Skousen Family | Nate, Allison, & Cora

Back by popular demand

noreply@blogger.com (Nate) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 03:31:00 +0000

After much time, we have decided to get back on the blog wagon. In all fairness, we have been very busy and we simply haven't made blogging a priority. Truth be told, we read blogs on a daily/nightly basis but we fail to update our own blog. Lame - we know. We are prepared to do better. Are you ready for a brief overview since our last update? Here we go:

1. I changed jobs. I used to work for Ancestry.com (just had an IPO last week) and left in March. It is a great company and it was a great job. I worked at Ancestry.com for 6+ years. They put me through college (literally paid a lot of my tuition) and launched my career. It was hard to leave but the opportunity to work for a new company doing exciting things was too tempting. I now work for Mozy.com and am very busy as we ramp up some new products and partnerships. I'm still in the same, exciting field of Business Intelligence and we're building a pretty serious data warehouse for Mozy.

2. Cora keeps growing up. She is now 2 going on 16. She talks a lot and says some pretty funny things. Today in church she told me in Sacrament Meeting, "Dad, calm down sweetie." She is girl through and through. She loves and takes constant care of her baby doll. In addition, loves slides, parks, Kamryn's house (neighbor), church, books, running, and Mickey Mouse.

3. We celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary in Hawaii. We bit the bullet and we went on a nice 7 day Hawaiian cruise. We loved every minute of it. Even the 12 hour flight delay which caused us to miss the boat the first night. We even loved getting sea sick on our snorkeling trip to Molokini Crater and feeding the fish, if you know what I mean. Ultimately, we had a great time and can't wait to go back. Some highlights were mountain biking the Volcano, riding scooters to magic sands beach in Kona, kayaking and hiking to a waterfall, relaxing on the beach, seeing the Napali coast, visiting the Dole plantation, etc. To view a bunch of pictures from our trip you can click here.

4. Landscaping. It took us all summer but we finally got the sprinklers, grass, trees, bushes, etc. installed. We just have a few more little projects to get done but the big stuff is done and we're glad it is.

So, thank you for being loyal readers and followers of our lame blog. Hopefully this post will keep you coming back for more. Here are a few pictures:

More House Pictures

noreply@blogger.com (Nate) — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 03:30:00 +0000

Here are some more pictures of our house. Allison says we're not done decorating yet. Slowly but surely. We don't have a picture of Cora's room yet... coming soon.

Master Bedroom

Master Bath

Master Bath

Bathrooom

Front Entry

Office

Laundry Room

Nook

Kitchen

Living Room

Living Room & Nook

Christmas Lights

The House

Long Time, No Post

noreply@blogger.com (Nate) — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 03:03:00 +0000

We realize that it has been a while since we've updated our blog. We've just been rather busy. We had Christmas in our new home and spent some time with Allison's family. It was great to see Andrew, Daniel, and Michele. We spent a lot time sledding, skiing, shopping, and playing our new Wii. Allison and I even started our own Guitar Hero Band. We are disappointed with how the Cougars ended the football season and we find the Ute's big Sugar Bowl win bitter-sweet.

Cora is growing like a weed. She loves to jump, laugh, talk on my cell phone, play with her baby dolls, sing, dance, and give us kisses. She also loves making trips to the unfinished basement and going up and down the stairs.

As for us, we're just doing the same old stuff. Work is keeping me busy and Cora is keeping Allison busy. We are just glad the holidays are over and that Cora is back to a normal bed time.

Here are some pictures...

Good Morning

Santa Came!

Annual Ferre-Skousen Ginger Bread Houses

Cora performing

MyCanvas

noreply@blogger.com (Nate) — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 17:18:00 +0000

The Generations Network (the company I work for) just launched a new product a few months ago called MyCanvas (www.mycanvas.com). It is a place where you can print photo books, posters, calendars, etc. using your own pictures. It is pretty similar to SnapFish and other services but the quality is much better. Anyways, we're in the process of adding more and more products. For a short time, you can get 20% off your entire order by using the coupon code MCHOLIDAY. Give it a try!

Also, if you're into Family History try going to http://mycanvas.ancestry.com. Here they have additional project types and templates around documenting and preserving your family history research. The same coupon code should work on this site too.

