Glory free at last

Freeing the Glory felt good. Here is the email I am sending Aaron tonight:

My Dearest Aaron,

My captures have let me email you a brief note (not more than 150 words) to let you know that I am safe. They will take the liberty of editing it if they feel I have devulged too much information. It has been a very terrifying experience being held here at ########. #### has been especially mean to me. They have ##### and #### me, and then they made me do #### ##### in a row!!!! Although I am not allowed to see you, please visit my blog at www.glorysbigadventure.blogspot.com so that you will continually know what I am up to. Please hurry and met their demands so that we can be reunited once again.

Love,
The Glory

Check it out!! Link from the above address or look to the right and find my lind titles The Glory and link from there.

Mad Skills

It is really amazing to see how much a baby learns. So this week I have noticed that Lizzie has been picking up some amazing skills that I never realized she knew. She is getting so smooth about moving toys between her hands and fast about picking up new toys that she wants. She has also become so wiggly and seriously trying to move around to grab new toys and objects. She still has yet to master crawling or even effectively creeping around on the floor, but she is rolling around like an old pro. She also has learned how to pull her self up to standing from sitting by holding onto our hands. In recent days she has also become extremely ticklish, it is soooo funny I just love to hear her little giggle. It seems that she has learned all of this so fast. Seven months has just flown.

As far as other news in our life. Most of it is just the same. We are still waiting to hear back from the colleges that Jai has applied to. Jai's sister Paris just had a baby boy yesterday. Unfortunately he doesn't have a name yet, and I don't know what I have done with my camera so we have no pictures at the moment. I think we will be visiting them this weekend anyway. He is our second nephew, to be added to the mix of six nieces and the seventh niece on the way (my sister-in-law Cassie is having another girl in July). Other than that everything is still the same. Laundry to fold, baby to entertain, and a room to clean. I hope you all are doing well.

The Glory of it all

Okay, so I haven't updated the blog on what has happened with Aaron's wrist rest. Apparently its nickname is The Glory. Well he did not easily find our Ransom note. We had to have Jai leave an anonymous message on his work phone. He finally found it on Friday and some how figured out it was down at the SV office. It might have been the keyboard, we didn't realize that we had the only one that looked like it. Of course we never admitted to have The Glory, but it was getting pretty tense there. On Monday we received a note with a large bag of M&M's. It read (spelling and grammatical errors have not been corrected and the victim's last name has been omitted due to privacy issues):

Dearest Evil Kidnappers,

Elvo request more time to be given to your demands. Elvo has recentely suffered a tragic accident with a pepsi can, some pyrotechnics and sheep. His hair has been badly damages and request some extra time so he can regrow his proper pompadore. I have included the bag of M&M's and hope this will be sufficient to keep my treasured possession safe until I hear your response.

Thank you

Aaron Cxxxxx
Victim

So that night I wrote a draft of our response letter. It read:

Aaron,

Rather than demanding video proof of Elvo's unfortunate accident, we believe you deserve a little break. We will give Elvo until Easter to recuperate and shoot the video (we have nothing against Elvo and wish him only the best on his journey to good health). In the mean time to show you our good will, we will let your treasured possession go, but not into your hands. We will let it roam free around California while tracking it with our own sophisticated GPS tracking system. Your loved one will not be captive anymore, but it will not be returned to you until ALL of our demands are met. We will let it contact you in the next few days, please check your mailbox or email to confirm its safety.

Sincerely,
The Evilest of Kidnappers

So I sent it to the other three people in the office in on the joke to get their okay on the note. Then my manager Scott cracks and shows Aaron the email before it was completely ready (I was going to send it through a junk email account that I have) So now Aaron knows who exactly is in on the joke, but we still haven't cracked and admitted our guilt. We are going to continue and have The Glory start blogging about its adventures. In a few days you will have more info on where to find the blog and what happens next.

Messing with Aaron's head

So there is this manager in our Ventura (VTA) office that keeps making fun of my co-worker Vasty's hat (it looks like a railroad conductor's hat).

So as Vasty was complaining to Jenny in the VTA office, Jenny had a brillant idea of taking his keyboard wristrest that he is completely obsessed with and sending it to us in the Simi Valley (SV) office as a hostage. It arrived Monday morning disguised as a box of sheet protectors. Aaron immediately assumed that Jenny or Laura in the VTA office had stolen it again from him. So last night I wrote the ransom note below.

Then this morning we took the following pictures:

and are sending the note and the pictures later today in a sealed envelope with an unsuspecting technician to drop it off to Jenny.

In the mean time we have received a missing poster:

(that we hung up all over the SV office) and an Amber Alert via e-mail.

AMBER ALERT!


MISSING OFFICE SUPPLY!

Missing from Ventura Pest Control on Aaron’s desk.

Last time it was seen was on Friday afternoon hanging out with its friends Candy Keyboard and Kingston Hockey Puck

He has no idea it was us. Stay tunned to see what happens next...

