See Jane Sew

Most of you know that Jane likes to sew and make all sorts of stuff. With baby coming she decided to make a carseat cover or as I like to call it, a “snooze cover.” She just whipped it up this afternoon. Oh, it's reversible too!

Daddy's Little Girl!

Baby is a little lady.

BABY!

Haven't posted in forever. Sorry. This is a quick one. But everyone already knows but now the bloggers do too...we are having a BABY! Coming soon around March 8.

A Great Example - Kaci Morgan Cox

My sister-in-law was a terrific example of faith, optimism and choosing the right. She was an amazing mom to six beautiful children and will greatly be missed. We are happy she is finally at peace after battling cancer for nearly 2 years and we all look forward to our great reunion with her someday. Help out where you can and learn about her story by going to www.helpdavidcoxfamily.org

Thanks to everyone.

2010 is over so I better write something...

Well when we left you last, It was summer and we had returned from one last vacation, complete with baseball, beaches and stingrays. Since then we have pretty much been on cruise control with no major hiccups! There has been Disneyland again, new jobs, school, football, basketball, parties, holidays and more. So I will do my best to recap some of the highlights...

When school time fell upon us Jane started her teaching job. She works at two schools, Orem Jr and Willow Creek Middle School in Lehi. It's a bummer she has to split between the two, but a full-time contract will make us feel better. After one semester now it has been about as smooth sailing as we could ask for. I can't remember more than one or two breakdowns for Jane over the semester, and very few nervous nights. She has done such a terrific job and has really enjoyed teaching. However, just like the students, the teachers look forward to the breaks just as much, if not more! I think all of the hard work Jane puts into her preparation for the classroom has really paid off and one of the biggest reasons she has done so well, and one of the reasons she has such a great job.

I worked some of the summer and have continued this semester at BYU Athletic Communications working as the sports information director for men's cross country and men's track. I have also been helping out for football and basketball, along with soccer and a few other sports. It has been a blast, I love my co-workers at the office and getting to work with coaches and athletes from BYU. You can see the office, as well as us sitting on the BYU bench, waiting to get put into a game one of these days...Getting to attend and work at all the games has been so fun despite the somewhat disappointing season, with a terrific turnaround however. Getting to know players and people that work with different teams, writing stories and other stuff has been a great experience. I am looking forward to next season and really enjoying basketball season right now. Track is about to start so I will be a lot busier for the next few months, which is good. I finished the fall semester with straight A's, I think the first time that has happened in college...it helps when you only have one or two classes that really matter. The highlight was my capstone PR course, where the class is split into four teams and we have a real client and have to develop a strategic campaign over the entire semester to compete to see who has the best one. We worked with the Department of Transportation, specifically the Zero Fatalties program, focusing on cell phone use in the car. Our main goal was to stop people from doing it of course. Glad to say that our group took home the victory. The victory unfortunately doesn't include a full-time job or money or anything like that...just glory and a gift bag. Oh well, it sounds good in a job interview.

Sprinkled in the semester was a trip to California to go to Disneyland (again...it is Jane's new favorite place) Only this time we spent two days at the parks and got to do a lot more stuff. Are new favorite thing is Turtle Talk with Crush. Supposedly it is for little kids but Jane and I may or may not have watched the show three to four times...

We also had some Halloween fun. At our separate work parties, I went as teen pop sensation Justin Bieber!!! (teenage readers, drool now.) And Jane went as Jimmer Fredette (BYU single ladies, drool now.) Of course for a party with our friends we mixed it up a bit, and I went as Jimmer and Jane went as Jimmer's biggest fan...see photo.

Much of the fall semester was spent playing intramurals. My team was comprised most of my best friends, old freshmen roommates and the majority of the best people from Boise, Idaho. It was a lot of fun and our team was pretty good too. The Mustangs made it to the sweet 16 of tournament, the deepest run of any of our previous intramural teams. Here you see coach giving us some tips...We are looking forward to basketball now.

We had Thanksgiving with the Cox Family. Let's just say it was packed (literally, 38 people or something like that at one time) with lots of fun, lots of kids and noise, but the good noise of course. I was really looking forward to seeing so many siblings and glad so many could come. Thanks to Mom and Dad for letting everyone destroy the house for a week.

