Playhouse Update

Major playhouse construction is complete - now the work has been handed to our resident Interior Designer to paint, carpet, and accessorize.... and yes that is a working barn door...

Date Night

This weekend Jake and I set out for a fun adventure. I say adventure because we knew going into it that things could go awry. Earlier this year I won a dress up contest at the antelope island midnight ride and we needed to use it before the New Year, so as part of Jakes birthday gift I made a reservation to (name withheld) in SLC. I had previously looked at photos of it online but just thought maybe they hadn’t updated their site this century. Clue #1 I guess. So we got off work early, dropped Leiden off at my sister Celest’s for her first sleepover party with cousins, and went to dinner with some friends. Then we headed for the Hotel. We didn’t realize it was the Light the night Party so it was a little crowded. As we neared the Hotel our hopes were up because the location seemed like it could be good given the expensive real estate it must be to have a hotel so near the Temple. Jake sent me in to figure out where we should park. As I entered the Lobby I was fairly certain we would not be spending the night there. I had my gift certificate in hand and the woman (old, frail, smoker, straggly hair, rotted teeth) was pleased to see me like she had been waiting for me for some time. She said we could drive around back and park in the garage then come back in and she would get us checked in and show us our room. I thought Oh Crap she is actually going to show us this room. Weird. She gave us a map of the city and told us we could take tracks any where because we were in the “Free Zone” she only had one so she went to another room to make us a copy. We just indulged her like we were out of towners. Apparently we were there in SLC a great time to enjoy all the festivities. Jake and I wanted to be sure we knew how to check out in case we would be leaving in oh lets say 10 minutes. She said we could bring our key back to her in the morning. We said oh we might be leaving really early. So she said we could leave the key in our room but they lock the parking garage at 10 pm until 6am. It was now about 9:40 so we knew we have to make our move quickly. We walked down the hall to our room to find what you see in these photos. We are not luxury snobs and this might be fine if you were in Europe or something but not 15 minutes away from your own bed. We snapped a few shots, wrote a thank you note and began to sneak out. We couldn’t bring ourselves to make the lady feel bad by telling her we just couldn’t bear to spend the night there so we took turns running down the hall being sure that she didn’t see us. (you can see the each door form her desk) My favorite part was the red light in the bathroom which I am sure was meant to be a warming light but there was no warmth coming from it so it was more like a red light district. Anyway way fun.

Clubhouse

This weekend we spent Saturday building a clubhouse for Leiden at Envy. We have some high hopes for it and she loves it so far. After we finished construction for the day we stopped by the mall to get an early start on some Christmas shopping. We obviously haven't been shopping much because Leiden was really taken with the first manekin we came to - which was pretty life like with a lot of detail. She looked hesitantly, then walked up to it and touched it's leg, then grabbed it's hand and started to shake. It was pretty hilarious. The rest of the time we were at the mall she kept wanting to stand by the manekins and do their same pose. Here is one picture showing her posing with three plain manekins.

New beginnings with look backs

I know this might seem kind of lame but I came across this article online and I just wanted who ever wanted to read it have the opportunity to. We are not big on sharing our political views but we both feel the same about who is now going to be our former President.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122584386627599251.html

Fall Fun

This month has gotten a little better than the last. Sorry for leaving the depressing one up for so long. Jenn and Rob (Jakes sister) got married and little Leidens dress was so cute. She spent most the time by the refreshment table like her mommy. I'm sure there will be lost of cute candid photos to come from that day. One of the most fun things we did this month was go to Corn Bellies. It's a corn maze but with a ton more things than just a maze. There was a bouncing pillow thing, cool slides, pig races, trike tracks and duck pond races. I think the best part was when the guys got to play dress up. Aren't they all so pretty? Jeremy looks a little too good in his emo wig. The maze was actually the boring part. We also got settled into our new Envy store in draper after breaking our backs moving out of the old one. We moved so we didn't have to pay rent any more and so our pricing could be better for our clients. Most of our work comes from be going to people homes to me bossy and spend their money? Isn't my job great? We had to do a little touch up of the stucco on the outside so Jake and I took turns scrubbing and painting in the rain. The new store turned out really nice and we had a good turn out for our open house. Leiden is getting pumped up about wearing her Halloween costume. She picked out a giraffe this time. We have had a ton of support from our friend over our trauma of last month and we appreciate all who thought of us. Thanks.

