Christmas surprise 2009!

Well, it's been way too long since our last post so I'm not going to try and catch everyone up on what we have been doing over the last 4 months because that would take way too long. Instead, I will write about our exciting Christmas.

The first Christmas surprise was for my Grandma Blair. My family had never spent a Christmas with her because she had lived in Florida and Texas which were so far away from Canada. So this year we decided to surprise her by having the whole family go to Houston for Christmas, but we didn't let her know we were coming. Becky and I were the first to shock her by showing up the week before Christmas and then the rest of the family trickled in later that night and the following day. It was great to see her reaction and I know the whole family being there made this Christmas extra special for her.

The second Christmas surprise this year had to do with the picture below:

That's right, we're going to have a baby! A while after we found out that Becky was pregnant, we decided that we would surprise our families for Christmas. We ordered these customized blue and pink M&M's that said "We're pregnant", wrapped them up and sent them out to our family members noting that they weren't to open them until Christmas Day. We thought this was a good idea because this way nobody in either of our families would feel like they were the last ones to know. I think almost everyone waited until Christmas Day to open them and were completely surprised just like we were hoping for, although a couple of family members thought that we had just sent them a small, lame bag of candy until they actually read the fine print on the M&M's. Surprise!

Keeping a secret for a couple of months isn't very easy either as both Becky and I found out. I was actually really proud of Becky because I didn't think she would be able to do it. She doesn't have the greatest track record for keeping secrets and claims that she inherited it from her Mother. That couldn't possibly be true, could it Momma Hulet?

Here is a video of the Beazer family opening up our present. I thought it was funny how after my little sister announced that we were pregnant the rest of my family just stood there frozen for a few seconds. Either they didn't believe it, were shocked, or they just weren't listening. My Dad asking, "How did that happen" in the video was also pretty amusing. We still haven't told him how :) I really wish we could have been in two places at once to see and record the Hulet family's reaction when they opened theirs. Oh, and please just act like you didn't hear the goofy laughing in the background.

We're so excited to be having a baby! Becky's due date is on June 14 and so far she has been lucky enough not to have experienced most of the negative symptoms associated with pregancy.

Labor Day, Schlabor Day!

Labor day is such a strange holiday to me, mainly because I didn't know why it was called labor day and why everyone gets a day free of work when logically you would think it was a day dedicated to working even harder. I do appreciate the day off, though, and after a little research I found that labor day is a holiday we copied from (don't tell buddy)--the Canadians. No wonder it's so weird :)Regardless, I love having a day off for labor day, and because it's one of the few days I have off from work, buddy and I decided to take our last summer trip...to the beach! And we didn't go to just any beach---we went to Florida! Can you believe it's only an 8 hour (6.5-7 hr for us) drive to Pensacola Beach, FL? And you'll never guess what we did when we first got there, but here's a little hint:

PARASAILING! It didn't actually cost as much as I thought it would, and I was so proud of buddy for actually being brave enough to come with me this time (not like the catapult ride on our honeymoon--I had to ride it by myself next to a 13-year old boy...):

The beach there was beautiful with snow-white sand and greenish-blue water. The water was warm, too, and though the waves weren't very big we still bought some boogie boards to play around with.

Buddy really wanted to find a whole sand dollar at the beach, but after searching for a couple of hours (it seemed :) ) he could only find half of one. So we built a "sand estate" instead. I dubbed it the Beazer estate, because I wasn't clever

enough to come up with anything else.

True to being in the South, everything can be fried, but this fried bologna sandwich was nothing like I'd seen in Memphis--gross!

We really enjoyed our time in

Pensacola, and I would have more cool pics of buddy to share if he hadn't deleted them all. :(

Nauvoo the Beautiful!

Last weekend we had the chance to meet up in Nauvoo with Dad and Mom Hulet who were on their way back home from Utah.  It was great seeing them again and Nauvoo was as beautiful as advertised!  We were able to attend a session at the temple  which was gorgeous on the inside and out.  Here's a picture of us in front of the temple.  It was great being able to see many homes and places where the early saints lived and spent much of their time.  It was also neat to hear the stories and testimonies that were shared by the wonderful Senior missionaries serving there.

The Hulets in front of the Joseph and Hyrum monument.  As they were being escorted to Carthage jail, Joseph told Hyrum that, "this is the loveliest place and the best people under the heavens; little do they know the trials that await them."

Resting place of Joseph and Emma. 

