The Results Are In

The Results Are In.... 

We are having a little boy! I mean, in this family, was there any other possibility? We are so excited.  I guess the little blue harness was foreshadowing something after all. 

Here's the little guy sucking his thumb.

Such a happy little guy resting on his pillow

In Which We Almost Make an Announcement

So, fun news this week! We had thought that we were going to find out if our baby is a boy or a girl at 20 weeks, but since we're going to be out of town, the doctor said that we could find out at eighteen! That's this next Friday! So, in honor of that, let the guessing begin! I'm even making a poll here for your guessing convenience!

Will Cliff and Nancy's baby be a boy or a girl?

Boy

Girl

online poll creator

So go ahead and weigh in! We'll be sure to let the world know when we find out! We will be happy with either one, of course, but we think it will probably be a girl, since combined in both of our families there is only one girl grandchild so far. That's how the odds on these things work, right? Keep an eye on this page for the coming news!

In Which We Climb a Peak

So, it's been a while since we've gotten out hiking, at least with a camera. We went canyoneering on Veteran's Day, which was fun, though we got a little lost (nothing bad, I was never actually lost. I knew how to get back where I had come from, just not where I was going). Anyway, it's been a nice Thanksgiving break, and for the last day (we totally get Monday off) we decided to do a hike. We hit one of the most popular hikes in the Phoenix area, Piestewa Peak, also known as Squaw Peak. It was a good time. Pretty short, but it had a great view at the top. Here are some pictures.

View from the start of the trail.

Nancy on the way up.

I look awesome, in case you didn't notice.

Nancy at the summit.

The two of us at the summit.

Camelback Mountain.

Nancy on the way back down.

Looking back at the summit.

So, it was a fun outing. Just took a couple hours, and wasn't too difficult, which was good for Nancy. In other news, our baby is doing great. Also, we've been doing a little do it yourself project, completing a dresser that we bought on craigslist. We bought it from the lady without the cloth on the inside of the drawers, and Nancy has been gluing it in and I've been putting on the hardware. So, that's all we've got for the moment. This is Captain Danger out.

In Which We Return to Sea Level

Well, we're a few weeks removed from this event now, but I wanted to put it on the blog just the same. We had our fall break a few weeks ago, and it was fantastic. It's nice that we're finally getting to reap the rewards of being teachers. For our fall break, we decided to go to California and go to the beach. It was a pretty easy drive. We got on I-10 and kept on going. We went to the beach right after we got to our hotel, and it was awesome. We stayed in a hotel that was like three blocks from Redondo Beach. Here are some pictures.

Nancy on the beach. It was a pretty nice one.

Swimming in the ocean!

Nancy even got in the water with me a little, even though she thought it was freezing.

Then we got to watch the sunset at the beach!

That's just a random person I was too lazy to crop out.

That night we just walked around the area. It actually felt a little like being back in Korea, except that people weren't speaking Korean. However, there were quite a few shops and churches in the area that had Korean writing on their signs, and there was a place that sold Korean style seafood on the pier. We ate dinner at Dickey's Barbecue Pit, though, so we didn't eat anything crazy. Korean seafood never appealed to me while I was in Korea, and it still doesn't.

The next morning we went back to the beach, and we got to see some dolphins sticking their fins out of the water! Here's a picture I took. If you look really close, you can see the dolphin fins.

Yeah, it's there. Right in the middle of the picture there's a dolphin fin.

Then we hung out at the beach for a couple more hours. I went swimming again. The beach is awesome and we've both missed it since we moved back to the United States. Then we got in the car and drove up to see one of LA's main tourist attractions: the Hollywood Sign. We were thinking about hiking up to it, but Nancy didn't feel that great and it was hot, so we decided to just look at it from the Griffith Observatory, which was cool enough. The place also had a lot of awesome views out over the city, and I got to see that famous LA skyline that I've seen in so many different movies and TV shows.

Sign! It looks closer than that in real life, but things always look farther away in pictures.

