Glorious Grilling!

Thanks to a tip from my visiting teacher we are now the proud owners of a gas grill! A family in our on-campus "village" was moving out, and we claimed their well kept grill and dishwasher. We bought it a few days ago, and have already used it for a family BBQ, and a casual dinner for the two of us. I love grilled food! I don't really have the grilling experience, but my love of the end product should motivate me to learn. Britton's family grills all the time for family get-togethers and parties, and my favorite so far is their grilled salmon with veggie kabobs....mmmmm. So do you have any grilling tips for us, or favorite recipes? Enjoy the rest of summer while it lasts.

A Blending of Generations

So we have about a month until baby Olson is born, and I can't help but wonder what he will look like... Dark and hairy?...Pink and pudgy?...the possibilities are endless, really. To give myself a better idea of what my baby will look like I have compiled a group of photos spanning three generations. Take a look beginning with grandparents. Notice the facial structures, nose shapes, and uh...eyebrows.

and our parents...we can see the different possibilities for eye and hair colors here.Finally here is the expecting couple. Here we see more technology than genes at play--the computer edited perfect complexions, sparkling, white teeth, and slightly unnatural hair color. (for me at least) Photoshop can do wonders.
Using the Baby Face Imager 3000, I will put all these faces together and come up with…

Well, I guess that’s not too surprising. He definitely has that baby look, but I’m not seeing any huge resemblance to anyone in my family. Well even if he does look like any other baby at first, eventually he’ll look more like these three generations of family, and maybe even inherit our super power abilities! Like my ability to eat cold things without a trace of ice cream headache, or the freakish ability to wiggle my ears. He could also inherit Britton’s curly toes, or impeccable aim. Wow, this is going to be one unique kid. Only one more month until we meet him.

Update

I almost made it two months without a new post! I didn't mean to, but I just haven't taken many pictures and I usually need pictures to spur my post writing. So...a lot of stuff has happened. We moved to our new, bigger place mid June. Weather in the area had been extremely pleasant until the day we moved. It was nearly 100 degrees, and the pizza and drinks we provided before-hand was weak motivation for our volunteers. Luckily we have some great friends, family, and missionaries who are willing to sweat profusely hauling around our stuff. A special thanks goes out to Britton's dad Jeff for stellar effort at EVERY move we've had so far as well as others in the family. However, the actual moving of our stuff from one apartment to the other only ended up taking about an hour and a half.
Britton went on a bunch of trips the past couple weeks. First to a Computational Science Graduate Fellowship Conference in Washington D.C. Yeah, wow. I just told people he was at a conference about his research. When asked what his research was about I just said you know fluid dynamics with the computational simulations on high powered supercomputer nodes involving some Navier-Stokes equations. My strategy is to just confuse people so they stop asking questions. Britton said the conference broadened his research horizons, and he had plenty of time to visit the famous landmarks. Hopefully I can join him next year except I'll skip the nerdy conference part and just see the sights with my babe. Britton also took a short trip to Utah to visit old roomates and remind himself why he's so grateful he's married now. Isn't that right?! Click here to see the pictures Britton already posted from his trips.
We finally took a trip together to visit my family in Seattle. We had amazing breakfasts each morning with any variety of eggs, pancakes, waffles, hash brown, and sausages. It was like our own version of Denny's except with the Sommercorn's signature orange juice/tang mix. We saw Get Smart, sampled chocolate, took a trip to view sea creatures at the beach, went to a spectacular fireworks show, and took various bike rides. I was also able to squeeze in a few visits with old high school friends and a meal at Thai Ginger, my all time favorite restaurant! It was a much needed Sommercorn family reunion because it's been a year since I've seen most of my family, and two years for the others!
Here's the beach we went to. The morning of the 4th of July was low-tide and perfect for finding all kinds of sea creatures.


The beach was covered with this fantastic seaweed. We each found our own crab friend,

and then we introduced them to each other and had them fight! Turns out they were all a bunch of wimps, and just buried themselves in the sand.


The kids loved playing in the sand,and squishing the sea anemones with their toes to see the water squirt out. What if the anemones squirting out their last store of water before the tide comes back is like us exhaling out last breath of air under water. I felt like we were torturing the poor brainless creatures, but the numerous nature guides on the beach didn't seem to mind. Still, it was hard for me to watch.

Cute kids! They grow so fast!
This is Loren and Sara on top of the Snoqualmie Tunnel. They rode for 2 and a half miles through it to find it pouring rain on the other side. Too bad I volunteered to take the kids to a park at the lake and stayed completely dry all day!

Britton's final wish before we left was to mow the lawn... a little strange I know, but I'm guessing it has something to do with the riding lawnmower part.