Love Lyle!

As I mentioned before, Nate got me Lyle Lovett tickets for my birthday. So, last Saturday night, his parents baby-sat the kidlets, and we went out for a luxurious night on the town. Ok, so not super luxurious, but it felt like it was, because we had NO KIDS with us. Oh man, dinner, was seriously heavenly. We got up to Salt Lake 2 hours early, and went to this yummy Greek restaurant (normally, I loathe greek food, but this was a really nice classy place, and I looked at the menu and saw that they had salmon, and figured they couldn't make that too greasy, like they do with all their food), called Artisto (or something like that). We sat outside in the shade, and it was just perfect. After we finished eating, we seriously just sat there for 30 minutes or so, and relaxed, and actually got to talk. It was so nice... and fun! Then we started walking up the street to Kingsbury Hall, and Nate informed me that I was walking too fast, as we had plenty of time, and he really wanted to relish in the fact that we, for once, weren't running late.

We had really good seats at the front of the balcony, and the show was AMAZING. I seriously LOVED it. I knew I would enjoy it, but I didn't know that I wouldn't want the music to stop. I've decided what kind of music Lyle Lovett plays. He's on a country label, but he is so not country. I think it's bluegrass, just with more of a bluesy/soul feel to it. He had this enormous band, and gospel singers, and there was just tons of energy, and Lyle himself is quite the character. So yeah, LOVED it. LOVE Lyle!

**Another bonus of this night out, is that Chris (Nate's dad) put Sayer to bed, and in doing so, introduced an awesome way to swaddle, that is seriously unbreakable. I will take pictures of it for all to benefit from, so look for that in the next day or so!

Happy Birthday to me!

Tuesday was my birthday... the big 2-6. We ended up celebrating it on Monday, as I had to work with a girl I mentor on Tuesday. We decided that it would be fun to go up to Park City, as we had a gift certificate for dinner at the Homestead in Midway.

We went to the Park City Resort to do the Alpine Slides. We were in line to get some tickets, when this lady comes up and asks us if we want the remainder of their tickets, that they weren't going to use. Seriously?! People are so nice... sometimes! ;) She gave us one adult and 2 passenger tickets, so we only had to buy one more adult for me. Nate took Asher down first, and he loved it, so I decided to take him again. I am so glad that lady gave us her tickets... it is fun, but definitely not worth the $14 per ride it would have cost us. It was a little scary taking Asher on the chair lift. We had to distract him with chocolate on the second ride up, as he wanted to get down... as in, he was trying to get off the chair lift while we were 100 ft in the air. It was very scary! But he was all smiles on the way down.

After the slides, we went to the city park and let Asher play for awhile. Isn't it weird how we entertained Asher for MY birthday? Not that I minded. Nate and I were talking on the way up about our definitions of fun... I told him that my definition of fun has turned into Asher having fun. Nate said: "yeah, I've noticed that." It makes me happy when he is happy.

After the park, we drove back down to Midway to the Homestead and had a nice meal outside by the duck pond. Asher loved feeding the ducks and watching the fishies. He was pretty good until right before we left. Poor little guy was so tired, it was a long day.

Nate dropped me off at Nunn's Park in the canyon, and I ran back to my house. I missed my long run last week because of the festival, so I had to do it Monday. I was nervous to do it by myself, but it was actually really nice, and quite leisurely. I know that sounds weird, but it really was. It's just nice to be by myself, even if it's running 11 miles. That was my first really long run since having Sayer, so I was proud of myself.

On Tuesday, I got to sleep in, and Nate gave me my gift... an antennae for our TV so I can watch so you think you can dance, and tickets to see Lyle Lovett this Saturday. I know, I'm such a nerd. My family totally makes fun of me that I like him, but what can I say? I just do. So I am so excited to go see him in concert. Nate's parents will be in town, so they are going to watch the kiddies. I also got money, with which, I will be buying a plethora of running/fitness gear, including: a Garmin Forerunner 205, which I just ordered yesterday (So excited for this), a fuel belt for long runs, triathlon shorts, triathlon shirt, and possibly a speedo. So, it was definitely a great birthday, and I can't wait to continue the celebration this weekend!

Happy Birthday Nate... and Andy!!

Wow, so being away from the computer for a week is great, but as a result, I had hundreds (literally) of posts to read when I got home. I have just barely finished catching up, and I didn't even read all of them. I decided that all my fun mom blogs would just have to be put on the back burner!!

Last Sunday, the 18th, we had a joint birthday party for Nate and his older brother Andy. Their birthdays are one week apart, and Nate's is first, so they are the same age for one week! It has been so great to have Andy and Kacey living in Sandy, we have been having so many family get togethers, and it is so fun. We will definitely be sad to leave everyone at the end of the summer.

For dinner we had scallops and chicken and asparagus in white wine sauce (delish!!) over pasta, with garlic cheese bread, and fruit, followed by a delicious german chocolate cake that Kacey made, which is Andy's favorite cake. It was so fun to visit and relax and eat!

