A very busy June

Well it looks like I am back from my blogging hiatus...for now at least. I don't know about you, but June was a crazy busy month for us. We were gone out of town every minute that Jake wasn't in class or I wasn't at work. But we had so much fun! So here is a quick run down of our last month!

A few days after Jake got back from China we packed up a picnic and took off up Provo Canyon to get away for a while. It felt so good to be outside and to finally be together!

These birds were walking all around us so Jake started feeding them..they were picking up whole Pringles and eating them, and since I cannot will not eat the crusts of my bread, we threw those to them too. They were pretty little things. 

The following weekend we got together with some of our favorite people the Allen's and went camping up Payson Canyon. We love camping, mostly because you can completely get away, from everything. We had a great few days eating dutch oven dinners, going hiking, and sitting around the fire talking for hours. 

We love these two. 

After we got back from our camping trip we headed up to Morgan for Father's Day. We love going up there and just relaxing. Jake loves that my mom cooks him steak and everytime he is there...and pretty much anything else he wants. He is very spoiled. :) Unfortunately I was very bad about taking pictures this month too! My ever bulging stomach may have something to do with my camera phobia lately....The following weekend was the Thatcher Family Reunion, once again, I failed to take one. single. picture. Ridiculous really. Jake learned how to fly fish with my dad and uncles. It was so fun to catch up with all of my cousins and aunts and uncles and everything. There were tons of games and contests. Jake won the Swedish Fish guessing contest...which won us 580 Swedish Fish...great...exactly what we need around here...The following week was my birthday, once again, no pictures :) But it was a great day! It started out the night before actually when we went to dinner at P.F. Changs with Chance and Anna and Adam and Christy and some other friends. Jake made Cheesecake for dessert and we came back to our apartment and had that after. It was so fun. Thanks you guys! For my actual birthday my parents took us to dinner at another of our favorites...The Cheesecake Factory...we are too obsessed with this place. So yummy! Afterwards my awesome mom *forced* me into the mall to buy me some clothes that actually fit! I have been dreading buying or trying on new clothes so I mostly just don't go anywhere that I have to get too dressed up for :) Kinda ridiculous. But it was really good. Her and Jake drug me into the stores and she just kept throwing clothes in the dressing room for me to try one while Jake watched in awe....He always gets so mad that I won't ever go try clothes on and buy them. I am happy to say that about an hour later I walked out with a new wardrobe of clothes that fit me! Very nice :) Overall we had a great month. It FLEW by and we are realizing now how close we are to having our little girl here with us. We are so excited! Everything is right on track and going well. We couldn't be more blessed. The nursery is coming along nicely too. We have the crib and changing table set up, the rocker, pretty much everything. Just a few things to be hung up on the wall. We still have a long list of baby items that we need though, but with the showers I have coming up in the next few months I am sure that will fill in a lot of the holes. 

We hope that you all are enjoying your summers as much as we are! Until next time... :)

A trip to China

As you may know back last December Jake decided he wanted to take the Megacities/Megastructures class that BYU has. This class is a mixture of Senior Civil Engineering students and the Grad School Civil Engineering students, they have lots of projects, presentations, and as part of the class they spend a little over 2 weeks traveling around China studying some of their buildings, bridges, transportation, visiting with the companies that built them, and spending time giving the presentations and working with students in the engineering programs at some of the Universities over there. The only hitch is you have to apply to actually get into the class. So he turned in his application, even though I was a little skeptical (and secretly hoping he didn't get accepted a little...) but then he did! I was really excited for him to have this experience, but not excited for him to leave me for two weeks! (I know my Military Wife friends are rolling their eyes now...I'm a baby. I know it.) So Spring semester came and Jake became crazy busy with this class, for the 4 weeks of the class before they went to China he spent every spare hour, until 2 am pretty much every night, at campus in the Lab working on their presentations for Beijing and Tongji Universities. They finally finished the day before they flew out. So I got him for almost 24 hours before he left. After 2 weeks in China they came back and spent the rest of the time finishing their Senior Design Project that was also part of the class. Which meant more 2-3 am nights on campus and no husband again. BUT the good news is he finished last week! AND his group got 100% on their Senior Design Project, I know right? Awesome. He even got an e-mail from his professor saying that they went "above and beyond". I am so proud of him. Just one more semester and he will officially be a Civil Engineer. Anyway, the point of this post was not entirely to brag about my husband, which I reserve the right to do every now and then, but also to share with you his experience in China. I missed him so much, but after talking to him while he was there, hearing his stories since he got home, and seeing all of his pictures, I can't believe I was even a little skeptical of him doing this. It was such an awesome experience! And the silk robe and fresh water pearl necklace/earrings I got out of it weren't bad either :) The little one got a few silk Kimono-type robes and dresses. She is gonna be a cutie. Anyway, here is Jake's trip to China... 

 First stop: Beijing

The Great Wall of China

The Temple of Heaven

Outside of the Temple of Heaven there are all kinds of elderly people exercising...They have balance beams and all kinds of stuff for them to exercise! Kinda funny. This is a very flexible lady, Jake's other favorite was the 70 year old "hacky sacker" (not sure how to spell that...) It is pretty funny.  

 The Forbidden City

In Tienanmen Square (Gate to the Forbidden City in the background)

The Bird's Nest (National Stadium) 

 The Water Cube

Beijing City Planning Museum

Beijing University of Technology (Civil Engineering Department)

Parkview Green

Beijing's Tallest Skyscraper

Tienanmen Square

When you are a civil engineer I guess you take pictures like this...
(Jake speaking:  Let me just say this hinge is the biggest hinge I've ever seen!  It keeps the stresses in the building from getting too high from wind loads and seismic activity)

Beijing Airport Terminal 3

Next Stop: Tianjin

Tianjin's Tallest Skyscraper

The Tianjin Eye Ferris Wheel. This is an almost 400 foot Ferris Wheel built over the Hai River there. I think I would've puked on it.... 

An arch-suspension bridge

Next Stop Yichang

Three-Gorges Dam construction equipment

The Three Gorges Dam

The 2nd largest Dam in the world, but the largest power capacity Dam. 

The world's tallest bridge pier

The translation over there is TERRIBLE, Jake has so many pictures of signs that they have translated that are completely wrong. This is one of our favorites :)

Next Stop: Shanghai

Tongji University 

Giving his presentation 

Jake's Chinese contacts (left-Yichiang Zou, right- Siyu Sun)

Shanghai Acrobat Show 

So getting me one of these toilets! 

Street food (not sure what kind of meat it is...haha)

The World Financial Center observatory...the tallest one in the world

The Oriental Pearl Tower

This was one of Jake's very favorite places. Once again, I would have not done well...The floor of this building is glass...and it is almost 300 meters tall...NO thanks! 

The World Expo Center

This building is going to be over 600 m tall when it is done

Next Stop:  Guangzhou

Pearl River Tower

In the Canton Tower (radio tower) 108th floor, 433.2 m high

Shenzhen:

A factory that they toured, the women working here make all those computer cords that come with your Chinese Electronics.

The Last Stop...Hong Kong:

Doing an Endowment Session at the Hong Kong Temple

The International Commerce Center.

This was Jake's building that he was in charge of researching. They went to the observatory deck, the 100th floor....which still isn't the top of the building! Then there are another 18 floors on top of that that is a Ritz Carlton hotel. Pretty impressive.... 

A church building with several chapels and offices

The International Finance Center Building 2...this is the one Batman jumped off of in The Dark Knight.

Overall it was a very educational and rewarding trip. He made lots of new friends, and learned more than he could've in classroom.
After they got back the professors organized a pizza party for all of the wives to come and meet them and watch this video of their trip. One of the students that went made it, and he did an incredible job. It is really good. I tried multiple times to upload on here, and to YouTube, but it is too big and I could not get it to work. But you can watch the video here.
Enjoy!