My Trip to Santa Cruz

This is Robert, and I was asked by Santa Cruz if I could go out to their open house for potential graduate students. That way I could check out the city and the campus as well as meet professors and other students that would be in the program. They also said they would pay, so of course I went. Here are some annotated pictures of my trip. It was great, though it definitely wasn't Provo.

San Lorenzo Park, right outside of my hotel.

Small river that runs through the center of town and feeds into the ocean.

Just in case people got lost.


The beaches were somewhat deserted. The water here isn't very warm at any point of the year, so the beaches are usually busy, but there was more walkers and volleyball players than swimmers.

The wharf was more than half a mile long with restaurants and shops and fishers all along it.

From the wharf looking back at the city. That ridge there is actually a really nice walking path that follows the beach for 4 miles.

Wharf restaurants and shops.

Santa Cruz is home to a small amusement park. This is the view from the wharf.



It turns out that sea lions and Spaniards have one thing in common. The afternoon siesta.

Fisher.

Some more shots at the beach.


I got a little too close to the ocean.

There are a lot of pictures of the amusement park, but I can't really decide which ones are worth seeing, so here is the entrance and I will let your imagination decide what is inside.

The park is connected to the beach so you can come and go when you'd like. I am standing in the park taking this picture.

I will be spending a good part of my time in this building over the next 4 years. This is on campus. The buildings are secluded by the forest from any other part of campus. Most of the buildings are.

A banana slug. The school mascot.

Is this a school campus or the forest? The answer is both. Most of the rest of these are just my tour of the campus.





This was one of the coolest things. You're walking through forest and school buildings and then everything opens up to a huge athletic field which overlooks the ocean. It's pretty cool.

It will definitely be a different experience. I made a few new friends who invited me out to drink. The faculty are super cool and are working on very interesting things. Silicon Valley, one of the scientific hotbeds of the world, is very close so at times I may work with some of those companies. It should be a great experience and really good training.

Lydia Attempting Meat

Last night we tried Lydia's first meat baby food. Chicken to be exact.



As you can see, she wasn't a huge fan. We'll try mixing it with various combinations next, or just buying the jars that are already combined with something we know she likes - i.e. Apples & Chicken, Sweet Potato & Turkey, etc. We just thought we would get lucky and she would like it right off since she hasn't hated anything we've given her so far. It made for some great video footage though :)

I'm In LOVE!!

First, a little backstory. I'm constantly checking Craigslist apartment listings in the Santa Cruz area so we can get a feel for what's out there and what a good price is for a place. About 3 weeks ago I found the little house pictured below. I immediately thought it was the cutest little cottage I've seen. I have always loved blue houses with white trim (probably because that's what I grew up in). And it's a house! Not just an apartment, but it was in the same price range of most of the good apartments we'd seen. However, the price was at the very upper end of the price range so it was a little more expensive than what we're hoping to get (we're hoping for $1100 a month, it was posted for $1400). So I moved on. While Robert was on his trip last weekend it was reposted for $1050 a month! Perfect!!! So I looked at it more closely. It's in Ben Lomond. Where's that? I looked it up and it's about 10 miles north of Santa Cruz near Scotts Valley. I then planned to ask Robert if he'd heard anything about that area that night when he called. One of Robert's assignments was to talk to the professors, current grad students, and people in the city about where would be the best place for a young small starving student family to live. The first thing he said on the phone that night before I had said anything was that the common consensus was that Scotts Valley/Felton/Ben Lomond area would be best. I got so excited!

I'm in love!!! It's silly, I know. I don't even know what the bedrooms look like or how big the living room is if there is a living room, but in my mind it's all perfect! So I am hoping for one of three things to happen. One - it miraculously stays available til we need it in September, Two - someone rents it just for the summer so it's available again when we would need it, or Three - another place exactly like this becomes available at the right time. That's my hope and prayer right now.

Sorry if this is just a lot of boring rambling. I just needed to get it off my chest :)

P.S. This is how ridiculous I am. I've even thought of a new blog title if we were to live here. "Little House in the Redwoods" Get it? It's like Little House on the Prairie, because that's what I think of when I look at it :)

Play 'Til You Drop

Once upon a time - yesterday - Robert was working on homework, I was cleaning, and Lydia was playing very enthusiastically for quite some time in her bouncer. I kept giggling to myself as I could hear her bounce as much as she could while making as much noise with all of the surrounding toys as possible. Then all of the sudden it got quiet and Robert told me to look at her, and this is what I saw. :)
When I first looked she would still move her legs a little bit as if she was having a dream where she was still bouncing and playing, so I wanted to try to catch that on video. She woke up when she heard me turn on the camera, then woke up even more when Robert laughed, but there was nothing that would keep this tuckered out baby awake :)



Poor tired baby, but oh so cute!!

THREE!!! Three Teeth!! Ah...ah...ah!

Basically it's taken FOREVER for all of these teeth to cut. I've felt like they were going to come any day for months now, but they have finally arrived. I can also feel the corner of the 2nd tooth on top, so that one should also be completely through within a couple days. It's so great to finally see the fruits of our labors. Let me also say THANK GOODNESS FOR CHILDREN'S MOTRIN!! You save mothers with teething babies everywhere!