Disappointment

Well, today we went in for a viability scan to hear a heartbeat for the new baby but the doctor could not see signs of a viably pregnancy. His best assessment was that we had what he called a molar pregnancy. (Don’t really know if I am typing that right or not) Basically he said that my lining was thickening like a normal pregnancy and that the embryo had attached and was still attached but that it did not continue to develop properly. He said that it only happens about 1 in every 2,000 pregnancies. So we have to go in for more testing and probably have surgery to have some tissue removed. Needless to say we are very sad today and are having to rethink the way our life is going to be laid out at least when it comes to family and size. I know that the Lord is watching out for us and everyone has different trials so we will just try to endure this part of ours well. Thanks for everyone’s prayers as we went thought this process. Better luck next time I guess.

Catch up

It really has been over a month since I last posted anything. People are probably going to get sick of looking at my blog because it never changes. Oh well. I think in the last post I mentioned the Midnight ride and I found the photo that was in the Davis Clipper. Leiden has seen a lot of Akbar lately and now thinks his name is Bawkar, close enough I guess. Jenn Seethaler got married this week and that was an entire day of partying, eating and fun. Jake and I have been working non stop to get the new Envy location ready and the old store ready for its move. So for any one interested we have 50% off all our floor model items and are moving into the new space October 1rst. I know 50% is crazy but we just thought it would be nice and easy for people. I think the best part of Blogs are peoples photos so here are a few and I will post more from Jenns wedding when we get them downloaded. Since Jake has been managing the blog lately I haven't gotten the chance to say how I excited I am to be prego. Not prego like the sauce but the other kind of prego. I feel so lucky to live in a time when I can even have the opportunity to do anything like invitro. I know some people have issues with messing around with things that don't come natural but for me and my family it is a huge blessing. We love out little Leiden and want as many as we can afford to have. Till next time.

It Worked!

After an extremely emotional Sunday we went in for the prgnancy blood test this morning. They told us they would let us know by 12 and finally at 12.01 they called and gave us the good news. The numbers were in the normal range for 1 baby and we are very excited. Thank you SO much for all of your fasting and prayers on our behalf. We will keep you posted with updates..

New Embryos

Over the past couple of months Manon and I have been going through the process of IVF again. I won't get into all the details, but the good news is we got some great embryos and yesterday Manon had two of them transferred back. The procedure went great and now Manon is on bed rest for a couple of days to help them stick. We'll be going in for a pregnancy test on September 8th.....

This image is of the two embryos we transferred at 5 days old. At this point the embryos are 32+ cells.

Leiden's New Bed

Well Leiden upgraded last night to a "big girl" bed. She was pretty pumped up about it all night running all round while we were setting it up and climbing all over the place. It was pretty weird to think that now she can roam about the house in the night all by herself. When it was actually time to go to bed she changed her mind and said that she didn't want to sleep in a big girl bed, but we read a story and put her to bed and pretty soon she was fast asleep. One bonus though, she actually slept for an hour and a half past her usual wake up time. At 8.30 in fact I had to go wake her up because she was still asleep.

July

I have decided that this blogging thing is kind of nerdy and most people go way over board. I just can't keep up with people that update every week. I like to read about others and want them to stay updated but I am only going to post once a month with no guarantees.

July is Jakes favorite month. He likes July like most people like Christmas. On the 4th we got up early to see the Riverton Flag raising ceremony which is always a treat. This year especially because one of the old guys from the firing row wanted to keep shooting is gun way after everyone else was done and the guy leading the pledge was so overcome with patriotism that he forgot how the pleg really goes leaving the audience totally confused. Then we can home for breakfast and floated down the Provo river. It was unbearably cold but also very fun. Jeremy got his first taste at hitchhiking with Jake to get back up the river.

We went with the Smith family to Flaming George for our only summer vacation. We camped with Leiden and she loved it. She loved swimming and tubing with her cousins. We also celebrated her 2 year birthday. She was spoiled with gifts. Jake was injured while playing with the boys. They like to find big rocks and push them off the cliffs as I assume most boys do. Jake slipped a little and wedged his foot into a rock to keep from sliding in with the rock. Luckily his brother-in-law, Jake grabbed him but he also almost got his arm bitten because Jake was in so much pain.

