Fiona, Kaisa & Nathan Judd

Kaisa and I got to take a trip to the Hogle Zoo (first time for both of us!) this morning, thanks to an amazing friend who scored us free passes!  (I have such a great group of friends in my ward that all have young kids Kaisa’s age.  We love to get together and do fun stuff!)  Here are some fun pictures of the trip.  Enjoy!

This lepoard was just pacing the glass over and over, watching the kids.  Here you see Kaisa’s little ponytail sticking up…she thought he was pretty cool.

I love the giraffes!  (It reminded me of the amazingly hot giraffe print handbag I recently ordered online that is on its way to my home right now!!)  Kaisa’s not sure what to think of them.

Their elephant exhibit was really quite nice!  I think it’s the best view of an elephant I’ve ever had at a zoo.  It probably helped that is was feeding time on a cool morning.

Here’s the really cool albino croc that Hogle Zoo prides itself on.  It was neat!

Kaisa stopped to check out the little baby croc.  Can you see it?

For the grand finale, Kaisa even got to take her first carousel ride!  I was so pleased with her…she was a little scared at first, but as soon as the horsey started going up and down, she was having all kinds of fun and shouting “wheee!”  Unfortunately, when I stepped away from her to take this picture, her fear returned, and as a result she doesn’t look too happy!

Overall, it was a fun-filled morning for all of us!

I suffered from a computer problem. No, I’m not talking about Computer Users anonymous (although if there was such a thing Fiona would freely admit me), I’m talking about the BSOD, Blue Screen of Death! I had a wake up call that could have been a lot more serious than it was. Don’t get me wrong, there were still casualties that couldn’t be recovered — Cousin Niki, I had 4 Gigs of video from your wedding that are still in a zip file on my backup drive that I haven’t been able to recover…I’m really, really sorry…and ‘Melodious NeverSeeYouAnymore-ious’, gone are your your TV recordings of So You Think You Can Dance and The Notebook…I didn’t try very hard to save them…sorry, but to a lesser extent.

My “backup” external hard drive wasn’t exempt from the BSOD fury either. I say ‘backup’ because I commited a cardinal sin of having a backup drive and fell prey to the vast tracts of space that it offered and used those tracts for my recorded TV shows. I ended up saving what I could, wiping the rest, reinstalling Windows, and then taking it in to the nice people at Computer Lane (crummy website, good service) to discover it was actually my RAM that had failed, but that it had obvious effects on the hard drives. Great excuse to get a new 1GB stick of RAM (and Best Buy was the cheapest, what will this world come to next?)

Here are some things that anyone with a computer should be do.

1. Run CheckDisk and Defrag often
2. Have multiple backups
3. Have an off-site backup

1 — Run checkdisk and defrag often. Okay, I’m really not sure that this will help a whole lot, but it definitely can’t hurt the overall health of your hard drive. Vista has an option to schedule defrag built in. With XP I’m told you can put defrag in a scheduler and have it done that way. I usually run it 2-4 times a month.

2 — Have multiple backups, especially of non-replaceable data like home videos, photos, and school/work projects. Those were the first things that made me sick to my stomach– wedding/birth/family videos, pictures of family (like grandparents not alive), and old photographs that have been scanned and digitized and I may have the only digital copies. Multiple means at least two, preferably 3 or even 4 isn’t neccesarily overdoing it. With as reletively cheap as hard drives are, external and otherwise, there’s no reason not to have at least one. Keeping it connected to the computer is okay too for automated backups. But what if the worst happens and the computer is detroyed in a fire or flood?

3 — Have an off-site backup. This never really crossed my mind because, being fairly young, I’m still invincible and that invincibility is obviously passed on to my electronics, rights? Maybe not. There’s several options here and more if you have nerdy friends that want to back up your stuff in exchange for backup up theirs. Although I do have very nerdy friends (thanks for the loan of one of your many extra hard drives Mark) I’ve been looking at Mozy and Carbonite. Both have pros and cons but I think I’ll end up going with Mozy for many reasons: I’ve heard great things about them, they’re local (in Utah, awesome billboard), they offer 2GB free storage (and I like companies that do stuff like that), I can pay monthly, and they have a ’set it and forget it’ mentality to data backup. Carbonite looks like an excellent choice as well and is quite comparable and slightly cheaper, but I don’t want my data to suffer possible hibernation sickness. Mozy and Carbonite are $60 and $50 a year respectively with slight price breaks with Mozy for paying upfront for a year.

