Bridge School Benefit Concert

Ashlee and I just recently made a trip to attend The Bridge School Benefit Concert. The concert is a 2 day event put on by Neil Young that has been held for the past 24 years in Mountain View, California. It's unique from other music festivals in that all bands play strictly acoustic sets, and with it being a benefit concert they let all the kids who attend The Bridge School up on the stage for the best seats in the house. All the kids in the school have severe speech and physical impairments, but in-spite of being limited in their movements you could often see them in the back with big smiles dancing in their own way.
The weather for the weekend was very wet. They announced in 24 years this was only the second time it had rained. You can imagine how thrilled we were to have had that luck. Specifically Ashlee... who does so well in the rain. During the first day of the concert we more or less froze after the sun went down. It started raining so hard at one point the group of us were huddled up on our soaking wet blanket taking shelter beneath a child sized umbrella.

The second day of the concert we came much better equipped. We stopped at Home Depot and stocked up on some ponchos and a couple tarps. We were glad we did because when we made it to our spot on the grass it was raining even harder then it was the day before. We used our tarps to create what ended up being some sort of makeshift bed since we all just hopped in between the tarps and hid inside them. We looked like the grandparents from Willy Wonka and The Chocolate factory with all of us sharing what looked like a big bed. I'm sure we looked ridiculous to everyone around us but we did stay warm. Our friend ended up buying an industrial strength rain suit. So while the rest of us were hiding under the tarp, this is how he took his nap....
(It may sound strange that we all took naps but during an all day festival full of excitement you do what you gotta do.)



The actual bands and music were fantastic. The lineup was incredible with the most notable act being Pearl Jam (most notable according to me). Some other notable bands were Neil Young, Elvis Costello, Elton John, Jackson Browne, Modest Mouse, Billy Idol, and Buffalo Springfield who played their first show in over 40 years.

Here is Ashlee's favorite song of the night:

And here is a video we found on YouTube of some highlights of the concert:

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to this handsome guy.

I am so lucky to have such a wonderful husband. He is my favorite person in the world and I am so happy he is mine forever.
I love you Nick!

Do you believe in magic?

{September 23-25}

We had so much fun at Disneyland this year. We are so lucky to be able to get the entire family together each year to enjoy the happiest place on earth! It's such a fun tradition and I'm already looking forward to next time.

Nick made a fun little video of a few clips I got during the trip. He told me I couldn't post it unless I wrote a disclaimer explaining a few things.
So just so you all know... I took about 10 short clips with my shaky, not HD point and shoot camera. Little did I know, when you are shooting video, you have to shoot it all horizontally. Obviously I didn't realize that until we got home, so try to ignore the big black gaps on the sides of the shots I took vertically. Also, sorry if it makes you dizzy when people are moving too fast. That's the cameras fault, not mine... I think.

So basically I didn't really give Nick much to work with and he made the whole thing in about 20 minutes. But I still love what he did with it.

Another tradition we all love... new shoes! Every year, on top of paying for all the Disneyland tickets and our hotels, my dad buys the whole group a new pair of shoes. Isn't he great?

THANKS DAD!
We love you so much... and the socks too :)

Fish Lake

{August 21}

We went to Fish lake this year for the Chappell's annual camping trip. Nick's dad is from Loa so their family goes there every year for the town's celebration. Nick had to work on Saturday so we had to miss the parade and fair, but based on the large amount of candy the kids had in their grocery bags it must have been a good one.

(We all got a little split up throughout the day so I'm sorry I wasn't able to get pictures of everybody.)

The kids fished, the boys swam in the freeeeeezing cold water, we ate lots of great food and yummy snacks, and then... went to the demolition derby.
Never in my life did I think I would be going to a demolition derby, let alone loving every second of it.
They are so entertaining! I was honestly disappointed when it was over.

We had such a great time. I couldn't ask for better in-laws. They are so nice and fun to be around.

Happy Birthday Mom!

You are the most loving, kind, humble, selfless person in the entire world. And everyone who knows you agrees. You are my greatest example and my best friend. I love you so much!

She's beautiful right?
Then and now.

{Mom and her kids}

PS- Yes i know, we are horrible at blogging lately. I have big plans to get better at it but I guess we'll see.
New posts coming very soon (maybe).
:)

Happy Birthday

It's Ashlee's Birthday today and whenever her birthday comes it always reminds me of about three years ago when I took Ash on what I considered our first date. I had known Ashlee for a few months, we met at Pizza Factory where we both worked. We had spent some time outside of work but not nearly enough by my watch. In spite of the limited time we spent together, I was already absolutely crazy about her. I would attempt to find any excuse I could to see her. I wouldn't be surprised if my hours doubled during the time she worked with me. I was dying to take her out so I used the excuse of her birthday to get me a date. One day after our shifts were over I asked her If she wanted to go to dinner to celebrate her birthday. I asked almost expecting an excuse to why she couldn't go, it was nothing short of impossible to get her to commit to one night, but to my surprise she said yes.