What else have we been up to? Another BIG Announcement

Good question. Well, I'm a Wolverine.
I'm currently taking 3 classes - Sociology, Astronomy, and Geology - at Utah Valley University. It's been an adventure being back in school after so long while being so pregnant sick. But it's been fun and I'm so happy to finally get more of my generals done and get closer to getting a degree.

And the BIG Announcement has to do with what Robert has been up to. Well Robert is going to be a Banana Slug!
(Yes that is really their mascot) So here's the story. Once upon a time when we would discuss what schools Robert would apply to next year to do his PhD we would keep coming back to 3 North Carolina colleges (UNC, Duke, and NC State). So we were considering those our plans A, B, and C. Then it was looking like Robert's brother Terrel was going to be getting a job in North Carolina and so his little family was planning on moving there. We took this as another sign that that was where we were supposed to go because now we would even have family there. Long story short, right before Thanksgiving Terrel found out he would not be getting the job. Although we were sad that Terrel's job hunt had to continue, we both felt a little relief that Terrel, Jenn, and Brooklyn would not be moving so far away. Then we realized that if we had these feelings about them moving away, maybe we felt more anxiety and sadness about being so far away from family than we were letting ourselves realize. So Robert started looking at the statistics PhD programs that were at Top 25 statistics colleges that were within a 1 day driving distance from our family in Mesa, AZ. The more he looked at UC Santa Cruz's program the more he felt it was perfect for him. So at the beginning of December he talked to a couple of his professors at BYU about it. They both said that it was a top notch program and it would be a great fit for Robert. THEN they said, "If you're sure this is what you want to do, you don't need to finish your Master's to start your PhD and their applications aren't due for another couple of weeks." So we decided to go ahead and apply a year sooner than we had planned and see what happened.
Well we got word a couple of weeks ago that Robert was accepted and would be fully funded plus a living stipend. So come September, and I never in a million years thought I would ever say this following sentence, we will be Banana Slugs living in the Santa Cruz area. (Side note: if anyone knows or at least knows someone who knows that area really well as far as where is good or not good for a young family to live we would like some input cuz we have no idea where to even start looking.) We are super excited to be starting this next chapter in our lives.

Additionally, with this new development we are hoping to be able to move to Mesa and live with my parents for the summer. Robert was already considering doing an internship there instead of here in Utah. Now we're thinking that that would be our best plan so that we could save some money before we move to one of the highest cost of living areas in the country. So our time frame would be move to Arizona end of April/beginning of May. Robert's semester doesn't start til September 17th. So I would have the baby in Mesa, a couple weeks later Robert would head to school, and a few weeks after that I would move there with the 2 babies. We're hoping it all plays out that way, but really it all depends on where Robert can get a job/internship so for now our plans for the next several months are kind of up in the air. Whatever is supposed to happen will happen.

With that you all are basically caught up. Robert will be heading to Santa Cruz next weekend for a Graduate Student Open House. I have instructed him to take lots of pictures of the campus and the area for me. If he follows orders, I'll be sure to post those as soon as he gets back. :)

Toodles!

2nd February Trip to Mesa

Yes, we went down to welcome Preston home from the 8th to the 13th of February. Then we went down again the following weekend, the 18th to the 21st, for the Wilcken Reunion and family pictures. Yes, we are insane, but we are so glad we made the trip. We justified it by saying we could count it as our anniversary trip since our 2nd anniversary was the 21st.

The reunion was FABULOUS. I got to see many of my cousins that I have not seen in a very long time, and many people got to meet Robert and Lydia for the first time. Thank you to all those who made the weekend great. Unfortunately, I didn't take a single picture the whole weekend. So the only pictures i have for you are some that I stole from my sister Tiffany that she took while we were doing our family pictures (Tiff I hope you never get annoyed that I do that)

Mom and Dad with all the grandkids. Lydia makes me laugh in this picture because she's not actually smiling. That's actually the beginning of a scream. One of those right at the right second camera shots.
My four younger siblings. Such a good looking bunch. They're going to make great husbands and wives to some lucky people someday.

The 11 siblings from oldest to youngest with Mom and Dad in the middle. I am so blessed to have grown up in this amazing family. I love each and every one of these people dearly.

He Has Returned!!!

This a picture of me and my little brother Preston Halloween 1998. He was a Lego, and I was a slice of pizza. We both made our own costumes. We are a creative duo. We've been close buds for forever basically. Anyway, he has spent the past 2 years serving a mission for the LDS church in Kinnewick, Washington. February 8th we got to welcome him home :)
Here we are waiting at the airport for his arrival.
And waiting...
And waiting. Our sign rocked! We are a big family. So our crowd of 50 people was a sight to see. Everyone was stopping and asking what the occasion was.
Mom waited on tip toes so anxious to hug her son again.
And then there he was!!!!!! We are all bawl babies so there was quite a bit of blubbering coming from all of us.
Such a sweet moment!
Hugging Dad
Hugging me!!!! I missed him so much!
Hugging most of the nieces and nephews.
Meeting Lydia for the first time. Please ignore the crazed face I am making.
First thing when we got to my parents' was to get his mark on the measuring wall. We measured Preston, all of the grandkids, and the siblings younger than Preston the day before he left, the halfway mark, and when he got home so we could track how much each of them grew. My youngest sibling Logan grew the most. Preston and a few others didn't grow at all.
Then he went straight out to the trampoline of course :)
It's so great to have him home!! He was a great missionary, and such a great example, but it's so nice to have him home!