Beck's Tribute

Mt. Diablo or bust

This is one of the exact reasons we love this area. Drive to the beach, mountains, desert, city, or even 15 miles to Mt. Diablo. We had a blast and Kya LOVES to hike. (It's great having such an easy kidd-o)

Kya and Hal crawling around through little tunnels
At the summit
Something like a 182 week embryo...

Trip to the Exploratorium

Here are a few highlights from the Exploratorium. Kya LOVES museums and, secretly, so does Hal! Isn't this where Katie had her prom last year??

Creating a tornado--Texas is still WAY too fresh in my mind.... I caught her playing on this "exhibit"

We're back! (Sort of)

It's probably been a month since I posted but I think we've worked out all the kinks! Here is a quick rundown:



Packed the house in record speed and moved to Cali. Poor Hal was still getting emergency "need" calls from the ward while we were packing the car and even along the roadtrip. I think he'll miss his calling a lot, but grateful for a short break!


Got out here and then took off to Maui for a much-needed week alone. We came back and celebrated Hal's 31st birthday while he started his new job with Deloitte. He is loving every minute of it--a brilliant change. It's fun to watch him come alive again. He's doing strategy and org structure changes for brilliant clients and is in charge of all learning and development for his side of the company. If you know Hal, that's RIGHT up his alley--tell them what they need to know, what books to read, and find development speakers and topics. ha!


Great Christmas break, Kya and I spent the day at Six Flags (Marine World) with killer whales and dolphins in 40 degree weather and LOVED it, a trip to our cabin for New Years and then jumped down to L.A. for Camille's baptism and also saw Wicked (wahoo!).


Celebrated my 27th birthday with temple night. There were over 200 people there and it was so nice to walk into the room and recognize half the faces of people I've known and have touched my life through the years. I decided that that's got to be a little bit of what heaven is like - friends you haven't seen in years meeting you with warm hugs. Spent the next night in the city for an over-the-top work party and snuck out for a quiet dinner alone.

It's been a tougher transition than we thought, but we all agree that this is exactly where we need to be and it's feeling more like home (like bumping into Steve Young at NikeTown our first weekend here). ha! Kya misses Texas more than I expected and we get moments of the sweetest voice telling us not to sell our house and maybe we shouldn't move to California. It doesn't help that there is only one girl within 2 years of her age and 13 boys. She's missing her princess posse and I'm missing my friends!

This is how the ladies ride...

Here are a few clips from when we were playing in the snow at the cabin...

1) This is how the ladies ride...(Ladies like the Little Mermaid)

2-3) It's just entertaining to watch Hal at work

4) My mom got a lucky snowball shot right down my shirt.

We love the globe. We play the globe for hours. My favorite right now is when I've jumped into bed, turned off the lights, and then all of a sudden I hear: "Welcome to Leapfrog Learning...." aghhhh - Hal plays the globe to "unwind" at night. It's the best thing here since sliced bread (aside from the incredible hot chocolate maker---mmmm).

I walked into the room once and saw Kya playing with it and it blew me away. So I turned on the camera and she was awesome! I kept rolling to see how she was figuring all the countries out--the key is the music. ha! Sorry for the long clip--too good to pass up! Yup, she's only 3! No wonder she seemed bored on her first day of preschool here when they asked her to find a "red circle!" Just teasing. Preschool is an entirely separate entry--apparently you should be signing up on the waiting lists before giving birth (no joke). NUTS! We managed to get into one of the great preschools by the skin of our teeth and weeks of phone calls on my end!

We're grateful all these little pieces have been falling into line for us. We feel incredibly blessed!

Chrismas Eve

This is one of Kya's many quirks--cannot, CANNOT touch anything even remotely sticky. No oranges, candy canes, and apparently even rice krispy treats. I had to snap a shot after a week of sucking things off the counter and off plates! She was begging for a fork and I refused thinking, "she has to touch it at some point." Obviously, I was wrong!

Here was our Christmas Eve at the temple. Kya loved it and was thoroughly upset by not being allowed in the temple. My explanation was not good enough so she saddled up to Grandma trying to manipulate a better answer that would let her go inside. Pretty cute.

Here is part of the gang.

Kya has been begging for Christmas Eve every day since...