Nerd Alert

How about a post about something other than our trips or Adelyn?!?! Many of you know that I majored in Linguistics at BYU. While there I bought this book about the origin of certain words and never really read it. Well I was flipping through it this morning (after putting it the bathroom for some potentially dull moments) and came across "OK." Since I have heard the word OK in every country I have travelled to, I got curious. And just in case you all are curious, I thought I would share the entry.

America's greatest contribution to the English language and indeed to languages all over the world is a joke. Or at least that's how it began. In the summer of 1838 newspaper columnists in Boston thought nothing funnier than to reduce a phrase to its initials (with an explanation in parentheses). To add to the humor, columnists sometimes misspelled the abbreviations. One 1838 example was O.W., meaning "all right," with blatant misspellings of both initial letters. That set the stage for an even more outrageous misspelling in March 1839: O.K. translated as "all correct." The joke was that neither O nor K was correct.

O.K. might have died out if "Old Kinderhook," President Martin Van Buren (born in Kinderhook, New York), hadn't been running for reelection in 1840. "O.K. clubs" supporting him were established throughout the country. Old Kinderhook lost, but O.K. won a permanent place in American English. Until about 1900, however, O.K. remained obscure. But the twentieth century turned out to be an OK century, perhaps encouraged by scholarly President Woodrow Wilson's use of "okeh" on official documents. (He spelled it "okeh" because he mistakenly thought it came from the Choctaw Indian language.)

So there you have it! Then I got online and did a little more research and it turns out that Ok's origin is actually still debated by scholars. Crazy. Could it be America's greatest contribution to worldwide linguistics?? It's certainly a popular one. The Chinese use it (in Chinese) all the time. Have you heard it in other countries where you have been?

Family Reunion

We just got back this week from a nice week long visit to Idaho for Aaron's family reunion. Even though I joke about there not being much to do in Idaho, we always have such a great time when we go there. We wish they all lived closer...especially now that we have a kid to brave the drive with. Even though it took us two hours longer than usual so she could eat, it was worth it.

I realized though that I didn't take too many pics of reunion festivities, but many of the papoose. I guess no matter where I am I am baby obsessed. It seemed someone was always taking pics, but I think it was Hillary, so you'd have to ask her if you want more! Here are a few pics that I uploaded, but I will post more on Facebook (better join if you haven't yet!!) so those of you who are in them can have them if you want them.

Here is a great one of Aaron with his grandpa at the at the cool reunion place they rented for the weekend. He is definitely one of my favorite of Aaron's relatives and I really appreciate the love and welcome he shows for all of us "in-laws." But everyone in Aaron's family has treated me like family right from the very beginning and always make me feel right at home when we visit.

We didn't take Adelyn's tub with us, so I had to bathe her in the deep sink in the great room. It was amazing the crowd of ladies that swarmed the area with the cameras and their cooing once I started the washing. Can you blame them?!?!

And here he is...one of the highlights of the weekend...the infamous Ned Bowen just happened to show up in Aaron's parents ward while we were there (even though he is in a different ward) and sit right in the middle of the clan. What are the odds???? It sounds like Aaron has great plans for this little photo shoot, so don't worry.

We got back from the reunion and what did Aaron spot in our backyard??? My favorite flowers, in full bloom. Did we plant them?? No. Did we do anything to help them?? No. We weren't even aware of their existence.

That's been a fun thing about this house. Even though the backyard was a jungle when we moved in because the house was vacant for so long, you can tell they put a lot of effort into things when they lived here. New flowers pop up all the time...like these.



Now if we only knew anything about gardening so that we can keep everything alive and beautiful....

Happy Memorial Day

Hey! This last weekend we actually had perfect weather for the holiday traditionally marking the first of summer. Sometimes in Washington that isn't quite the case--last year we had hail on our Memorial Celebrating!!! This year though it was gorgeous and we took the opportunity to hike up to Lena Lake in the Olympics. Gorgeous!!!



On the way back down Aaron wanted to wander off the trail for a little bit of relaxation next to the flowing stream and mossy rocks. He and the little one were having a nice rest here....until he felt the warmth and knew her diaper had leaked all over him!!!



This last pic I had to throw in for fun. On the way home I looked back at Adelyn and she was just sitting happily in her carseat sucking her foot...so limber!

I hope you guys all had a great Memorial Day too!!!

Rollin with her Homies

We are happy to report that last Monday, just shy of her 4-month birthday, Adelyn learned how to roll over. We didn't get the very first one on film, but here is the second.

And as a bonus, here is a super cheesy picture that we snapped trying to catch her new favorite trick--sucking on one or two fingers from each hand simultaneously.

Spring Seattle Sunbreaks

I know that April is supposed to bring showers, especially when you live in the Pacific Northwest, but we have had some great breakthrough days over the past few weeks. This was a couple of Sundays ago and we all just had to go out and lay in the grass. I love the little look on Adelyn's face here with Kathryn...like she's got something up her sleeve.



My grandparents and aunt and uncle were visiting that weekend, so the next day we headed out for an awesome scenic drive to Mt. Saint Helens and Mt. Rainier. Good timing for Aaron's birthday! Somehow he always gets sun for it.



Here is St. Helen's.



This week we have had some more good weather, so we had a little picnic down on the sound for FHE. There was an awesome view of Rainier, but we couldn't get a shot with the mountain and with Adelyn smiling at the same time. We did manage to catch a lot of slobber though, if you like those sorts of pics!

This one is a good still shot of her after we filmed the video from my last post.

This is her with mommy in her Easter (blessing) dress. When she gets older, please don't tell her how I deprived her of two separate dresses for her special days!!

Fun Videos

Since moving into our new house, we haven't been able to find our USB cord for the camera, so posting has been a bit slow. However, today I finally found it at my parents' house so I thought I would share some stuff. This video is from the first time she laughed, but we didn't actually catch the laugh because we were too slow with the camera. We did catch her suspicious look at the camera, which I think is priceless in its own right. She still isn't too trusting of the camera.

This is another, more recent attempt to film her laughing, and yet again we failed. It's still fun to watch though, if you can handle the fact that I filmed it sideways. If I were smart enough on the computer, I could fix that up for you. Any tips?

Baby Blessing

I can't believe that I haven't posted these sooner. I uploaded them right after the blessing and then just left the post in my draft file. So sorry. I waited because we were going to take a picture of the little lady all by herself in her blessing dress (which we forgot to do on the actual day), but since we have still yet to do that, I figured I will go ahead and post these and add that later.

Here we are with the little runt not looking at the camera.



In our church, we like to have the fathers give the babies a name and a blessing shortly after they are born. We had hers on March 15th, in honor of Erika's 29th birthday :) and so that Aaron's family could come over from Idaho for it. We were lucky enough to have all the Anderson crew here for the long weekend, except for Brady who is on a mission in North Carolina. For more pics of their visit, you can ceck out my facebook.

Aaron's aunt and uncle also drove all the way down from Camano Island...in the SNOW at the crack of dawn Sunday morning, so we were glad to have them there as well.



Now here's a shot of the Baria clan, minus Ben and Liz who were away at school. You can see that Jadyn was having a bit of a fit getting her picture taken for some reason (usually her favorite thing), so we're a bit rushed!!



And here is the yummy spread of food at the brunch at our house afterward...and Jenn and Michelle who did such a great job making it look so pretty. You guys are the best!!

We are so grateful to have such a cute little papoose and thank our family for coming and helping us celebrate her birth. Can't believe she is three months already!!!