Jake and Alex Simons

Some videos of the little one.

2009-06-22T19:52:00.000-07:00

Here are some videos of Brax. The first one is of his cool glasses. He thought that he was the coolest thing!

The other day Brax was OBSESSED with being out in the rain. He loved it for some reason. This kid LOVES to be outside all the time. The first thing that he wants to do in the morning once he has woken up is go upstairs and look out the windows.He's a goof, but I guess i shouldn't complain.

THE NEXT GALACTICO! Our little Brax loves to play soccer! YAY! I wonder if genetics really could have anything to do with it...... For those of you who don't know, Galactico is what they call the super stars of my favorite Spanish League team Real Madrid. One can hope right? There is a moment almost at the end of the video that he has a "Squirrel" moment. If you have seen the new movie UP you will understand. If not, basically, Brax gets distracted very easily, especially if there is a bird anywhere in the vicinity. In the video I think a bird landed on the power lines behind him and he immediately stopped and had to watch the birds. Gotta love him.

I guess these are just a small glimpse into how awesome it is to have Brax around. He makes every single day interesting and that much more fun. He is an absolute riot!

2009-06-13T14:04:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! My blog store is now up and running - we still have a lot of work to do on it but i figured i should atleast open it for people to look at. Let your friends and family know about it!

www.thesourpeachstore.blogspot.com

He is ONE!!!

2009-06-12T14:05:00.000-07:00

He is one, can you believe it! It flies by! He is dribbling a soccer ball already, gonna be our little soccer player! Anyway, thought I would throw some pics on real quick, let everyone see how much he is growing!

Dear Stephanie,

2009-02-08T20:12:00.001-08:00

WE ARE ALIVE! We are just really terrible at blogging. The funny thing is we probably have tons to fill you in about, we just don't. So let's just catch up. So pretty much our lives are still boring. Braxtons first Christmas was pretty fun. Although he got three times more than anyone else in the family got (he's not complaining). In the past two weeks he has started crawling (he's moved out of the worm phase), clapping (he loves to do patty cake), waving (he does it backwards...so cute!) and is now getting his second tooth! We have now realized that we have to keep our part of the house ridiculously clean after a couple close calls with dog food and a candy wrapper. oops. He says "ma ma" when he eats and "da da" when he cries.....I guess thats sayin somethin.
He and Trapper are still best friends they eat the same food they smell the same its a beautiful friendship. He also has the ability to throw amazing tantrums that get him whatever he wants whenever he wants it. HE IS A DORK!
Nothing really new with us. We're both going to start going to school again. But as for now its just work......and thats pretty much it. Nothing all that exciting really.

How was your fall?

2008-11-02T17:49:00.000-08:00

So we debated wether or not to blog about Braxtons first fall. Fall is one of my favorite times of the year, but Braxtons first fall landed him in the ER! Hope nobody thinks we are bad parents for this! We had braxtons car seat on the table and stuck brax in it without strapping him in, for just a split second we had our backs turned to grab the phone and WHAM!! He somehow squirmed his way out of his car seat and face planted into the hard wood floor. We were basket cases of course and had no idea what to do next. He hardly had any marks on his body and other than the 20 minutes of screaming he seemed just fine. But of course we were freaking out and wanted to take him to be checked anyway. He ended up being just fine luckily! We have definately learned a HUGE lesson from this and will not do anything like that again.

Other than that we had a great fall!!! I got dibs on making Brax a Utah fan, despite Jakes love for BYU and might I say, he is loving it!

We have gone to a few RSL games and we are loving the new stadium!! Braxton loves them. He loves the bright lights and all the people!

Braxton has developed this new obsession with sucking on his feet. His big toe is in his mouth every chance he gets!

Brax was a cow for Halloween and so was I!! haha (we have better pictures that we will put on the blog shortly)

2008-10-04T22:46:00.000-07:00

Okay! So we are really slacking on this whole blogging thing but life is so crazy after you have a child. I can only imagine how it is going to be after two, three and four! It is so much fun though. Braxton makes us smile more and more each day. He is now 4 months old and weighs almost 16 pounds (75%) and he is 26 inches long (90%)! I cant believe how big he is and he just doesn't stop. It is so fun to watch him grow with the other kids I babysit that are around his age (he is by far the biggest)!! These are a few of the many pictures my sister took about two months ago. Thanks Lace!! He got his first haircut by Grandma Simons last week so we don't have to keep the comb over (hitler) look!

Its been a while.........

2008-09-20T07:16:00.000-07:00

It has been far too long since Alex or I posted anything about our lives. Thanks to constant proding from certain friends I decided that I would spend a minute here updating everyone.