Please ignore the shameless marketing plug for the company I work for... just thought I would pass on a good deal. I really don't care if you buy anything or not.

NKOTB

noreply@blogger.com (Allison) — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:21:00 +0000

That's right... we're all moved in. Thanks for everyone who helped us move. We really appreciate it. Everything went so well and we're so excited and grateful to be in our new house. We love it!

We moved in just in time... It snowed 3 days later.

Halloween 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Allison) — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:57:00 +0000

We met up with the Ferre family for the 3rd Annual Ferre Skousen pumpkin carving night. Thanks for the fun-filled, pizza-eating, pumpkin-carving night. This year Cora was a lion. She played the part well and even threw in her own sound effects. We went to the ward's Trunk-or-Treat. Cora is a pro and knows exactly what to do. My favorite part was when she took a piece of candy from her basket and put it into another boy's basket. I guess she just wanted to share the sugar. Way to go, Cora!

Seattle Trip

noreply@blogger.com (Allison) — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:25:00 +0000

At the beginning of October we went to Seattle for a week. Nate got to attend a Microsoft conference for work and he took me and Cora with him. We decided to stay a few extra days to see the sites.

Seattle is beautiful and it only rained 2 times while we were there. While Nate was
at the conference, Cora and I roamed the streets of downtown Seattle. We walked through Pike's Market a couple of times, visited the local Gap, and found some good places to eat. Anyways here are a few pictures.

In front of Pike's Market... Nate had some good Clam Chowder there for lunch one day.

Cora enjoying the view

The family at the Seattle Aquarium

Enjoying the harbor

We took a little cruise around Elliott Bay

Allison and Cora on the Harbor Cruise

BURNOUT

noreply@blogger.com (Nate) — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 02:48:00 +0000

Cora loves Hot Wheels... they are her favorite toy as of late. For our trip to Seattle we let her pick out a pack of Hot Wheels for her to play with on the plane. She has good taste. She picked the pack with a Mercedes, Porche, RangeRover, and Lexus. She especially loves seeing them crash so we decided to make a BURNOUT video (video game where you get points for causing large accidents). Check it out...

Don't forget... This blog is going private on Wednesday, 15th October. If you would like an invite, send an e-mail to skousenblog@gmail.com. Don't be shy.

Blog IPO (Initial Private Offering)

noreply@blogger.com (Nate) — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 04:14:00 +0000

We have decided to take our blog private rather than public. Please e-mail us at skousenblog@gmail.com to receive an invite. Be sure to tell us who you are too... we may not know you by your sweet16Hottie or StudMuffinCougar email address. We will be making the switch October 15th.

What Up?

noreply@blogger.com (Nate) — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 03:10:00 +0000

It has been a while since we've posted so we will give an update on the most important things (namely Cora).

Cora:

Cora is officially a walker... she has graduated from crawling and is loving her newfound freedom. Church is even more exciting as she has realized she doesn't always need to or want to sit in our laps for 3 hours. Peter & Leah's ward has many more kids than our student ward. Cora loves kids and whispers "Hi" to all the kids in the hallway. Her first love, though, is White Socks. He is the most kind, forgiving, patient cat you will ever meet. Cora wakes up every morning (still half asleep) saying "Cat Cat". Cora is happiest when White Socks is by her side. I have to remind White Socks that she's still daddy's little girl.

Here is a picture of the two love birds:

Nate & Allison:
We're doing well. Allison is enjoying her Nike+ system that hooks up to her iPod. Her favorite part is when Lance Armstrong lets her know her running stats at the end of her run. It is very motivating apparently.

I'm still working at The Generations Network working on awesome projects. I even recruited one of my mission buddies and college roommates (Brandon Camp) to come work with me. Work has been a lot of fun since he joined the team... even though he beats me in foosball tournaments occasionally.

House:
The house is coming along nicely. Here are some of the latest pictures... we don't want to bore you too much with these. These pictures may be more exciting to us than to you.

The front of the house. They just started the stucco...it will not be this color.

