My wife and I hiked the Y today. The Y is a letter on the mountain just east of BYU campus. 40 14'49.11" N 111 37'22.40" W.

My wife is 7.5 months pregnant. I carried our son in a hiking pack that some members of our church lent us. It was a very nice pack, and I was able to put all of the weight on my hips. My pack was about 30 pounds, while my wife's was about 15 pounds of water. For some reason people were more impressed by her hiking than they were by me carrying our son.

According to Google Earth, the trail is ~0.95 miles each way, and rises from 5172 ft elevation to 6104 ft elevation.

My son warmed up to the hike by about 1/3 of the way through, and started chattering. He didn't like trying to stand on the uneven ground, and wouldn't let us put him down.

All in all it was a really enjoyable way to spend a morning.

Today shows that God really does take care of us.

We were planning on getting our transmission replaced this coming week (using our tax return). That would have been $2,000+ to get it done. Well more than the value of the car, but considering we couldn't afford to buy a car that is any better, we figured we'd at least deal with a car where we already know the issues.

My brother and his wife brought over dinner tonight. She is from Peru, and is an amazing cook. We also had my sister over. It was good fun.

As my brother we getting ready to leave, he mentioned that he had to give me my birthday present three weeks early. I figured, ok, we are going out of town for my birthday, and he doesn't come down very often, so no big deal. He pulls they keys for his car out of his pocket and tells me that my birthday present is his car. Of couse, my wife and I think he is joking. Turns out he was serious. That was an amazing turn of events, and we are still reeling.

So, that means we save $2,000+ from our tax return (to get payed on student loans and new baby stuff, I'm sure), we get a car that is 9 years newer than our old one and is in much better condition, and, once again, we show that our finances work out, even though by all acounts they shouldn't.

Tonight's dinner was really easy to fix. We had a work party. They expected 20 adults and 20 kids. I think they ended up with about 3/4 of that. I really get along with the guys I work with.

They had steak for the adults and hotdogs for the kids. Really cheap steak...Filet Mignon... Yeah, not so cheap, but if work is paying for it, I'll eat it.

We had it at the park just south of town. My son really enjoyed the slide and swings. My wife, she enjoyed the filet mignon. All in all, it was a blast.

The other day my wife and I went to a pet store and looked around. The problem with pets is that I'm allergic to about everything with fur or feathers, so that rules out the majority of common pets.

I like animals, but cats, which I like the best, are what I am most allergic to. Fortunately I'm not allergic to reptiles (hello? No dander there...) and I really like them. So, the pet shop had some snakes and geckos. My wife prefers the gecko and I prefer the snakes.

So, after that I pretty much forgot about it, but yesterday, for some reason, I remembered about it and got really excited about getting a snake. So, I looked up information on ball pythons and found that they would be what I would want. My wife, being the unreasonably reasonable person that she is, said that we don't have room to put the terrarium, and, if that wasn't a big enough issue, she said that we can't afford it (which is true). I tried really hard to come up with placs to put the terrarium, like on top of the entertainment center, but she had to have her way...

Honestly, I'm not too upset, but I would like to get a snake someday.

It's been snowing again, here in Provo. My wife came back from a church activity to find a car parked such that the tail end blocked about 1/3 of the entrance to our building's parking lot. Somehow (I'm not sure how) she managed to get in to the parking lot anyway. I never would have tried it; I would have parked on the street somewhere else.

Anyway, this kind of frustrated me. I went to the other apartments in the building and nobody knew who's car it was. So, I took down the make, model, and license plate number. After that I called the police. They were very nice and sent an office over. When he arrived, he stayed outside, and waited for a truck to come and tow the car. Now that the car isn't there anymore, it is much easier for people to get in to our parking lot.

I hate calling the police for something like that, but it is incredibly rude to block a parking lot, besides being illegal. Anyway, I hope that they learn a lesson from this and don't make the same mistake again. Also, I hope they figure out that the police had the car towed.