Graysen Paul

OK, its been a really long time since we've updated our blog. For example, we have a little boy now and he's almost nine months old. He's a little joy that we absolutely love. His name is Graysen (For anyone who didn't know that). He's starting to crawl a little. We have hardwood floors all over the house. So, getting traction is a little bit of a struggle for him. but, I think he'll get it eventually. He also likes to sit up in bed and scream. He likes to do this mainly at nap time. He sleeps good in the morning but once the afternoon nap comes around, he's in full protest mode. It usually takes me three times of trying to put him down. He's tired, I know that. He rubs his little eyes, and lets me know how tired he is. But once he sees that crib he starts to fuss. Sometimes he'll go right down, depending on how tired he is, but most of the time it's a fight.

Claire and I are doing great. Baby Graysen is doing awesome as well. He keeps us on our toes and makes sure we are being good parents. That reminds me, we are going to need some baby gates here really soon. Along with moving more, he's found the stairs that lead down to my brother David's area. He thinks it's absolutely fascinating that the floor moves down to another area he's never been to before. He's only scared me once, thankfully!

  He is so cute. This is one of his moments when he looks outside the front window and likes to play with his maracas. Well, he mainly sucks on them and bangs them on the ground. But you get the idea.

Having this little boy in our lives has been a major blessing. Claire and I often wonder what we ever did without him in our lives. We are so much happier with this little man in our family. He makes us laugh and cry. When he doesn't sleep, or wakes up at three in the morning crying we wonder if he's sick or something worse is happening with him. We love Graysen Paul so much.
We are truly blessed to have him in our family. He's teaching me to be a good father. After leaving his Heavenly Father I'm sure Graysen has high expectations for his Earthly Father. I hope I'm up for the task.

 

up date

Claire is doing awesome. She is totally pregnant and doing awesome. We are expecting our boy on May 14th. We also want to throw out a Hi five to Sami and Ben for the birth of their Baby boy James. He is so cute.

My Claire bear's tummy is getting bigger. This picture was taken a couple of weeks ago. We’ll try and get other pictures up of Claire’s progress.

Claire and I got a pack and play from Burlington Coat Factory. It’s a Chicco and it’s actually pretty cool. It does so much. I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who are familiar with these things. But, me, I'm totally new to all this. This pack and play can change into like six different things. It's like a transformer but without the automatic transformation. The whole thing is manual but really easy to put up. Well, at least Claire set it up.

I'm sure there are so many more stories I could tell ya but I think I'll stop here. Have a great day...

Halloween 2011

So we've had such a good Halloween. October has been very fun. We've celebrated my mother and brother's Birthday's. We've been to a couple of Halloween parties. And we've seen a live picture of our baby.

This is the carving that I (Aaron) did.

Here are all our pumpkins. From left to right: Claire's, Aaron's, Lisa's, and Mike's. Lisa hadn't quite finished hers yet.

Claire cleaning after carving pumpkins.

 Claire and I went to Steve Armstrong's party as old people. Claire made Monster Toes for the party. They were so good, and they were a big hit. It was good to just bring an empty plate home.

This is my Brother (David) and my Mom's party. Crazy looking family. We have a good time everytime.

Outdoor Adventures!

Oh how we love summer!!! There is nothing better than enjoying the great outdoors. We live rather close to several canyons in the valley and we have been taking advantage of it. On one of our Sunday evening trips we came across several bees that were either sleeping or not alive in some flowers. All I know is that there were only occasional twitches of their butts.

We hiked Bell Canyon with some friends. I discovered how out of shape I really am on that little hike.

On the Fourth of July we went on another hike to Donut Falls. I think the donut has collaped or partially collapsed but there was so much water you couldn't see it anyways.

We also made a trip to Temple Square and took a look at the progress on some of the downtown City Creek construction.

These are just a few of our outdoor adventures. We are hoping for many more!

Girls Camp

Last week Aaron and I had the wonderful opportunity to go to girls camp. I spent quite a bit of time before then preparing for it. There is a lot to do planning for camp. Thankfully I had some wonderful people working with me who made everything possible.

Some pre-camp prepping:

 

Setting up our tent for the first time before we go.

Hmm... How do we go about doing this?

The cute little lanterns we had the girls make. I think they turned out really good. There are all different size stars around the rest of the lantern.

We went to Zions National Park where I had never been before. It was absolutely gorgeous! I love the red colored rocks.

We arrived at camp a little later than everyone else because I had to work. When we arrived everyone was on a hike, luckily, because we had a fun time trying to fill our air mattress. Lets just say we had to turn the car around several times to get an outlet that worked. I was glad no one was around to see our little plight.

We hiked Keyhole slot canyon with the girls. It took us a lot longer to get through than planned. It was well worth it though. I think if the girls and even some of the leaders really knew what it was going to be like they would not have gone. There was some hiking, some repelling, and some absolutely freezing water!

Entering the first part of the canyon

The end of the first part of the canyon

This is one of the repels

The sandstone rock was absolutely beautiful! We were so amazed how the rock had been carved out by water and wind to form these gorgeous canyons.

Getting to the end was so wonderful. Standing in the warm sun never felt better!

Here's the group (minus Aaron, who is taking the picture, and two bishopric members and three girls who came down the following day)! We didn't plan the tallest to shortest pose. The Bishop does throw it off a little at the end there.