The very next week Jake took the older of the young men to a camp and had so much fun. He was very impressed as to how well all the boys got along and stuck together. View the video to see what happens when boys get together, and in my opinion the highlight of the trip. Envy was closed on the 24th so we took advantage of that day also. We went to fatcats for bowling and then did a little ice-blocking afterwards. That was capped off with a party at the smiths with fireworks. I won a costume competition on our midnight bike ride but I am still trying to get photos of it so I will post them if I get anything. We have a full calendar for Aug. including many Ice Cream Pirate events and a potential pregnancy so stay tuned.

Odds and Ends

This is just a few fun things that happened recently. On Fathers day my sister Haley sent a card to my dad that had a "boss for the day" tag in it. On the back she had hand written "just be sure to return this to Manon at the end of the day". She better not mess. Grandma Smith, Celest and I went to the Zoo with a bunch of Leiden’s cousins. One of the highlights was when they chased the Meer cats back and forth behind the glass that had obviously been seperated from the others for bad behavior. I had a day off a painted Leiden’s room kind of crazy. We went to Granpa Joe and waiting for family members to pass by to jump out and scare. The tree is so big you could seriously hide a hummer under it, its way cool so we took some photos in it. Opa stopped by Envy on his way home from a bike ride with his buddies. Leiden got out her bike and was totally devastated when she got to the corner after he had left and realized she wasn't actually going on a ride with him and she was getting ditched. She was unconsolable for about 20 mintues. Then lastly we took a couple family photos on Fathers day with the help of the Ashby’s.

Fathers Day

This week we celebrated Fathers Day. I actually tried to make it really great but messed up in a few areas. I planned way in advance what I wanted to get for Jake from Leidy and me. We went to the mall and shopped online and finally found what we were looking for on Ebay. I order really long basket ball shorts. They didn’t even ship till the Friday before. When it finally did ship I noticed that the address was to our old house. I've left a note on the door of our old house but here we are the Thursday after Fathers day and still no shorts. We had planned to go to the Smiths for a treat on Sunday night so the night before I attempted to bake two poppy seed cakes from a cupcake mix. I got the recipe from Oma Seethaler. In typical Manon style, they sunk totally flat in the middle. I was so ticked because I had fallowed the baking directions perfectly. (only to the cupcake specifications, which by the way does not work ok for cake style baking.) I tried to salvage them by cutting out the middle and just using the edges. When Jake got back from his meetings on I had prepared pancakes and bacon, only the bacon was burnt and I accidently poured too much cinnamon in the batter. Too much so that Jake smelled like cinnamon all day. But all in all we had a decent Fathers Day with the all the dads in our family.

Fat Lip

Leiden experienced her first real "owie" today. She was playing a game she loves to play matching keys into keyholes and then telling us proudly when she's got one right. She was trying keys out in the truck door and got it right so she ran over to pull my leg and said "Poppy Look!" I looked over and told her good job and she went running back to the truck to get the keys. In her excitement she got a little ahead of herself and tripped face first onto the concrete. The results were painful - one skinned knee and one majorly cut / fat lip. When I ran to pick her off the ground I immediately noticed blood all over. We took her into the bathroom and cleaned her up and the blood seemed to scare her as much as anyone. In all the pain the only thing that seemed to distract her from her crying was spraying Solorcaine on her cut. She thought it was "body bubbles" and the rest of the morning she kept asking for more bubbles on her owie.

3D - Fish, They're Coming

We had a fun family night activity of heading downtown to the Clark Planetarium for a 3D movie about the ocean with Leiden. She loves animals, but we didn't know how well she would hold up in a movie, but since it was only 45 minutes long we thought we'd give it a shot. She was really into the experience until the movie started, then she didn't want to wear her glasses or watch the movie, but once the fishes started swimming on the screen we convinced her to try the glasses for a minute. Her expression was priceless - she would put on the glasses and her mouth would literaly drop open with amazement and she would quickly grab the glasses to pull them off her face and see how close the fish was - when it wasn't right there in front of her on they'd go again. She did this for a good 5 minute set - amazed the whole time. She lost interest for the bulk of the movie but went in for more 3D fun at the end with the same look of amazement. Afterwards when we asked her how the fish movie was she kept saying - "They're Coming" because it looked like the fish were coming at you. We played around on the Mars and Moon exhibits for a while before heading home.

