We hope you all had a Merry Christmas! We have enjoyed our stay thus far; even the snow. Bella was a blast to watch on Christmas morning. We didn't expect her to be excited or to understand what was going on. Amazingly, she was thrilled with each opened present.
We hope to see ALL of you soon. . .If we haven't seen or visited with you yet, be patient. We are making it around to everybody slowly. Happy Holidays!!
I can't believe we will be in Utah in eight more nights!! Time is flying! We can't wait to see everybody and catch up. Although I still have a massive amount of strategic packing to be done, what joy, I am counting down the days like a kid waiting for Christmas. And I am loving every minute. I cannot wait for this holiday season!!
With Thanksgiving behind us and Christmas quickly approaching, we find ourselves grateful for many things. I recently received an email from the relief society presidency in my ward asking for help with hurricane Ike victims. Even though hurricane Ike hit months ago, families in Houston are still surviving with the bare minimum. Mother's in the city are requesting Christmas decorations. As I pondered this unusual request, I began to think about my past Christmas' and wondered how I would feel as a small child with no Christmas decorations. I feel impressed that these mothers are trying to do everything in their power to create the spirit of Christmas in their home. I hope that the decorations sent to them will make the difference they are hoping for.
I am grateful for many things in my life (if I start a list, you would get way too bored). I am truly grateful for my beautiful family and my warm, safe home. I love my husband and am so appreciative of him and everything he does for this family. I hope we can all tell those around us how much we love them, especially at this special time of year. Love you all!!
Dannielle, Isabella and I joined a few friends at a local sports bar for the 2008 edition of the Holy War. There was one other couple cheering on the Utes and about 20 BYU fans. Funny how that many fans made less noise than us Utah fans. Oh that's right there was nothing for them to cheer about. Go Utes!
48-24 Yeah Baby!
I've been accumulating some funny pictures on my cell phone and decided it would be fun to share them with you all.
Dannielle is generally a good driver. I think she's only hit 1 car since we've been married. But this is noteworthy for other reasons. Some of you might be thinking Tyler and his camera better get out of the way she's going to hit him. Well because I'm writting this now you should have concluded that I survived. The car isn't actually moving, infact it's parked and Dannielle is inside our friend's house. Yes this is parallel parking at it's finest. When questioned she said she was scared she was going to hit the boy playing basketball across the street. ??? 
I snapped this fine picture ascending Big Cottonwood Canyon sometime in March 2008. There was about 1" of snow on the road and this crazy clown was scootn' up the mountain on his hog! I think he was white knuckle under those gloves!
This pictured was captured just outside of St. George Utah. The proud owner had welded/bolted a motorcycle ramp to his car. Awesome? I think so.
I took this picture upon entering the men's restroom at a gas station I stopped at while driving to Texas. My first reaction was shock that they expect you to share a toilet paper dispenser. Just as I was finishing Senator Larry Craig walked in and I got the #$!! out of there! 
I felt it necessary to explain why we are going private with our blog. Due to the boringness of the real story I found this picture (Thanks Nate and Liz) and added it just for a touch of interesting. It was a day after Dannielle's Birthday and she had asked me why I hadn't posted a long glamorous "I love my wife and it's her birthday" message. Being extremely lazy but witty I replied, "I don't know how safe it is to let the whole world know when your birthday is. What if identity thieves read this? They would then have your name and birthday." Dannielle wasn't just easily satisfied with my answer she immediately fell ill to the idea that there are weirdo's out there that might be reading our blog. So many of you have responded positively to the idea and have shown great support of her paranoid behavior. Thank you for being good friends, it makes up for my delinquencies as a husband.
Anyway I apologize for causing this change in accessibility because I hate taking the extra steps to log in to private blogs. And if one of you would kindly let Dannielle know she share's the same last name with any weirdo's reading our blog.
Recently we have toyed with the idea of going private. Unfortunately we no longer live in a safe and trusting world. We didn't have an instance that caused us to go private, we just feel that it's for the best. We enjoy being a part of the blog world, and we love keeping in touch with everyone. Please leave your e-mail on the comment page if you know neither Tyler or I have it. Once you post your e-mail, we will be sure to delete the comment to keep your e-mail information private.
