Wayne and Rebecca Madsen

An 11-year old Paela can aspire to be like.

Labor day was spent at home preparing a few overarching presentations discussing my work in 10 minutes or less. Granted, I should have prepared better by timing myself with the content I had because when I presented, I only got through half my presentation -- just one quarter of my graduate studies work -- before the time was up. My professor had requested we discuss our "past" work, but I hadn't realized I needed to trim back so much.  read more »

We made it to the temple on Wednesday -- the first time since before Paela was born. It was nice to be able to go and reflect and learn together. Paela had fun with her Aunt Angela and cousin Thomas, though apparently she is still a little unsure about her Uncle Karl. He must be making funny faces at her behind our backs or something.  read more »

For a nice afternoon treat, we took Paela to a park just south of the airport and watched planes fly over our heads. They were loud and Paela initially climbed into Rebecca's arms when they roared by, but by the end of the trip, she was making the sign for airplane when Rebecca's arms were full of other stuff. Along with the sign for airplane, she's also been signing "all done" and "up" for quite some time.  read more »

We found Paela a bigger sandbox to play in Saturday -- in Santa Cruz. She loved the beach! Loved, loved, loved it.

She got a huge smile when we plopped her in the sand, sand started filling her bucket handful by handful. She tasted a little, but it wasn't worth tasting more than that. She tried to stand up and walk, which was very tricky but she managed.  read more »