Price Fam

Price Family 2009

2009-12-16T08:43:00.001-07:00

This year has been sort of eventful for the Price family. Ryan graduated from BYU with his MBA in June. In May, Ryan and I were able to travel with BYU to Asia (Japan, China, South Korea, Hong Kong and Thailand.) We were gone for 16 days and were able to visit various businesses and cultural sights. We loved climbing the Great Wall, walking around in Tiananmen Square near the twentieth anniversary of the student riots, and visiting some of the Olympic sights in Beijing. We loved touring Hong King Disney, a Toyota plant in Japan and Bumrungrad International Hospital in Bangkok. We visited way too many Buddhist Temples but were able to see the Hong Kong Temple. We had a great time! Ryan is working for BYU in the library as the Operations and Engineering Manager. He is currently serving as the first counselor in the Young Men’s Presidency and has enjoyed working with the scouts.

I enjoy staying home with the kids. Katelyn and Taylor keep me busy, which I am glad about. I am currently serving as co-chair of the Utah County Safe Kids Chapter. Safe Kids is a volunteer organization focused on preventing unintentional injury for children 14 years and younger. I love my involvement with the community. I am serving as a Wolf den leader, which has been something new to learn. Now that Ryan is finished with school, I enjoy spending time with him and the kids.

Katelyn turned five this past year! I can't believe that she is getting older and smarter. She is in her second year of preschool and will be going to kindergarten next year. This past week we found out that we will be adding another boy to our family next spring. Katelyn and I wore pink to the ultrasound and Ryan and Taylor wore all blue. Ryan and Taylor did a celebration dance as the technician told us it would be a boy. Katelyn responded by saying, “Oh man,” but has since then been more excited about it. We love Katelyn so much! We love her energy, her crazy personality and her love for her family!

Taylor has been growing like a weed this year. He is becoming more and more interactive with all of us, especially Katelyn. He loves to play with her, follow her around and sing songs with her. He is definitely daddy’s little boy- he waves his arms when he hears Ryan’s voice or when the garage door opens. He cries when Ryan puts him down. Our house has become a destruction zone with Taylor getting into everything. But we love him so much are grateful that he is in our family.

I love this time of year because it causes me to reflect on the things that matter most in my life. First, the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ and for the happiness the gospel brings to us. Second, for our families. Taylor and Katelyn have been such a great blessing in our lives and our extended families have been such a support to us. We truly have been blessed! Thank you for your love and support you offer us! Have a great Holiday Season!!

Birthday boy!

2009-08-25T08:01:00.011-06:00

Taylor turns one today!!! Below is my best attempt at documenting the last year.

Right before I was wheeled into the surgery room at OCH. Taylor was born minutes later.

Because of some complications it was a while before I was able to hold him. I delivered him around 4:30pm and held him for the first time at 1 a.m. Tuesday morning.

Taylor had some apnea episodes his first few days of life. He had the oxygen tube for a month along with an apnea monitor. This shows him 5 days after delivery with an I.V. in his head.

As if we needed something else to worry about. Taylor's billirubin levels were high so he was lying in this for a couple days.

My friend, Chante', took some great pictures of him when he was 2 weeks old. I loved them!

Taylor's blessing outfit.

My friend, Amy, took some great photos of Taylor when he was a little older. She did a great job!

Halloween 2008

This photo was taken on November 9, 2008. This is at our oldest daughter's grave.

Christmas 2008

Lisa's wedding January 2009

Valentine's day 2009

Hogle Zoo March 2009

July 4th 2009

July 24th 2009

We love Taylor so much and are grateful to have him in our family. Katelyn adores him and is always found touching, kissing and talking baby talk to him. Taylor is such a light in our lives.

Graduation

2009-08-14T22:14:00.005-06:00

So proud of Ryan today, he graduated with an MBA from BYU!

Growing up

2009-08-03T16:33:00.002-06:00

Yesterday we had to lower Taylor's crib because he has started standing up. This is what I found when I went in after his nap this afternoon. It makes me so sad to think that he will be turning one soon. Where did the time go?

