Elementary school plays

Welcome to the little leagues. And I can say that with authority. I've done high school and college theater. I'd call that the minors. But to their credit they are ages 5-12. What the heck are you talking about?? Adeena has become an extra-curricular junkie. She joined her school choir, she tried out for the musical and joined Knowledge Bowl. A little nuts but she's smart and enjoys it so who am I to complain? Anyway, so the musical was "A Christmas Carol" and considering the ages, it actually turned out pretty good...but it showed that they were amatuers. Oh, I'm not talking about the kids. The school had rented or bought or something some wireless mics that go over the ear and down the cheek. The tech-guys struggled to get clear sound and at several points we got to hear the screeching of two mics too close to each other. It was not good. The chorus, which Adeena was part of, sounded the best and that was because none of them were mic-ed.

I can go over and over the reasons that they had so many issues but let's just suffice to say they did. Which was sad because if I didn't know the story so well and hadn't just seen the Jim Carrey version it would have been hard to follow because it was so hard to hear. But the kids were cute and Adeena was pretty shy before this year so we were very proud of her to get so involved with things that require public performance. And since I did theater, I'm kinda proud she is getting into it. Who says we can't live through our children? :)

Facing Mortality

Well, I just got the phone call I was hoping not to get. On Saturday, (if she makes it that far) my brother will be taking his older kids up to Primary Childrens to have Christmas with their baby. Then on Sunday they are taking her off the ventilator and letting her live as long as she decides to. The forcast isn't for a long time.

I'm surprised at the stability my brother maintains as he talks to me about it but I'm sure he and his wife have had more than enough tear-filled conversations and I also know I'm not the first person he calls. But still, saying goodbye in this mortal life is hard...even with the knowledge of eternal families. Yet, ever since they found out she had hypoplastic left-heart syndrom shortly after birth, they have had to face her mortality. Best case scenario is she could have gotten a heart-transplant around age 20 and have it take and live as long as she could with it. Most likely scenario was she lives to somewhere between 12 and 20 and her heart gives out and she dies then. Unfortunately, my family is not one that enjoys the best case scenarios very often. My mom had to lose her leg from the hip down (another story). This precious baby isn't going to last to her first birthday.

And so I sit here facing my mortality and thinking about my family and wishing I could change things for his. ****** I'm grateful I've gotten 5 healthy children despite wanting to give them away occassionally. I'm grateful for Jesus Christ and that he has made it possible for this sweet little baby to return to our Heavenly Father spotless.

It is sad and as my dear wife sniffled last night, "There are two things that shouldn't happen: Mom's shouldn't get sick and babies shouldn't die." Amen.


****** Continued the next morning.

Cabbage Patch kids of DEATH!

Titles have to be some of the most fun things that I get to come up with. Do you remember the Garbage Pail Kids? All of the grotesque trading cards of demented Cabbage Patch kids knock-offs? Good times.

So today is my Thanksgiving post. This time of year is my most stressful and that was before I started school. We got married 11 years ago last Saturday. So Michelle and I went out to dinner at Red Lobster because she loves seafood. Then we went to Curtains which is a musical being put on by Hale Center Theater. It was funny and fun. Great show. Over dinner Michelle asked me to tell her my favorite memory of the last 11 years. That was a tough task and we spent a good portion of our time together when we could talk without disturbing the show, talking about some of the good times we've had.

Then is Thanksgiving which is generally at Michelle's parent's house because it's around her birthday(if not on it) and so we go up there. Then this year, her birthday is the day after Thanksgiving. It's also Black Friday. And from there we are plunged into the Christmas season with baking and decorations and parties. And for the last two years it's also finals. Oh joy.

In the long and short of it, I have been very blessed. I have many things to be thankful for and I'm going to make a short list of those things I'm most thankful for:
my wife
the gospel(Jesus, Heavenly Father, atonement, etc)
my kids
my job

I said it would be short. Happy Thanksgiving!

Shall we have the penguin for dinner?

I started my Linux class this week and have already been introduced to VirtualBox which is an OpenSource version of VMware. Glory it's a good ride. Very similar to other OpenSource options I've used (GIMP, OpenOffice.org) in that it can't seem to handle everything in a single window. I've been using VMware for over a year now and so figuring out the particulars of VirtualBox didn't take too long. But it is freaking cool that I can do it!

