California

Well, we're moving to the Bay area! I accepted a job at the Oakland CA Temple as an Assistant Engineer, building upon the work I've been doing as an Intern for the past year. I'm really excited for the opportunity. Margo and I has a great first week here after our drive down last weekend. Margo will be going back and forth until she graduates in April, so we'll both be very grateful when things get settled down then. Highlights of our first week here together include lot's of driving. Believe it or not it's actually been a lot of fun driving around and seeing areas that we may soon call home. The purpose of all the driving was really to see where we want to live. We found a lot of good options and lots of places where we definitely won't live. On one afternoon we drove through a farming community called Clayton, which is only about a 35 minute drive from the Temple. We were amazed there was such a place so close to the metropolis of the Bay area. Margo immediately started dreaming about buying a farm with cows. I told her that it's probably not going to happen. It's good to know there is such a place though so close. Here is a picture of Clayton.

We went to see the new Sherlock Holmes movie at the Historic Orinda Movie Theater. It was awesome, both the theater and the movie. The great part is that it's only 10 minutes away.

On Saturday morning, before Margo had to fly home, we spent the morning in San Francisco. We both love the city because of it's beauty. We drove down to the piers and got out and walked around the Golden Gate National Park. We're definitely excited to live here because we'll never run out of things to do.

Christmas

It was great to get out our Christmas decorations and see them again. Margo surprised me with a new circular mirror that she bought on sale at the BYU bookstore. It looked great behind the trees. I told her that although a surprise like a new mirror is great, next a surprise like power tools would be even better. The Christmas color was purple, so that's what all the presents were. Parker enjoyed them the most perhaps.

After driving home from Ethan's baby blessing on Sunday I surprised Margo by stopping in and seeing the Christmas lights and Temple Square. We didn't get to see them last year, so I was glad we got to this year.

Christmas was a very special time to be with both of our families. We got to spend a lot of time with both. I surprised Margo with a set of antique Christmas ornaments. I think this may be one of the best presents that I've ever given her because there's more than just the initial surprise when she opened the package. The excitement went on for another thirty minutes as she unwrapped each ornament individually to inspect their unique beauty. Margo got me a beautiful set of blue cuff links and a really nice blue cuff link shirt. I also received an awesome watch from Perry (my assigned sibling). He matched my wish list description perfectly.

One of the highlights of the break was spending 3 days, 2 nights up at a cabin near Flaming Gorge with Margo's family. The setting was absolutely perfect. We spent a good amount of time enjoying each others company, playing games, cross-country skiing, and playing with Parker. Perry took Parker for a little rendezvous on sled. If you look closely you can see that Parker is strapped into his booster chair which is strapped to the sled. He was pretty unsure of what was going on. I think the look on his face was saying "I'm pretty sure this booster seat is for indoor use only." Cross-country skiing is a pastime event for the Farnsworths. We had a good time forging trails and also taking the trail that wraps around the rim overlooking the reservoir.

Provo dining at its best!

One of our favorite things to do is to try new restaurants. While in Provo we've tried many different restaurants and definitely have our favorites. When Maren and Joseph were out for Thanksgiving we took them to one of our favorite restaurants called The Communal. This is must for Provo dining. The food is excellent and the Pear Pandowdy from the dessert menu is supreme.

Over the Christmas holiday we took Megan and Perry to Spark, another great dining establishment in Provo. It's in the style of a night club, but since it's in Provo everything is non-alcoholic. Our recommendations here are the specialty drinks and any of the entrees. The chocolate mousse dessert comes with fresh grapefruit with a creme brulee top. Amazing. The banana strudel is also superb.

New Baby Ethan!!!

 

Ben and Elaine had their new baby Ethan on December 22nd. Mona, Margo, and I traveled up to Asher and Erin's wedding in South Jordan. From there we continued northward to Logan through the snow and got to see Ethan just a few hours after he was born. We're so happy for Ben and Elaine.

We got to spend some time with Lorna. We helped her make some welcome home decorations for Mommy and Baby Ethan.

Nana showing Lorna her the first pictures of her baby brother.

Old Taurus, New Taurus

November saw some interesting happenings. First, some 16-year-olds ran a red light and caused a truck to hit into our car and scrape the side pretty bad. I was on my way home from work at 11:30PM. I'm glad Margo wasn't there. We got to drive around a rental car for a few weeks until we settled the insurance claim, which we got some money to put towards a new car.