Last night was our ward's Trunk-or-Treat. Being first timers, we weren't sure what to expect. We decorated our trunk, dressed Bella in her ballerina costume, and began our twenty minute drive to the church. I had bought a bag of candy containing 105 pieces; while driving we decided to get rid of the whoppers first because they are the grossest candy, leaving us with the Hershey bars, Reese's, and kitkats to eat all by ourselves. Little did we know that by nights end the ginormous bag of candy would be down to a meager 6 pieces! Our plans of gorging on candy for the next week were foiled!! I selfishly thought of taking Bella treating along the row of cars and eating the candy by myself, but I just didn't feel good about that. There will always be next year!
Bella found the treat basket we had and decided she wanted in on this yummy holiday. 
Me an Aunt Sierra
Me and Aunt Mels
Polly want a cracker?
All the family down on the River Walk
Wee! What a fun ride!!
If you haven't already guesses it, we had visitors. Josh and Denise flew in Tuesday, while the rest of Tyler's family (not including Mindy and Nate) came into town last Wednesday. I spent all Wednesday afternoon with Josh and Denise at the outlet malls in San Marcos. After a lot of shopping we met up with Tyler for dinner. Unfortunately Bella and I missed out on some awesome Mexican food. We went to YW instead. Thursday we went to the zoo with everyone except Ty and Cory (they were attending a dental convention seminar). After a lot of walking we met Tyler and Cory downtown on the River Walk. We had yummy food at the Rain Forest Cafe. The next morning we all went to Seaworld. It was so much fun! They have really made some changes since the last time I went, granted I was 9 years old. . . Anyway, they had some awesome rides and Isabella loved the dolphin feeding tank. That night we went to Texas' best BBQ - Rudy's. The following day everyone except Bella, Sheryl and I went to Six Flags. Instead we spent the entire day shopping. Yay! Sunday was spent at church and at the Cutler's home. It went by so fast; we still can't believe they are gone! We loved having Ty's family down to visit.
We can't believe we will be in Utah in 8 weeks! I'm practically bursting from the anticipation!!
As we approach our 4 year anniversary I thought it would be fun to take a look back at what has happened with Ty and Dannielle.
This was taken by our wedding photographer in Logan, UT. We still have his contact information if anyone is interested. He was amazing!
During year number one we co-founded a non profit organization and carried out a humanitarian trip to Cambodia. This is a picture of the well we had drilled for an orphanage just outside of Phnom Penh.
For our 1st Anniversary/Dannielle's Birthday we added Chesterfield to our family!
For anniversary #2 we made it to Hawaii!
Anniversary #3 was the half way mark for pregnancy #1.
In February we welcomed Bella into our Family and I've been tired ever since.
Bella and I have been good nap buddies from the beginning.
We are now getting ready for Halloween. If it's this fun before she's even 1, I can't wait to see how much fun it is when she's old enough to care!
Dannielle is pressuring me to tell you all how much fun it's been. If I have to be honest...It has been a lot of fun. I can't imagine finding someone greater than Dannielle. She tolerates me and even thinks I'm funny at times. She has been an incredible motivator as I've progressed through school and continue to prepare for the future. She is an amazing mother, and usually gets it right after I tell her what to do;) And of course life would not be nearly as much fun without all of our friends and family. We have been blessed with an amazing support system and love you all dearly. Thanks for taking a look back at these fantastic years we've shared together!
On a side note-I usually try to add a song to each post that "matches" up with the theme. I'm wondering if anyone even has the volume on while browsing blogs or if you are all like me and turn the sound off? I will probably continue to add music to my posts because I think it's fun, just wanted to see what other people thought?
I thought I should share a little about our experience with Ike. For a few days leading up to Ike's landfall we were being told it might hit closer to us and leave San Antonio without power, fallen trees, flooding...Outcome-We didn't see a single drop of rain. The homes in South Houston that sat within 1 mile from any body of water sustained substantial flood damage. A lot of homes also suffered minor structural damage due to trees simply falling over or being whirled about and crashing into roofs and siding.