Another picture of the temple

The Mississippi River was beautiful up in Nauvoo-not brown and muddy like our view of it in Memphis.  On our drive coming right up on Nauvoo we were thinking that living right next to the river would be a very pretty place to be...until we heard what sounded like a thousand rain droplets on our car windshield.  We soon realized that they were little hordes of mosquitos and other bugs.   It was so gross!  It might not be worth the view to have to deal with all those mosquitos...

Something smells fishy!

     Kendall, one of my friends in our church ward, has been bugging me to go fishing with him practically since the day we met.  I hadn't been fishing since I was a boy scout which was quite a few years ago and had only been fishing a couple of times in my life.  As far as I could remember I never found fishing to be very much fun.  Finally, I caved into the peer pressure and decided to give it a whirl.  

     One of the counselors in our Bishropic took us out to his in-law's lake and it turned out to be a really fun morning.  The bass must have been hungry because they were biting like crazy!  I was there for about 45 min-1hr before I caught anything, but then after that I caught four more fairly quickly.  I had a great time and was glad Kendall never stopped prodding me to go with him. 

Kendall with one of the many bass he caught on the day!

Brother Law caught 4 or 5 bass in about an hour, and then went home...I guess it must be boring being such a good fisherman.

Kissing this fish's boo-boo better before putting him back in the lake.  Thanks for the fishing lessons/trip Kendall!

Guess who went somewhere fun?...

So, we went to Atlanta for the Fourth of July! It was great! We successfully saved money by buying six flags tickets on craigslist, shopping for our food at a grocery store (with one exception) and staying at my very gracious cousin's house (that I hadn't met before)--while they were out of town! We really appreciated their hospitality, and they were located just 15 minutes from pretty much everywhere we wanted to go down there. As an intro to our trip, I thought I'd show you one of the more entertaining street signs we saw in the neighborhood where we stayed:

Don't worry, they were really just speed bumps...

So, anyway, while we were there we had four main things to do on our agenda: Six Flags, The World of Coca-Cola, The Aquarium, and of course, the fireworks. All of them were fun, for instance, Coke world had a room where you could taste Coke flavors from all over the world (I think there were 89 or something?). These are the artistic coke bottles from around the world:

Here I am with one of the secrets of Coke: little furry kissing things that give coke a little kiss of flavor. or something. I must not have paid attention to the secret movie very well (surprise!):
After the Coke museum, we were super hungry and didn't bring our grocery food, so we went to an awesome restaurant nearby--Johnny Rocket's! It was a little 50's-ish diner with dancing waiters and juke boxes, and smiley-face ketchup (catsup?)! It was great. I even enjoyed having horseradish sauce on my burger, and buddy (of course) got a bacon cheddar burger. :)
When we were done eating, we went to, by far, the highlight of our trip! The aquarium! Who knew we'd like looking at silly little swimming fish so much? Apparently it's the biggest aquarium in the US, and it definitely was worth the money. But I didn't love it half as much as buddy did. He probably took at least 70 photos (of fish? I know--what a waste!) and you can even see how much he loves it by the look on his face in this picture. This is probably one of my favorite pics of buddy. he's just so happy :). I want to go back next year when they will have some dolphins, but the whale sharks and beluga whales were pretty sweet, too. If you'd like to see a ton of pictures of the fishes, just ask buddy :)
Six flags was fun, too, but we don't have any pictures of that, and the fireworks were awesome in the Olympic park in Atlanta, but maybe not worth waiting outside for 5 hours for. One thing I thought was pretty coincidental was that we were tract-ed out by the Jehovah's Witnesses while were were staying at my cousin's house. I told her I didn't really live in Atlanta so I couldn't make it to their end-of-the-world seminar, but I thought it was interesting to talk to her nonetheless. Maybe I liked it 'cause she kept complimenting my smile. but she probably did that just so I'd talk to her :) Ah, well. We had a good time in Atlanta, if you can't tell! I hope we can go again sometime before we leave the South for good!

I was planning to post this a little bit ago, especially since it's definitely my turn to post.  Anyway, this is an email I received from a friend of ours in the ward here.  We babysat her kids for a few hours one day, and apparently we've made some sort of impression on her daughter jayden:

Becky and Buddy,

    Tonight as I was putting Jayden to bed and asking her about her day she was very excited to tell me something.

 

J: Mom! Buddy was in primary today!

M: He was? That was pretty fun to see him there I bet huh?