And of course, Christmas has now come and gone. Jane has been pouting as she puts away all of our decorations and the holidays are coming to a close. Jane's mom and dad came out here for Christmas and we spent most of the break with them along with Jane's sister Kate and her family. We had a fun Christmas Eve party with the Decker's, (Jane's uncle) and Christmas Day at Kate's. We got all sorts of great stuff too! Jane got some more running gear and her favorite present, the Zumba Wii Fitness game. I am secretly going to post a video on here when Jane isn't around. It is pretty hilarious, but she works up a good sweat and loves it. I got lots of camping stuff and some movies as well. We also did some serious bowling. I wish my intensity translated to high scores...Thanks to John and Brenda for coming out here over the holidays and being so good to Jane and I, we love you!

Well 2010 is pretty much done, I'd say it has been a success. Jane and I are approaching our third anniversary in April now, Wow! We had a great year and look forward to another in 2011.

In Memory of Steve Irwin

Well we are due for an update of this thing. We took a trip to San Diego in July for beach week to spend a few days camping at San Elijo with Mark and Jo and my parents as well, and of course catch a Padres game. We were able to spend a night at Susi and Adam's and go for a swim with everyone there. I managed to jump in the pool using a crafty tactic of jumping in the water in a sort of rolling motion, creating a tidal wave of sorts, thoroughly drenching Jane and nearby family dog, Buddy. It was a nice break from the drive in which Jane actually contributed a fair amount of driving this time!

We headed to the beach for camping and were able to quickly set up camp thanks to the old motorhome. (which is now going to be gone forever...see mom or dad for details) I was able to get lots of surfing in on this trip, however the waves were rather un-epic this time around so a lot of it was done on the recently purchased 8-foot foamie provided by Mark. It reminded me how underrated longboarding is and I look forward to living down there and investing in a nice longboard for days like that. We had fun hanging out with Mark and Jo, my parents and some friends that came to visit us at the beach. Campfires, cheddarwurst, roasted marshmellows and occasional roasted starburst were all on the menu, (as well as a secret stash of peanut butter candy...thanks jo!)

All the excitement came however when I decided to go on a quick morning surf sesh while Jane went for a run. I saw an older guy lose his board (common, if you can't hang on to your board when its 1-2 feet, you don't belong out there!) so I went to go rescue it for him and make his trek a little less strenuous. I should have known that no good deed goes unpunished as after I handed his board back off to him I felt a squishy, wiggly animal under my foot followed by a quick thrashing around and sharp pain to the ankle all within a split second or two. At first I thought, whew that was close, and hopped on my board and took a few paddles, only to think hmm, that kind of hurt. I looked back at my ankle and saw a hole with blood steadily pouring out of it. Yup, a stingray got me! I headed back in and began to walk back towards the stairs and every step it began to hurt more and more. I dropped the board at the bottom of the stairs and hobbled my way back to our campsite in search of some relief. Marrrk! (my thinking was Mark, the surfer/lifeguard could quickly spring in to action,which he did, but later I learned he really didn't know what to do, he fooled us though.) We managed to put my leg in a box lined with a trash bag filled with almost boiling water which provided a lot of relief. After about an hour and a half of that I figured I was good to go and put a bandaid on the wound and headed back down to the beach where I got in a few more hours of surfing for the rest of the day despite the steady trickle of blood. It definitely hurt though, I don't recommend it.

We finished off our trip with a Padres game where we finally won when we actually attended. It was a great trip, minus the one small wild animal attack. We miss you Steve Irwin, glad the stringray that got me wasn't quite the same.

Impulsive Camping

So as most of you know, Mom and Dad (more Dad) are looking at getting a new trailer to serve as the new Cox family home base in Yosemite and other various trips. We all love the old orange camper but its getting older and becoming more and more stressful every year. Dad of course has narrowed his RV of choice down to one, which he always has an open lookout for. Well they came across a place in Utah that rents the exact kind that he wants, so they jumped at the chance to rent one last week just before the price goes way up for the summer "high season." I managed to snag a few nights of camping in Zion National Park (again, I know) for those few days. Mom, Dad, Jane and I made a quick and impulsive trip down there to test out the new digs of this fancy machine. Well, we were not disappointed. The trailer had everything from a flat screen TV, ATV storage, power slide outs, and Mom, Jane and I's favorite, great air conditioning! Since we could plug in at our campsite, we ran that air conditioner non stop on the government's dime! We loved that since it was about 90 degrees all day long. Dad however, felt he was in a motel six and was frequently annoyed with cold air blowing non stop in his face all day. He was outnumbered though so there was not much he could do. Dad's truck pulled it just fine and he enjoyed the almost stress-free trek. We especially enjoyed the super easy set up as this trailer had power everything, no lighting of pilot lights, no cranking out an awning, no nothing! We are all sold on these new digs, now Dad just has to convince Mom there is sufficient funds, and judging by Mom's "Aahhhh I don't have money for this look," good luck Dad!