Burley Weekend

2009-07-30T09:07:00.005-06:00

We had a great trip to Burley last weekend. The kids enjoyed playing in the pool and going down the slide. I put Taylor in the pool and he loved the water. Each of the girls took turns squeezing water over his head. He didn't mind.

These are Ryan's two brothers- Aaron and Steven

Aaron, Steven and Dan

The boys had a good time starting the motorcycles, jet skiing and talking
about who knows what.

Latest project

2009-07-28T08:49:00.002-06:00

I have the hardest time finding dresses for Katelyn that fits her both in width and in length. So with the help of my mom- she basically did everything- we made this dress. It is pretty simple and really fun to pick out some cute fabric.

10 years ago

2009-07-23T21:08:00.005-06:00

Ten years ago today Ryan and I were on our first date. He took me to Bajio in the Riverwoods and then to a play called Umbrellas at Sundance. Ryan's sister Alison and her date came with us.

We decided to celebrate our love (haha) on Monday night up at Sundance. We had a great dinner at the Foundry Grill and then walked around the resort.

I married my best friend. I love to be with him and he is probably the funniest person I know-- even though some of his jokes are starting to be recycled. He is hard working, trustworthy, kind, and compassionate.

Beijing

2009-07-03T08:31:00.001-06:00

It has taken me a good hour to go through all of the pictures we took in Beijing. I have included many of them because we went to a lot of historical sites while in China. The first place we went to was the silk factory.

These two pictures show how they unravel the silk from the cocoons.

This lady has been working on this run for 3 months. It was amazing to see the detail.

Dr. Money was our director. Here he is trying on a silk jacket. This is where we bought Katelyn a silk dress. After the silk factory tour we went to Tianamen Square and the Forbidden City. The square was very large and had thousands of people. The Chinese military definitely had a presence there. We went through metal detectors and military personnel were walking around. It might be because we were there a week before the 20th anniversary of the Tianamen Square student riots.

We were touring with some taller guys so everywhere we went these guys had people taking pictures of them. Below is a picture taken from the Deliotte tower looking toward the Forbidden City.

Our only injury happen while we were touring the Forbidden City. One of the guys in the group tried to jump onto a ledge and missed it. He had quite the gash and needed medical attention. After our tour of the Forbidden City the director and this guy went to the hospital.

It seems like the Forbidden City went on for miles. These were living quarters for all of the concubines, wives and children.

Everything was brightly painted.

Crazy architecture.

This is looking out of the Forbidden City across the street. As we walked to our bus we were hounded by street vendors who wanted to sell you something. The goal was to stay in the middle of the group and to not make eye contact with anyone. If you failed you had someone tugging on your arm and walking with you until you got on the bus.

This is walking out of the Forbidden City looking back.

This was us about board a boat to get closer to the Summer Palace.

The boat.

The Summer Palace.

We went to the Olympic Square. The tallest structure is where the torch was lit during the Olympics.
Here is the bird's nest where the opening and closing ceremonies took place.

Here is the water cube where Michael Phelps made history winning 8 gold medals.

Mckay posing with some Chinese girls that wanted to take his picture.

This is the Great Wall map!

We took the chair lift up to the Great Wall.

The Great Wall was really steep. It was quite a hike up and down the wall.

Part of the wall has been overtaken by weeds and people are not able to walk on that section.

To get down the mountain we took an alpine slide. Ryan was behind me taking pictures as we were going down and we came up to this guy who yelled in his megaphone thst we were not suppose to take pictures. But that didn't stop Ryan.

"No photo!"

This is a picture of one of the vendors selling produce along the way back to our bus.

Ryan and I at the Temple of Heaven. This was one of the places we liked the most. It has many symbols that can be related to the church and the atmosphere was incredible. Many Chinese adults gather at the Temple of Heaven to exercise and play games. We saw people dancing.

Playing games.

and singing. This guy was our favorite. He had a karoke machine with the sound at the very loudest. He was singing at the top of his lungs. It was classic.

