Colin David Smith

Officially or re Announcing the arrival of Colin David Smith. He was born Friday, October 12, 2007 at 9:42 A.M. He weighed 9 lbs. and 2 oz. and was 21.5 inches long. He is a very mellow baby, for now ;) His hobbies include opening and closing his eyes, sticking out his tongue, and "playing" with Liam and Brigit. He has that wonderfully sweet new baby smell, Brigit just can't help but kiss him all the time, and he sleeps best with lots of noise in the background. In other pictures you will see Peter Pan and Tinkerbell, and a little lost boy (in the baby swing). We are lucky enough to have Granny here with us for a good while to help out. Thanks Granny!!!

Announcement Proof

So, here is the proof of what our announcements are going to look like. They are actually going to be brown and cream instead of black and white...just thought y'all might want to see them (well, you will be getting one in the mail too, of course, but this is faster...)

2007 Road Trip

Pauline and her friends, Margaret and Tom Halpenny at their home in Sierra Madre.


Pauline outside the Temple in San Diego, this Temple has an Atruim on the top floor under the Angel Moroni, it is a beautiful Temple.

One of two baby gorillas at the San Diego Zoo. Guess who we thought of?

Tara trying on a wedding dress, at the price, that is all she is doing! Next time we will try to get her to stand up staight!

Obviously these pictures are out of order, but for the first time, it is enough.

Dad with Pauline's cousins on the street of China Town in San Francisco.

Fantasy Land and the Mary Poppins group at Disneyland! Behind us on the left.

It was nice of Mickey to invite us into his house. Didn't get to spend much time with him. He was filming a new epic!

We had a great road trip which included some of Utah, Nevada, and California (and, on the way home to Texas, went thru Arizona & New Mexico). We visited family & friends along the way....first, we took Tara back to BYU, and Marcus caravaned with us too. Then we visited Valerie & Dick in Sparks; Eleanor, Mary Kay, & Roberta & Roy in San Francisco; Charite in (near) Los Angeles; Margaret & Tom in Sierra Madre; and Donna in Oceanside. We went to the Los Angeles & the San Diego Temples....so beautiful! We also made a little visit to Disneyland, and also the San Diego Zoo.

The Smithells

Hello Everyone! Tara, nice crawfishing. Wish we could have been there. Here are a few pictures. The first one is Tinkerbell and Peter Pan, the second one is from our Daddy's-back-from-contract-for-good-day-trip to Gettysburg. It was the only whole family shot even though Brig is not looking. The last is at Mt. Vernon. They had a children's area where they could dress up in cute colonial clothes. Brigit was wondering what was up with those sleeves and Liam was acting the dignified 3-year-old part. This is a practice post, I think you're supposed to type and then add the pictures, or not, anyway, they're still cute, the kids I mean, well us too, I just didn't want to sound too presumptuous.

Crawfishin'

So, Marcus and I went crawfishing on Friday, along with his roommate Lance. It was really fun, and ridiculously easy. Apparently crawfish aren't especially bright, and so we were able to catch a ton in about a half an hour. Anyway, here are some pictures from eating them on Saturday. Poor guys, they got thrown alive into a huge pot of boiling water, but they sure tasted good...





Apparently they pinch pretty hard too, because one of them got Lance's finger while he was washing them to get ready to be boiled. It actually made him bleed a lot, but he was nice enough to let Marcus take a picture of it before prying the crawfish off...

Rue Vautier 2

Hello to everyone. Fiona talked me into finally doing this. So here are some pictures of my studio in Brussels. It's very small, but inexpensive and recently renovated. Above is the view of the building. The couple that own the building are pretty nice, except they have a dog, and well, I'm not too fond of dogs. There are a few other flats in the building, so I have neighbors, I just haven't met them yet.

I'm enjoying Brussels. My flat is right down the street from the European Parliament building, it's about a 30 second walk. It's probably about 20 minutes into the city center with all the famous sights such as Grand Place etc...and about 20-25 minutes from the university, although there is a bus that takes less time.

Ok, the pictures...
This shows my bed and desk...obviously.

Bed.

In this picture you can see the edge of my desk, the fold down table on the wall where I eat, and the where I keep my clothes (and if you look closely enough, my coffee maker...pretty great...). You also see my "kitchen" area.

And I had to put this picture up...primarily because it is my favorite part of the apartment. This is quite literally the best shower I've ever had. For starters, it's clean (All-male apartments at BYU tend to occasionally have disgusting, or at least "less than adequate" showers , especially the last place I lived), it's a good size (as opposed to the rest of my flat being rather tiny), and it has cool little jets (those six round knobs) in addition to the detachable shower head, and a large stationary one. I love it.

Well, that's it for now. I'll let you all get back to your busy lives. Goodbye.

some more pictures

I guess I should put up some pictures of Marcus and me as well, and not just the ring...most of these are at the lighthouse in Seattle, and one of them is in Luckenbach, Texas (can you figure out which one?)