And for the record…even with my limited backups, it’s taken well over a week to get things up and going again. What do you do to backup? Share your experiences!

Here are some recent pics of our little toddler.  Since most of them involve Cheerios, I’ve titled this post accordingly.  Enjoy!

One morning daddy dressed Kaisa up in his Utah Blaze jersey for breakfast.  She had fun playing dress up and eating her Cheerios!

Before we could stop her, Kaisa had dumped her entire box of Fruity Cheerios all over the floor one morning.  Don’t worry…we made her help us pick them up. :)

I took this picture this morning.  This is what Kaisa’s hair looks like the morning after pigtails.  Hillarious!  Isn’t she so cute?

Who would have thought that being pregnant would cause such a decrease in blogging activity?  I apologize for my lack of posts in June, and to attempt to make up for this, here is June…in a nutshell.

The first weekend in June I had the opportunity to go down to Richfield, Utah and be a judge for the Utah State Cinderella Pageant.  This was so much fun!  It was very enjoyable to have a weekend away and dress up in some of my nicest clothes, things I would never wear as a mom.  One of the other judges just got off of the Wicked tour playing Glinda.  She performed “Popular” on the stage during finals night, and it was so fun to watch!  I couldn’t have asked for better judges to work with…we almost always agreed and the royalty we picked are going to be amazing!

The second week in June, Kaisa and I were off to Colorado to visit my brother and sister-in-law.  They are expecting a baby in September.  It was so fun to see them again and see some great stuff!

On Monday we went to Manitou Springs.  They had some great boutique-style shops there, where I got this cute hat for Kaisa.  I also found a bead shop to DIE for!

On Tuesday we all went up to the top of Pikes Peak.  This is where “America The Beautiful” was penned.  It was absolutely breathtaking!  We chose to drive up rather than taking the train, and I was very nervous during some parts…you are literally driving right next to a sheer drop off!  From left: Roseanne, Me, Kaisa, Melodie, and Dad (Chris).

We saw Bigfoot run by as we were driving up…no joke!  :)

Wednesday we went to Seven Falls.  Here we are with Aunt Bonnie!  The falls were so beautiful!  We hike up 200+ stairs to get to the top…well worth it, though!

The third week in June, we had my family visiting to help move my sister in.  She’s going to BYU!  I also hosted my other sister until she went to EFY.  It’s been fun having some extra hands around to help.  I was really feeling sick at the beginning of the week, but luckily it went away and I am feeling much better now.

And finally, the most exciting news!  Last week we heard that a couple in the ward would be moving out of their Evergreen townhome.  We had always thought that we would like to move over there when our family grew big enough, and it’s getting to that point.  We talked about it, and decided that this is as good a time as any!  We put an offer on their unit and we are now under contract!  We need to sell our Garden Park Condo first, though, so if you know any interested buyers…let us know!

I am so excited to move into our new home.  We’ll have a lot more space, and we’ll be able to finish the basement as we need it for even more space.  We’ll also have some nice things we haven’t had before, like a two-car garage, wood floors, jetted tub, and 9 foot ceilings!  I can’t wait!

Finally…the long-awaited post on my trip to New York City, complete with pictures! First, let me say that NYC is absolutely AMAZING! I felt like I was at the center of the world. There were so many things to see, smell, hear, and experience. I could easily have spent another week there and still not seen everything I wanted to! I will definitely be going back sometime, and I would love to take Nathan with me the next time I go.

Ok…now for the good stuff…

Here I am after seeing “Mary Poppins” on Broadway Friday evening. It was so cute and entertaining! I loved hearing the old classics as well as new songs, and I loved the new insight into the Mrs. Banks character! Fabulous!