There were a lot of people playing instruments.

We of course had a peking duck dinner. I guess it is a tradition to cut the duck into 124 pieces. We had great Chinese food in China.

We had a great time in China. It was a different feeling there though and I think it was because the church is not actively proselyting in China. We attended church in a Beijing ward. The Branch President cautioned us not to discuss the church with anyone. The Branch was awesome, the spirit was so strong.

South Korea

2009-07-02T22:04:00.009-06:00

Our next stop on our tour of Asia was South Korea. Little did we know the day before we arrived, North Korea did some nuclear missile testing but that didn't stop us visiting the DMZ (Demilitarized zone).

This picture shows, in the distance, the North Korea flag. We were able to look through these binoculars into North Korea but were not able to take pictures from this point. There was a yellow line about 20 feet back where pictures were allowed. Which was interesting because they actually had a military official watching all of us. We were told that if we did take pictures over that yellow line that our cameras could be confiscated. We were able to walk down a tunnel that the North Koreans built to infiltrate the South Korea side. The North tried to disguise it by saying that the South Koreans had dug it. Unfortunately we were not able to take our camera down into the tunnel.

As we were driving to the South Korean "visitor center" of the DMZ, we passed these fences. Our tour guide told us that the white colored rocks in the fence had a purpose. They are rocks that are covered with white cloth. Each rock is numbered and every morning the South Korean army would patrol the fence to make sure that all of them were in correct order and none were missing. I guess the rocks would drop if the fence moved at all- this would indicate if any foul play happened during the night. Crazy!

After the DMZ tour we stopped at a local restaurant to have Korean BBQ. It is much like a fondue restaurant in that they cook meat and vegetables in a beef or chicken broth. Of course it was served with rice and Kimchi. The whole meal was really good.

Our next stop was at Samsung where we learned a lot about the history of Samsung and how they run the company. The executive who spoke with us was pretty humorous and told some pretty risky jokes. It was funny to see the reaction from the directors.

After a long 6 hour bus drive through Korea we made it to Ulsan, Korea to visit Hyundai Heavy Industries. We arrived late that night and had planned to visit the company the next morning. I was impressed to see that the executive we were planning to meet the next day came to the Hotel Hyundai to greet us. He even brought his kids. It was 10:30pm when we arrived. I guess it is a traditional thing to greet your guests and he wanted us to feel comfortable. This was the tour that Ryan was most excited about and unfortunately we were not allowed to take photos while we were there. This picture is from our hotel across the street from the plant.

We were in South Korea for a day and half and never did make it into Seoul. It was a fast trip.

Japan

2009-06-21T16:29:00.015-06:00

At the end of May, Ryan and I took a trip to Asia for 2 1/2 weeks with BYU. With a total of 11 flights we packed in 5 countries in 16 days and were going just about every minute. We started our journey with a 13 hour flight to Seoul, Korea from L.A. then jumped on a plane to Osaka, Japan and then took 1 1/2 hour bus ride to Kyoto, Japan.

This was the first of many Buddhist Temples we visited on our trip to Asia. We are standing next to a water well where people cleansed themselves.

All of the school kids were wearing masks to avoid any contamination or spread of the swine flu. It was interesting because almost everyone in Japan were wearing masks and were very concerned about being near any Americans.

This is a picture of a traditional wedding party. Very little smiling.

This is from our hotel room in Kyoto looking toward the bullet train station.

We rode the bullet train to Nagoya, Japan and then took a bus to Toyota City to a Toyota plant.

Ryan is sitting in a smart car at the Toyota showroom.

This is a Japanese boxed lunch. An egg/ham sandwich, cold breaded fried chicken, and some other weird stuff. Probably my least favorite meal.

On the 45th floor of a government building in Tokyo overlooking the city. The city went on forever.

This is in the subway station in Tokyo. Tons of people going home from work. We were trying to find the Technology district after a few minutes an older gentleman helped us find the correct line.

There were 6 other spouses that came on the trip. Here is Stephanie, Beth and Sameena.