The only injury during camp, besides the scrapes and bruises everyone received, was Aaron's sprained ankle. The last day of camp wasn't as fun for him because of it. We had a service project on Wednesday morning. We pulled weeds at some of the campsites to clean up the areas and reduce the risk of fires. It was really hot that day. We went on another short hike in an area that was a lot cooler to weeping rock. It was easy and enjoyable. Aaron didn't get to go. Sad :(

Our camp site

All the girls

At weeping rock

I think camp turned out to be a success. No one died, everyone came back in one piece, and I think we all learned something. I know I sure learned a lot. I never appreciated how much work went into preparing for girls camp or any large activity when I was younger. It takes a lot of time and effort. I am so appreciative of the other leaders who helped. The young women were so much fun to be around. They can provide a really good laugh.

 

An Accidental Issue

OK, So Claire and I went shopping for her girls camp all last night. It was fun and exciting. But then when pulled up to our parking spot, Aunt Beth called Claire. So, she talked in the car and I kept myself entertained by playing with the keys and the toys we got from All-A-Dollar. Little did I know that I had put the keys in the middle console. Then Claire finished her conversation with her Aunt. So, not even thinking about where I left the keys we got out of the car and locked the doors. "I just locked the keys in the car!" I thought to myself. "Claire is going to kill me." So, I smile to myself awkwardly. Claire caught on quick, "Aaron, what did you do?" She asked me.  "Nothing" I replied, but she is smarter then that. So I quickly said, "Well, I may have locked the keys in the car."
So, now we are locked outside our car and our apartment. (good times) We went to our friends in the ward, who live in the same complex, and they let us use a directory for the apartments. I made small talk with our friends while Claire called. The person who answered was a Spanish speaking guy who is on the maintenance crew of the apartments. It's a good thing Claire was the one talking to him cause I don't know a lick of Spanish.
So, the guy came and let us in after waiting 20-30 minutes. We are so grateful for this roof over our heads and the car's we drive.
Now you now why I put a hid-a-key under my car with a spare key in it. I lock keys in the car more times then I'm willing to admit. However, this is the first time I've locked them in the car being married.


~Aaron Orosz

The continuation of weekend trips

So, we drove to Colorado, good thing Ben and Sami came with us because it was about an eight hour drive one way. I drove the first four hours (the boring, nothing to see desert part). Then Ben drove the last four hours (the fun drive through the canyon) but he had to drive in the dark. ha ha)) ;-)


We had a blast on the ride over to Colorado. We had a chance to listen to some awesome music from my Ipod, that was mostly enjoyed by Ben and I. We listened to music from the group "They Might Be Giants" and many T.V. show tunes like "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" and "The Simpson's." We had fun singing along. :-)


The first thing Claire wanted to do was see baby Zach and Garrett. But we got in pretty late so they were already in bed. So, Claire had to wait till the morning. I think she was OK with that because she was very tired from the drive. We slept awesomely!!!

Brian showing us how it's done

We had such a great time hangin' with the family. We played some baseball and Brian showed us some killer lacrosse moves. Grant actually caught on pretty quick.


I loved Mom's homemade pizza, it was super good!! I loved the meat lovers!!! because I LOVED MEAT!

We took pictures but not nearly has much as we wanted too (Especially when there is a "Sami"-Professionally out there taking awesome pictures.) The family pictures came out good because Sami's camera was available to save the day when Cassy's fathers camera broke (or stopped working)
We also had a chance to play a game called "things" (well, that’s all I remember Grant telling me of the title) I'm sure he told me more but I think I zoned out)) We had a blast and we all laughed hard.


Sunday was such a special day for us. It was the one reason we were all there. We blessed Zach. It was extremely spiritual. Aaron had a lot of "dust" in his eyes. Grant has such a great spirit and loves his children very much. The blessings Zach can potentially receive from his Heavenly Father came through Grant like the spirit was directly talking to Zach himself. I was so happy to be in a circle of such great spiritual giants. Zach is in a great family and he will be greatly loved. I'm excited to get to know him through these many years.


So,  after the awesome blessing we didn't have much time left. So, we drove to Grant and Cassy's home and packed for the drive home.  Claire actually surprised me when she started tearing up. She hugged everyone. I then had more "dust" in my eyes. She gave a great big hug to her Mother and Father, and then we left for home. Claire loves her family very much and wishes we could have stayed longer. I wish we could have stayed longer too. I love hanging out with the Van Noy's.


We are excited for our next planned trip. We are planning to fly to Chicago. We hope to be visiting Claire's Mother and Father for Thanksgiving. Well, Ta ta for now!

~Aaron Orosz

Mom Van Noy already loves holding her new grandkid. Even Zach loves being held by her; You can tell becasue the way he's staring at her.

"OK, I understand that the screen is closed but the lock should be in a place where I can open it!"

This looks like a scene out of a comic. Grant is looking at the conversation in the living room. and the color is so cool; going from hot to cooler colors. Love it.

Pizza time!!!

Saying good by to a weekend that wasn't long enough was really hard for Claire. We love hanging out with the Van Noy's.

Baby Zach and his Mommy. Zach sort of has a GQ pose to him.

You can't tell from the picture but I'm roasted from the being out in the sun. Claire wishes she could some how sun tan.