We planned on going to dinner on a Saturday. I remember I went on an overnight fishing trip to fish lake with my friends that weekend, and we were planning on coming back the Saturday of our date. I don't think I thought about anything but taking Ashlee out the entire time I was out fishing. Saturday afternoon came and I couldn't help pack up fast enough. I had so much anxiety about not making it home in time and missing out on my chance to spend the night with Ashlee, I was willing to start hitchhiking my way home if we weren't able to leave that campground on time. You had never seen someone pack as up as fast as I did that afternoon. Luckily, I think my friends could see my sense of panic and we were able to leave the lake on time.

After I made it home from camping I got all cleaned up for the night and I moved onto my next step of preparation.. a lot of nervous pacing. I thought this night was my chance to let Ashlee see just how much I liked her and things would really take off. After my vigorous pacing session I went over and picked Ash up from her house. I still remember two things very clearly... As cliche as it to say.. I still remember what she was wearing and how she looked (black and white striped shirt and incredible)... but what I recall just as clearly is looking in her house and seeing just how many bouquets of flowers were sitting in there. I found this very troubling at the time (I was also a little troubled with the amount of Captain Jack Sparrow memorabilia in her room, it was already hard enough to win Ash over without including fictional characters.) I knew I had competition, but I underestimated just how much. After that the night was a blur it went by way too quick like any night with a pretty girl does and it was capped off with a hug as I said goodbye. I spent the night lying in bed wishing i could spend every night like that. The funny thing is that night didn't make things "take off" for us, it wasn't until about two years later that we started dating. But, this is the night I can't help but think of when Ash's birthday rolls around.

Today is supposed to be the day I spend spoiling Ash, but more than anything else today serves as a reminder to me how spoiled I am to be able to call her my wife. I couldn't imagine someone more perfect for me. You have no idea how happy it made me to leave her some flowers on the kitchen table and know they were the only bouquet I had to worry about.

This is what you get...

when you marry a nerd.

Or is it a geek? Not sure. Nick tried explaining the difference to me once but obviously didn't succeed. All I know, is that he is a little of both... geek & nerd.

And I love that about him.


This is our office. This was the first room in our house to get finished. Nick was so excited to have an office, he built our "mega desk" before we were even married. Obviously, Its great to have a nerdy husband when it comes to electronics. I mean, we are newlyweds and we have four computers. Soon to be three though. I'll be selling my mac. I guess nerds just don't like macs. Ok that's not entirely true. Nick just turned my pc into a faster, better mac with a bigger screen so I'm not complaining.
Our office normally doesn't look this clean though. Nerdy husbands love to tear things apart only to put them back together to tear them apart again. Normally, there are computer parts, xbox parts, play station parts, and other parts I can't really identify all over his side of the desk. But still, I'm not complaining. He buys broken electronics off ebay or ksl, fixes them and sells them again to make some extra money for us. He helps my family with their broken computers, broken ipods, you name it. He spends lots of time helping people out with these kinds of things and we are all grateful for it.



This is our living room. Our house is finally starting to look like a home and I love it. We have our darling new chair (Thanks Nila!), our new...but very old record player (that Nick somehow made work), our cute coffee table boxes (Thanks Dad :), and.... our tv. Our very high tech, hard to figure out tv. Because you see, when you marry a nerd.... you have to have the best of the best when it comes to tv quality, surround sound, media center, remote control, etc etc, on and on and on.

So... welcome to the back of our tv.

Pretty right? No. Not pretty at all. And that's not it. Not even close. Although he has done a better job at hiding the other cables, we have some that run from our computers upstairs... outside the window... down to the tv.... around the couch to some hidden speakers in the bookshelves.... back out the window and into our unfinished basement where, according to Nick, all the magic happens.

Meet our roommate, Phil.

You know in the wizard of oz when the big reveal occurs that there is really a man inside the machine controlling everything. That is kind of like what walking in our basement feels like except there is no man involved just an arcade with a man's name. This is Phil. I don't know why he is called Phil, but all of Nick's friends and even his family refer to it as Phil. Nick isn't even sure of how he got his name but none the less it has never been referred to as anything else. Nick has Phil connected to what seems like everything in our house. Whenever we watch movies or use netflix somehow or other he's the one in charge of it. I don't really understand how it all works I just know there is a big white button by our tv that brings him to life. Nick has gone over how to run it all with me before, but there is a better chance of me learning a foriegn language then figuring out how to start watching a movie on our tv. Ill walk downstairs sometimes and see Nick's legs sticking out from under the arcade and when I ask what he is doing to it he just lets me know that "Phil is sick". I even remember one time being awake at night after Nick had fallen asleep and I was spooking myself out thinking that someone was trying to break into our home. When I woke Nick up to try to make myself feel better, he rolled over to cuddle me, barely awake and let me know that everything was okay because Phil was sleeping in the basement. A part of me thinks he was really serious.

So... what do you get when you marry a nerd?
A few cords here and there, a pretty hip computer, an arcade in the basement that controls your house.... and one perfect husband.

I feel so lucky to have him. Nerdiness and all.