Basically since we moved back down we've been going a million miles an hour.

I am now working at 1800 contacts in draper. I love it. Its a great place to work.
Alex is doing day care with her sister. I think that's working out pretty well for her.

Braxton is growing bigger every day. Fatter too. He is the cutest kid on the planet! He loves to laugh and smile. Its amazing how much his personality has developed already. There are times that we get him to smile and he gets so shy about it he tries to hide his face in anything he can.

Trapper is trapper. Still hyper as ever. He is spending a lot more time outside now and I'm not to sure he appreciates that.

We will get some pictures up this weekend of braxton and some other things that have been going on.

BOOM!!!!!!!

2008-08-05T13:49:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago Jon Tucker and I went shooting with his friend Jon Ferry who is the proud owner of a cannon. It was the first time that I had ever shot a 50 caliber so it was an intimidating experience but it was so fun.

24th of July

2008-08-05T10:55:00.000-07:00

Jake had to work up in Vernal the weekend of the 24th of July so I went up there as well. We woke up Thursday morning and went to the Vernal parade (i would compare it to the Victor, Idaho parade :) Then we went and spent a few hours at the lake with our neighbors, the Tuckers. It was a blast, we hung out on the beach and took turns taking the wave runners out. We spent the rest of the night bbqing, playing Wii and lighting fireworks!

Redfish Lake

2008-07-27T12:28:00.001-07:00

Over the fourth of July we went to Redfish Lake with the fam, It was a trip that we had both looked forward to all year long. And it didn't disappoint. We drove the truck up with Heather and Jake so we were destined to have at least one flat tire. But no, they cursed us with two flat tires this trip. After changing out the first tire, we kid you not, with in a mile a second had gone flat. I blame them entirely. ;) We had fun at a new campsite this year. It was a little further from the lakes but it was much more secluded, which was nice. We fished, rode four wheelers, went swimming at Redfish, saw very few fish at the fish hatchery, and only had two accidents to speak of. (Yes, I wrecked on a dirt bike again.....oops.) The food was great, the movies were okay, all in all it was a great trip thanks to all who were involved.

Gone Fishin!

2008-06-30T13:10:00.000-07:00

Today Jake and I got up at the butt crack of dawn to go fishing with Grandpa Simons. Braxton got to stay and hang out with Grandma all morning while we fished at Jordanelle. We got to the lake around 7:30 and fished until about 11. We only caught three fish the whole time ( and they were all caught by Grandpa Simons, although he did let us each reel one in so we could say we caught a fish.) It was a blast!! Thanks Grandpa Simons!

Check out my Slide Show!

2008-06-23T17:55:00.001-07:00

One month down, a lifetime to go....

2008-06-23T15:45:00.000-07:00

Oh my gosh! Has it really already been a month? Yes. Yes it has. I think that both of us can say that it has been a month full of great expiriences, a lot of laughter and smiles, and a lot of dirty diapers and very little sleep(for one of us). All together it has been great. Every single moment has been great!

Its amazing how much of a personality the little guy has. He has a face for every moment of every day. He has been spoiled since the second the doctor handed him to us for the first time, and he knows it. It seems that everytime we try and put him down for a second there is someone else in line to hold him. Now Braxton thinks that he should be held all the time, and we mean all the time! He can't sleep unless one of us is holding him and can't be put down for more than a few minutes before the whimpering begins. You can't really blame any one for wanting to hold him, I mean, he is the cutest little kid ever.

I have had to go to and from Vernal for work and spend days at a time there and when I came home this week I could not believe how much fatter he has gotten. I laughed. Fat babies are the best.

This past week he went to the Zoo for the first time with Alex, Heather and Lacey and some of the daycare kids. Alex tried out the new baby carrier that we got and it seemed to work great except that he just slept the entire time and didn't see a single animal. I guess that means that we will be going again and again. Oh well, we don't mind.

He has fallen in love with baths already. They seem to have a calming affect on him, which is nice for us. He can be screaming and the second his little bum touches the water he calms right down.

He is also a very strong little baby. If you lay him on your chest he lifts his little head up like a turtle and looks around at everything. He's been doing that for a couple weeks now. I don't think he sees very well but he's definately interested in his surroundings. He is constantly looking with wide eyes at anything that moves, including the TV and computer screens.

He has been sick for the past little while. Unfortunately both Alex and I got sick right after we got him home from the hospital and he has caught the cold that we both had. Its sad at times when he's coughing, or when he wakes up in the morning and his eyes are crusted shut. But he's getting over it now and its less common.

