What the future holds

I am a geek. That's right, you heard me. I am a total geek, and even a bit of a nerd. Ever since I was a kid, I have always been fascinated with all things space and science fiction. I grew up watching a bit of the old Star Trek, the newer creations of that show, Star Wars, Red Dwarf, Doctor Who, and many others. In elementary school, I was part of a young astronomers and astronauts after school group. I was convinced that I was going to go on to NASA and wear one of those stylin' white space suites. Sadly, I soon realized that with my poor vision, that would never happen.

Anyway, today, it hasn't changed much, I still love sci-fi shows and movies, I love watching the space launches, and even got to see the space shuttle piggy backed on the 747 transport plane a few years back when it landed in Salt Lake. My heart was dropped when I saw the Columbia break up on re-entry in 2003. So when I woke up and saw this on the news, it makes me worried...

Embedded video from CNN Video

I grew up imagining, and even still today, hope that there is life somewhere out there, and that our human race will find a future in space. So when the Government said that they are cutting back and beginning to retire the space program, it starts to shatter some kids, and even adults, dreams. I hope that the future holds something for our children to aspire to. Our parents got to see the first men in space, and even the first moon landing. We've gone much farther, but we're still tethered here on earth. I will continue to look to the stars, even when our government doesn't.

P.S. I just found this great site wechoosethemoon.org that chronicles in real time the Apollo 11 moon landing mission. Its the 40th anniversary, and we should all remember that great moment. Especially those of us that weren't around.

Our favorite show

So weve recently found this show to be one of the most entertaining shows on television. I dare you to watch this clip and try to not watch more. Once you see it, you'll be hooked.

Back from Cedar City

Well, we've been back from Cedar city for about a week. And it just seems like we didn't have enough time there. So every year we make our yearly homage trek to pay respects to the king of theater.....Sir William Shakespeare.

Usually we try and spend a full week, see one play a day, and spread it out over time. We also try and stay there over a full weekend. Since there are no plays on Sunday, it gives us a full day to go to Zions, Bryce, Brian Head, or wherever we feel like.

Unfortunately, we could only bee there for about 3.5 days. Luckily, Von and Marianne (Katie's parents) were there with us and they were nice enough to watch Caroline while we saw 1 or 2 plays a day from Thursday Night to Saturday night. The shows were great, we loved them all, and they always do such a great, professional job there.

Seeing as we were there over the 4th of July, we thought it was fitting that we should participate in some of the local activities. During the day, at the local park, there was a great party with food booths, blow up bouncy house slides, and craft tents to tantalizing the inner kids in us all. Unfortunately it was a little too much fun for one little girl. (See above).

The other "must see and do" at the fest is the Green Show. Its an old-timey entertainment show with dancing, singing, comedy, live music, and fun for all ages. Caroline really enjoyed seeing the dancers and listening to the music. But mostly, she enjoyed playing with the grass.

On Sunday, before our sad trip home, Von and I decided to go on a photo-hike. I probably took more than 3 gigs of pictures, and we had a blast. i love hiking in southern Utah. It started out as a dry hike up a mountainside. Then it turned into a hike in a shaded valley. Then became a meandering trail that crossed a stream many times. Then transmorphed magically right before our eyes into a beautiful narrow riverbed. It really is a great, short hike. If your interested in it, google "Kanarra Creek Canyon Hike". I highly recommend it.

So until next year, "parting is such sweet sorrow, hasta el proximo ano"

Whirl-wind Week

Wow, what a week its been. Where do I start.....

So Katie's sister heather is leaving on a mission. She was called to the Santa Maria, Brazil mission. But instead of going to the MTC here in Provo, she was sent to the MTC in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Its been a very emotional week filled with lots of family time spent together doing pretty much nothing. Just being together. I know that means a lot to Katie to be able to be there for Heather. Heather left on Tuesday morning.


But I'm getting ahead of myself. So to be able to spend as much time as we can with Heather before she left, two weeks ago, we all went up and spent the weekend in Park City with Katie's Family. We stayed practically right above the ticket sales booth at the foot of the lifts. It was a quite rainy, but we made the most of it. We rode the Mountain Coaster twice and just hung out around town. We had a blast and got to spend oodles of time with heather, and most importantly, Heather got to spend oodles of time with Caroline.

Then on Wednesday the 24th, we had a BBQ over at Uncle Max and Aunt Sue's house. They were leaving for a 2 week tour of Italy, so they would be missing Heathers farewell. They enjoyed seeing her, and she had so much fun over there....even if big ol Max looks scary, hes just a big softy on the inside. Hes great with kids too.






