December 29, 2005 - PREPARATIONS
Since Christmas is basically over, we are now getting ready for the baby. We have purchased and assembled the new crib. It is nice solid wood. We took down Jenna's baby bed, and she now sleeps in what was Malcolm's bed. Malcolm has moved down to a new room of his own. We are also working on another project of putting in a new built-in bookcase and entertainment center that we have been wanting for a while. It will look nice when it is done. We also had help from our brother-in-law Steve to put in a new outlet. It was not as bad as I thought, but it took longer than we both thought.

December 21, 2005 - PARTIES AND PREGNANT
Since November we have been basically doing three things. Getting ready for Christmas, going to Christmas parties and getting ready for the baby to come. Also we are doing everything in our power to make sure this baby does not come early. And this baby seems determined to come at least a little early. For those that are wondering, NO we are not having a Christmas baby and I certainly hope that we do not have a December baby, not that I have anything against people born in December. The real due date is January 24th. We think she will come the week before that.

November 28, 2005 - SUPER SIBLINGS
We went to a class called Super Siblings at the hospital geared towards kids. Malcolm and Jenna loved learning about having a new baby in the family, holding and taking care of the baby and we got to see some newly born babies. Malcolm said he had a lot of fun.

November 26, 2005 - THANKSGIVING & BIRTHDAYS
We had a fairly decent Thanksgiving Day. We saw "Chicken Little" and really enjoyed it. Then we visited the Harrison's for snacks and to play games, then we went to the Fraser home for a big Thanksgiving Dinner. Then two days latter we were back with the Frasers to celebrate birthdays. It has really been a busy week.

November 21, 2005 - PALM IS BACK
I got my Palm back after having it fixed by my friends at PDA Specialists. I highly recommend them. I had to have a cable replaced. I am so glad to have my brain back.

November 14, 2005 - BIRTH REFRESHER COURSE
Jody and I get to go to our first birthing refresher course tonight. It should be lots of fun. It is so exciting that the birth of our daughter is getting so much closer. We are still wondering so much what she will look like and act like. Ask us about doing a pool for guessing the birth date and weight and height.

October 26, 2005 - SUSHI
There was a group from work that desperately wanted Sushi so we finally went today. We went to the Happy Sumo. They really have some good and interesting choices. They are located at the new Gateway Center.

October 25, 2005 - PALM CRASH
After coming back from our vacation I tried to sync my Palm with my PC and it would not. To make a long story short, after tying many things, I accidentally hard booted my Palm and erased everything from my handheld. I still have everything on my desktop but it is annoying and I cannot finish my e-book, and it erased all the expenses of our Disneyland trip. Luckily I had already transfered the photos that I took, by hand.

October 24, 2005 - BACK FROM DISNEYLAND
We are back and I will try to post a little of our trip soon.

October 5, 2005 - FIRST FREEZE
Last night we had our first real frost and freeze. There was a slushy-hail yesterday afternoon, and some of it stayed on the lawn overnight. And the tops of the mountains were dusted with snow. Looks like it will be an early and cold winter. I am not sure that I am really ready for this. I was just enjoying the nice Fall weather.

October 1, 2005 - TUACAHN THEATER
Now we can say we have been there and done that and would love to do that again. We made a quick five hour drive down to St. George on Friday, checked into the Seven Wives Inn Bed and Breakfast. We stayed in the "Harriet" room. Then we made our way to the beautiful open Tuacahn Theater in the canyon. "Beauty and the Beast" was a great show. The actors were wonderful, there were even real horses and real fireworks. It was also pretty warm. Then on Saturday morning we had a great breakfast at the Inn and drove quickly back to Salt Lake and made it just in time for our lunch for birthday celebrations with the Harrison family. A fun time was had by all. Jody and I really liked escaping, even if it was only for a short time. We will definitely have to do that again. Although, probably not this year, as our trip to Disneyland is coming up in only 2 weeks. And the kids had a fun time with Aunt Heather.

September 30, 2005 - TUACHAN THEATER
We are going to the Tuachan Theater in St. George, Utah tomorrow. Will report on the fun Jody and I had while Aunt Heather takes care of the kids.

September 19, 2005 - CHINESE MOON FESTIVAL
We celebrated the Chinese Moon Festival with the FCC Utah group at a local park. They are the Families with Children from China, Utah chapter. It is fun to celebrate some of the Chinese culture. We always have fun and meet new and old friends.

September 17, 2005 - FRASER FAMILY FOTO
Since Andy is home, and everyone was here, we had a Fraser family photo with Jody's Grandma and Grandpa Fraser and all the relative. As you can imagine, it took a while but hopefully things will turn out real nice. Then later that night we had dinner over at Jody's parents house for Fraser birthdays for September.