This month has been great. There have been so many moments that are worth writing about. We'll try and get better at writing about them.

Car wreck

2008-06-05T12:55:00.000-07:00

So yesterday I was coming down from vernal and it was raining pretty bad. I was driving a work truck down from vernal so that we can get it detailed and ready to sell. As i was coming down through Parleys the rain slowed down but you could tell that the road was pretty wet. That road can get pretty sketchy if your going fast without it wet so I decided to slow down a bit. About half way down the canyon I moved all the way into the right lane cause there were some people just flying down the canyon and I was in their way. It was a pretty good thing that I did move over cause right after I did a little car came flying across all three lanes and slammed into and over the barrier just passed the East Canyon ovepass. The car came across the lanes so fast it took me off gaurd and I thought I was going to run into it. I slammed on the brakes and watched as the car spun and just about went down the hill onto the golf course thats right there. The car actually stopped right in the middle of the west bound on ramp coming from East canyon. I stopped just after the ramp and called 911 as another guy checked on the kid in the car. He had got out of the car by this time and was kind of stumbling around but seemed to be okay, which was more than I expected.

It was kind of funny because the 911 operator asked me if the kid in the car was hurt and I was still walking from my truck up to where he was, but the other guy that stopped was right there and said that he didn't think so. As I got closer to the car I could see that the kid was bleeding a little bit on his forehead and from his nose but hardly from either place. Right as i got to the car he kind of stumbled over himself and so we figured it would be best if someone came to check him out. So, I told the operator that he might need someone to check him out. In saying this I imagined in my head AN ambulance, as in one. What we got was someting completely different.

About five minutes after I hung up with 911 I saw this fire truck coming up the canyon and I thought "oh, they have EMTs, that works.". So this truck comes up and three people jump out and start checking him out. Then, I kid you not, another full on fire truck shows up with four more people, a suburban marked as some sort of EMT vehicle shows up with two more people, shortly after that a highway patrol car shows up, then an ambulance pulled up and they told them they didn't need to be there and finally another highway patrolman showed up. There had to be fifteen people there! It was pretty funny.

Eventually all the firetrucks and EMTs left and we were left with the two Highway patrol guys. One was getting the info on the crash from the guy that was driving while the other asked me to help him move the car off the road so it wasn't blocking traffic. That part was pretty cool. I got in the car and he pulled his car up to the front and pushed the car out of the road. It was funny too because I could kind of hear what was being said between the other officer and the driver and the driver was tottally trying to avoid answering questions like how fast he was going and what not. Interestingly enough he had called his mom and told her that he was going about 77 which he finally admitted to the officer, at which time he was told that he would be getting a ticket. When he heard this he started to get pretty frustrated. He kept saying "I just wrecked my car....why am I getting a ticket?" The officer explained to him how he had been speeding and beyond that how dumb it was to be going that fast with the wet road and that he had destroyed county property and would have to pay for that too. The driver seemed baffled that he was going to get a ticket and argued a little bit with the officer until finally he said something like, 'look, you can fight it all you want but you'll lose. You're getting a ticket and thats that."

The officer eventually asked me to come over to his car and tell him what I saw and then I was told I could leave. In a way I felt bad for the kid but at the same time kinda serves him right for driving like an idiot.

We're Parents!

2008-05-26T10:57:00.000-07:00

Friday, May 23 at 8:49 A.M. Jake Braxton Simons was born at the IMC in Murray. We are so excited to have him here! He's a character already! He was pretty quiet at first but has since learned that if he screams he'll get what he wants very quickly.

We got to the hospital at around 3 friday morning, and honestly we thought that they were just going to say that Alex was having false labor pains and should just go home.

They put us in one of the delivery rooms and told us that Alex had dilated to a four, which was a huge change from what she was on wednesday (she was at a 1), so they admitted her for observation. Basically they had to see that she was actively dilating to show whether or not she was actually in labor. An hour later she was at a 4 and a half so they decided that she was in labor! After that decision was made things went very quickly. They broke her water, which was a lot different than I thought it was gonna be, and started giving her a medicine that was supposed to accelerate the contractions and speed up the labor process. When they said that it would speed up the labor process i thought that meant that instead of like 24 hours it would be like 12 or 18. MAN WAS I WRONG! Litterally a couple of hours later she was at a 10 and the baby was coming!

By that time Alexs mom and her sister Heather had arrived and my mom, Abbie, and Alexs other sister Lacey were on their way. The nurses had been telling us that the normal amount of time that a woman pushes on her first child is about an hour and fifteen minutes. Wow, that seemed like such a long time! When Dr. Larkin got there he assesed what was goin on and told Alex the same thing, but added that she would be much faster than that. He went back upstairs to his office and told the nurses to give him a call when it was time.