We ended up getting Goober, the Duchesne auto mechanic, to put some new doors on it so the car would still be drivable.



Even though the blue doors were pretty smashing, we wanted to something a little more reliable. As we were looking the car started to have a few more problems, such as the engine misfiring, so the hunt for a new car intensified. Amidst car selling scams on Craigslist and other classifieds, we actually found a good deal posted on a 3x5 card in the Wilkinson Center on BYU campus. Margo was not into it at all, mainly because the car was a.....any guesses? Another red ford taurus. We looked into it further and it actually was a really good deal. It's newer, 200,000 less miles on it, and we were able to get it that day. Getting this car really turned out to be a blessing because we got it right when we needed it, it's reliable, and we were able to pay for it with money we had saved up.

Last Day of School!

Margo was so nice to wake up early and make me breakfast for my last day of school. It was soooo good. Stuffed french toast and bacon. I'm definitely glad to be done with school.

November Happenings

Over Thanksgiving Break Margo put on a baby shower for Elaine, who is expecting our new baby nephew Ethan in December. When Margo gets going on something, she always does it....shall we say....to infinity and beyond!!! I had no ideas one person could think up so many cute things in such short time. I've been educated on many new items such as onesies and burp clothes and lot's of other things I didn't know existed. The opus of the baby shower was the diaper cake, again something I didn't know existed. It was pretty cool I admit. Just so everyone knows, the central core is tubes of butt paste (again, something I didn't know existed). Overall, I guess you could say this has been a very educational experience. The picture of Lorna and Parker at the shower is great. They both are so cute!!!





Margo's sister Megan spent the end of November and December in Duchesne working on her Masters Degree final paper. Accordinly, we've been able to see a lot more of our adorable nephew Parker. He is awesome! I taught him how to say my name and he likes me a lot. He loves electronic stuff, especially cell phones. As you can see, he loves Margo's cell phone.







Over Thanksgiving Margo and I spent time helping my dad with his log cabin kit that he's building at our farm. It's really a pretty cool project. After it's done we're going to take it up the mountains. My mother is already taking reservations so get in line.







At the end of the break we also had our annual Christmas Tree chopping down event up at my family's property in Argyle Canyon. We decided to have two trees at our apartment this year, after having three last year. We thought it might be good to downsize year by year, especially since next year we might only be able to have one. There's really nothing like chopping down your own Christmas tree.

Halloween Festivities

We purchased several pumpkins at the Farmers' Market. We were so busy around that time that we actually didn't even have time to carve them all. The big hit this year was the white pumpkins. We got a cool affect by carving into the pumpkin, rather than cutting all the way through. The best part of the white pumpkins is that the entire pumpkin glows when they are lit.

Margo and I hosted a Halloween Party at Noah's in Lindon Utah. It's a great event center with all sorts of rooms, from theaters, to racket ball courts, to ice skating. We rented a smaller room with a big screen TV and pool table and invited several friends. Margo loved thinking up all kinds of crazy food to make.


The food showpiece was the brain carved from a small watermelon. Margo carved it up in about 15 minutes as if she'd had plenty of practice doing such things. Other food hits were the  deviled eggs with spiders, finger carrot sticks, and the main dish: blood and guts (spaghetti) with finger breadsticks.

Margo made an excellent flapper girl, complete with a costume which she made herself. I had the honor of being the flapper girl's husband. Also in attendance were Fred and Wilma Flintstone (Matt and Rachel), Barney and Betty Rubble with Bamm-Bamm (Casey and McKelle and Brigden) , some hippies (Mark and Amanda), “swine flu” and his nurse (Jeff and Holly), and some martial artists (Jason and Shandra).

After food and pool we played a game I made up called unwrap the mummy! Unfortunately the mummy turned out looking a lot more like a dirty diaper. People were a little suspicious at first, but they caught on soon. Inside the wrapping were questions that had to be answered in order to continue on unwrapping. We completed the evening by watching Rear Window by Alfred Hitchcock with Jimmy Stewart. It's a classic. It's also fun to watch an older "scary" movie to see how far movies have come.

Happy Birthday Little P!

One year!

Happy, HAPPY BIRTHDAY handsome boy!





Our nephew Parker Morgan was born a year ago yesterday! It has been a thrill to watch him grow.


Father and son on a special birthday, September 19, 2008.









Beautiful Mother's bundle of JOY!


He has grown up so much since then!

Happy 1st Birthday Little P!