Santa's in the House!

This year we opted to visit the Olson's for Christmas. It's closer, they make these fantastic fresh donuts, and it's the Olsons... Our friends from our building Peter and Nikki also joined us for a few days because they booked a flight after Christmas. It was a good thing too because Britton, who usually dresses as Santa and delivers presents to Spanish speaking families in the community, caught a violent stomach flu circulating through the Olson household. He was even too sick to Spanish it up very much with his missionary brother Derek who called us from Peru.
So Peter saved the day with his breakdancing, Spanish speaking antics and helped out while Britton was benched. Nikki made a lovely Mrs. Claus.
This was my first year taking part in all of the Olson family's Christmas traditions. One of them I already mentioned, the donuts. This year we made six times the regular recipe! There were so many donuts and holes (?) that we had to think of new friends to deliver them to. Next on Christmas Eve Drew's parents, the Spectors, joined us so I wasn't the only one new to Olson traditions. The Christmas Eve program came and some of it was familiar and some of it not. My family also reads the story of Christ's birth in the Bible while dressing up and acting the parts. The new part of the program for me was participating in a bell chior. Margo had prepared poster boards years ago that tell you which bells to play to come up with a song like Jingle Bells. It was really fun, but I think we woke up Jeff who was the next after Britton to catch the crippling stomach flu.
Christmas morning came and we marched downstairs in order of age to see what Santa left in our stockings. After Tia and Grandma joined us we took turns opening presents by the Christmas tree. Everyone is watching so you have to perfect your overjoyed look. Everyone loved their presents, from Drew's Chia-Pet to Alex's Wii. And don't forget our new Kitchen Aid Mixer LS with a 3000 kV DC XL-300 stepper motor... oh yeah! We've been enjoying the other presents since then like handy digital video camera! We already used it at the Warren's house to make some more goofy videos. Just like the old times except with GIRLS! You can see our parody of I am Legend on Facebook I guess. I haven't been able to find it anywhere else. That Paige Warren has talent!

Choose your own Adventure

Growing up, my mom would always reward us with trips to fun places and candy if we read books. Among my favorites, where the "Choose your own Adventure" series. I loved being able to select what I wanted the characters to do. That's what I'd tell my mom at least. I really liked them because I would find the fastest way to kill off the main character and end the book quickly. Every time I ended it, it counted as a new book. I think I earned A's tickets in like 10 minutes once... Unfortunately, Aerospace Engineering books don't allow for such creativity (or the ability to kill off characters) . So I've decided to vent some creativity via this blog.

Without the permission of two of my favorite people in the World and at the risk of upsetting two of the most powerful lawyers BYU has unknowingly spawned, I present the below picture of Bill and Phil taken at our wedding reception last year. I LOVE this picture. I have NO idea what they were talking about but here's my best guess....



Phil- "Yes Bill, although Mortal Kombat is a great game, Donkey Kong is vastly superior."
Bill- "Donkey Kong sucks!"
Phil- "You know what, YOU SUCK!"

They then broke out in a street style knife fight.



Thats how my mind works but I'd love to hear your versions of what transpired on that infamous day. Choose your own adventure...

One Example

I love this picture. We had some other fun traditions in this group. Everyone would wear the birthday crown for their birthday, and my mechanical, singing hamster would sing "Happy Birthday" to them. (Anyone remember those?) We would all copy the hamster's dance moves as we sang along with him. I think we named him Tony.