J: Yeah! Mom, did you know that Buddy is my best friend?

M: Really?

J: yea, and did you know that Becky and buddy are twins?
M: Twins huh?

J: Yeah, he is the brother and she is the sister and so they are twins!

M: (thinking...what?) Actually they are husband and wife, like a mommy and a daddy.

J: Oh, Well.... can they come to my movie party?

M: (thinking... that was a weird transition) I guess we could ask them.

J: K! Send them an e-mail and invite them to my movie party!

M: You are a silly kid,  but ok.

Apparently we appear to be twins to a four year old.  Maybe because both of our names start with B?  We don't really look alike....We got a pretty good laugh from it, though. :)

This is one of my all time favorite photographs that I've come across on the web.  I can't help but laugh every time I see it (For those that aren't familiar, those sunglasses are Bono's from the band U2)!  This is just a fun little post and for my own personal amusement, family/friends who read this feel free to add a link to a favorite picture that makes you laugh in the comments section.  Can't wait to see 'em!

Our first big storm

Sorry to our friends in Memphis but this post will be old news to you.  Some of you will notice your pictures on here too as I once again had to turn to my wicked ways of blog theft(Actually I asked for permission this time). Our camera battery was dead and since the storm left us without power we couldn't recharge it.  We have some pictures that we took on our phone but I couldn't find the cord to transfer them.  I'll add those pictures later when/if I ever find the cord.   Anyways, so we had a big storm system sweep through our area a couple of weeks ago that was exciting/scary to see.  Most of the greater Memphis area was left with broken branches, uprooted trees and no power.  Our suburb seemed to have been hit particularly hard and we later found out that an F1 tornado had touched down briefly.   Becky and I however weren't able to see the full brunt of the storm because we weren't home when it happened.  I had just finished up work at the school and was waiting for Becky to finish work.  I had heard from someone that a big storm was moving in to the area so I decided that it would be a good idea to watch from the 3rd floor balcony of the school tower.  I was enjoying the wind and rain until I saw leaves and little branches flying around in the air and then I saw the metal lid of the garbage can 5 feet away from me get sucked out by the wind.  That's when I decided to go inside and watch from one of the windows.  The tornado sirens came on and they made all of the students and faculty that were still at the school at the time go to the bottom floor in an area away from all windows and doors so needless to say I didn't get to see anymore of the storm.  When we got home we realized that the power was out.  It was kind of exciting at first and we lit some candles and carried flashlights around but that wore off after about 15 minutes.  I really wanted to watch the Stanley Cup final which was being played that night.   We actually didn't get power for another 48hrs which wasn't very fun but it was a good learning experience at the same time.  We realized that we weren't really prepared for that type of emergency.  Although we had food, we had nothing to warm it up with and because of that we ate out for almost every meal except for Sunday when some of our friends with power invited us over to dinner.   So now a little propane stove is on our must have list.     
This is a tree in our apartment parking lot.  That back end of the truck that you can barely see belongs to a member of our ward who had just bought it a week earlier.  I bet he was feeling pretty lucky!

I guess the storm was just as angry as I am about the rising gas prices

This was a pretty common sight for several days after the storm

Come, Come ye Saints!

At the beginning of June, Becky and I had the opportunity to be pioneer trek parents for 3 days. I'd been on trek 2 times before this, but this was Becky's first time.  We were the youngest set of parents and I have no doubt that we were probably mistaken as being some of the youth on the trek.  We were met at our starting point (Hernando, MS) with a steady rain which any previous trekker would know does not equate with an enjoyable time when you're pushing a handcart.  However, i felt that it gave us a small taste of one of the physical trials the pioneers had to endure and it was a relief from the hot and humid weather.  After pulling for several hours we arrived at our first stop to set up camp wet, muddy and tired.  There was no time to relax and warm up though because we had to set up camp first and then prepare dinner for the night.  The rain stopped later that night and we had sunshine the rest of the time we were there.   In some of our spare time we enjoyed learning and playing some original pioneer activities and games.  I also gathered some boys together one night and we played baseball in a field neighboring the camp with a ball made out of duct tape and a big stick we found in the woods.  Overall, it was a great experience and we had some great kids on loan to us for the weekend!

Our trek family

The must have trek activity of 'stick pull'.  This was one of our boys and the Bishop of our ward here in Tennessee.

