More babies

And no, I'm not pregnant. There have been two more babies born in the Hansen family since Adriana. I decided that we needed to post their cute pictures. The first was Robert & Melanie's baby Jonathan David, born on June 5. This is one of his 3 months old pictures taken by my sister-in-law Sarah. He has the biggest, cutest eyes and of course, all of him is just so cute!

The next is Kathryn Bela Smith, daughter of Emily and Drew. (Now this is sounding like a wedding announcement or something.) She was born on September 6. I haven't seen her in person, but from looking at the photos she also is a cutie! I'm glad that Adriana will have some cousins her same age to play with at our family get-togethers. Yippee for cute, adorable babies!

Monk followers

We have a TV, but we do not have cable. Thus, we tend to watch a plethora a movies. However, there have always been three significant problems with movies: (1) We used up our personal selection a long time ago so getting a new movie now requires time and money; (2) The selection at Mexican movie rentals is rather limited (i.e., they don't have anything good); (3) Even when they do have a movie we're interested in, 93% percent of the time it's from wrong region! [What's a region?, you ask. We also wondered that the first time we popped in a rental and saw nothing but a blue screen of death! I guess the world is divided up into 4 or 5 regions to somehow limit piracy (obviously a very effective system). Our DVD player plays region 1 movies while most Mexican movies are region 4. Incidentally, make sure to check the region next time you order a movie on eBay. We recently bought a copy of Disney's Mulan that only plays in Asia!]; (4) We usually only have about an hour if we want to get a decent amount of sleep.



A few weeks ago we were introduced to Monk, and he has solved all of the above problems. (The money problem [see above] is taken care of because our friends lend us seasons at a time.) He also solves his own problems in every episode. For those who don't know, he is a genius detective who has OCD. To give an example scene, he could be chasing the antagonist and suddenly stop to fix a crooked sign for no reason.


It's also quite a wholesome show, which is unusualy these days (sure, they're murders, but they're "wholesome" murders.) So now, when we get an urge to watch a movie at bedtime, we choose Monk instead. You can too.

...And on to Utah

Well, our vacation didn't end in Colorado even though it's taken us forever to finish writing about our trip. After CO we went to Utah to see more family as well as some great friends. Mark has 2 grandparents still living and we were able to visit both and introduce them to Adriana. Here are two 4 generation pictures.

We spent several days in the Uinta mountains where my family has a cabin about 15 miles from Mirror Lake. We brought most of Mark's family there and had a great time! We enjoyed quality campfires and scarfed down large numbers of hamburgers and hot dogs. (We divided up the meals, but failed to confer with the others to make sure we were not bringing the same thing.) We had several canoe trips, one that even ended in an unplanned swim in the ice cold river. It is so peaceful and beautiful up in the mountains and you've never see so many stars. Just check out the picture... 

oh, just kidding the stars didn't turn out, but here's our biggest star!

We had a little tradition when I went to the cabin as a kid. We would find really cool rocks and persuade my parents to buy them! Yes we had rock sales. 100% natural. This way we had some cash to get the penny candy on the way home. My favorite was how my mom and grandma would rave and rave about how beautiful and original the rocks were. I never remember any of the rocks making it home, but it was a great business for us kids in the Hansen house. This time the kids took pride in painting rocks to really make them shine!

Too bad this picture isn't bigger because it doesn't show it all, but a group of us hiked to this awesome waterfall. I'd done the hike several times before, but it was a first for Mark. I think it was our first real hike together, during which I came to find out how much he enjoys hiking. It's a real hike (about 1 hour 20 min. each way), but the perfect activity when one is in the Uintas! Some figured it would go faster since there were no kids with us, but I estimated pretty well. We even saw a moose on the way back, but even with all the beauties, I don't think some of the Tanners will join me on this hike again.

I guess for some, pictures are sufficient. Others even go as far as walking a few miles on a paved trail to see the sites. Still others enjoy the whole journey! So, if it fits your style, here is a picture to enjoy and now you can forgo the rigorous trail (and do something more productive with your time).

This is the other great picture we took while in Utah. We spent time with some of my family that wasn't in CO and Adriana had fun with my brother's dogs. This shot was expertly timed by Mark!

The Cutest laugh ever!

David did a great job intertaining Adriana. This is a cute clip of her laughing!