Sophie Madeleine

Sophie was born on Wednesday, July 25th at 2:14PM after a very quick and easy delivery! She weighed 7lbs 15oz and was 21 inches tall. Here is a sweet video of Evan meeting his new little sister!

 

Sophie's Room & a contest

I finished Sophie's room just in time to enter a contest through Joann Fabrics! Perfect timing! Check out my video on Pinterest:  http://pinterest.com/pin/240590805064076208/

Happy 4th of July!!!

Here is a shout out to tthe coolest soldier I know. I'm totally plagiarizing this post from my sister Brooke's blog, written by my brother-in-law. Enjoy!

Today Chad is writing this post. It’s all from a letter he sent me about his 4th of July. Some NFL coaches visited the troops.

The first picture is of Bill Cowher (the former Pittsburgh Steelers coach) and Eric Mangini the former assistant coach for the Patriots and head coach of the Browns and Jets.  They let me hold their superbowl rings in the picture.  I told coach Mangini to say hello to Steve Young for me.  I said, “He doesn’t know me, but I am a fellow Cougar.”

Notice one coach is holding a helmet and in the background is a bulletproof vest. These NFL coaches aren’t afraid of anything!

The second pic is of Leslie Frazier.  He is the current head coach of the Minnesota Vikings.  He seemed like a pretty spiritual guy.  He asked me if a lot of people get saved out here and I said that war definitely makes people think about life after death and whether there is a God or not.  As a player he played for Chicago Bears when they won the Super Bowl. I talked to him about how Jim Mcmahon was kind of the black sheep of BYU QB’s.  I said we all love him, but he doesn’t fit the mold of BYU.  He said, they all used to wonder why he went to BYU.

That guy won a Superbowl? He isn’t that much bigger than Chad!

At 9 am they arrived on the helicopters, I was part of the greeting party.

We then moved to the mortar pit so they could shoot some rockets.  They let each coach shoot rockets, which they loved.

At a little after 10 am they moved into the chapel to do some autographs and answer questions.  It was fun for the soldiers and the coaches had a great time as well.  That lasted for about an hour and a half.  (Word on the street is was super hot in the chapel so some guys skipped it.)

Then we took them to the chow hall where our five star chef from the Billagio in Las Vegas (that’s not a joke) cooked up his special fresh burgers and some hot dogs etc. for a 4th of July firework show.  The chef love the Chiefs and coach Mangini knows a coach on the Chiefs, so he called the Chiefs coach and let George talk to him.

We took all the coaches down to the Helicopter Landing Zone and waited for their bird to arrive.  It never did.  In the meantime LTC Cassibry came down and talked to them for a while.  Then we did some checking and found out that we were supposed to arrange for their flight to the next base, we didn’t do that.  The point of contact for the Squadron did not pass on that information before he went on a mission the other night.  So, the coaches were stuck with us longer than they planned.

We took them back to the dining facility and I became the secondary leader of the tour.  LTC Cassibry came over again and talked to them.  We had our cannons firing, unannounced and they all got a little worried with the loud boom.  I finally got to eat lunch during that time.  (I missed it earlier because I was talking with a Soldier.)

Then they scheduled them for another flight and we had to run to the HLZ.  I helped escort them again and snagged some photos. It was a fun day, but a little tiring. Now the chapel smells like sweaty men.

Anyway, like I said, it was a good time.  Now I am excited about football season.

The last picture are of some SWAG (Stuff We All Get) I got.  One person in their entourage gave me an NFL pin.  Then another guy who works for the NFL gave me a shirt.  That guy knew Chad Lewis, former BYU tight end and Philadelphia Eagle.  The coin is from Coach Frazier, obviously.  He said he appreciated the work I was doing out here and that I must have a tough job.

NFL stands for no free lunch, no fire line, or national federation of labor, For me it stands for nerd for life.