Who knew the pioneers had discovered the joy and wonderfully bright clothing that tie-die offers
My ankle that I sprained playing basketball the night before trek.  I woke up the morning of trek and couldn't even walk on it.  We were worried that we might not be able to go since I wouldn't be any help and might actually be a hinderance to our trek family.  I was fortunate enough to have some friends from school that were able to come and give me a blessing.  I believe it was a big help to me over the three days we were there.  No, I wasn't healed from my original injury, but that wasn't part of the blessing so I didn't expect it.   I feel like I was blessed to be able to deal with the pain and I also never re-injured it when I could have easily done so on any of the various deep ruts or potholes that lined the trail.  I was even able to help push for much of the second and third days we were there.  It also made the experience a little more authentic although I wouldn't ask to experience it again :)  Thanks trek family for putting up with a gimpy Pa and thanks Justin and Martin for the blessing!

Second version of our family flag...our first one got washed out by the rain

The boys and Becky looking fierce at the front of the handcart

The girls getting ready to hit up the trail alone during the "Women's Pull"

A delicacy among pioneers, the ashcake is made from flour and water which is then shaped flat like a pancake and cooked directly on the ashes.  It actually wasn't the worst thing I've tasted, but it could have definitely used some butter, honey, or syrup to put on top.

What a hot pioneer pounding down that ashcake like a true champ!

Houston...the Beazer's have landed!

For Memorial Day weekend we were able to head out to Houston and visit my Grandma Blair, Aunt Janie, Aunt Donna and Mitch.  I was so excited because I hadn't seen any of them besides my brother for several years and Becky had never met my Grandma and Aunts on my Mom's side of the family.  Becky was also excited because Alicia, her friend/roommate at BYU lives in Houston and just got back from her mission so we were able to hear her report in church.   While in Houston we were able to visit the NASA space center and go to the beach in Galveston.  Grandma and Aunt Janie made sure that we were well fed the whole time we were there.  Here are some pictures of the things we did.  Thanks for the fun weekend guys!

Romantic picture on the beach

Becky getting thrashed by this 2 foot monster wave :)  I think she's on the boogie board and I'm not sure what the frisbee is all about.  She had never been boogie boarding before and this wasn't a good beach to start on.  The waves were pitiful little things, with the tallest being no more than 3-4ft so if you're looking to do stuff in the water if you go to Galveston you will be disappointed.  

The piece by piece display of the international space station

I forgot the importance of this rocket.  I think it was the first one launched???  I'm sure someone will enlighten me in their comment if they know the story behind it

Mitch, Alicia, Becky and I  posing by another rocket

Camping in the Living Room

A couple of days after we bought some sleeping bags we decided to break them in.  We rented a movie and camped out in our living room.  It was a little more comfortable than camping but not by much.  Nothing beats lying  on a nice bed! 

Farewell Julie/First road trip of the summer

For all of you that read our blog and haven't heard yet Becky's sister, Julie, received her mission call to SLC Temple Square and she entered the MTC last month.  We were lucky enough to head up to Pennsylvania for the few days to spend some time with her before she left.  It was great because almost all of the family was there including the Kent and Elizabeth's twins that we still hadn't seen.  Although we remembered to bring our camera on the trip we forgot to take pictures while we were there so I had to commit some blog picture theft for this post(Please don't turn me in!).  Julie did a great job with her farewell talk despite the power to the church inexplicably going out earlier that morning.  She had to battle speaking above the crying and screaming children without the use of a microphone which was no small task on that particular Sunday.  Julie has been preparing for a long time now and we know she will be a great servant of the Lord.  So if any of our readers go to Temple Square in the next 1.5 yrs hopefully you'll run into Sister Hulet, but don't forget to have a friend's name in mind that might be interested in hearing the gospel! 

A picture of the twins, Claire and Calli.  

We pulled up beside this guy at a stop light and it scared the heck out of me at first and then we couldn't stop laughing.  We didn't have our camera ready when we first saw it so we had to follow him around until we got a good picture.  We probably really creeped out the driver of the vehicle because we kept on pulling up right next to him to try to get a decent picture.
When we drove by this building we were absolutely amazed and had to look it up on the internet when we got home.  It's the Martin Castle just outside of Lexington, KY.  For a little history lesson on it go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Castle

Me helping out in every way that I can.  Those trees looked thirsty and besides I couldn't hold it in after laughing so hard at that deer we saw in the car.

Some cool old churches in a small Maryland town we passed through on the way

Beautiful Pennsylvania!