Last Friday night at about 8pm I received a phone call from our Elder's Quorum President asking if I could sacrifice my Saturday to go down to Houston and help clean up some of these damaged homes. To be honest I was really ready for some R&R, but because I couldn't find a justifiable reason to stay home I volunteered. We left Saturday morning at 6am and made the drive down. (For those in Utah the drive from San Antonio to Houston is about the same as driving from Salt Lake to Cedar City) We were sent by the LDS church to League City which is about 25 miles south of Houston. We reported to the Stake Center where assignments were being given out. All of the requests submitted by members of the church had already been completed so we (The 5 guys that drove down together from our ward) were given a 7 block area to cover and were told to just drive up and down the streets asking anyone and everyone if they could use our help cleaning up.
We were able to find enough work to keep us busy all day and got back to San Antonio around 10 that night. I learned a lot about emergency preparedness and heading warnings. I feel lucky to have been able to learn from this disaster without being a victim and sincerely hope Houston never has to return the favor.
These pictures are borrowed from the web. I did not take my camera because I didn't want it to get ruined. I just wanted to point out that when the water gets this high everything gets this high. (sewage, sea creatures, snakes, gators...) 
The water levels inside these homes is equal to the water levels on the outside. Some homes sit higher and only suffered damage up to the baseboards, others were cutting everything from shoulder height down. When this much water just sits stagnant day after day, mold begins to develop very quickly. Add Houston's humidity to that and the chance of it just drying out is non existent. 
As we drove around we saw boats that landed in the middle of the road, cars that were washed into the bay, and homes that previously stood on pylons that now sat across the street and even a few that were carried out into the bay. 
Sorry this image is so small but it is the only image I could find that captured what we were doing. Just about everything the water touches has to be torn out. We tore up carpet and padding, cut out drywall, ripped up wood floors, threw out furniture and appliances. It was terrible to see all the materials these families had worked to purchase just go to the curb to be picked up by a front end loader and taken to the dump in the back of a bubba truck.
We are so excited about our terrific news! We were going to try and keep it a secret for as long as possible, but I can't hold it in any longer! We are coming to Utah for Christmas!! YAY! Cory and Sheryl offered to buy us airline tickets for our Christmas present. We are ecstatic. I can't wait to see everyone. Tyler is still working out some kinks with his office and time off; not enough space on our blog to go into details. I will be flying out with Bella on December 17th. Tyler offered to drive Alyse Cutler's car to Utah (she is going to finish her senior year at Alta and her parents, the mission presidents of San Antonio, were trying to find a way to get her car back home), he will be leaving the 23rd. We will be in town until the 4th of January. Although Tyler says he will be snowboarding the entire two weeks of his vacation, we look forward to our visit with friends and family!
We lead a boring life. Nothing new and exciting happened this week. So here are some cute pictures instead.
My newest silly face
Exploring my toy cupboard
Always a cutie
Hanging out with daddy
What an awesome weekend! Tyler recently learned of a new arrival to Texas; his mission companion Rob. We excitedly scheduled a day with Rob and his wife Lindsay in Austin. Although we had to drive an hour and a half to see our friends, it was definitely worth it! Bella did great in the car and was awesome for the rest of the trip. We got up to Austin and decided to go out to Austin Lake for lunch. We ate at Hula Hut, on the water, and had delicious food!! We then took a quick tour of the city and learned some interesting facts about Austin. Reluctantly we headed back to San Antonio. We are thrilled to have some friends close by, even though it is not as close as we would prefer.
Tyler and I will be spending three days watching the Cutler family in our ward. They have six children, plus Bella makes seven! I am so excited to be around the noise and chaos of a large family. Coming from a large family myself, I have missed the fun of a noisy house. Wish us luck!!
Bella has added a new capability to her list. Although still unable to sit up on her own, she can pull herself up to a standing position. Instead of sitting, she kneels. From that position she grabs onto anything and pulls herself up. She is still very wobbly and hasn't figured out that she has to continue holding on unless she wants to fall. During nap-time yesterday she was screaming and throwing a fit (normal for Bella), and I peeked around the corner to see what she was doing. She had pulled herself up and was clinging to her mobile. Is it bad that it was funny to see the bewilderment in her face?
She also thinks she is an expert climber. Whether it's the couch, a chair, or someones fireplace, she is all over it!
Another can-do that has been added to her list is funny faces. I don't know where she got this from (I will let you be the judge of that) but it is darling. 