But the cutest thing was while we were over at Max and Sue's, Caroline was really interested in a little water fountain in their backyard. She really enjoyed splashing in it, and playing with the water. As Katie was holding her, I told Katie to let go of her. Katie was was like "what? are you mad?" I said just let go and see what happens. She held herself up so well like a big girl. We were all so proud.




Then she had her farewell in her ward and we had a goodbye party at their house. Lots of people showed up and we all had fun.

Then the morning of Tuesday, Katie Caroline and I went over to their house to have one more breakfast with Heather and the fam be fore she was off. It kind of reminded us of the months before our wedding. Every sunday, we'de gather at their house for either a sunday breakfast, or brunch and then discuss wedding plans. I really enjoyed it.

Then we were off to the airport. It was a very hard time for everyone. We found 4 other missionaries going to the Sao Paulo MTC, but none of them were going to the Santa Maria mission. There was one sister there that was going to the Sao Paulo East mission, and her younger brother was heading off to Australia 2 weeks later. Crazy!





On Wednesday, We celebrated what would have been Charlotte's 4th birthday. We had friends and family there. It was at Shannon's house and we had a little BBQ. Katie and were in charge of the meat. We decided to use Suzi's Kalbi BBQ recipet for chicken and flank steak. Katie was up late Tuesday night preparing it and we let it marinate overnight and all day Wednesday. Then I cooked it on their grill. Unfortunatley the recipet is a very inexact science (ie, some of this, a little of that, enough of this other ingredient to make it sweeter, and a dash of some more stuff). I think it turned out well, but it could have been a bit sweeter. I also think that I might have overcooked it all just a bit. The chicken wasn't as juicy as it could have been, and the flank steak was medium well to almost well done/chared. I know that thats how Katie likes her meat, but I preffere mine to still have some pink in it.

We are now up down in Cedar City enjoying the Shakespearean Festival. We are having a blast and never want it to end. Sadly, we'll have to come home on Sunday. Until then though, we'll enjoy celebrating our independence by seen some old English plays!

Family Portraits

So back at the end of May, we decided to get some family portraits done. Katie's friend Erin had used a professional photographer to do some portraits of Ella, so Katie decided to use her also. Being an avid yet novice photographer myself, I tried to not interject with "well I can just do it and save us some money."

We just got the disk of images the other day, and I'm so glad the went with the professional because they turned out great. I really couldn't have done any better. Her Name is Kathrine Wallin and she was a great photographer. You can find her blog HERE.
She did such a great job with Caroline and was very nice. Caroline had such a great time in the park and loved all the flowers around her. Unfortunately, it was during her morning nap time, so she didn't last very long. Towards the end of the photo shoot, we could all tell that she was getting quite tired and done with being posed and having the camera in her face. Fortunately, I've trained her well for that!
I hope that you all enjoy these images as much as we enjoyed having them taken. Kathrine Wallin gave us the rights to the pictures so if any of you want any copies, just let us know. These are just a smattering of the better ones.
This was over at the stream coming out of Memory Grove. The water was so cold that morning. We tried to get all of our feet in it, but it was running a bit to fast to stand in and I could barely stand to have my feet in it for more than a few minutes.
Caroline has the most beautiful eyes. She looked at me like this when she was born, and I never get tired of looking into her eyes and wondering what is going on in her little mind.

Dance like no body is watching!

Last Wednesday, we had the great opportunity to see my younger cousin Macenzie in her annual dance recital. She had been working so hard all year on getting all the steps down, and perfecting her techniques. I think that that she did a great job.
She has struggled a bit with what the doctors have determined to be muscular dystrophy. Ever since I knew her, she has had a bit of trouble walking and running without tripping over, or keeping her balance. I think that the dance classes have really helped her to over come those physical obsticals.
Seeing younger girls dance though is just good fun. There's always one or two that know the routine pretty well, then half of them have trouble following the teachers that are performing it in the wing away from view of the audience, and then there's one or two that either don't dance and look for their family in the audience and just wave, or sit down, or get scared and run off stage. Great fun!
Macenzie looked great in all of her dances, and in all of her outfits.

My new photoblog

So I've decided to take my amateur photography to the next step. I've created my own photography blog. I have asperations to fill it with more of my own works as an excuse to take more artistic pictures, but I'll also add in some great sources on the web that I've enjoyed. Feel free to check it out here.