Alex started pushing and on her first push the head began to show. After a short break she pushed for a second time and the baby began to crown. They had her stop pushing and called the doctor to tell him that it was time. When Dr. Larkin got there the babys head was kind of poking out and he took one look and said "Lets just put that right back" and took two fingers and pushed the baby right back in. The reason was that they didn't quite have all the stuff ready, all the equipment, and he wasn't in a gown, so they needed a little more time.

Dr. Larkin sat down, and from there things flew! Only a couple more pushes and Braxton came into the world. It was so fast! By the way the head was coming out I thought that it would be a centimeter by centimeter process, but after the head was out the body shot right out.

He was (is) beautiful. It was so amazing! Dr. Larkin set the baby on Alexs stomach and asked if i wanted to cut the cord. I was so freaked out and excited at the same time that I was nervous that I would do it wrong or accidently cut Braxton, but I did it and didnt even screw it up.

They then took him and weighed and measured him. He weighed in at 7 pounds 5 ounces and measured 21 inches.

We were in that room for an hour or so after that. Family trickled in and out and Braxton seen and loved by all. I couldn't stop crying. It was just so amazing, so incredible, that I couldn't contain myself. They moved us up to the 3rd floor where we would stay for the next couple of days.

We got to come home yesterday afternoon and have spent the time since surrounded by family and friends and have appreciated everything that they have done for us.

The Accident

2008-05-18T12:52:00.000-07:00

Over labor day weekend Jordan and I and some friends went to the St. Anthony Sand Dunes to ride. We took two toy haulers, a bunch of dirt bikes, some fourwheelers, and a pit bike. It was a great weekend. We rode a ton and had a blast at camp.

Monday we went out for a ride in the morning and were gonna spend the whole morning on the opposite side of the dunes. We were hitting a jump right in the middle of the dunes by crapo hill and that is the last thing I remember.

About an hour after we left where we were hitting the jump there was an accident. Kent and I crashed head on going who knows how fast. Unfortunately no one saw the crash, but they all saw the aftermath, Kent and I sprawled on the dunes with our bikes wrecked and neither of us really concious. Kent was completely out and not responding to anything. I was in and out of conciousness and the only thing I remember from that hour or so is telling Jordan that I thought my wrist was broken.

They eventually loaded me onto the back of the white sand rail on a back board and very slowly drove me to the parking lot at Egin lake. Kent was life-flighted directly off the dunes to the hospital at Idaho Falls.

They took me to the hospital in Rexburg where they said that I had a broken neck, broken wrist, brain hemorage, broken nose, shattered eye socket and orbital bone. Basically my left cheek bone no longer existed. The Rexburg hospital was worried that they wouldn't be able to take care of me if I went down hill, because my injuries were so severe, so I was life-flighted to Idaho Falls. When I got to Idaho Falls there wasn't a bed availible in the ICU so I was flown from Idaho Falls to the University of Utah hospital. I spent four days in the ICU and IMCU while the reconstructed my face and nose. They decided that I no longer or didn't ever have a broken neck and that the hemorage in my head had clotted and that the only risk now was of a clot.

My face is now 5 titanium plates that were inserted through my mouth and eye socket. They did a really great job and you really cant even tell now.

My broken wrist was held off for later and we ended up switching doctors. They found another break in my wrist so I had to get a titanium plate and 6 titanium screws.

Good trip right?

Our House

2008-05-18T12:33:00.000-07:00

Building our house was an interesting expirience. It was started in Jan. 2007, and we didn't move in until October 1, 2007. We moved to Vernal right after we got back from our honeymoon and spent 43 days in my parents fifth wheel at the Vernal KOA. You might ask how I know that it was 43 days, well that is an interesting story. I know because we got kicked out of the KOA because we had been there too long. Can you say white trash? We can! We scrambled to find a new place to live for a couple of days till Colt, the super at the subdivision, told us that his uncle had a place that he rents out in the boonies. It was a 3 bedroom, 2 bath that would work. It was infested with small beatles that would climb on the ceilings and then fall in the bed. It was pretty gross. There was no A/C, and it was hot! Then we got A/C and it got cold. It was a joke. But it was better than not having a place to live. Finally the house got done and we were able to move in. The house is great and has everything we need.

This is our house about half way finished.

REDFISH

2008-05-18T12:09:00.000-07:00

Over the 24th of July the Badgers went to Redfish lake in Idaho. We stayed a little ways away from Redfish at another lake calle Altiris lake. It was alot of fun, probably one of my most favorite trips in recent years. There was incredibly beautiful views, trails to hike, singletrack to ride the dirtbikes on, lakes and streams to fish, it was awesome.

I think this was the biggest thing that we ever caught in that stream, but it was still fun.

Robbie, Zeke, and I went fishing on the Salmon river every single morning, and we never caught a dang thing.

There were lots of roads and trails to ride the bikes and fourwheelers on. It was a good trip. i hope we do it again.

Yellowstone

2008-05-18T11:26:00.000-07:00

Over the 4th of July 2007 Alexs family went to Yellowstone. I couldn't get work off so I missed out. The family stayed at some cabins just outside the park.

There were some problems with Alexs car. The people that owned the cabins where they were staying were serial killers....(aparently someone found a head just down the hill from the cabins)...Horse flys were constantly on the attack, and everyone loved it.

Camping with Heather and Jake

2008-05-18T11:07:00.000-07:00

We went camping with Heather and Jake up by Cascade Springs by Heber. The trip kinda started out with more work than we had hoped for.

Right after we got off a dirt road that leads from the Heber side into the canyon, some guys on bikes flagged us down and let us know we had a flat.....sucked! We got that fixed and made it to the camp site on the spare.

We slept in hammocks(which provided for some interesting situations). I dont think Alex will ever trust my knots ever, ever, ever again. oops.

We took the four wheelers and rode the trails around our campsite. It was fun and we only almost died once.

Honeymoon!!!

2008-05-18T10:43:00.000-07:00

For our honeymoon we went on a cruise out of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. It was a lot of fun. our first stop was in Puerto Rico. By far I think it was our favorite. We tried to avoid all of the touristy things that people normally do there. We walked around in the old city for a while until we found a nice Puertoriqueno restaurant. I think there were only three other Gringos there. It was cool becuase the ship was in port from 5 pm till midnight, so we got to see the city by night.

We did a lot of fun stuff on the other islands too. We rode scooters on one island, horses on another. We went parasailing on St. Thomas, and spent a very rainy day walking around in the Bahamas. There were a lot of places that neither of us had ever been and we saw some pretty cool things....

Our dog Trapper!

2008-04-10T14:17:00.000-07:00

This is our dog trapper. He is a nerd. We got him in March of 2007 when he was 5 months old. He is a handful most of the time, and a gomer the rest of the time. Recently he started trying to bury his bones inside our house. It is really funny to watch.

Our Wedding - May 22, 2007

2008-03-27T14:48:00.001-07:00

Salt Lake Temple

May 22, 2007

Wedding Dinner

2008-03-26T15:41:00.000-07:00

We chose to do our wedding dinner at the Lion House the night before our wedding. It was decorated in our wedding colors (Orange, Pink and Yellow). My mother in-law, Shawn, put together the super cute center pieces and also our signing book and my mom, Annette, made little boxes of mints (all done in our colors) that said 'they were mint for each other' on top. It all turned out so perfect and we are so grateful for all the hard work that was put into it!

The girls battled it out for the boquet and it was Marty Anderson who came out on top. Way to go Marty! Marty shortly after found that special someone and is now happily married. We love you Marty!

The cake was SO good!

(Once we actually got to eat it)

We are so grateful for the love and support from such amazing friends and family!!!

Bridals

2008-03-21T15:15:00.000-07:00

I chose to do my bridals at antelope island - it ended up to be a gorgeous day with an amazing sunset!

(Check out the slideshow for more photos)

Our story

2008-03-20T20:15:00.000-07:00

We met on October 8th, 2007 at the long lost Raging Waters water park. Our first date after that we ended up going bowling with multiple members of the Badger family (including my mother, sister, younger brother and his friend) and to top it off, after bowling we ended up watching multiple episodes of pee-wee herman before calling it a night. Maybe it doesn't sound like the most romantic night ever but something must have gone right because the next week was followed with a second date (or i guess you could say a weekend). The first time I met the Simon's family was while spending the weekend with them at the sand dunes (which was a blast by the way)! What can we say - family is important to us both. Things just kept going uphill from there and on February 22, 2007 Jake proposed! I of course said yes and the date was set.

Trips before we got married

2008-03-20T19:26:00.000-07:00

Us at St. George with the Badger family

Us at Goblin Valley with the Simons' family a few months before we got married.

Welcome!

2008-03-20T11:30:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! We've decided to create a blog to keep everyone updated on what's going on in our lives, since we are all so busy or live far away these days! Hope you enjoy it!