The Eight Days of Valentine

Okay it may sound a little lame, but I don't get to dress my baby every day. I always come home from work wondering what her daddy dressed her in today and it usually turns out to be the same few outfits that her dad LOVES. So for the week of Valentine's Day I was awarded the opportunity to pick out her outfits each day. In observence of the holiday they are all either pink or red.

Sunday: Lizzie awoke from a nap and was trying to wake up her daddy

Monday: I don't know what's up with her hair but its crazy

Tuesday: If anyone knows homestarrunner.com this onsie is from that web site

Wednesday: Not to much to say about this one

Thursday: Valentine's day and the day of her doctor's appt. The doctor said her body is in the 23rd percentile of children her age but her head is in the 98th percentile. I always knew she was a bobble head.

Friday: She wore this outfit for an hour. She had a slight fever from her shots the day before so I put this on just to take a picture

Saturday: She was sooo tired all day that this is the only good picture of her

Sunday: Nuff said

Lizzie meeting the new baby

Elizabeth staring at cousin Kendal held by Grandpa Ellis

So Lizzie met her cousin for the first time today. She gave Kendal the same type of attention she shows to dogs. She tried yelling at her to get her attention and wanted to touch her (which we won't let her do until she learns how to touch softly) Overall it was pretty successful. At the moment she is still the center of attention for her grandparents and aunts and uncles, which is the way she likes it. I can't wait until Kendal, Lizzie, and the cousin on the way can take a picture together. It will be fun. They will all be about seven months apart in age from each other. A few more weeks and the next baby will be here. The last picture is of her and Uncle Jason when he came to visit last weekend. He is in a tight race with Uncle Craig for being Lizzie's favorite Uncle.

Mel-Dawg

For all those who know Melanie (Dance) Hallburg, I actually talked to her on Saturday. She is pregnant with her second boy (due March 12th) and is having a blast with Payton at the same time. Chad is almost halfway done with his four year program. Her parents have been called as English speaking Mission Presidents, but they do not know where they are going yet. Look in the Church News the next few months for more information. Not too much is different. Both of her brothers are married and do not have any kids yet. Two of her sisters are at BYU and little Emily is a Senior in High School (boy does time go by really fast) If anyone wants her number just email me and I will give it to you. Thought all would want to know since we hardly hear how she is doing.

Sunshine, Shopping, and Surprises

"Hanging with Big Baby Head and Monkey"

For the last few days we have had really nice weather for Southern California. Probably about mid 70's during the day and perfectly cool at night. It really doesn't feel like the beginning of February, but its so nice that I don't mind.

So this weekend has been a little crazy for us. It all started when my mother-in-law called us to have dinner with them on Friday night because Jai's brother Jason was in town from Colorado on business. After dinner we hung out at my in-laws house with the family. Just as we were about to leave my mother-in-law got a phone call that sounded like someone was seriously hurt. Then we found out that it just was her normal over-reaction to finding out that her daughter Jessie just had her baby. So we all packed our stuff at 9:15pm and headed off to the hospital. There we all met our new niece (except for Lizzie) Kendal Bailey Ellis who was only a few hours old. After a few more hours, we left the hospital and got home in time to pass out right before midnight.

Saturday morning was filled with laundry, dealing with an extremely tired baby and going to the store to get medicine for Elizabeth's first diaper rash and a few new binkies that don't irritate her sensitive skin.

We then went shopping at a local outlet mall to get Jai some new pants. Lizzie celebrated by:
wearing her sunglasses
and passing out halfway through.

Not only did we get Jai some shorts and jeans, but we also found a perfect outfit for baby Jeffs. As we were in a children's clothing store, Jai points across the store and told me that was the outfit that he wanted to get him. I would tell you what it was, but I don't want to spoil the surprise for Kelli. We will see you soon, so you don't have to wait too long to find out.

Our weekend isn't over yet. Stay tunned for our next few posts "Lizzie meeting the new baby" and "The Eight days of Valentine"

6 months!!!!

Okay I have been trying this entire week to post and am finally able today. On Sunday Lizzie turned six months! We took a few pictures.

This is Elizabeth getting her hair done. It was the first time she didn't wiggle and complain a whole lot during the hair perfecting process.

After Church we had a baby shower for one of her aunts. It of course was during her nap time but too much was going on that she didn't want to sleep. She played with her second cousin Jacquline and cooed at everyone that walked by her.

By the end of the party she passed out from too much fun.

The next picture is one of my favorites. It was taken a few weeks ago. I had taken the pig tails out of her hair and she was sad and crying about it. It was soooo funny that we decided that we needed to take pictures of it. Once she realized we were taking pictures of her she tried to stop crying and this is the picture:

I will try to be better at posting blogs. I know funny things happen everyday, but its trying to find the time to get to the internet to tell you all about them that is a little hard for me. Soon she will have two more cousins and tons of pictures with them so there will be more I promise.