Hotlantan' the ATL

What's up everyone! So... back in January I accepted a job with AT&T and we promptly moved to Atlanta, Georgia during the following weeks. I drove a Penske rental truck and towed our Corolla behind it while Mallory and Nixon had the pleasure of flying to Atlanta. It was a long trip with stops in Provo to see my good friend, Ben Stevens; Albuquerque to see my old roommate, Doug Taylor; Dallas, and then Atlanta. It was a total of 42 hours on the road in four days. I got to see many parts of the country that I have never seen, but then again everything from Boise to Mississippi was pretty much ugliness. The Arches National Park area in Utah was pretty, but from Albuquerque to Atlanta I was following a huge storm and didn't see the sun for a couple of days. It also snowed in Texas (yeah... who would've thought). It also snowed a little in Atlanta twice and everyone freaked out and shut down the entire metro area. But that was back in February.

We are glad we made it to Atlanta. I am very fortunate to have survived the trip when I arrived at our apartment complex I noticed that the trailer hitch had nearly busted in half! I had just gotten off the freeway in rush hour traffic too. When I backed the car off the trailer, the tongue snapped off completely!

Fortunately, Penske never really asked questions and I didn't have to pay a thing!

I work on the 15th floor of a building in Dunwoody, Georgia. It's in the northern part of metro Atlanta. This is a shot of from my office towards downtown Atlanta in the distance.


Nixon has enjoyed Atlanta so far. Although, he does miss the attention his grandmas give him.

He loves to stand on his rocking chair and check himself out in our mirror.

You'll also notice that he has a thing for playing in his toy box.

Nixon got sick one week. It was sad.

Holly and Dorn came to visit. We had good times at the World of Coca-Cola and the Georgia Aquarium, which is the world's largest aquarium. We also hit up an Atlanta Hawks game. They played against the Charlotte Bobcats. We got to see Michael Jordan and the Hawks won in OT as Joe Johnson hit the game winner at the buzzer.

The jellyfish were my favorite.

Nixon's first play experience in a sandbox!

We got some good berries and let Nixon go to town.

As sweet as Nixon is, he is still a little stinker sometimes and just doesn't get what he wants. Such is the case here:



Over the Easter weekend we went to Charlotte and visited with Melanie (Jebb) and Kenny Winn. We had a fun time with them and Nixon loved playing with their daughter, Madison. We hung out with Melanie's family just north of Charlotte for the holiday. Mallory dyed eggs for the first time in her life! I really thought she had better parents than that. ;) The kids also went on a little Easter egg hunt. It was quite fun even though Nixon had a better time taking the eggs out of the baskets than in to them.

This is a nice mansion in the South in the neighborhood where Melanie's family resides.

This weekend we took a little trip to Athens - home of the University of Georgia. Today was their annual G-Day spring football game. It was a lot of fun and quite a bit different than the Boise State experience. The stadium holds over 92,000 people and it was nearly half full for the spring scrimmage! It's a beautiful stadium on a gorgeous campus. I wish we were here when fall hits so we could take in some of the action.

What!! An Update?

As you all can see, we haven't been into the updating of the blog as of late. Mallory has found a new passion for reading, yet still hasn't found her creative edge to actually write any posts. It's really not that hard. With as much time as she spends stalking all of you who actually read this you would think that she could just copy and paste tidbits of your lives and put it into our blog. :) Beware, she is watching you.

She hates writing on the blog so much that she challenged me to a game of H-O-R-S-E on the mini 4 foot plastic basketball hoop in the basement. Loser had to write on the blog. After I won the first game, she suckered me into switching balls and doing a best of 3 series. Unfortunately, the game had nothing to do with skill and everything to do with equipment. I lost. She finished me off by bouncing the ball off the floor into the hoop twice in a row. Yeah... tell me about it. I'd like to point out that my ball was flat. And in case you were wondering, this is what happened the last time I lost a bet:

Poor kid is going to be traumatized for the rest of his life. And it's not just the pink puffy shirt and the over-sized bow on his head, it's as though he knows that he just got caught red-handed. Ladies and gentlemen, parenting at its finest.

Maybe I should have let Nixon play some ball for me. He is a natural. We went down to Utah for Conference Weekend back in October to take part in the semiannual Dunkball All-Star game. He's just like his daddy. Can you say "Thrunk!"


Nixon has grown fond of his little rocking chair in the basement. Well... he will sit in it and pose for a second before he decides to climb out. Cute nonetheless.

He's such a cheeseball with that smile!

Ugly duck pajamas. He will look at this picture when he is older and wonder why we chose to dress him in such a manner.

Nixon is very curious these days. He crawls around everywhere looking for ways to get into trouble. He also likes to test his skills by crawling into tight spaces. He loves to crawl through the complicated leg bars of our kitchen chairs and even the kitchen table. (Note: the following pics do not show said chairs and table)





He's pretty funny. Nixon even tried to stick his head into this brass vase:

He also like to see his reflection in shiny objects such as the sliding glass door, or in this case - the volleyball pole hole cover in the church gym during priesthood, and give himself open mouth french kisses.

And yes, I did take that picture in the middle of the lesson in between pretending to look up scriptures and playing Blackjack Free on my iPhone.

Nixon also loves to play with his cousins. His cousin, Gavin, is such a crack up and has been calling him "Nixeyface." It's cute. He learned that one from hearing Mal say it a couple times.

We will post more later on. We should have some good pictures from Christmastime activities and what not to post pretty soon - that is assuming I lose another game of H-O-R-S-E on purpose.

End of Summer update!

We decided to post some recent pictures on Nixon because we haven't updated this for a while and he is so cute. Over the past weekend we went to Sweet, Idaho for a family reunion with Mallory's family.

Nixon thought he would show Liv what's up by completely owning her on the blanket during the picnic.

I'm pretty sure we've reached the three count little guy... she's pinned.

And now she's trying to tap out. Way to go Nixon!!

My oldest sister, Alicia, took some cute pictures this past week as well. Her two kids, Ellie and Lucas, are on the left while Jaxon (son of my step-brother, Mike) is on the right.
I like how Jaxon is the only one actually looking at the camera while the rest are smiling at the crazy faces I was making behind my sister. They also were all eating cookies and have the crumbs all over their faces.

Yeah... he's a drooler. He is teething and has his two bottom incisors in (24, 25).

Below are some portraits that were taken on July 30th. He was five months old then. (Click to enlarge).

After the "treasure chest" pictures were taken, Nixon left a little treasure for the photographers by peeing all over.

Pinky: "Gee, Brain, what are we going to do tonight?"

Brain: "The same thing we do every night, Pinky - try to take over the world!"