I'm glad that I totally look stoned in this picture.

We managed to get the sign into this one.

Griffith Observatory. With random other tourists.

Then we decided we'd seen about all we really wanted to see in LA, so we headed out of town to Loma Linda, where Nancy's old mission companion, Whitney, and her husband, Kyler, live. We stayed with them for a couple days and had a great time, but we didn't actually take any pictures. There you go. At any rate, that's the gist of our fall break. We also got a couple days to just relax at home, too, which was nice. I can't wait for our next break! That's all I've got for this post. We're still doing good. This is Captain Danger out.

In Which We Seriously Make a Big Announcement This Time (for real!)

No, it's not a baby. Wait, no, IT IS! I just got so used to saying that because it seems like the only announcement that anyone ever wants us to make. So, yeah, Nancy is totally pregnant! Here's the picture we took to announce it:

We don't know if it's going to be a boy or a girl yet. That's still several weeks out. We figured light blue was a pretty unisex harness color, but of course everyone's going to think we know it's a boy if they don't actually read our blog. So, that's our announcement! We're all sorts of excited to welcome this new baby into our family, and now Nancy gets to look at cute baby stuff every time we go to the store! Also, here's what our baby looked like a week ago:

Also, here's what Nancy looked like a week ago (she still looks about the same :)

So, that's about all we've got by way of announcement at the moment. We'll have some other updates soon and of course we'll keep everyone posted on how the baby's doing! We're excited! This is Captain Danger out.

In Which I Hike In and Out of a Really Big Hole

So, we went to the Grand Canyon on Saturday. It was my first time there. Nancy had been before, but not for several years. It's a place that I knew I had to visit when we moved to Arizona, and I'm glad that we got it in so quickly! We met up with some of our friends from Utah up there, and four of them and I hiked down to the Colorado River from the South Kaibab trail and back out via the Bright Angel trail. It's no rim to rim, but it was almost 17 miles! That's the longest hike I've ever done, and I'll tell you what: It was kind of rough. I went into it figuring I'd have little trouble and that it would be pretty easy. Unfortunately, I underestimated the size of the giant hole in the ground that is the Grand Canyon. You really can't understand the huge scale of the thing without going there. It's almost a mile down from rim to river, people! That's a lot! I knew that going in, but I didn't realize how much "a lot" was. It's seriously a lot. But, overall I had a great time. I was saying as I was climbing on the final switchbacks out of the canyon (those switchbacks took me more than two hours, by the way) that this was probably only something that I needed to do once. Now that I'm a little removed from the experience, I wouldn't mind doing it again. It was certainly worth it, I'll say that. The Grand Canyon is fantastic. At any rate, here are some pictures. The order might be a little wonky because they uploaded funny.

That's a pretty sweet-looking slot canyon down there.

Our friend Grant. We were still at the beginning so we were all still in a good mood.

As you can see, I was definitely still in a good mood.

Going through the tunnel onto the bridge.

River!

I took this picture on the way back up, because that rim was the level to which we were headed.

Cool waterfall.

Most of my face with the cool waterfall.

Made it! That trekking pole was only helping me stand a little. Okay, fine, I was barely able to stand without it.

Like I said, it was needed.

View from the Bright Angel Trailhead.

Here's our Google track from the hike!

While I did that, Nancy went on a few short hikes with our friend Jessica who just had a baby. Nancy wasn't feeling very good so she decided not to come on the big hike with us. Here are a couple pictures of that:

The next morning we got up and headed back to Phoenix. Nancy and I had a Sunday school lesson to teach. We took a few pictures before we left, though.

Here's this picture of me holding a baby.

And here's this picture of me and Nancy with a baby.

Then we went to get one last look at the canyon, because we decided we needed a couple picture with the Grand Canyon.
Otherwise, what was the point of going all the way up there, right?

Nancy and our friend Sarah.

 So, that was our first trip to the Grand Canyon. It was awesome! I would gladly go again. At any rate, that's about all I've got for now. This is Captain Danger out.