We finally found the Technology district. Some compare it to Times Square in New York City. As we walked down the street, every shop had someone on a microphone screaming out deals they were offering inside the store. We looked in some of the stores but the prices were about the same as they are in the States if not more.

I was impressed with how organized the city was. I guess it would have to be with 32 million people living in the Tokyo metropolitan area. Tokyo was also very clean. In fact, we couldn't find a garbage can anywhere. You would think that if there were no trash cans then there would be garbage everywhere but there was nothing on the ground.

One night we ate at a fast food restaurant called Yoshinoya. They serve beef or pork with rice, among other things. It was very tasty. But outside of the restaurant was a bank. This bank had two Japanese girls outside who were advertising something. We found ourselves watching them because they both had a voice that was very high pitched and squealy. It was hilarious. I would love to know is if it was their real voice or a character voice. I wish I would have taped them.

Everyone was so friendly and willing to help us find our way around Tokyo. We had a great time and would love to go back.

A favorite website

2009-06-20T09:40:00.000-06:00

Lately Katelyn has been so interested in the computer and it probably has something to do with Ryan and I each working on separate laptops.

My mom gave me a great website for Katelyn to play on. It is called STARFALL. Katelyn can navigate the pages by herself. There are sections where kids can learn the letters and sounds that go with each letter. Pages that teach children to read and pages that are for the more experienced readers. All of the pages have interactive activities, games and songs.

Go check it out!

Dutch Oven

2009-05-04T22:10:00.003-06:00

My parents gave Ryan a dutch oven for his birthday and we were finally able to use it today. Under the direction of my dad (who is a pro dutch oven-er) Ryan and I decided that we try it ourselves. We made dutch oven potatoes with bacon and onions and peach cobbler. Everything turned out really well!

Utah Natural History Museum

2009-05-04T21:58:00.003-06:00

Katelyn, Taylor and I went to the Utah Natural History Museum with our good friends Jessica and Abby. The museum offers free admission on the first Monday of every month. Katelyn loved to dig for dinosaur bones and learn more about the insects that live in Utah. I thought it was gross to see huge spiders, a scorpion, dead mice and tons of frogs. It made my skin crawl-yuck!

Easter 2009

2009-04-12T17:42:00.001-06:00

This year with the help of my mom I made Katelyn's Easter dress.

It all started when I went over to my friend Megan's house for a baby shower. She told me that she had made a dress for an upcoming family wedding. Megan assured me that I could make the same dress. After weeks of thinking about it I finally bought the pattern and the fabric.

To complicate things, I decided to make dresses for my sister's girls also. That meant 4 dresses in 2 weeks.

I could not have done it if it wasn't for my Mom. She helped me along the way. When I sewed the bodice together for Katelyn's dress, she would sew Brooke and McKenna's bodice together. So in the time it took me to sew Katelyn's dress she made three others. She had great patience with me. Thanks Mom!!

Anne was so sweet to make these clips and bow to complete the outfit. Love them!

Recent crush

2009-04-12T14:56:00.002-06:00

I find myself wearing a pair of these earrings everyday. I love them! Anne has such a great selection of fabrics and styles. If earrings aren't your thing, she also has headbands, bracelets, clips, pony O's, tutus and some really cute personalized onesies.

There is a great promotion going on HERE. Check it out!

Failure to yield!

2009-04-08T21:53:00.002-06:00

Tonight I was on my way to my parent's house to return some chairs I had at my house. I was lamenting to Val about my boring life and suddenly a girl pulled out from the University Mall and hit me. I screamed and told Val that I got hit and I would call her back.

The driver's side door was hit but it seems no other damage happened. In fact, my door is jammed so we can't open or close it. Which makes it tricky to get in and out of the car.

I am proud of Katelyn she didn't cry or act scared; although she claims that Taylor was scared.

Everyone is doing fine tonight, just grateful it wasn't worse.

Magic Solution

2009-04-08T11:53:00.003-06:00

Today I am washing my dingy white shirts but BEFORE I wash them I usually soak them in a magic solution. The recipe is 1 c. Clorox 2, 1 c. Cascade dish washing detergent and 5 gallons of hot tap water.