Living Room

Back of the house

House Progress

noreply@blogger.com (Allison) — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 05:31:00 +0000

So we broke ground on the house towards the end of July and we're amazed at how much they have completed already. We try to go by the lot once a week to see what they have done and we're usually surprised to see all the progress. We're really excited and can't wait to move in. We'll be moving this next weekend into Peter & Leah's house and staying there until the house is completed in mid November. They are so nice to let us stay in their house while they are staying in some sweet chateau in Italy for several months. Anyways, here are a few pictures...

The Duck Pond

noreply@blogger.com (Allison) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 04:08:00 +0000

This afternoon we took a little walk to the duck pond. Cora was very excited to see all of the ducks waddling around and swimming in the pond. I gave Cora some pieces of bread to feed the ducks. Cora thought that the bread was for her and she ate every piece that I gave her. Funny. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of the event. I am posting some pictures of Cora just because.

We're Building a House

noreply@blogger.com (Nate) — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 03:08:00 +0000

So we have decided to build a house. After much deliberation we finalized everything a few weeks ago and now we're waiting for the permits and we hope to break ground in the next week or two. The house should be finished towards the end of the year. We had a great time picking out all the options including carpet, tile, counter tops, cabinets, brick, stucco, roof, etc, etc, etc. We are really excited and can't wait to see them start construction.

UPDATE: It is in Lehi, near Thanksgiving Point.

This is a house that is just like ours that is finished. Our house will have red brick instead of stone (they say it lasts longer and requires less maintenance) with white trim and a dark roof.

Cora's Photo Shoot

noreply@blogger.com (Nate) — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 03:20:00 +0000

Here is Cora's latest photo shoot. We thought they turned out really well and ended up buying all the photos on CD. We had them taken at Busath/Bounce photography on 500 West 200 North in Provo, UT.

Where is Matt?

noreply@blogger.com (Nate) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 23:15:00 +0000

I just found out about this guy... Matt. He has traveled around the world and does this dance in front of landmarks and unique places on the earth. For some reason it is really moving. I enjoyed it.

Big Events

noreply@blogger.com (Nate) — Sun, 18 May 2008 23:40:00 +0000

Clearly, it has been a while since we've updated and we've had a lot of requests to post the latest news. Since our last post a lot has happened. Here is a laundry list of items:

1. Nate's Birthday
2. Allison's Birthday
3. Nate's Graduation
4. 4 Year Wedding Anniversary
5. House Hunting
6. First trip to the Zoo

Overall, we're doing well and enjoy having Nate come home at 5:30 or 6:00 with no homework or tests to worry about. As some of you may know, he accepted a full time offer at The Generations Network (Ancestry.com, MyFamily.com, etc.). He really likes his job and we're getting used to the idea of staying in Utah.

Cora is growing up so fast. She can now stand up on her own with the help of the couch or any sturdy structure. She is even sleeping better... knock on wood. She always smiles and loves to see other children. She is also a wonderful eater. She loves fruits & vegetables including asparagus, broccoli, carrots, peas, lettuce, pears, apples, bananas, etc. She'll basically eat anything we give her. I wish the same were true for Nate!

We've also begun the house hunt. It is pretty stressful but we hope to be in a home this summer sometime.

We're excited for the Everett Family Reunion this summer where many of my brothers and sisters along with their families will be visiting for week. That will be the highlight of our summer.

Graduation

Oh No!

Cora's first trip to the zoo. She loved the monkeys.

Allison's Birthday. Nate surprised me with a trip to a day spa. It was great!!

Oops...

Cora on the swings... This is almost a daily ritual.

Our latest photo shoot. We'll post more pictures of this later.

Rex Lee Run/Skousen 5K

noreply@blogger.com (Nate) — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 03:39:00 +0000

The Rex Lee Run took a different turn this year. Nate, Cora, and I had been preparing to run the 5K together. We were so excited that we even bought a jogging stroller and new running shoes for Nate. We were disappointed to find that the weather was less than desirable on Saturday morning (27 degrees and 80% chance of snow...eek). We hadn't factored weather into the equation at all. So, we came up with a Plan B/alternative Rex Lee Run that we affectionately refer to as the Skousen 5K. The Skousen 5K took place at the Smith Field House (short track!). The only participants were Nate and Cora...the winners, both by default and sheer skill. I (Allison) participated in the traditional Rex Lee Run and withstood the cold. It was sad that we weren't able to run all together but we were happy with our creative alternative.