Sand Diego Sunshine

So last week, we went down to San Diego. Katie, Caroline and me. But we didn't go alone. Erin, Zar and Ella came with us. We had decided to go a while ago. Actually it was after Charlotte past away. It was so much fun to get away, and even better to get away with such great friends. We were afraid that we would get to fed up with them, or vice versa, but we didn't, we all had a blast.
We got to go to the beach at one of the best beaches in San Diego. Its the beach just behind the Hotel Del Coronado. Its the best beach, and one of the best locations for a great sunset. Caroline and Ella got to play on the beach, and felt the ocean around their feet for the first time.

Caroline was so cute. We went to the Zoo, Sea World, and the Wild Animal Park. She and Ella loved seeing all the animals. Caroline REALLY liked the Monkeys. Every time she saw the monkeys, she spit up all over whoever was carrying her. It was such nice weather, we had to put hats on Carrie and she didn't fight it. I was amazed that she didn't reach up and pull it off. In fact, she loved it so much that she tried to eat it.
The Queen of the jungle!
Come on, how can you not love that adorable face!
We're not having any fun at all.
Here's Katie and Carrie in front of Shamu. Carrie loved the shows........when she was awake for them.
The best girls in my life. I love them so. I'm glad that we have such good friends and we had such a good time. I hope that we can continue our friendship and go on more trips with them, and many of our other great friends.

Being even more connected to the world wide web.....

So Katie is not as technologically minded as I am. And even I am not that much. But come July, our cell phone contract is up and we're eligible for upgrades. I think that we are both going to get iPhones. I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am. You'd all probably laugh if you knew how closely I've been following new iPhone news, rumors, and blogs.

Anyway, I think that this is going to help me and my electronic social life, which is a conundrum in itself. I have a facebook account, and this blog, and a flicker account, and other photo sharing websites. However, I haven't logged onto Facebook, or updates it or anything in about 3-4 months. I'm sure I have about 50 friend requests, useless widget requests, and other junk in there waiting for me. I kind of feel that about 90% of facebook is pretty much worthless, so I choose not to use it. However............there is a small part of me that knows that once I get my iPhone, I'll be using it more and more often.

Also, in preperation for the iPhone conversion/assimilation, I have also made myself a Twitter account, so now you can follow me there as well. My screen name there is "AXDRAKE". Feel freet o follow me there. Remember, resistance is futile!!!

So I'm sure that in the next few months, I'll be becoming more and more of a web socialite. should be interesting.

Happy Easter

Easter is a great time. Especially if you are a kid. Now that I'm a grown up (yikes...), Its more a spiritual, recognition holiday. But its great to see all the kids enjoy it like I once did. For Caroline, it was kind of uneventful since she's still pretty young. She can't find eggs, she doesn't care whats in her basket, and she can't color any eggs. But it sure is cute to dress her up. She wore a great yellow Easter dress that her aunt Sue gave her. Thanks Sue!


Last night, we went to a friends Easter party. Caroline got a great basket from Shannon (thanks Shannon) and she loved it (at least I think she did). But she got a great picture with some of her bestest friends. Ella (left) and Eli. They were so cute together.

Then we went to a family Easter lunch. Caroline is about to start easting solid foods soon (we hope). Lately she's been quite distracted by all of the normal food that surrounds her. Of course, she takes after her mom with the Coke.

Just thinking that 4 months ago, she was just a little helpless bundle of cute goo. Shes growing up so fast.

Caroline has also started to love to play with her mouth. She has been learning how to blow raspberries.

So I know its been a while. I've been really bad about keeping this up to date, or at adding posts. So here's my attempt at reviving this.

I work with a coworker who is a very good photographer. He and his wife put together a photo workshop/walk every month or so. Today we went down to Temple square to get some good shoots of the flowers and the scenery.



Enjoy the photos!

Cultural Fair

Since Katie and I moved into our new house, we’ve really enjoyed our neighborhood, and more importantly, our new ward.  it is full of great people of all ages, colors and cultures. 

 

And like all great wards……we were immediately given callings.  *insert dramatic music here*  It has actually been pretty good.  I was called to be a ward missionary, and Katie was called to be the “Relief Society Emergency preparedness committee representative” (we’re still trying to figure out what that means).  I was put to work immediately, while Katie hasn’t had a single person tell her what she needs to do.

 

Anyway, for the last month and a half, the ward missionaries have been working hard in organizing a Neighborhood Cultural Fair.  Its a great opportunity for the neighbors of all types to come together and share a little bit about themselves.