I usually fill a 5 gallon bucket with hot tap water and stir in both the Clorox 2 and the Cascade, then add my clothes. I soak them overnight or for at least 8 hours- the longer you soak the whiter they will get. Stir the clothes around every few hours.

When I am ready to wash them, I dump the whole bucket in the washer, including the water. Then launder them like normal.

I have had great success getting white shirts brighter. I have also done this with garments and white shirts that have some color or pattern on them. I haven't had any problems.

Happy cleaning!!!

A new twist on an old classic

2009-04-03T20:01:00.002-06:00

Katelyn begged me to make cinnamon rolls today and after hours of asking, we made them together after her "nap." I thought I would take a different approach to an old classic. I put the cinnamon rolls in muffin tins. It worked great! I actually really liked how they turned out.

I also used a new recipe. It is from a Lion House cookbook.. Probably the BEST cinnamon roll recipe I have used in a long time. Here is the recipe. Enjoy!

something new

2009-03-05T08:11:00.003-07:00

I am in desperate need of something to occupy my time! With Ryan in school I find myself with plenty of free time. My friend Katie posted this on her blog a couple of days ago and I think I am up for the challenge. Here's how this works:

The first 3 people to respond to this post will get something made by me! My choice. For you. This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:

1. I make no guarantees you will like what I make.

2. What I create will be just for you.

3. It will be done this year.

4. You have no clue what it's going to be.

5. I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.

The catch is that you must repost this on your blog and offer the same to the first 3 people who do the same on your blog. The first 3 people to do so and leave a comment telling me they did, win a FAB-U-LOUS homemade gift by me! Oh, and be sure to post of picture of what you win when you get it! Who's in?

Wild Wednesday

2009-02-27T08:31:00.003-07:00

The last Wednesday of the winter months at the Hogle Zoo are free admission. Ryan and I and the kids took advantage of the free admission and went up there Wednesday afternoon. It was a little breezy but not too bad. Katelyn loves to see the animals and was especially sad to see that the white alligator was no longer at the zoo. She rode the carousel, saw a baby giraffe, and talked to Taylor about each animal. It was a good distraction from some very long winter days.

Happy Valentine's Day

2009-02-14T15:56:00.002-07:00

PB bars

2009-02-10T10:10:00.004-07:00

I have made these a lot lately and I love them! It seems like I always have a hard time finding the recipe so I thought I might add it to my blog so I can always find it.

1 c. butter
1 c. peanut butter
1 c. white sugar
1 c. brown sugar
2 eggs
1 t. vanilla
1 t. soda
1 1/2 c. oatmeal
1 1/2 c. flour

Mix together and press into a cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes, until light brown.

Frosting:
3/4 c. butter
5 T. milk
1 t. vanilla
4 T. cocoa
2 1/2 c. powdered sugar

I got this recipe from my sister-in-law Alison. It has been a staple at my house for years. Enjoy!

FHE

2009-02-05T14:12:00.005-07:00

On Monday during the day Katelyn wanted to work on some "projecs." So she got out some construction paper, glue and scissors. Here is her collage of "projecs." Later that night we were having Family Home Evening and she wanted to teach the lesson. She grabbed her collage to teach us about Jesus. Did you know that Jesus lives on an island? She is pointing to it in the second picture.

I just love to hear her talk and try to remember what she has been taught. She cracks me up!

Love this Boy!!

2009-01-29T09:00:00.001-07:00

Taylor- 5 months

Sugar cookie extravaganza

2009-01-29T08:30:00.003-07:00

Sugar cookies are a lot of work! But sometimes I get desperate when Katelyn is stuck inside and bored. She loves to get out her own rolling pin and cookie cutters and work along side of me while I am cooking. These cookies were from a mix so I didn't really care how they turned out or how much dough Katelyn insisted on playing with.

Ryan's mom makes the best sugar cookies! We will use her recipe to make "real" sugar cookies for Valentine's day.