Here are some pictures of us...minus Cora (she was napping by this point).

A post wouldn't be complete without a Cora picture. Enjoy!

Valentine's Day, Etc.

noreply@blogger.com (Nate) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 03:25:00 +0000

So these last couple of weeks have been busy... as usual. The week of Valentine's, Nate had 2 tests and we had to leave later in the week to go to his brother's (Josh) wedding in Albuquerque. We left Friday morning and came back Monday afternoon. The next week Nate had a presentation at school and had to speak today in Stake Conference during the Priesthood Leadership session. I have been busy too running at the track, going to the library with Cora, and finalizing our ward picture directory.

Here is a picture of Cora on the plane on the way to Abq. She did a really good job and even slept for part of the trip.

Here is the happy couple. We're excited for Josh and Cathi!

Here are some other pictures that we've taken lately.

Overall, we're doing well and enjoying watching Cora grow and learn. We think she is really close to crawling and she can now roll around with purpose and get to anything she really wants. To contain her, we've set up a nice perimeter of pillows on the living room floor which prevents her from rolling too far. (See picture below). Cora has been wonderful... she smiles all the time and makes us so happy and proud.

For Valentine's day Nate brought home PF Chang's for dinner and some nice flowers. We just spent the evening with Cora and packing for our trip to New Mexico. Here are the flowers Nate gave me.

OneStopGPS.com

noreply@blogger.com (Nate) — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 15:50:00 +0000

This post has nothing to really do with our family but I thought I would share some cool information. Some of you may know that I own a website called OneStopGPS.com where I try to sell GPS equipment. I've been running the website for more than a year and every month I get more and more visitors. Anyways, over the past month I have received about 135 visitors from 19 countries. These are the countries:

United States
Indonesia
Thailand
Belarus
Australia
Russia
Canada
Iran
Germany
Latvia
United Kingdom
Lithuania
Spain
Sweden
Puerto Rico
Taiwan
Kuwait
Argentina
Maldives

Crazy uh? That is just in the last month. Over the past year I have received 3,274 visits from 73 different countries.

United States
Canada
United Kingdom
Australia
Germany
Thailand
Brazil
Japan
India
France
Netherlands
Indonesia
Russia
Mexico
Sweden
Spain
Taiwan
Argentina
New Zealand
Israel
Bulgaria
Hong Kong
Italy
Bolivia
Denmark
Senegal
Venezuela
Puerto Rico
Ukraine
Hungary
Poland
Chile
Peru
Ireland
Malaysia
Finland
Greece
Turkey
Kuwait
Singapore
Romania
China
Malta
Croatia
South Korea
Lithuania
Colombia
Belgium
United Arab Emirates
Portugal
Vietnam
Austria
Belarus
Iran
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Mozambique
Cayman Islands
Norway
Latvia
El Salvador
Barbados
U.S. Virgin Islands
Martinique
Switzerland
Slovakia
Serbia and Montenegro
Bahamas
Costa Rica
Panama
Macedonia
Maldives
South Africa

The internet truly is global!!

Cora has teeth.

noreply@blogger.com (Allison) — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 04:04:00 +0000

Happy New Year!

Cora has teeth! Isn't that amazing? If you don't believe me...please see below. Teething was/is an interesting experience. I don't think that she knew quite what was happening. I think her new teeth are cute.

Cora eats solids! Cora has started eating rice cereal. I am not sure if she enjoys biting the spoon more or actually eating the rice. Here are some pictures of her first try with solids.

We are doing well. Just trying to survive the winter. I don't really like the cold. You would think that I would be used to it after many many Ohio and Utah winters. Despite my previous experiences, the coldness always comes as an unwelcome surprise. I guess that winter makes the spring seem that much better.

Nate has started his last semester at BYU. Wow! The below picture closely resembles a much earlier picture taken of Nate at the beginning of a school year. I think that both of them capture his true excitement for his studies.

