The Candrians Down Under: July 2010

Utah Trip

Here are some pictures from the Utah trip:

awwwwww

Note: we didn't take any pictures. We brought our camera but I guess there were enough people snapping photos that we just spaced it. So all of these pics were taken by others...

Short recap:
- Michael was able to visit his real home country, AMERICA! He was so excited to go to America that he was on his best behavior for the whole flight. We were seriously amazed at how good he was. Random strangers were offering to hold him and were taking pictures because they thought he was so cute. It was a wedding miracle (not people thinking he was cute, but him being good for more then 15 mins.)
- Michael met his buddy and Candrian cousin, James, who is two months younger then him. Michael found him interesting for about 15 mins that then decided that the most interesting thing about James was his pacifier - which he could steal. But not steal to suck on (like most kids) steak to chew on. He is weird.
- Amy got married to John in Manti - the same place where my grandparents were sealed back, back, back in the day. It was hot out so Smalls decided to try and charm everyone at the wedding lunch by going shirtless.
- Michael got to hang out with his Grandparents and go on a swing! Smalls loves swings.
- Michael got to go to Park City.
- Michael met his Godfather, Craig (no pictures)
- Michael got to meet almost all of his Davis cousins (sorry no pictures) and go swimming and play with a bunch of cool new toys.
- Michael got to hang with his Grandparents again.
- Michael met Noah (Ali and Steph's cute kid, who is almost two) (again, sorry, no pictures)
- Michael travelled to Minnesota where we spent the night at Mike and Sara's new house and had fun chasing Max, Alexis, and Kermit (the dog). (no pictures)
- Michael again amazed us by being a super happy, nice baby while we flew back to Sweden.
- Michael and Lorena have jet leg, and Michael returned to his sometimes happy, sometimes grumpy ways.
The End.

P.S. Since we had tons of great family around who were willing to watch Biggie Smalls (he has a way of charming people into wanting to watch him) Lorena and I were able to go on the Alpine Slide and Coaster in Park City, play tennis, visit friends, go mountain biking, see a movie, and go out to dinner. This was the first movie we had seen in a theater in a year and a half (we don't watch a lot of movies anyway, but still...)!

Smalls, James, and Amy at the wedding lunch.

We tried to give Michael and James a bath together. They were not enthused.

matching outfits, thanks Aunt Andrea

meeting James, trying to steal his pacifier

sweet, a piano

Grandma and Grandpa were nice enough to try and entertain me when I woke up at 6:00 so my parents could keep sleeping. Here I am with Grandpa's glasses

For some reason, my Grandma loves me so much it brings tears to my eyes...

fun at the pool in Park City

Grandpa and his grandsons

Summer Vacation part two

Sorry for the long absence. We were in Utah for Amy's wedding.
We forgot to take pictures, so we are waiting for my Mom to post some of hers to shutterfly or something. Once she does we will get an awesome post up with many great pictures of everyone's favorite 10-month-old, Biggie Smalls. Until then, here is a picture from a few weeks ago:

South Africa

The trip to South Africa was awesome. I wish I could have stayed longer (I'm sure Lorena wishes I hadn't stayed so long!). Everybody we met was super friendly, the scenery was amazing, and the soccer was great. I am already making plans to attend the World Cup in 2014 in Brazil, but I think I will take Lorena and Smalls along to that one. The only negative was that South Africans didn't seem to be the best at giving directions or estimating how long it would take to get somewhere. The usual answer to our inquiry about how to find something or get somewhere was "Oh, you just go down the road and you will see it." Or, when asking how long it took to get somewhere "Oh it's just a few hours." A few as in three, four, five? "Four or so." Well both times we were told something was four hours away it ended up being seven! Oh well. Tyson (my buddy who is living in Brazil) and I were able to attend four games and visit Kruger National Park to go on a safari. One of the highlights of the trip was sneaking (multiple times) on to the FIFA VIP bus that would leave from our hotel to get free rides to the games - complete with police escort, so we could get around traffic and get to the games on time!

We saw Mexico - Argentina, Brazil - Chile, Paraguay - Japan, and Uruguay - Ghana.
In Kruger we saw: Lions, leopards, giraffes, elephants, zebras, wildebeasts, impalas, kudus, springboks, civets, hippos, ostriches, baboons, some crazy looking birds, and some other versions of gazelles whose names I can't remember.

Here are some pictures: