for us in the office:

She must be picking something up from all of the time that she spends running around in the pews when she goes with us to choir practice.

Huntsville 1/2 Marathon

Tori ran in the Huntsville Half-Marathon yesterday. It was a cold and beautiful day. Here she is coming across the finish line:

Her knee was given her problems. She fashioned a knee brace out of a rag from a random guy along the route and finished the race. She didn't beat her time from the Ogden Half, but she finished in good time concidering her injury.

Way to go Tori!!!

Back home

We got home from Arkansas this afternoon.
On the way from Little Rock to Houston, the pilot announced that we were flying over hurricane Gustav:
The cell phone camera doesn't do it justice at all, but it looked pretty cool from above:

Rachel Swinging

Rachel has been having a blast playing with her cousins here in Arkansas. She especially likes playing in their yard:

We only caught the last little bit on camera before she noticed us, but we found her playing by herself on the swing this afternoon. This girl seriously needs a backyard of her own to explore. The balcony of our condo back home somehow just isn't as magical.

Arkansas Churches

Arkansas has more churches than people. They all use clever marquee signs to get people in the doors. These are some of the better ones we've seen in the past few days.

We're leaving, on a jet plane...

We're flying to Arkansas to visit Tori's family later this week.

Wish us luck, because airplanes seem to be falling from the sky left and right these days.
This plane
and this one,
and this one,
and this one,
and this one,
and this one,
and this one,
and this one,
and this one

Have all crashed so far this month.

Rexburg

We spent the weekend in Rexburg, ID trying to convince Cameron that he should go to school at BYU-Idaho, where Tori and I met. We were a few weeks late for the spud-fest:We walked around campus and bored Cameron to tears with nostalgia about the time we spent there as students:
Much has changed since we were there:
The temple is now finished:
We planned to eat lunch at Fongs, but after seeing Craigo's closed and all of the changes in Rexburg, we were nervous when we saw "New Fongs" at the edge of town:
Don't worry. The original Fong's is still open on Main Street:
...and is still as cheap, tacky and wonderfully awful as we remembered:
Still the best chinese food I've had.
The bottom line: We wouldn't want to live there forever, but Rexburg is a great and memorable place to spend a few years as a student.

No need to visit any other schools Cameron, just click here and apply today.

Growing Up

Our baby is becoming a little lady. She recently came back from her grandma's house with painted toenails, despite her daddy's insistence that she wait until age 16 to paint them:

Also, she finally has enough hair to place a small barrette in it:

She will now be wearing one of these whenever she goes out in public with the hope that people will stop asking how old our little boy is.

....And while we're on the topic of barrettes, how many of them does it take to hold back a Chinese gymnast's hair?
It looks like Yilin Yang must have bought a 25-pack of them from the dollar store and decided to wear every one of them during her final on the uneven bars.

Family Night

We went swimming at the aquatic center with Rachel tonight. She loves to swim and splash and is a bit too brave for her own good sometimes.

Proposition 8

Though we aren't from California, we support Proposition 8 and our church's efforts to pass it.

It is interesting to note that the last few Ensign messages have been directed towards the theme: June "Safety in Counsel" by President Eyring and July "Heeding the Voice of the Prophets" by President Uchtdorf. It is very significant that the leaders of the Lord's church found this the time to remind the members why we have a prophet on earth today. They foresaw this very time when many members would rely on their own emotions and views than the voice of the prophet.

For us, it does not matter to whom the prophet is directly speaking. When he speaks, it is from God. Why people question that for any reason is beyond our understanding. President Uchtdorf said, "In His kindness, He has given us prophets to teach us His eternal truths and guide us in living His gospel." To us, rejecting the council of the prophet and/or justifying rejection of it is telling the Lord "thanks but no thanks."

President Monson is the Lord's mouthpiece and our watchman along with is counselors and the other apostles. There truly is safety and peace in his words. Following the prophet protects our family and leads us to where we want to be.

Salsa

Homemade fresh salsa season has officially begun:
(This is the real reason we have a garden, and we grew all of the ingredients ourselves this year.)

Tortilla chip consumption in the Lloyd household will increase dramatically in the coming weeks.

Food Preferences

Since we have a large garden and will soon have vegetables out our ears, I thought we should really introduce Rachel to some new foods so that she can help consume our blessings. Today, I thought we would try steamed yellow squash thinking that she would probably not eat it. However, she ate all of it. I was so surpised. Most children don't like squash or many vegetables for that matter. She actually eats most vegetables. She doesn't like potoatoes, peppers, or lettuce, but she loves green beans, carrots, sweet potatoes, and apparently yellow squash. I wonder if I liked vegetables as a kid. I love all vegetables minus black eye peas. I hope Rachel's love of vegetables doesn't diminish as she grows older.

Happy Olympics!

We're celebrating tonight by watching the opening ceremony and eating chinese food.

Reading Buddies

Rachel loves the Minnie Mouse that Grandpa Lloyd bought her in Disneyland. She's already replaced Elmo as her favorite reading buddy:

Rachel's Room

It's taken us most of the summer to finish, but we're finally done with all of the painting and stuff in Rachel's bedroom. Here are her new walls/shelf/hooks:

Vantage Point

Tyler's concise review of the film Vantage Point:

This movie is retarded.

.

Do not see it. If you do, don't say you weren't warned. Yes, it looked good in the previews, but trust me, it isn't. I should have listened to Cameron.

Do not even rent it from Redbox. Sure, it's only a dollar, but it will be a waste of that dollar.

If you really want to see it, just watch clips from The Bourne Identity/Supremacy/Ultimatum as well as 24 in random order and pretend that there is no plot whatsoever. That's about all that Vantage Point has to offer.

First Harvest

This was our first little "salad" from our garden. The potatoes are still a bit small, but Tyler couldn't wait to try some. Also, the orange cherry tomatoes are like candy! YUM! We already have too many peppers than we can eat, but we're going to freeze some of them. The onions are small too, but I can't wait to use them. We are so excited for our produce, but by the end of the season, I think we'll be sick of vegetables.

Fun Fact:

Fresca contains vegtable oil. Mmmmmm.

Mary, Mary, quite contrary, How does your garden grow?

Like Crazy:


Who wants tomatoes? We're going to have more than we could possibly eat in a lifetime.

Mamma Mia!

Tori's Review-

Fantastic!

The plot was fun and different, and the music had me swinging my hips in my chair. Who could not love it? There were a few suggestive comments which were annoying. They could always be deleted, but the show itself was really fun. It made me laugh and want to sing. It is a very Girl's Night Out type of show. The two people that I thought about through the whole show were my sister Robyn and my college Fab Five Friend Carlie. It would be fun to watch this movie again with them.
If you like a girly plot, good acting, and a story with music, I think you'll enjoy Mamma Mia!

Tyler's Review-

Oh, boy. I can't say that I am nearly as enthusiastic about Mamma Mia as Tori was.

If you're really interested, click here for a comprehensive review of the film by someone else which pretty much sums up how I felt about Mamma Mia.

Otherwise guys, this is all you really need to know:

Unless you are a woman, gay, or have some unnatural taste for ABBA music - you should not see this film. That is, unless you are seeing it with your wife, in which case you will earn some real brownie points. I'm talking about "visit a craft fair"/"attend a bridal show"/"go antiquing" level brownie points. Yeah, its that bad.

California Trip:

We made it back late last night from a much needed vacation to California with the whole Lloyd family. The following is a pictoral summary of our adventure:

Thursday:
Met everyone at the airport after work, flew to San Diego, and picked up rental car. We got a Chevy Uplander, which is a terrible van-type vehicle with such features as seats without armrests and rear vents that fall out of the ceiling if you touch them :-(
After taking kids to hotel, filled the Uplander with $300 of groceries at midnight to feed 10 people for a week. (We Lloyds are cheap, and the hotel had a kitchen, so we bought food to cook instead of eating out everyday.)

Friday:
We went to Universal Studios in Hollywood:

Took the studio tour: (We didn't see a single celebrity, except for Deron Williams at the airport in SLC)

They showed us the portion of the backlot that burned down last month:

Rachel fell asleep:
Plane crash scene from War of the Worlds:
Saturday:
Went to SeaWorld in San Diego:

Where, despite all of the sunscreen, we all managed to become terribly sunburned.

Sunday:
Went to church somewhere in Oceanside, then went to see the new temple in Newport Beach:

Tori and Rachel walking at the Temple:
Later, we went to the beach:
Rachel and I built a killer sand pile:
Then, we buried the kids in the sand:
Monday:
Ray sporting her Minnie ears at Disneyland:

Riding the spinning teacups:
Waiting in line for something (We did a lot of this):
Rachel in Toontown:

Tuesday:
Went to California Adventure. 'R' is for Rachel:

Rachel loved the stuffed animal store:
The Hollywood backlot at California Adventure:

Wednesday:
Went to the San Diego Zoo and saw lots of animals.
Koala Bears:

Elephants:
Giraffes:
Camels:
We were there in the middle of the day, so we also saw a lot of this:
It seems that most zoo animals don't spend their time on hot California afternoons parading about for tourists, instead prefering to hide in the shade:
At the petting zoo, Rachel tried to pick up a goat:
After the zoo, we got lunch at In-N-Out Burger and headed to the airport for our flight home. We had a lot of fun, but it is nice to be back to normal life after a week on the road.