Saturday morning Kerynne and I took a walk down 5th Avenue. First stop: FAO Schwartz Toy Store where I picked up a darling toy for Kaisa. So Fun! I loved the toy soldier at the door.

Next stop was the Apple Store. This was so cool to see…all of the apple products set up with internet connections so you could try them out. Here is a picture of me with our blog on the iphone!

Here I am trying my first New York City Hot Dog for lunch! It was delish! The guy who sold it to us said we were the first of the day to ask for “everything,” which includes mustard, ketchup, onion sauce, relish, and sour kraut. Yum!

Here I am in Times Square. We stood there for a good 30 minutes, taking it all in. It’s just incredible. There are huge megatron TV screens everywhere and it seems to be at the very heart of the city. It’s right by the Theater District and there is lots of good shopping. We ate dinner at a little sushi place right around here, and it was the best sushi I’ve had yet!

Finally! The moment I had been waiting for! I saw Wicked on Broadway, and it was INCREDIBLE! I felt so many things while I watched this show. The actors were exceptional, especially Elphaba, played by Stephanie J. Block, who was the original person they created the character with. The set, costumes, and lighting were amazing as well…it was worth every penny I paid! The cute girl standing by me in this picture is one of my best friends and college roommate, Libby. She saw “Mamma Mia” (which she had a callback for…yay!) and afterward we met up and went to junior’s for some AMAZING New York cheesecake! Wow…I look kinda creepy in this pic!

Sunday morning we walked to St. Pat’s and attended Mass. This is one of NYC’s oldest churches, and it’s nestled on 5th Ave. among the tall, modern skyscrapers. It’s a neat contrast.

Here I am at Sunday rehearsal with John Rutter. He’s signing my Requiem! It was neat to meet him. He is one of my favorite choral composers and being under his direction was simply amazing! We got to hear some neat stories of how he composed some of the different movements in the Requiem.

Here are me and my three roomies on Liberty Island. They are Kerynne (my aunt), Rachel, and Linda. Aren’t we cute?

Striking a pose in front of the Statue of Liberty. She is so beautiful in person…way better than the movies! We even got to go inside the monument museum and up to the observation deck–after they had cleared the whole place out because of an “unattended package.” Security here is crazy, and for good reason. Ask me about the “puff check” sometime. :)

Monday morning we went to the Manhattan Temple and did initiatories. This temple is amazing…it is truly a “haven from the world” in NYC. The sisters who helped us were so sweet and excited to have us there. I had a really special experience!

Here I am in front of the baseball diamonds in Central Park. We walked through the park and saw the dairy/gift shop, carousel, and lots of same-sex couples. :) The park is so beautiful!

Here I am at Carnegie Hall! Awww…I just realized that the sight seeing bus is cutting off part of the hall…oh well. Singing in this hall was amazing! It is so gorgeous and the acoustics were great. After the performance, we went on a cruise around the Statue of Liberty at night, which was so beautiful but I didn’t have a good enough camera to get decent shots.

On Tuesday morning after my “Early Show” announcement, they told us that David Archuleta would be there to sing. We couldn’t pass up the opportunity! Afterwards he signed my subway map and I got a picture with him…it’s on someone else’s camera, though, so I’ll have to post it later. He is the nicest, cutest kid! What a way to end our trip!

I loved NYC and it loved me! Till next time!

Most of you know Fiona’s been in New York the past few days to perform John Rutter’s Requiem at Carnegie Hall (directed by John Rutter) with the Wasatch Chorale. The choir was highlighted on The Early Show on Channel 2 this morning. I got a text from her at 6:40 saying she had been interviewed! Awesome, right? I didn’t have time to watch it before work so I recorded it to watch later tonight.

My friend Hobby called this morning wondering if I had seen the show yet, I hadn’t, and he said that Fiona had “kind of made a fool of herself”. Oh no… We’ll let you see judge… I thought she was awesome. Read the rest of this entry »