Memorial Day Fun

Saturday May 24th - Memorial weekend was great. We started it out with a BBQ on Saturday night at the Seethalers complete with Amanda and Steve, Jes and Melisa, Jenn and her roomate Amanda, Grandma Nye and Pat Haack, the Seethaler clan and us. We played games and had some fantastic Chicken and Hamburgers. The best my dad has ever BBQ'd if I dare say so. Leiden loved the corn and found a new fun game of taking toothpicks and making them stick in the holes on top of the salt and pepper shakers. Game night was a little split up so we made up some of our own games including a fun game of winding the tether ball to the top of the poll then standing as close to the poll as you dared and letting the ball unwind. If the ball hit you you were out, but if it didn't hit you whoever was standing closest to the poll won. It basically tests your limbo skills without moving - the ball swings to you and you lean. Afterwards we played a rousing game of Trouble with the Pop-O-Matic bubble. Finally we finished off the night with our spin on a cheesy "get to know you" question jar. Everyone would pull a get to know you question out of the jar then have to slip it in to conversation with the people who weren't involved in the game. It was hilarious to see how you could slip the answers to some of these questions into normal conversation.

Sunday May 25th - After church we headed down to Provo to see my Grandpa Joe and visit graves. The highlight there was playing in Grandpa's giant overgrown tree. We hid out - took some pics and scared Amanda and Steve and Mom, Dad, Sarah, Jenn, and Amanda when they showed up. Basically the routine was to hide in the tree near where their feet would be and come running out of them when they got settled out of the car. They let out some good screams and we had some good laughs. We left Provo to go to the Smith's for family dinner. The dinner was awesome we had pulled pork and ribs - it was D-licious. Leiden loves hanging out with her cousins.

Seethalers.com

So we just launched our new - extremely streamlined - new family site - www.seethalers.com. The idea is basically to be a portal to branch out to everyones unique websites and possibly also be a gathering place for some information like family email, calendar, stuff like that. For now as you can see there are just links out to a unique page or blog or whatever. If you want your own page or want me to update content let me know. Until then let me know what you think.....

1st, 2nd, 3rd

So a week ago we ran as a family in the Stake Family fun run. When we arrived at the Stake Center we were planning on just taking it easy and running as a family with Leiden in the chariot. Juliann Allen was there along with her husband Brad and son BJ so we knew the Allens were going to pose some tough competition for the Seethalers. Jeremy Ashby was also there so I knew my chances were out. We did our stretches, talked to friends and then right as the race was about to start Manon said to me, "You don't have to stay with me" and then the whistle blew. From that moment on Manon and Leiden were in it to win it. It was a brutal race, but Manon led the ladies for the whole course. In the end Jeremy Ashby proved unbeatable, but Leiden came in 2nd overall, I cam in third overall and Manon came in 1st of all the ladies! So it was a Seethaler family 1st, 2nd, and 3rd day!

Wheeler Farm

This past weekend we made a trip out to Wheeler Farm. We haven't been out there yet this year, but Leiden is even more in love with animals then ever so we thought we'd make the trip. The Jacksons met us there and right away Leiden was having a great time playing with Carter. As soon as we saw them she yelled "Hi Carter" and then they just chased each other around for 20 minutes while we ate some dinner. When we actually headed over to the farm they decided that they wanted to hold hands. It was way cute, because it was totally unprovoked and they just wanted to hold hands the whole time we walked around the farm. If one of them got away from the other one either Leiden would yell "Carter my hand!" or Carter would say "I want to hold Leidens hand." Needless to say the animals were a big hit with Leiden. She loved feeding the ducks, petting the lambs that had such soft wool that she loved squishing her fingers in just like her mommy. Both Leiden and Carter wanted to feed the horse's, but as soon as you'd lift them up with a handful of grass and the horse turned his head they'd drop the grass and reer back afraid the horse was going to take off their whole hand. Leiden was pretty sad when we had to leave, but we had a great time.

St. George

Excerpts from another great letter Manon wrote to Dan....