Christmas 2007

noreply@blogger.com (Nate) — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 21:18:00 +0000

Where does the time go? It was this time last year that we announced to everyone that Allison was expecting and here we are with a 5 month old. We have been very busy lately and there is probably a lot to post about. Since our last post we have enjoyed Thanksgiving, finals, and Cora's 5 month birthday. Christmas is just a few days away and we're very excited to see Daniel and Michele (Allison's brother and sister-in-law) and Andrew (Allison's other brother). We were also lucky to see my (Nate) parents this last weekend as they came up to help Josh (my brother) move back to New Mexico. It was nice to spend time with them.

Overall we're doing great. I finished my finals this last week after 2 weeks of working on many group projects and a couple of days of food poisoning (Thanks Cafe Rio!). Only one more semester left! Cora is growing so much. She can now roll from her stomach to her back... although we have actually never seen her do it. She will be on her stomach one second and then are her back the next and we are amazed. Weird. Also, we think she is teething. Normally, she is a very happy baby and has really liked to whole sleeping thing but in the past few days she is more upset and wakes up more often. She is also drooling and bitting things all the time. We'll see if she gets two front teeth for Christmas. We have posted some pictures we thought you would enjoy. We hope you have wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Nate, Allison, & Cora

Amazon MP3

noreply@blogger.com (Nate) — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 21:15:00 +0000

Have you guys heard of Amazon MP3? It's Amazon.com's MP3 download service. It is actually pretty cool and much better than iTunes. Here is what Amazon has to say about it...

AmazonMP3offers Earth's biggest selection of a la carte, DRM-free MP3 music downloads. With over 2 million songs from more than 180,000 artists represented by over 20,000 major and independent labels, Amazon MP3 complements Amazon.com's existing selection of over 1 million CDs to offer customers more selection of physical and digital music than any other retailer.

Every song and album on Amazon MP3 is available exclusively in the MP3 format without digital rights management (DRM) software. This means that Amazon MP3 customers are free to enjoy their music downloads using any hardware device, organize their music using any music management application, and burn songs to CDs.

Most songs are priced from 89 cents to 99 cents, with more than 1 million of the 2 million songs priced at 89 cents. The top 100 best-selling songs are 89 cents, unless marked otherwise. Most albums are priced from $5.99 to $9.99. The top 100 best-selling albums are $8.99 or less, unless marked otherwise.

Every song on Amazon MP3 is encoded at 256 kilobits per second, which gives customers high audio quality at a manageable file size.

Anyways, check out AmazonMP3... you can get there by clicking on this image...

Happy Halloween! Go fish!

noreply@blogger.com (Allison) — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 03:56:00 +0000

Cora experienced her first Halloween. She was a goldfish. Nate and I were fishermen. Nate added a little touch of "scary/???" to the costume as always. His standard misc. black wig and a good amount of my eyeliner made the costume complete. We went to our ward Halloween party and to Nate's work for trick or treating. Enjoy!

Cora LOVED chewing on the bottom of the fish mouth!

We carved pumpkins with the Ferre family. Fun!

The finished pumpkins.

Another cute one of Cora. Poor girl gets bombarded by the camera every day.

More Cora

noreply@blogger.com (Allison) — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 03:14:00 +0000

Here are some more pictures of Cora! We have been doing well. Cora is growing everyday. She has started to do some rolling and continues to smile and laugh from time to time. I (Allison) have been trying to put her in her Bumbo more to help her practice sitting up. She always has a very proud look on her face when she holds her head and shoulders up. Enjoy!

Latest News

noreply@blogger.com (Nate) — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 00:53:00 +0000

Before we update everyone about what is going on in our lives we thought we would share a few of our favorite pictures as of late.

We're happy to say that Cora is doing well. She is sleeping better, eating a lot, and finding good use for all the diapers we have bought. We're amazed at how much she has grown and changed over the past 10 weeks. She's even starting to smile as you saw in the pictures above. She is great.

After much deliberation, prayer, and thought Allison and I have decided to accept a full-time offer with The Generations Network (TGN)... where I currently work. I received an offer from Ernst & Young after my internship and TGN counter offered and we decided to stay. There were many good things about both opportunities. We weighed the pro's and con's of each. Ultimately, it was a difficult decision but we feel like we made the right choice. So, until graduation we will be saving money and begin looking for a house.

Anyways, everything else is going well. We're getting adjusted to having a third member of our family and we're enjoying life.