 

Since Katie and I are as white as they come……..we shared pictures from our trip to Istanbul last year.  Here’s the slideshow that I put together.

Thanks for voting!!

To all of you who voted, thank you very much. We appreciate it. Who knows if she'll win. *crosses fingers*

VOTE FOR KATIE!!!!!

Hello everyone, today is the last day to vote for City Weekly's Best Of 2009. I'm writing to ask you to vote for Katie Drake as best Newspaper Reporter. Please follow the link below, register on the site to vote, then vote for Katie Drake as Best Newspaper Reporter. If you want to fill out and vote for other things, that fine, but just make sure you vote for Katie Drake. I believe that its about the 7th or 8th slot from the top in Section (1) Media.

Also, feel free to forward this to all your friends and vote for her. She helps bring the good, happy, local news to your doorstep, or computer screen.

REMEMBER: TODAY, MARCH 9TH, IS THE LAST DAY TO VOTE SO GET IT DONE NOW!!!

http://ballots.cityweekly.net

Random Pics

Weeks of emotions

Wow, what a couple of weeks its been. This is a picture of Charlotte. She was a cute little spirit that we like to think of as trapped in a broken body. She's a great friend of the family and one of the sweetest spirits that I knew. Last week, she caught some of the RSV that is going around and was in the hospital for almost a week, before her body gave up. She will be missed. Our hearts go out to the Enslin family.

We are good friends with her parents Erin and Zar and we are lucky that we got to be a part of her life, and we hope to continue to be a part of their life also. They have another daughter named Ela that is healthy and also very cute. She and Caroline like to hang out. hopefully life will see fit to let them be friends for a long time.

On the lighter side, today was the day that we blessed Caroline. it was a very special moment for me personally. Its not every day that I get to exercise the priesthood. It was a proud moment to be able to bless m wonderful daughter. It made me an even prouder father. Katie picked out a very cute little white sweater dress. Grandma Marianne was nice enough to pay for it. It came with a little bonnet type hat that just totally completed the outfit. She was so very cute, but then again, I'm quite biased in that subject. We had our family and friends over after for a little get together afterwords. We are lucky to have so many people to be a part of Caroline's life.

Katie goes back to work tomorrow. To put it lightly, she's not to excited. While Katie was pregnant, she thought that being at home with Caroline would send her dangerously close to the line between sane and insane. But once she got to be at home with her and snuggle with her, she found her self struggling to let her go......literally. SIDE STORY: The night of Charlotte's funeral, Katie stayed up with Caroline till 2:30 asleep in her arms. She couldn't bare to be without her, so she put her in a co-sleeper that lays between us in bed. She hasn't slept in that in about 1 1/2 months. I was a little irritated, but rolled back over and went to sleep. BACK TO MAIN STORY: Now Katie will be working from home 2 days a week, and then in the office the other three. I know that its going to be hard for her, not only to tear her self away from her, but to get stuff done when she's at home. Hopefully she can handle it.

Caroline's Blessing

Hello all. I'm sorry that its been a while since my last post. Things have been kind of crazy around the Drake household. I just wanted to take this moment to send out an open invitation to everyone.

I know that this is kind of last minute and I should have done this weeks ago. We are going to be blessing Caroline this Sunday, March 1st at the Winder 5th ward. The map is below. The meeting starts around 10:50 or so. we are also going to be having refreshments at our house afterward, so feel free to show up to one or the other or both. We hope to see you all there and be with us for this special time.

On another note, I've got some great pictures of Caroline that I need to post. I vow to post them in the next few days.... so stay tuned!


View Larger Map

This is the first video that I'm posting to the blog. I just hope that I'm doing it right.

As a great and wonderful surprise, Katie, for Christmas, got me a cool new camcorder. Since then, I've been playing around with it taking small short recordings of whom else but our sweet Caroline. Whenever she does something very cute, I try and grab it. Most of the time she anticipates my desire to capture it, then the part of here that takes after Katie takes over. She stops doing it and becomes totally camera shy.

But luckily I got a few cute shots. The start out from early on when she was just a few weeks old. The latest were just last week. My favorite though is when we're playing Rock Band 2 together. We got a Baby Bjorn for her and found out recently that she kinda likes it. It makes it nice to put her in it and then get some house chores done. But after I'm done with house chores, we like to play video games together.


I should probably get something like this for Caroline. We'll be playing many more in the future. That's how we roll!