I think your mom told you that we all went to St. George. It was fun but she left out some of the funniest details. I guess she did tell you about the bike thing that was totally crappy. So some of the fun or funny things were:

Entertainment of Leiden.- the first day we were there Dad took us on a tour of the facilities and on the way we found I gigantic stink bug. Everyone was so entertained watching Leidy talk and look at the bug. As we walked away she kept saying bye buggie, bye buggie.

Sleeping arrangements – Sara wanted to make a deal with Rob. She wanted to sleep on the pull out (probably because Dad just got done saying how it was the coveted bed and you got it a lot of the time) and have Jenn sleep on the sofa. Then Rob could have a room all to himself. Needless to say Jenn wasn’t having that.

Hand Pong – They made you buy the ping pong balls and check out the paddle from the club house which is a ways away from the games so Jake came up with a new game where you play with your palms instead of paddles. There were a few rule alterations but we had a competition with Rob and Jenn. It was a tight match but we came out victorious.

Kiddy Pool – We bought Leidy a new swim suit that has a built in floater. She looks kind of like the Hulk when she wears it only it’s pink. Anyway the kiddy pool is only 2 feet deep so she was just bobbing around like crazy.

Now it’s back to real life I guess.

Attached?

I know it happens to all of us. You get some "thing" that your like or that has sentimental value to you for some reason and you hang on to it way past it's useful life. In my family it's more then just a fear of letting go - it's a downright syndrome. My Grandma Irene was the first I knew who really showed how bad this attached syndrome could be. When she died her house was stacked floor to ceiling with what must have been every paper she ever received. Magazines, Notes, Newspapers, there literally was just a path between the mess from her front door to the bathroom then another path to the kitchen. It was outrageous.

Then there is me. When Manon and I got married I had boxes and boxes of momentos. Manon was nice enough to find ways to help me overcome my problem. She even made me take pictures with my momentos before throwing them away. Everything from old Far Side Calendars to an old cast (that one really grossed Manon out).

Then there is my Grandpa. A picture says a thousand words so enjoy this picture of his daily sitter for the past 30+ years....

The BBQ

Jake and Dad went up to the old house in Sandy this morning (Saturday) to pick up the BBQ and remove the tree that was planted in honor of Grandpa Nye. Jake said your mom was laying the pressure on big time to ask where the tether ball because they didn’t get it when they got the poll. Both Dad and Jake felt too stupid to really ask for it back after over 2 years. Ha ha! Oh that is funny, lol. We are going to have a BBQ tonight with the newly recovered BBQ. Your Mom and Dad took Jake and I to Café Rio last night with a gift card your mom won. I finally found something I like there. So that was awesome. While we were eating your dad said that he wanted someone to plan a party for him next weekend. He said I will just do it myself if no one will take charge for me. We all asked why do think you deserve a party? And he reminded us that he is going to bike ride a marathon. I thought that was a good enough reason for a party so I volunteered.

A while ago Jenn made Leiden a little book about Leiden for Leiden and it has a photo of you in it. We read it just about every night lately and I always ask her, who is that? She says Dan and then sometimes you get a kiss. It’s super funny. Tomorrow your family is going up to grandpas again maybe we will go too.
We didn’t go to grandpas but we did have that BBQ. Dad went grocery shopping for it so we were missing a few things like cheese for the burgers, ketcup, drinks. Your dad did get a new tether ball though.


Today we went to the Icecream place to pick up 3,000 ice creams for the BYU party thing (I think I told you about that) but in case I didn’t. We got a referral from our friend that owns ICECREAMMAN.com. He was asked to do an event for BYU but was not going to be able to so he recommended us. We charged then cost for ice cream and then a flat fee on top of that to have us come out. So anyway we bought a new freezer thinking that might fit the ice cream but we were wrong. We picked up half the order and both freezers were full all the way. Jake ran to a neighbors to borrow another chest freezer to fit the rest of the spidermans.

The party is Tuesday night from 7-11:30 or something so Jake figured we are going to have to hand out 1 ice cream every 4 seconds. We are scrambling today for helpers because we don’t know if we can give out that much ice cream just the two of us. Where are you when we need you?

Anit-MormAn?

For those of you who can't quite read this sign I saw at General Conference Priesthood session it reads "Official Anti-Morman Literature". Oh the irony.