Halloween survives midterms

This year Halloween had unfortunate timing being right in the middle of the work week and Britton's midterms. We still managed to party, and somehow I ended up wearing a total of three different costumes! I have to admit that I still love dressing up even if I don't have Halloween as an excuse. During high school and college I slowly built up my collection of ridiculously large sunglasses, tiaras, 7-Up shorts, and Indian headdresses. This collection came in handy whenever a roommate was feeling blue. Someone would bust out the Star trek Jordy shades with the fireman's hat, blast some Celine Dion music and we'd all be dancing and singing at the top of our lungs. It always made for some great pictures. So you can probably guess I love Halloween. Since my collection of random stuff is currently in storage at my parent's house along with a bunch of other random boxes, I raided the Olson's collection of costumes. My choices for a costume this year included Star trek medical officer, pirate, fairy, Ms. Scarlet, and luau dancer. With all these choices I wimped out and with curly hair went to work as Pam from "The Office." At lunch I got the nerve to change into my Hawaiian skirt because a few other people were wearing ridiculous costumes. A man dressed up as Olive Oil from Popeye so I could at least wear a Hawaiian skirt. Later that night we invited Peter and Nikki over to carve pumpkins. They are in our ward and live only 8 floors above us. That comes in handy when I can't hear my phone and forget to pick up Britton. Yep, Nikki knocked on the door and said something like, "So, remember that husband you have..." Maybe I should keep my phone near my like Britton always says... Back to our friends...Peter is a first year law student here, and Nikki just got a job in the area. For our pumpkin carving contest I convinced Britton to get into the Halloween spirit and dress up in a Zapata revolutionary shirt and huge sombrero. I was Ms. Scarlet from Clue for my third and final costume of the day. As soon as the Conti-Browns saw our costumes they had to go back upstairs to get their own costumes on. Peter dressed as one of his professors and Nikki threw on one of our fabulous sombreros. We have kind of an ongoing tournament with Peter and Nikki. We've competed against each other in Cranium, Taboo, badminton, and drag racing (there were some disputes about the fairness of this competition due to the differences in horsepower between cars). We tried a pumpkin carving competition, but none of us could be unbiased judges. So we won "Scariest" category with our pumpkin eating a defenseless pomegranite. The Conti-Browns won the "Most Creative" award with their ingenious aluminum foil glasses, braces, and headgear on the pockmarked pumpkin. Britton still had time to study after all the festivities probably fueled by all the sugar we ate. The only thing my holiday missed this year was cute little kids in costumes. So send us pictures of your little munchkins, or pumpkins for members of the NKC (No Kids Club) like us.

Pictures Part II

Hola my favorite people. here is the next set in the Stanfordius photo series. My mom is actually coming to visit next weekend, and I was thinking looking at these pictures would spoil the novelty of her trip. Like she'll look at these couple pictures and say, "Hey, I've seen all I need to of Stanford now." But pictures and TV come nowhere close to personal experience. Although there are some things on TV you'd rather not have personal experience with. Anyway, I 'd just like to say that viewing my pictures of Stanford doesn't mean you don't need to visit us. We do great tours, and can add an educational element for the kids too. Parents already know everything right? Maybe these pictures can entice you to come for a greater taste of Stanfordius. This picture probably won't entice you too much, but I was really impressed with the enormity of this tree! It also looks really old and wise, but you would probably have to come here and visit us to really understand what I'm talking about. :)

Here is one of the vases I liked in a closer view. They have some kind of red thing in them, and I like to imagine that they're fat, red candles. The front of campus would look so secret society-ish lit by dozens of candles. Through the archway you can see the inner courtyard (That's where I took the picture with the red flowers and people statues featured in the last photo set.) And in the back you can see the memorial church located in the main quad.
There's lots of random sculptures around campus. This one is a shark I believe...or maybe a shooting star that symbolizes shooting for your dreams. I'll have to do more research before I do any tours.
Stanford bell tower along with the fountain on Campus Drive.
This sculpture is featured in front of the Far Eastern Studies area, and symbolizes the intrusion of the Western world in the traditional Asian culture.
Here's my favorite sculpture, and I actually know the real name for it! It's called, Ram's skull and horn. True story. It's right behind the library that we still haven't visited. That's why we need visitors. It gives us a reason to get to know our surroundings.

A few views of Stanfordius

There's nothing better than going for a walk on a warm, lazy Sunday afternoon. Yesterday I realized that after living on Stanford's campus for almost two months, I've only walked through the main part of campus once. So I grabbed my camera to experience the campus a little more. Here are some of the pictures I got. Here's a view of the Memorial Hall with the bell tower in the back. I'm not sure what all the vases are for in front of the hall, but I like them.

This is the courtyard in Memorial Hall.
Jane Stanford built this church in memory of her husband. For more information about him you can ask Alex Olson! He has newly become an expert on the subject due to his 4th grade project. The actual university is named after their son Leland Stanford Jr. Anyway I learned from Stanford's website that the church's facade has over 20,000 shades of color, and since 1903 about 7,500 couples have been married in it! There were two couples having their pictures taken around the quad while I was there. While I was walking around the sun decided to come out, and its brightness gave the church a great silouette.

Every graduating class at Stanford has their own tile put around the quad. You can see in the picture how the tiles just go on and on... I wonder what they'll do if they run out of space. I hope you enjoyed your short tour of campus with me. Tune in next time for more fun pictures.