The "Happy Birthday Nate" tag

Nate and his BFF, Josh, in Central Park last weekend

Ok, so Julianne tagged me quite awhile ago for this, and I just remembered after visiting her blog to read this amazing tip on how to get crayon out of the dryer as well as clothes. You should all check it out!

So since I talk about myself plenty, I decided to do this one about Nate, since many of you may not know him all that well, and also, it was his birthday yesterday, (33 folks, 33!), so I should talk about him, cuz I love him!! 

1. He is the second oldest of 8 kids, the oldest will be 34 this month, and the youngest is 24. That's right people, 8 kids in 10 years... CRAZY!!

2. One day the Olson family TV broke. Instead of fixing it, Chris and Heidi (Nate's parents) decided to start a family band. Nate started playing the violin suzuki (sp) method when he was 5 years old. When he was in HS, he had always been in Orchestra, but wanted to be in the band. He dreamed of playing the trumpet. Instead, they assigned him to play the bassoon. haha!! Nate actually has his Masters degree in Music Performance... not on the fiddle, but on the bassoon! I have never heard him play the bassoon, except on a cd.

3. Nate LOVES food. This is not a surprise to anyone who knows him. Some of his favorite foods are hummus (it has to be GOOD hummus though, he is VERY picky!), crab legs (with butter), popcorn (with butter), greek food (more specifically chicken gyros, NOT lamb, he hates lamb), and more recently, salmon tacos (YUM!) He is not, however, a big dessert guy. Which means that I eat all the desserts in our house... BAD!

4. Nate LOVES to teach, especially the Gospel, and he really is an amazing teacher. I am not just saying this because I am his wife, but he really is the best. He puts so much time and effort into each of his lessons, and wants nothing more than to have everyone come away wanting to be better in some specific way. A fun fact about him teaching... when he was in Michigan getting his Masters, he taught institute, and he would purposely dress ugly so that it wouldn't be distracting to the ladies. haha!! I thought that was cute. He wanted it to only be about the gospel, and if he looked good, the girls wouldn't have been able to concentrate on the spirit! Ok, so I am mocking a little, but it is only out of love. Love you honey!!!

5. Nate was born cross-eyed. Yes, that means that we could definitely have a cross-eyed child someday. So far, so good! But he had to have this surgery, but they didn't do it until he was a year, so now he doesn't have depth perception. One of his eyes is near sighted and one is far sighted, they don't work together. Which means he can't tell how far or near objects are from him. This can be very troublesome when driving, especially at night. He does have his own ways of working around that though, like hugging the line, as that helps him to at least gauge where in the lane he is. It often looks like we are veering or heading into oncoming traffic, but we're not. It's weird! Some of you may also have noticed that one of his eyes looks like a lazy eye when he is talking to you. That is because he doesn't need that particular eye at that time, so it has trained itself to not focus. Again... it's weird, although I don't notice it anymore. I don't even know which eye is which anymore. 

6. Nate is very involved in specifics with our children. He was, and is, very passionate about me breast-feeding. It was really important to him that our kids were breast-fed for as long as possible. He stayed up all night with me the first night home with Asher, as I couldn't get him to latch on. If it weren't for Nate, I would have given him a bottle after about 5 minutes! Nate's dad says "no tv AT ALL for the first 2 years of a baby's life", and Nate is very strict about that. We both are. He is always very concerned about our kids getting sick, and is also pretty strict about them not having sugar and eating healthy. Don't worry that pretty much all of these things are up to me, so of course it's easy for him to lay his demands down! :) No, really, it has been so great for me, because knowing that they are important to Nate, makes them important for me, and we really did decide all of this together. But, like I said, most of it was his idea. So yeah, he's a good daddy. He loves his boys!

7. Nate doesn't really get mad. I can think of maybe 2 times in the entire 4 1/2 years we've been married, that he has gotten mad at me and, not yelled, but was clearly VERY upset. It made me feel so bad, as I knew he must have been pretty mad to let it show like that. The first time, and the one I remember the most, was over our Folk Dance culture class, believe it or not (that's the class we took to learn about the countries we were to be visiting on tour). It was really stupid, but it was apparently, a very big deal at the time. 

I could go on and on forever... maybe I should just keep going and do the "100 things" post that I did back in the day.  Don't worry, I won't.  But I will leave you with one final tidbit...

8.  Nate has been engaged 3 times (including me).  That's right folks, 3 different fiances.  He broke one of them off 2 weeks before the wedding... yikes (yeah, I don't think that ex-fiance is a big fan of Nate anymore!)  Needless to say, my Grandma was very worried that he wouldn't go through with it.  On the way to CA to get married, we were just coming out of Reno, and Nate asks:  "why are we getting married again?"  WHAT?!  It actually ended up being a great conversation, as I think engagement is hard, and sometimes you just have to get through it, and often lose sight of why you are doing this in the first place.  So, of course we ended up getting married without any problems.  He finally just realized that I was the girl of his dreams. duh! ;)