I was also assigned to learn more about Linus Torvalds the genius behind Linux and so I did the normal thing and just Googled him. I wandered through his Wikipedia entry (always the authoritative source on any topic no matter what my technical writing teacher says) and then found his blog. And it's on blogspot! I read through the more recent entries and laughed a lot. He's nigh unto the Dave Barry of geeks and that's saying something. I've never been much of an OpenSource advocate except GIMP and OpenOffice because their counter-parts are outragiously expensive but I think this whole Linux thing might grow on me.

If you see me wearing a tux everywhere all the time, you'll know I've converted to the penguin.

Cabbage droppings

If anybody asks, I didn't do it. And no, I'm not talking about my homework...well, not right now. I seem to be stuck in a holding pattern. I remember laughing a lot once. I remember doing more or at least it seemed like I did more. I feel lost most of the time like I'm treading water looking around for something to swim towards.

Oh my life seems to have direction, I have a career and a future career path, I'm still gaining ground on my degree, my kids are getting older whether I like it or not and we have a financial plan. But as a person, I'm languishing. I'm unfullfilled. I figure that's a bad thing so it's time to re-evaluate myself. I know my spirituality has been lacking so of course that's where I will start. Hopefully, that will turn on the lights and help me find my way.

Where has my little dog gone

Ok,so I don't have a dog nor do I care where anyone elses dog is. My summer update goes like this: I'm still one valve down on my sprinkler system. I fear this will be the story of my life. Always having 4 out 5 valves working is a little sad. BUT my major accomplishment of the summer was finishing our fence!! Lots of long hours digging and mixing concrete in my wheelbarrow and getting the posts to be straight and I can finally not worry about stepping in dog poop when I mow my back lawn. YAY!!

I'm still rolling along with school and have had my graduation from SLCC accepted for December of this year! Yep, I will finally have some semblence of a degree. Granted it's just an AS but it's better than an outdated certification. I also started up at Weber this fall so I'm on my way to my Bachelor's. The only bad part is that I'm burning out like a lightbulb left on 24/7 for two years. It's getting harder to kick my butt to do homework. I'm starting to dread assignments.

Anyway, we've had the round of sickees and now I'm hoping we'll have a round of healthees for a while. I'm really rather tired of cleaning up puke. Oh and Michelle got her hair colored and cut and she looks FABUL-ICIOUS!!

MOOOOO!

Who is me?

In high school I devoted an inordinate amount of time to figuring out who I was. What did I like? What was I good at? What were my feelings on certain matters? By the time I graduated I thought I had myself pretty figured out. Then I went to college and met some great people who taught me that maybe I could be better, so I changed a little but still knew who I was. My mission deepened my sense of spirituality and added and tweaked my image but I was still confident in that image and with that confidence I came home and got married.

Although I have expanded this concept of who I was as I became a husband and then father and career man, I have always still held onto some of the fundemental likes, dislikes and traits. I am a poet, a hopeless romantic, a right-brained individual.

Recently, as I have blogged before, I'm back in school. I've done surprisingly well in both of my previous math classes (better than I ever did in high school) and found them to not be nearly as difficult as I remembered. This semester I've started Calculus again. Apparently they don't believe I remembered enough from almost 15 years ago. I don't believe it either. However, I have a great teacher who has got to be one of the funniest math teachers I've ever known. Today, my math book finally arrived. Saved me $50 waiting until the first day of class instead of just blindly buying what the bookstore recommended. As I was driving home I was thinking about the homework that is being put off to write this blog post. I have an English assignment for my Technical Writing class and my Calc homework that I can finally start on.

I actually thought the calc homework would be more fun. When I realized the thought I had and that I really did feel that way about this math....I had a sudden crisis of self. How on earth did that ever happen??? Granted, technical writing is really kinda boring and has to follow all of these strict rules that I have forgotten most of or never cared about and still don't. Creative writing is where my heart still lives. But wanting to do math over writing of any kind?!

I felt very lost. I still am wandering in a thick fog. What seemed so clear earlier today has become nebulous like a representation of the internet in an IT textbook. My heart is crying out for time to sort and discover and regain some semblence of who I am. But alas, I have homework...and my job, and a honey-do list to rival Santa's Naughy-and-Nice. So it is I will finish this post with the still lingering question, "Who is me?"

Creamed Corn and Tabasco Sauce

It's one of those titles that makes you click to read the blog just because of the title. I'm not like Aaron Ball who gets people to read regardless of what he calls his post. We just know that even if he title it "Orange" or "Wednesday" that his particularly candid view of the world will be there for us to laugh at. Sorry Aaron but even when you're serious, it's still funny.

So I'm getting really annoyed at teachers who believe their class will be the start of some student's journey into their field of expertise. Don't get me wrong, passion in teaching is critical to get the students involved and interested. But I'm talking college. I'm talking about General Ed classes. These aren't the classes I'm taking because someday I want to get into this field. These are the classes I'm forced to take so I have a "well-rounded" (read more money in their coffers) education. These have nothing to do with my chosen career. Sure some of it is interesting but let's face it, I thought about going into psychology in high school. I never took the class in high school because I had other classes I considered more fun with cuter girls. Dude, chior girls were hot! I also only took the minimum amount of science to graduate. I transfered out of honors chemistry into basic chemistry because the honors chemistry teacher was passionate. I feel the same way about anatomy and psiology. But there isn't another class to transfer into. I'm stuck. I'm sorry but if this were going to be my life's work, I'd want to go to campus and get the full experience. I wouldn't sign up for the online class. I'm in the online class because I need a stupid science credit to graduate. See basic chemistry.

And this is my beef. These are well published, bottom-rung division gen-ed classes. Those interested in the major take them so they can get into higher level classes where the real stuff is, the rest of us take them to graduate. We don't really care like you, the teacher, do. We just want a passing grade and a diploma. SO WHY ON EARTH ARE YOU INFLICTING YOUR PASSION ON ME!!!!! That isn't a question. I don't want an answer. It's like, "How are you?" Sometimes I care but you'll know by the way I say it that I do not just because I say it. My Finance teacher gets it. He cancelled the final because summer semester is so short. My psychology teacher just crammed two chapters into 1 week and dropped an essay. My A&P professor just said get more done in less time. Oh and the final is on campus. And it's 50% of your grade. Seriously? I'm taking an online class for a reason. This is a freaking gen-ed. I'M GOING INTO COMPUTER SCIENCE! I fully expect to get carpal tunnel and fat from sitting at a desk all day typing code. I don't need to know all of the parts of my body that are going to hate me for that. And I especially don't care that the medical field as come up with all of it's own lingo for things. A synovial articulated joint is three words that all mean the same stupid thing!

I could go on. I won't. This is long enough as it is. Someday I'd like to teach a gen-ed. Creative writing or something. I think I'd have one of those classes that is filled on day 3 of registration. Not that it would be an easy A. But because I'd know it was a general ed. I'd know why they were taking the class and teach to that. The kids would love it. I recommend this personal finance class to anyone who needs that gen-ed category. This class actually has stuff I wish I had learned fresh out of high school or just home from the mission instead of 10+ years later when I've learned most of it by necessity. But Dennis Wilson gets that it's a gen-ed. Thank goodness.

What a 4th of JUUUULY!

Life happens and sometimes you can't control it. You just have to go with the flow. And so it was that this 4th of July weekend found me with 4 days off work and 2 weekend days sandwiched in between them.

Thursday we went to the zoo. I like the zoo. It's fun to see the animals and the twins are old enough to get out of the stroller more and they thought that was great. Of course their favorite thing was the snake slide in the kids playground. Michelle wanted to get there early and we did, arriving around 10am. We were done and had lunch and were out of there close to 1pm. Well what's across the street? "This is the Place" State Park. So we went over there and got to look at some of the old buildings and learn about pioneer days and gave my kids some appreciation for how much house we actually have. Michelle loved it because they have spinning and weaving there. I'm fascinated by the architecture of the old buildings. We went into the ZCMI store just as the storm blew in. So we got to sit and watch it dump rain and when it let up a little we darted across the street to the Huntsman Hotel and got ice cream. At this point I was tired and the twins were driving us crazy so we hopped the train to the entrance and came home.

Friday I don't remember much of what we did during the day...quite possible lazed around. That night we had the Round-about of Fire in our neighborhood. Only one announcement was made in Priesthood meeting and a flier was distributed 2 hours before it started and we still got 145 people there. Better attended than some of our more organized ward functions! We had some hot dogs and chips and desserts and watched a great fireworks show considering when the whole thing started we had 5 fireworks. Big thanks and shout out to the Hardy's for donating their stash and to the Wards for sharing the awesome finale.

Saturday we went to Michelle's brother's house for yet another 4th of July celebration. I was surprised at how many people were there...a lot more than last year. It was fun. Rob and Heather did a great job. I was disappointed by how many of those people left before we did fireworks but we still had a great show without them. :) The only thing I wish we had done was bring bug spray.

Sunday we had nothing planned...thank goodness because....

Monday we packed our minivan to capacity and went camping with Michelle's siblings and their families. It was fun despite the chaos of 3 families with 5 or more kids and trying to keep the twins from killing themselves. However, the grand tally of casualties was high in the bug bite department. Ethan and Adeena got eaten alive on their faces. While the rest of them were staying until Wed, we had to get back on Tuesday so I could go to work. Totally worth it. We got to stay the whole day and hang out but still slept in a real bed that night.

While we were there I had a couple of growing experiences as a parent. I tend to be over-protective as a parent knowing what kind of child I was. But Michelle's bro-in-law had brought a big ax and BB guns. So of course they pulled out the big ax to chop wood. Ethan asked and I said NOOOO. But as I watched and knew that this bro-in-law was supervising really well and had taught his kids the correct way to do it, I felt more comfortable. Not enough to let Ethan use the big ax but when another bro-in-law brought out his hatchet for the younger kids, I let Ethan have a whack at it...literally. I also relented and let him shoot a BB gun, much to his surprise. These are good life skills you may never know when you need them. And this bro-in-law, while kinda crazy sometimes is quite safety conscious and has been in scouts for a long time. I think that trip did me some good and helped me to see that my kids aren't going to be 4 or 5 forever. I have some very capable older children and I need to let them grow up like my parents let me. Only I'll do better when it comes time for them to leave home and I'll accept that they may not come back.

As birthdays go

Yesterday I officially turned 32. And boy did I make it hard on my poor wife. I haven't really thought about what I wanted for a birthday or Christmas very much, if at all. Michelle will attest to the fact that I'm the hardest to shop for. She has been pestering me for a while about what I wanted for a present. Then she asked what I wanted dinner and what kind of cake was my favorite and what kind of ice cream....if I wanted a party or not. It took me a long time to figure out answers to those tough questions.

But I did finally come up with some answers and she delivered wonderfully on all of them. And she was happy despite the intense effort the twins put forth to wear her down and make her cranky.

So I took half a day off work and went golfing at WestRidge Golf Course. It's a nice course and they have monthly specials for Mon-Thurs 9-3 play. Because I played as a single I got paired with a 2-some and another single. The first 9 holes took over 2.5 hours because we were all a little rusty and not doing quite so good...me especially. But then I was playing from the white tees for the first 3 holes while they played from the blue. I decided that wasn't really social and I was just out there for fun so I played the blues from there on out. For the golfing uninformed tee color determines length. Red = Women's tees(shortest distance to hole). White = Men's and Blue = Pro(longest distance to hole). I'd never played the blue tees before but found that the farther tee box also meant a little more elevation which increased my drive distance. And the second hole after teeing up at the blues, I found my drive. While my putting stunk, I had great drives from that point on for the most part. And the weather was perfect...hot but otherwise fantastic.

Then I went home and had a great time with my family and spent the time after kid-bedtime watching a movie with Michelle. As birthdays go, this ranks in the top 5. I even had two of my brothers call me to wish me a happy birthday. Thanks Glen and Kent.

Clubs(and not golf sadly)

Ever have a goal or project that you know is going to take a while and the motivation to just do it seems lacking? Join the club! No seriously. Recently a neighbor of mine suggested we form a writing club to help us both try and make some progress on our works in progress. Brilliant! I love to write and have 3 stories in the works plus some back stories for some role-playing characters. We just need more people to help the motivation.

My wife finds this helps her as well when she is knitting something that will take a while, she logs into her knitting forum and joins a knit-a-long where everyone in the group is knitting the same pattern. Then they all post pictures of where they are or of the finished product when they get there. Along the way they chat and encourage each other.

Those who know me well, know that in high school, writing wasn't a problem. Not only did I have classes that required it but I was in a groove. I tried writing for a local newspaper but they wanted facts and unbiased writing...meh, I put my emotions into everything I write. I think it's what makes it worth reading. I didn't last long. I still occassionally write poetry when an image or phrase grabs me. I've written lyrics to several songs. But the time commitment is small. And right now time is precious. Most of my writing has to do with school work on predefined topics with that logical, just-the-facts element. Most novelists seclude themselves and spend all day immersed in the medium. My work, school and family won't permit that currently. So when Ryan suggested we start a writing club, I was all-in. Although we both realized that it would be limited at the moment but the potential was there. Hopefully, this will mean more than a couple of paragraphs with appear in these stories.

Now if only there was a "putting up your vinyl fence and installing a retaining wall club". Oh wait, I don't seem to have the time for that either. :)

Days, Months, Years

Long road walked,
empty gas can in hand
desert stretching out on either side
of lonely pavement.
White and yellow lines
dragging onward
as they disapear over the horizon.
Cold nights, burning days
distance unmarked,
untracked,
wearily trekked.
Days blur into months
as knees sore from crawling
get rest on the sand
with the scorpions
as sleep, dehydration,
time consume the almost corpse
lying empty-handed on the side of the road.
Nobody else
has passed
because when his spiritual tank
went to empty
and he set out alone,
he stayed on the road
that got him to where he was
instead of looking for another
where friends,
family,
waited to refill his soul.

Grass

I posted more before I joined Facebook. Then after a while on Facebook I realized I wasn't updating MY status anymore, I was just reading everyone else's. Perhaps I find my life too mundane...maybe the writer in me is struggling because working with computers for so long has made me dead emotionally? Well, I doubt that. So my family has been dealing with a fair amount of drama lately between my mom going in for yet another hip replacement(on the same hip) and my brother's baby girl being born with a heart defect. And between everything that happened I found myself feeling again. Pulling out the pain and anguish and sorrow that fueled so much of my early work. So here I am to blog about none of that. I'm writing about grass.

When we had our house built it came with a "landscaped" front yard. Three bushes, grass and sprinklers. I ripped out their bushes and planted roses because both my wife and I like them. My neighbor's house was built a little bit after mine and when they finally put in this front yard his grass looked beautiful. Then I looked at my grass. We used the same builder, right?? Well, it turns out the the "company" they hired to do the landscaping on my house and several others bought the cheapest(and don't think I'm joking) sod they could, skimped on the sprinklers, pocked the extra and skipped town. So my yard looks like garbage 6 days a week until I mow it and then it looks ok for 1 day. But really this isn't quite the problem either.

I seem to be getting grass everywhere. I dug out an island in our front yard and we planted iris'. There is grass everywhere in there. We have a front flower bed where our beloved roses live that is half lawn. And yet when I look at some of the places where the grass SHOULD be, it's not. The lawn is patchy and inconsistent. So it feels a need to expand?? Can't it just grow where it's supposed to? (I ask the same question of my hair) Sadly, this means I'll be digging the iris' out of the island this summer, expanding it, tilling in something that isn't clay and putting some of that plastic edging stuff to try and keep the grass out. Unfortunately, I can't do that with my roses. They have struggled for so long. We have lost 2 and almost lost a third. I'm slightly beside myself with how to fix that but I bought some plastic edging for that too. Eventually we'll put in some pretty scalloped concrete but this is to stop the grass.

I've decided not to dwell on the grass/gravel that is supposed to be a lawn in my backyard. That takes too many deep breaths to think about.

The Cigarette Tax

I just read the article posted here: Cigarette tax and was glad to see it. Then I started reading the comments left by people. No, I didn't read the 279 pages worth but some of them were just....I couldn't believe it. So I posted my response and then realized that with it buried so deep it might never be seen but I feel so strongly about it that I'm posting it here as well. Why am I so passionate about it? I have asthma. It sucks and it isn't as bad as it could be. I hate to think that kids could suffer the same way because their parent's smoke. It's not fair. So here it is:

"Smoking is not only bad for your health it's bad for all of those around you. 2nd-hand smoke is one of the leading causes of lung cancer. Yeah, not the guy smoking the cigarette, it's his wife, children, their friends. It those of us who have to walk out the same doors you spend your time puffing it up outside of. And good grief the stench! I hate getting in the elevator after someone who has just smoked was in it...the whole thing stinks! Luckily I'm only going up 3 floors because I can't hold my breath much longer than that.
If you could smoke yourself to death and never affect other people because of it, more power to you. If you could drink yourself to death and I could guarantee you'd never get behind the wheel with alcohol in your system, I wouldn't care. But this does affect other people. Innocent people. The ones who die are more often those who never smoked or drank. The lives of families are destroyed when none of them did anything wrong. Console yourself however you want but the truth will always be here staring back at you.
I want to be there when you tell your kid dying of lung cancer because they rode in the car with you while you were smoking when they were younger that you're sorry. I want to be there when you look in your grandchildren's eyes and tell them it's your fault their parent is dead. And then I want to see the hate on their faces as you leave the hospital for a smoke."

That's all I have to say about that.

April Fools gone very wrong

So this is how sad I have become. It was going to be a cleverly titled post about an event that could have happened. But I stopped mid-flow to go play ping-pong and I lost it. I sat down to continue and had nothing. My brilliance zapped by 4 games of intense, victorious paddle-swinging. Oh well. I needed to get some work done today anyway. :)

Worst. Date. Ever.

That has been the topic on FM 100.3 this week as they are giving away tickets to the Eagles concert. They have had some pretty bad dates and ironically many of them were had with a future spouse. But that got me thinking back on all of the dates I went on in high school and after my mission. Man, I was a dating machine. My wife would probably like some of that part of me back. :)

Anyway, as I thinking back trying to remember my worst date so I could call in because I like winning stuff, I came a wonderful realization: Even my "worst" date was really pretty good. So I decided I wanted to send a big Thank You! to all of the girls I went on a date with for not giving me a story I could share. Thank you for the good memories and the fun.

Internet death, great neighbors, freedom!

It happened out of the blue last Wednesday while I was at work. The internet at our house died. Not the usual playing dead where a good kick in the ribs will bring it back to life, but full on blood everywhere, no pulse dead. I called our provider which is run by a room full of monkeys flinging their crap at each other. The unsupportive tech person said I needed to be in front of my connection at my house because she couldn't send the ticket to the next level if she doesn't go through her 3 steps. We go through two of them every time it plays dead. I couldn't be there because I was at work. I had class that night. By the time I got home I had forgotten that I needed to call them because I was tired. So Thursday Michelle called and went through the whole 3-step process. Then a level 2 tech called to say we were definitely broken and he would have the scheduler call to schedule a tech. Then hours of silence. I called when I got home to find out that they are idiots and the monkeys were still covered in excrement and loving it. The scheduler wasn't in the office on Thursday. He would be back on Friday. Nobody else there did his job when he wasn't in. Good thing customer's don't have problems on a regular basis apparently. So we weren't going to hear anything from these yahoo's until Friday.

Fridays are special. I get to work from home on Fridays and that helps with Michelle's sanity as she can go shopping or rest or whatever without having to take or worry about all of the kids. Well, without internet, I can't work from home. Without internet there were a lot of things we couldn't do that we wanted to. After confirming that they don't know what good customer service is, I called our next door neighbors to see if we could 'borrow' their signal for a few days. I'd like to say we have the best neighbors in the world...but I don't have to because if you know them, you already know that they are! He came over and helped me get on their internet and I was able to work from home the next day. Well Friday came and went with no phone call from the primates. Maybe they were overwhelmed by the stench of their own idiocy. No word all weekend.

Today I called and asked what the heck was going on. Well apparently the scheduler lied in the notes and said he called but the number was disconnected or no longer in service. I verified the number she had for us and confirmed that I had just talked my wife on that same number less than 5 minutes earlier. I came as close to calling the guy a bald-faced liar as I could without using those words. The tech did in fact come out, did nothing with our equipment on our roof and left declaring it was fixed. Michelle still couldn't get on and my night post-class will be figuring out why. I of course demanded a credit for all of my down-time. And hopefully on Friday, our local carrier will show up and install better internet. Then I will finally be free of the missing link that has been our ISP.

I will not name them but feel free to ask me. I wouldn't recommend them to anyone. