Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all our wonderful friends and family!
Have a wonderful holiday and a happy New Year.

Now, can YOU tell who's belly is bigger?!

Gingerbread House Nite

For the third year running, the Skinners hosted the annual Gingerbread House Nite. We had a blast but were sad to be missing a part of our group: Dan & Bekah couldn't be there since they've moved to sunny CA. I don't think the Holidays can really start until we get together with our old Harris buddies to build those perfect houses and eat our own body weight in sugar.
This is me & Trav, Dave, Michelle & Sammy, and Josh & Rosie in front of the final products. Rosie's is my favorite (it's the one on the left end), hers is like a 5-year-old's dream house -- I don't think there's a square inch without candy!

Baby, Oh Baby

As B-day approaches (one month and counting..), my family and friends threw me a couple of wonderful Baby Showers. Everyone was so great to come and I had to post this great picture from the family shower of the 'Lee' women. My Grandma, my sister-in-law Kristi, me (the fat one), my sister Tracie, and my Mom. It was just so nice to have everyone together, in the same place at the same time! My Mom was the one who got us to stand like we're in a choir or something ("We have to show off your belly!") sheesh. A good-lookin' group all the same.

O Christmas Tree!

Travis and I have always agreed that every year we have to buy a real Christmas tree. It really makes the holidays seem special even when life is crazy hectic.

Travis is pretty funny when it comes to the actual Christmas tree selection however. I have discovered that I basically am just along for the ride and there to agree with whatever is his final decision.
The ideal tree must be the perfect: triangular in shape, fluffy, and above all, the most piney-smelling tree in creation. I actually had to dissuade him from getting one that was about as wide as it was tall (me: "But we live in a townhouse!" Trav: "yea, but this one is great!"). And Trav isn't one to be suckered in by the first nice tree he finds, no sir, we have to tromp around 50 different tree lots, debating the various virtues of Noble versus Grand firs before finally finding the 'perfect' tree.
I must grudgingly admit that Trav has the 'eye.' All his hard work seems to have paid off; our tree is probably the best we've had in 4 Christmas' together and almost as important -- it fills the whole house with it's 'piney' scent!

Southern Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

For Thanksgiving this year we went to Georgia with my entire family to visit Grandma, Aunt Bernice and the millions of aunts, uncles, and cousins still living out there. This is a picture with Bertie, Brooke, Cami and Grandma. It was pretty special since I haven't been back for at least 2 years. We had such a wonderful time. Grandma and Bertie literally stuffed us with every good food imaginable, every second of the day -- it was a dream come true! One night we got Bertie to play a game of Hearts with us and I think Trav about died with all the things that came out of her mouth. I think it's pretty clear now where my competitive nature comes from. After passing her a couple of particularly rotten cards one hand, she turned to me and said "Michelle," (insert really heavy accent) "I wouldn't do that to a dog." Hilarious.


The day after Thanksgiving, we decided to drive around looking for that specialty of the South: Boiled Peanuts. We couldn't find an open stand, but here are a couple of pictures of what the typical roadside stand looks like. Notice the sign: "Bold Pnut." For those of you unfamiliar with this tradition, let me explain.
An old man, typically wearing overalls or coveralls (depending on the season) with a ball-cap perched on top of his head will be keeping watch over a 50-gallon metal barrel positioned precariously over a roaring fire. Piles of wood can be seen stacked nearby, all ready to keep the fire going. The barrel itself is where the magic happens. Into the barrel goes a precise mixture of water, peanuts (still in the shell), and a TON of salt. This is left to boil all day, resulting in peanuts so soft they literally fall apart in your mouth. When you stop to purchase some of these perfect little guys, the grandpa will slowly stop talking with whatever buddy/kin currently passing the time with him and ask you about your own grandpa and various other family members you can only vaguely remember. In anticipation you watch as he uses an old coffee can with holes punched in the bottom and nailed to a stick to dip out a bucketful of peanuts. He lets them drain off for a bit and then dumps them into either a paper sack or plastic produce bag. As you walk back to your car with a silly sort of grin on your face, you pop one of the first peanuts into your mouth. There is a proper procedure for consuming the peanuts as well. First, suck off all the salt water - mixed with the great peanut flavor, then open the shell and eat the softened nuts, but not the shell. Pure heaven and a years worth of sodium.
I think this has to be one of the greatest treasures of the South, which sadly is starting to die out with all the old grandpas that used to sell them. One of my favorite childhood memories was stopping at one of these stands with my Grandpa & Granny and having an entire bag to eat by myself.

Alice Taiz Martinsen

We got a call about 4pm last Friday to say that Travis' sister Jennifer had been induced and was going to have her baby that night! She wasn't actually due until December 3, but Jen had developed toxemia and the doctors wanted her to have the baby before it got any worse. So Trav and I decided that since we would miss out on all the Thanksgiving fun, to pack up and drive down to St. George where our new niece, Alice Taiz, beat us only by an hour or so. She was 8 lbs. 2oz and 21 inches and perfectly healthy and so dang cute. She was such a little thing, we were so happy to find out that everything was okay. Welcome to your crazy family Taiz!

Pie and Sushi (not together though)

A couple of fun food nights

Apple Pie night a la Britton

Those cute girls, Katie and Amber, brought over a yummy apple pie made from scratch (look at that lattice!) on which we proceeded to stuff ourselves silly while listening to Miss Katie read Junie B. Jones Smells Something Fishy. Katie talks just like you'd imagine our hero Junie B. would, so it was especially hilarious! Don't judge us because we like little girl books, try one out -- they're pure comedy.

Sushi Ya!

Okay, so we didn't make REAL sushi... just an Americanized & preggo-safe version. One of the ironies of being pregnant is that I crave sushi all the time! I think it is all the fresh ingredients, but it really is one of the (few) things that always sounds good. So on Saturday, Trav and I decided to try our hand at making those addicting little rolls. We trekked over to Chao's Chinese market and got all the supplies and info from the little old lady there on how to make it. Here's an action shot and Trav with some of the finished product. All-in-all the rolls turned out pretty good, with nary a leftover. Our recipe still needs a little tweaking (anyone know a good one for spicy crab?) but I'd give it a 4 out of 5 on the sushi goodness scale. Yummy!

All Dressed Up

Another Halloween has come and gone and with it a chance to wear a wig! Trav and I had a ton of fun dressing up this year. Our ward was having a Trunk-or-Treat/Chili cook-off and we had a great time.

Trav went as the Intergalactic Space Traveler, Arthur Dent, from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and I went as Rapunzel. Trav's costume was one that you either got right away or just thought he was some guy in a bathrobe. Don't feel bad if you are in the bathrobe category, we figured only a couple of people in the ward would get it and boy, we were dead on. Only 4 people knew right away who he was - we had previously listed them as the type who would know. But they're all pretty geeky, I mean smart, just like my Travy.

My Rapunzel costume was really fun to wear to the library. Since I don't work the desks much any more (I'm usually stuck in my office), I went out and helped with storytime and it was so cute to see all the kids dressed up. The wig was the best part of the outfit. Trav and I found some long sections of hair at the beauty supply store which we braided together and then attached to my ponytail underneath the hat. Viola! Instant princess -- a definite success.

Silly side note: Can I just say that every time I look at this picture, I feel really good about myself?! I'm 7 months pregnant here people!! Granted, the dress is pretty loose...but at this point I'll take whatever I can get.

My Favorite Travy

I love this picture of Travis. He and Alan Young went fishing up at Jordanelle awhile ago and Trav just looks so happy here (I think he was pretty pleased with their catch). They caught a ton of fish and we had a yummy fish fry for dinner that night!


This is another classic Trav photo. We were having a game nite with the Skinners and the Droges (and their cute new baby, Sammy) and Trav got on the subject that (supposedly) one in seven males is supposed to be able to lactate..I know, this is something only Travis would know, right?! But this is him explaining this complex, scientific situation. I guess we'll see if he is one of lucky ones in a couple of months.