September 10, 2005 - ANDY IS HOME
Jody's youngest brother, Andy, is home from serving as a missionary for the LDS Church in Portugal for 2 years. He was excited to be back home and see all of his nieces and nephews, some of whom he had never seen before. We had a fun time hanging out all day at the Fraser house talking and seeing photos.

September 3, 2005 - MOUNTAIN MAN RENDEZVOUS
For Labor Day we decided to drive to Ft. Bridger in Wyoming and attend their semi-annual Mountain Man Rendezvous. Our whole family loved it. There was a lot to see, do, eat, and of course browse the shops. They kids got some candy from the hourly candy cannon, Jody bought a 2-in-1 doll, Malcolm got a wood sword, and Matt bought a chunk of amber and also bought an interesting glass bottle with root beer in it.

August 30, 2005 - ULTRASOUND
I went with Jody for her 20 week ultrasound. There was a great technician who spent a lot of time with us and explained everything and showed us some great things about our baby. It is a girl. If it is not, the technician owes us lunch. Our baby is normal and healthy, so we are grateful and relieved.

August 27, 2005 - BUTTERFIELD CANYON
We went hiking up Butterfield Canyon, near Bingham Copper Mine. It is a great place to hike with easy and hard hikes. We went a different way from where we normally go. We actually did not hike that long, only for about an hour. Jenna wanted to get out and walk, but we only let her walk a little bit. We also came upon two vehicles, one trapped at the end of the road behind another truck that was starting to slide off the road and help by some straps to some trees. We went past them, as they were just waiting for a tow truck. We saw a lovely stream and the rest of them decided that was as far as they wanted to go that day. I would have liked to continue on. Oh well, we can save that for another day.

August 23, 2005 (and August 31) - CAVITIES
I went to my regular dentist appointment and then had to go back and have three little cavities filled. Actually one was just some discoloration. I have a good dentist and things were not bad, but I just don't like cavities.

August 22, 2005 - OUR ANNOUNCEMENT
We are very excited to announce that Jody is pregnant, and we are expecting a new arrival on or about January 24, 2006. Jody had some surgery back in April and the doctor told us if we wanted to get pregnant, that we should do so quickly. Everything went naturally and smoothly. We were not sure if she was still healing from her surgery or what, but then discovered that we really were pregnant. She has had several ultra-sounds to make sure everything was OK, and it is. We go in for another ultra-sound the first week of September to find out if it is a boy or a girl. I know this may be too much personal information for some to read, but we are really, really excited to be having another child.

August 22, 2005 - FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL
Malcolm started his first day of 2nd grade today. He has Mrs. Matsumura, the same teacher he had last year. Also his friends Aubrie and Lucas are in his class. I am sure it will be a fun and exciting year. Hopefully his teacher is up to the challenge.

August 4-6, 2005 - NAUGHTY PINES
OK, so it is a campground actually called Knotty Pines. It is part of Camperworld, like the one in Coalville. This time we went with our friends the Lawrences. We had a good time, and ate a lot of candy and smores. We also went for a hike up this beautiful canyon, where the trail follows a stream and everything is cool, lush and green. It even sprinkled a little, but I sure did not mind.

July 30, 2005 - BOONDOCKS FUN CENTER
We had our company party at a indoor/outdoor fun center. It was really fun riding the go-carts, playing in the boats and mini golf was OK too. Malcolm and I really liked the laser tag. We wished we could have stayed longer, but we finally left at about 9pm. We will have to go back another day to finish using our tokens.

July 29, 2005 - GOLF
Golf??? Yes, I played (real) golf for the second time in my life. Some of my friends were going and insisted that I go. It was quite warm, but it was still fun. During the nine holes I only lost three or four balls. We played in teams, so I didn't have to come in last.

July 22, 2005 - EDVALSON PARTY
We got together at the Glade's house to go swimming in their nice pool. We had a fun time swimming and eating salads. The kids certainly did not want to go home. We even topped off the evening with a few fireworks before it got too windy. Luckily it did not rain.

July 8-9, 2005 - CAMPING
It was the annual Fraser Family Camping Trip up in Coalville, Utah. We had a wonderful camping site that had a lot of large trees, so it stayed shady all day. We played, swam, rested and ate a lot of food. We even road our bikes to Echo Reservoir, where I got three little holes in my tire, that was a fun experience to fix.

June 25, 2005 - YOUTH CONFERENCE
Our ward had its annual Youth Conference where the youth leaders have several days of fun and spiritual activities. Saturday we traveled to the Golden Spike National Monument, to the LDS Temple in Logan, Utah, and to Clarkston, Utah to visit a church history site. On the way home, we stopped for dinner at the Burger Bar, where you will just have to try a "Quadruple Ben" for yourself, if you dare. (Did I eat one? Are you crazy?! I just had a small burger with onion rings and a caramel shake.)

June 18, 2005 - POULSEN MOVE
Cassie and Steve moved into a new house. I am quite sore from moving, but it wasn't too bad especially since they had pizza and other treats.

June 17, 2005 - GAME NIGHT
Our church (ward) had a family game and treat night. It was a lot of fun as many families brought their favorite treat and we played games and mingled.

May 28, 2005 - GOLDEN SPIKE & DINOSAURS
We took a trip as a family today and saw some of the sites here in Utah. We got up relatively early for a Saturday, and drove up to the Golden Spike National monument, where the trans-continental railroads met. It was neat to see the trains meeting and them doing a re-enactment of that ceremony. Then we ate our lunch that we had brought with us. After that, we traveled to the Eccles Dinosaur Museum in Ogden. It was a really neat museum. They have a small indoor museum with skeletons, and a large outdoor walking park with life size replicas of a lot of dinosaurs, along with their names, and sometimes sounds. I think the kids really liked the sand pit to help uncover dinosaur bones by themselves.

May 24, 2005 - TOOTH FAIRY
Malcolm finally lost his first baby tooth today. He is very excited and reminded us that he needs to finish the box to hold his tooth for the tooth fairy.

May 14, 2005 - BARNES FAMILY MOVING
Ches and Nicole moved to Idaho Falls, Idaho today. We helped watch our nephews on Friday night and helped them finish re-roofing part of the roof and painting and some other odd jobs to help them get moved. Of course, with the large U-Haul truck loaded and a trailer for their car, they had problems with the brake lights that caused them to be several hours late to Idaho. At least some church members were still up there to help them get moved in.

May 8, 9, 2005 - MOTHER'S DAYS
We had two Mother's Day parties. The Harrison one on Saturday where we had some salmon cooked on a BBQ grill. Then on Sunday we had a Fraser party where we had "yakiniku" a Japanese menu that means cooked meat. So we had lots of meat and vegetables cooked on grills with rice and a special Yakiniku sauce. We had a lot fun.

May 6, 2005 - JAKE'S GRADUATION
Our brother, Jake Fraser, graduated from the University of Utah with his bachelors degree and a teaching certificate. We went over to Granny and Gramp's house and had lots of treats and got to mingle with family and friends.

April 9, 2005 - TITANIUM RINGS
As part of our 10th anniversary, I had two titanium rings custom made for Jody and I, and I think they are very neat. They have three symbols with Chinese characters on the outside, and it says "Families are Forever, Love Matt" on the inside. There is a circle with the Chinese character for Eternity, a heart with the character for Love, and a shield with the character for Righteousness (like the LDS CTR rings). We both really liked them. Ask to see them sometime, or I would be happy to explain what I went though to get them.

April 6, 2005 - ANNIVERSARY
Jody and I ran away to Manti, Utah for our anniversary and stayed at the Yardley Inn and Spa. We have been there once before, but they had not finished the spa. We had a lovely romantic dinner there, and had a couples massage (Jody said I was enjoying it so much that I was snoring), and a carriage ride over to see the Manti Temple and some of the old houses of Manti. We had a great 3 day get-a-way and want to do that more often.

March 25, 2005 - HOCKEY
I went with Malcolm to watch the Salt Lake Grizzlies play a hockey game. It was fun to watch and Malcolm asked a lot of questions. Some of which I didn't know, so I asked Malcolm's Uncle Ches, who has a great knowledge of hockey. It is one of my more favorite games to watch as it is a fast paced game. We saw players put into a penalty box at least 8 times.

March 15, 2005 - LAKE PARK BUILDING
My company, CUSA, finally moved this week from Taylorsville to West Valley City. It has cut my commute in half, down to 12 minutes. One other lady that works here says it is only 3.6 miles from her house. But I am not complaining. It is a nice newer building, with a nice view of the valley and just larger. No complaints from me.

March 8, 2005 - CHOCOLATE AND MOVING
Our company, CUSA is moving this week. It is a lot of fun, and will be closer to my home. I found two Dove Chocolate wrappers with wonderful sayings on them. "Inspire the life of a child" and "A day without chocolate is a day wasted." Both are so true. Now I just have to deal with my children who love candy. Jenna LOVES candy a lot. Malcolm likes it quite a bit. I am sure it is not my fault at all that they like candy.

March 6, 2005 - FAMILY
We had a busy day with church, going to our neices' baby blessing and then to a family dinner at the Frasers, then we went to my sisters house to celebrate my parents anniversary. Ever since I was little, my parents would treat us to doughnuts on their anniversary and it has always helped me remember the day they were married. Even though my dad has passed away, we keep up this wonderful tradition.

March 5, 2005 - UTAH SYMPHONY
Jody and I had tickets to the Utah Symphony. We sat on the side, 2nd tier, 2/3 of the way back. It was a great concert. They played: Tchaikovsky - Suite from Sleeping Beauty, Glazunov - Violin Concerto, Mussorgsky/Ravel -Pictures at an Exhibition. Ralph Matson who is the concert master performed the violin concerto wonderfully. We will have to do this again some time.

February 25, 2005 - DADS AND DOUGHNUTS
Today at the elementary they had "Dads and Doughnuts" which is a program where dads come in the morning for about 45 minutes and have doughnuts and read with their child. I went with Malcolm and we read part of "King Arthur." It was good to see a lot of kids there with their parents.

February 19, 2005 - MARIE CALENDARS
OK, so we had some problems and ended up at Marie Calendars for dinner. We were disappointed that it wasn't Chinese, but we had a good dinner anyway. On Saturday, we purchased a new mattress and used Jody's dad's truck to haul it with. After getting the mattress home, I went back to pick up Jody and the kids. Because of a scheduling conflict, they were not able to spend time with Nana and Papa, so she went to her parents house. When I got there, they asked what I wanted for dinner and I quickly said, "Chinese!" so we stayed for dinner and had teriyaki chicken with some homemade ham fried rice, plain rice and mixed vegetables. It was the dinner we should have had last night. It was good too, but we will have to go back to the Mandarin another time, because we all want some of their Strawberry Chicken.

February 18, 2005 - GOTCHA DAY!
Today is our Gotcha Day celebration. We got Jenna exactly one year ago, at 5pm, in our hotel room in Changsha, Hunan, China. We have a 20 minute video of it if you ever want to come over and watch. We are going to go to dinner at The Mandarin in Bountiful, Utah. One of the best and most authentic Chinese restaurants in Utah.

February 14, 2005 - VALENTINE'S DAY
We didn't do anything really fancy for Valentine's Day. Jody cooked a great home-made Chicken Parmesan with noodles. She also got some cute Valentines stuff for the kids and me. They really liked the foil balloons.

February 9, 2005 - HAPPY YEAR OF THE ROOSTER
Happy Chinese New Year! As it says on our home page, we try to participate in Chinese cultural events for Jenna and our family. We like Asian culture and seeing and doing new things.

February 5, 2005 - FCC-UTAH
We went to two Chinese celebrations for Chinese New Year. The first was with the FCC of Utah (which is the Families with Children from China, Utah chapter). It was so neat to see 40 or more families with adopted Chinese children. We had fun meeting a few people we already knew and made some new friends. Then, we stopped and visited Grandma and Grandpa, and had lunch with them and played games. Then we went to Gardner Hall up at the University of Utah and watched a Cultural Performance with an emphasis on the Chinese New Year. It was interesting to see so many Chinese faces in one place.

February 3, 2005 - ONE YEAR
Janet Chen, our Social Worker came over and completed the one-year follow up visit after we have adopted Jenna. China requires a six month and a one year visit by a social worker to check on the adopted child and their development. Everything is on track.

January 30, 2005 - BROKEN FOOT
Malcolm somehow broke his foot over at Granny and Gramps house during our monthly family dinner. He was playing with his cousins, dancing or something, dragged it on the floor and "bent it" as Malcolm says. We didn't think it was broken until he kept saying it was hurting two days later, had it X-Rayed and found he had a hairline fracture in his metatarsul. He got a boot, and some crutches and is doing well. It has not even slowed him down.

January 29, 2005 - SUPERCROP
Jody and my mom got to spend all day at a Supercrop, with Creative Memories. That meant that I spent all day with my kids. We had fun. Jody had a good time and got lots of pages done. I hear she is ready to purchase a new album.

January 21, 2005 - KIMBERLY BARNES

We went to the hospital to see our niece, Kimberly Barnes, who was just born. She is doing very well, as are the parents. She looks a lot like her brothers, with lots of dark curly hair. (Note: In case you didn't know, that is a photo of Malcolm holding Kimberly Barnes at the hospital.

January 11, 2005 - SUSHI
I actually got to go and get Sushi for lunch today with two other co-workers, from Sushi Express. We each ordered two types and then shared the pieces. It was really good. And they were well priced

January 10, 2005 - JAZZ WIN
Jody was able to take her dad out to dinner and then to a Jazz game. The Jazz have been on a losing streak and they actually won. Jody and her dad had a great time.

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