Boo Ikea

I'm not talking about Halloween here. I have never gotten upset at a store before, so it was a surprise to find myself consumed with thoughts of revenge Tuesday night. I thought about how I would find other places to buy furniture, and convince everyone I knew to boycott the store. Only buy Wal-Mart furniture from now on because that store has such high morals and everything...j/k. Apparently no one at the East Palo Alto Ikea has control over ordering new merchandise. Also they can't put anything on hold so you get it as soon as the item comes in. Instead they tell you to check their website which says the item is in-stock, when in reality it's not. Because their system says they have the item, they won't get any more. What happened to customer service??? Why did the operator put me on hold when I asked to talk to the manager, and then take off without telling the next person filling her shift anything about me? Just give me my couch cover already!!...

Danger Zone

Aviatiors...check. Top Gun soundtrack...check. Left-over falafel for lunch...check. That's all you need to watch THE most awesome airplanes in the world. Last Friday over a steamy plate of phad thai, there was no hesitation when Britton accepted our San Francisco friend's invitation to watch the famous Blue Angel's air show with them. Mark and Kelly have been living in San Francisco the past couple years, and toured us around to some great, authentic Thai food, the Golden Gate Bridge, a vista overlooking the city, and some transonic airplanes! (Britton will later explain the difference between transonic and supersonic. Maybe subsonic and ubersonic too.) We walked down to the marina by these long flights of outdoor stairs. The view was amazing, and we couldn't wait to get down by the water. On our way we also passed the Palace of Fine Arts which Britton informed us was originally built for the World's Fair in Panama, and flown to San Francisco by the Blue Angels in 1874. Airplanes are always involved in his stories. I just couldn't believe that place was real! I felt like it could take me back in time to live in some golden age of art. I was almost drawn into it, but Britton was a man on a mission, and so we marched on after taking only a few pictures. Our view at the bay was perfect. We could see the airplanes flying over the Golden Gate Bridge, and some people could swear they saw the planes fly between the bridge and the water, but I never actually saw it myself. The show started off with some older planes, and then stunt pilots, and then with a Blue Angels finale. They make flying those planes look so effortless, but Britton and I know better! Our last semester at BYU I got a video from the local library called, "The Magic of Flight," narrated by Tom Selleck. Those Blue Angel guys work 6 days a week to impress people over the world. In order to not pass out during their maneuvers, they have to be flexing their neck muscles. So what looks so fluid and effortless to us on the ground is actually really painful and awkward in the plane. Maybe it's better not to know that. We were constantly turning our heads trying to figure out where they flew off to. They were all over the place flying in formation, or breaking off and flying separately with plumes of smoke behind them. They even made a heart shape with the smoke once...awww. Ahem, now that I have lost all male interest in this blog...here's Britton. What we really wanted to see was the NASA X-43A hypersonic scramjet. No, I did not just make that up. It goes 10 times the speed of sound (aka Mach 10) which means if flew by you, the sonic boom would pretty much make your head explode... well implode actually. Which is probably why NASA flies it at 90,000 feet rather than under the Golden Gate. Click here to see another awesome plane called the Raptor. It's made by Lockheed Martin. These planes are also used in the summer blockbuster, Transformers.

iFamily

We are slowly but surely becoming... iFamily! Britton's dad came over last Saturday to visit and play baseball. What we actually ended up doing was spending some quality time together at the Apple store. Over the past few weeks Britton and I have been trying to decide what kind of a desktop computer to get for our apartment. I've always been kind of cheap and was all for the PC, but I could tell Britton really wanted to try out the Mac. One night we invited one of Britton's old roomates and his lovely wife over for dinner. He works at Apple. Good ol' PC never had a chance. So we asked for his advice about the difference between a PC and a Mac. You can probably guess how he felt, but still, it's pretty extreme. With a completely straight face he started out, "Imagine never having known about the gospel..." Wow, what an analogy. But he made some good points and I am currently writing this blog from a Mac complete with iChat, iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, iWeb, iCal, iMouse, iChord, iUSB, iOnswitch...etc.
ANd itS so User FRIDNLY!! AnyWOn can Youse iT!

Here is the sleek, new iPhone modeled by Jeff Olson. So we have succumbed to the Apple side, and so far the computer has been great! It's just hard adjusting to a different operating system. Anyone else experiencing the same growing pains, or have an opinion on the Mac/PC war?

Menlo Park Memebers

After checking out the wards in the area and meeting Steve Young, we finally found our real ward. A fellow Aero student clued us into a Saturday activity the ward was having at the bay. So instead of the brief introductions at church, we were able to get to know people in the ward a lot better riding in their car, watching their kids, and walking on trails together. A man in the ward has been developing land in Alameda for the last 20 years, so he chartered a ferry to take us across the bay from the Port of San Francisco to Alameda. Britton amazed by the wake the boat left behind, had to take a picture. Such an engineer... Those who brought lunches just chilled at the park overlooking the water. Britton and I decided to walk to the deli and buy lunch. We found another childless couple and started walking together. After about 30 minutes of getting to know these people really well, we realized we had definitely missed the turn for the deli. It was 2:15 by the time we reached the deli, and the boat was leaving at 3:00. We scarfed down our lunches, and walked back with a Spanish speaking family. Britton took full advantage of that situation, and in minutes the whole family adored him. Finding the right roads this time, the walk only took 15 minutes... So yeah, we spent the whole activity pretty much walking, but at least we still got to meet a lot of people. I found a family from Japan! The kid wearing an An Pan Man jacket was a dead give-away. An Pan Man is a cartoon about bread people. Kind of like our Sponge Bob I guess. There is so many people to get to know now, it's great.

Yes, Heaven is Found on Earth

Time to get fat girls...

One year of matrimonial bliss

Believe it or not it's been one year (last month) since that blazing hot day we stood outside the Manti temple to take many, many wedding pictures. To celebrate our one year anniversary Britton planned a weekend get-away in the not so blazing hot Monterey Bay. We started it off buying a Godiva chocolate cheesecake at the Cheesecake Factory. It was free using a gift card saved from our wedding. Thank you to whoever contributed to our gourmet chocolate indulgence.









After picking up the cheesecake and real food we headed to the Chaminade resort in Santa Cruz. It was fabulous. We took advantage of the gym, pool, spa, and then headed out for the day. Somehow cheesecake also became our breakfast. We stopped in the quaint little Capitola for lunch, and a view of the ocean. Then it was off to Monterey. Ok, this whole time we are away from home Britton is actually utilizing the power of a supercomputer through a cell phone and his laptop. (A supercomputer has the power of 12473895798 laptops!!!) Ok, I can't remember the exact number. And Britton held all this power in his backpack during our whole trip. Occasionally he would check to make sure his program was running correctly. And once he had to fix a problem while we sat in the parkinglot for a long, long time. But we finally made it to the Monterey Aquarium super backpack and all. It turned out we had perfect weather, and was a fantastic get-away with few government lab interruptions.

A Cougar no more.....

Right off the bat I'd like to state that this is Britton blogging, not Renee. So please excuse the decrease in vocab and rhetorical devices...whatever those are. We officially moved in to Stanford!!! We live on campus at the following address:

Britton and Renee Olson
119 Quillen Ct. #416
Stanford, CA 94305
The move was very brief, as to be expected and was nothing compared to what a few law student friends of mine had to endure. (You guys should've gone to Stanford...) We had a lot of help from Mom, Dad, Alex, Lawrence, and John Noll (one of my old roommates from BYU). We have SO much stuff... I don't get it. Its kind of like synergy... in that the whole is more than the sum of the parts. For those of you who are married, I'm sure you understand this phenomenon better than I.
Well, when I read blogs, I like pictures much more than words... so here are some pictures of the move.

PRE-IKEA

POST-IKEA

(This is Keith, a friend from BYU who works in Boston.)

Renee loves to unpack and has NO idea that I'm putting this on here... HA ha (in that Simpson's voice).







We're very happy to be in our new place and it's very odd to think that this town will be home for the next 5 years. Classes start on Monday so this is probably the last you'll hear of me for the next 5 years or so. Consider this a limited edition blog...

Also, I thought I'd try out the "link" feature to share with you a paper that is under review for publishing. Click here to download the PDF. (pictures are at the end for those of you like me)

Renee will make up for this blog later I promise.
Nib-high football RULES!!.... I mean.... Go cardinals!

Liberty High Rules! (I can say that too)

So last weekend Clark and Jo Sue organized a little get-together at Chilis for the high school buddies that are in town. Like someone so aptly said, "It's like facebook brought to life!" All those people you used to know, but don't really see or talk to anymore were suddenly brought together along with their newly acquired significant others. Just to surprise everyone Robbie showed up a little late just come from L.A. Katie Flashberger dropped him off, promised to come back, then left for her boyfriend's house. So many people at one table there was at least five or six conversations going on at the same time. That combined with three kids, and booze j/k made for one crazy but memorable night. I enjoyed it and everything, but I can't wait to make Britton sit through one of my reunions.

Let there be blogs!

Welcome to the trial-run for Renee's new blog. Blogs run in the Olson family, and as young, technically minded adults we are expected to have our own blog. Abuela Olson actually told me today that it's the only way she will know what we're doing in Palo Alto even though she doesn't have the internet herself. So I guess these blogs are pretty important in keeping the Olson family ties strong. I might even get the Sommercorns to oblige me.


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