Ba Bump

6 months and counting! I really can't believe how fast this pregnancy has gone. Earlier this week, I realized that since it is now October, we essentially only have 3 months to go...3 months before becoming parents! I'm getting just a little bit nervous because we haven't really started preparing at all, but oh well. (I think this picture makes me look a little bigger than I actually am because my arms are out. It's not too far off though!)
What we really have been enjoying is how active our little man is lately. Nights and mornings are when I feel him the most (and just after I've eaten), and boy, he packs quite a punch! It is just amazing to think that this little person is growing and getting stronger every day. We did go to the doctor again last week and despite him still being a little small, they are going to keep my due date the same (Jan 18). They think he might hit a growth spurt later or that he just might be small period..I guess we'll wait and see.

Ohh La La!

Travis has been gone for officially one week now! And in France no less! I guess there is a big auto-pilot plane/helicopter competition going on in Toulouse, France and since that is basically what Trav is doing for his Masters research at BYU, they were happy enough to send him off, all-expenses-paid, for a week-long adventure in the French countryside. To tell you the truth, I don't really understand everything that he has done to create the helicopter (I try to stay away from anything that has too much to do with science or math and this is chock full of it), but I know it's really cutting edge research and Trav is doing great!
It was really fun helping him get ready for the trip though. He'd been listening to some French language CDs and since I took French all through college, I graciously agreed to help him learn some key phrases. After a little of my tutoring however, he told me "I think I like the CDs better, they don't correct me." I guess I am kind of particular about how to pronounce things... Aside from all the "Je ne comprends pas" (I don't understand) and "Qu'est-ce que c'est que ca?" (What in the crazy heck is that?) phrases, the most important one I taught him was "J'ai une femme" (I have a wife). Lets just say I made sure he knew that one perfectly before leaving!!
Well, Trav gets home Saturday night and I wish it could be sooner. I am really starting to notice how quiet the house gets without him here at night. I have so many great friends and family who have come over, gone to dinner and gone shopping with me (thanks Mom!) that I don't feel like I've had much time to actually miss him, but I must say, I'm ready for my cute boy to come home! Je t'aime Travy!

It's a boy!

On Tuesday, Travis and I went to the doctor to find out what we are having and survey says...it's a boy! We are both so incredibly happy. We were actually convinced that we were having a boy, so it's nice to finally really know. The doctor said that everything looked perfect with our little man and that he was wiggling and moving all over the place. They also said that he was measuring a little small so they may move my due date to January 28th, but we don't know yet. Maybe he'll hit a growth spurt yet! This picture is of his profile, it's so amazing that you can see all his little features. Basically, I'm just so glad to find out that I'm not really pregnant with a lizard (Trav was amazed that I was actually worried about this possibility).






This picture I am posting by popular demand (I think everyone just wants to see me get fat). Anyways, this is me at five months. As you can see, I am developing quite a belly. I can hardly fit into some of my clothes any more, but I guess that is a good thing right?!

AUVSI 2007 Competition

At the end of June Travis went to Washington D.C. as a member of BYU's AUVSI team to compete in this year's competition. No one in their right mind should know what AUVSI stands for but the competition was to have small autopiloted airplanes fly themselves around and find targets that are on the ground. The team then goes through all the video from the plane to determine what the targets are and find the GPS location of each target. As you can see from the above picture the team wasn't quite done when they got there. They were up til 4 am finishing up some of the code and flew that same morning at 7.


Ashley Ogzewalla, Michelle's old roommate, was working at the Kennedy Center in DC and came out to be our official BYU cheerleader for the event.

BYU ended up taking 3rd in the Oral presenation, 6th in the paper, 3rd in the flight mission, and 3rd overall. With much thanks going to our team cheerleader!


The team is shown here as James Hoffman, Travis (in the bowtie of course), Jared Yates, Jared Lee, Professor Tim McLain, and Brett Millar.

Equation in a Bottle

One day while bored in his Thermodynamics class Travis figured out how many milligrams of dry ice it would take to carbonate root beer. It turns out to be 357 milligrams of dry ice in case you were wondering, (as I'm sure you were). As Travis couldn't just leave that fact on paper he decided to see if it would work. It turns out you can! Though if Michelle asks it wasn't done in her kitchen despite what this picture may suggest.

Not knowing any local drug dealers who might have a fine set of scales with which to measure 357 milligrams of dry ice Travis fashioned one out of a paperclip, some dental floss, and a tylenol. Those are some mad McGyver skills! Anyway you just have to be quick to cap the root beer after the dry ice is in it and then let it sit and dissolve the carbon dioxide for a few days for the carbonation to take full effect.

...it also turns out that while 357 milligrams of dry ice will carbonate your bottle of sweet sugary goodness, 358 milligrams will transform it into a glass billowing dry ice bomb. Probably not the smartest idea I know. The leather gloves and safety glasses faired OK against this one that went off like the 4th of July as I was setting it down but I probably should have found something safer to wear than sandals! I don't know how I came out of this one unscathed but the explosion sent glass upwards of 25 feet.

Onion Baby

As many of you may already know, Travis and I are expecting our very own little rugrat come January 18th and we couldn't be more excited! I love looking at all the weekly pregnancy calenders online and for this week (I'm 17 weeks along) it said our little one is about the size of a large onion! What a great visual.
So, this is something weird I've noticed: why is it that they always use food analogies for pregnant women: babies the size of onions, shrimp, rice, etc? I think it's just a conspiracy to get us to have weird cravings.

Yosemite National Park Camping Trip

For the 24th of July, we took a little vacation down to Yosemite National Park. We met Amber, Ryan and Britton and Renee down there for the weekend to camp out and generally have a great time. This is Amber, Ryan and Me at the top of Yosemite Falls. It was slightly disappointing because there was only a tiny trickle of water for the falls, but we hiked all the way up and found this little pool created by the runoff. The water was freezing, but it was so beautiful we loved it!









Shelly and Travis in front of Half Dome Peak. This place is breathtaking. I would really like to come back every year and explore it!

























Britton, Renee, Trav, Me and Ryan around our campfire. Our campsite was located right next to this little creek that we had a blast exploring.
This trip definitely had some crazy moments, but here is one of my favorites: The last night there, we heard some noises while sitting around the campfire and Trav and Ryan, being boys, decided to go investigate. What do you know but it was a huge brown bear stealing food from our neighbors! They had a tent for sleeping and a tent for food and the bear had completely destroyed the food tent. I mean ripped it to shreds. It was slightly unnerving, but the bear just seemed like it was after quick meals--nothing he had to really fight for...but still enough to get our hearts beating a little faster.

Stuart Falls

Happy Memorial Day! To celebrate our day of freedom, Travis & I hiked up Stuart Falls with Keith & Cherie. It was a beautiful day and the falls are so amazing. We just wanted to post some of the pictures to show how gorgeous it really was!

Costa Rica Trip 2007

After Travis graduated in May, we finally decided to take a long-overdue honeymoon to Costa Rica after being married for three years. My parents gave us the plane tickets (thank you, thank you!) and we went down for a week and had a wonderful time. We spent the first few days in Arenal, which is up in the mountains near an active volcano, right in the middle of the jungle. Afterwards, we went down to the beach, Playa Hermosa, to spend our last few days in the sun (this is us at the beach at sunset). Since we are still starving students, we decided to backpack our way through. This included using public transportation and staying in hostels: it was a complete adventure. We really got a chance to meet some of the locals and enjoy the country first hand. Needless to say, we had a wonderful time and want to plan a trip back already.

Ladies Geological Eatery

Our first night in Costa Rica, we went to this great restaurant called the Ladies Geological Society Eatery (or something like that) for dinner that is run by 4 ladies. The food was amazing and dirt cheap. Plenty of rice and beans, Travis was so happy! The restaurants out there are really unique because they are all open air. Just a roof and floors. If you look close in the picture with Michelle, you can see the jungle just behind her.

















Since all the restaurants are open air, you do get some animals running around. At one point I felt something tickle my back, so I brushed at my shirt and looked down and this 'little' guy was running away. It was HUGE, no joke. When I showed the lady there, she just said "shoo, shoo." I don't think that was really the reaction I was going for.

Arenal Hotel

This is the hotel we stayed in while in Arenal. We really got a taste of the rural life here; it was right next to this river and you could hear all the animals at night.
















Here is Trav in a hammock at our hotel. We liked it so much, we decided to buy one for us to bring home a little bit of Costa Rica.

Arenal National Park

We spent our second day at the Arenal Volcano National Park, which was amazing. While hiking, we kept hearing rumbling noises, thinking that it was about to storm, but then we realized, oh yea, that's just the LIVE volcano! Kind of freaky to think about, but it really was gorgeous. The volcano hasn't really erupted since 1961, when it completely destroyed an entire town below it, which they later just turned into a man-made lake. Now you can hike up and see all the old lava rocks and take a gander at the still rumbling volcano. The drive to the park was probably one of the most beautiful drives I have ever been on. So perfect. Here are some of the photos of us at the park and hiking up the volcano.




























This is Travis and I standing between the volcano and the lake.































This is Travis on top of this massive lava rock formation. Behind him is the volcano, which if you look close, you can see some of the hot ash rocks that are rolling down the mountain. Just don't get too close.


I made the mistake of wearing flip-flops while hiking up over lava rocks.. Not the smartest thing I've ever done (and no, the red isn't blood, it's polish). My feet were a little sore afterwards, but thankfully we were headed to the hot springs.

Eyelash Viper

Everyone told us that we'd see a lot of animals while in Costa Rica and boy were they right. While hiking we saw this ant eater/cat thing, lots of brightly colored birds and the like. As you see here we even saw some of the not-so-nice animals. A couple of German tourists actually pointed this little beauty out to us: an eyelash viper. One of the deadliest snakes in the world. And yes, we got about 3 feet from it. The most reassuring thing was when they told us, "Oh, don't worry, this kind of snake doesn't jump." Very comforting.

Baldi Hot Springs

After a long day hiking, we decided to go to the Baldi natural hot springs resort that is just outside of La Fortuna. This place was so beautiful! With the volcano right there, they have these natural hot springs that have been made into resorts. There were about 20 pools that were all different temperatures with waterfalls and seats for ultimate relaxation. It was great to sit back and see all the beautifully landscaped tropical plants and then to look up and see the (smoking) volcano in the distance. A perfect end to the day.

















Monkey Travis.

Capony Tour & Horsing Around

Travis and I about to begin our fun-filled canopy tour. Behind us is the La Fortuna Waterfall and the jungle. This was probably the most fun thing that we did while in Costa Rica. They took us to the middle of the jungle and then we proceeded to cross it on 11 different cables, some so high you couldn't see the ground below. One of the longest took over a minute to cross and we were going about 40 miles an hour! It was just amazing, you could look to one side and see Arenal Volcano, on the other La Fortuna Waterfall and then over at the city, not to mention the gorgeous canopy! Needless to say we had a blast.















Here comes Michelle on one of the tamer runs.















Travis getting a good start on his turn.



































One of our crazy guides doing a little upside down trick for us. None of us were really brave enough to try going across that way, or at least they wouldn't let us try.















High, Ho Silver away! After the canopy tour, we then took a horse ride through the jungle. As you can tell, the horses down here are a little small. I think the guide said that this one was called "gordo," maybe it's a joke?






























Halfway through the ride it started to rain, (we were in the jungle) and our horses started going really fast. All the better for me, but some people in our little group had a bit of trouble managing their mounts. We were totally soaked by the end, but it was so much fun, we didn't really care. What a blast!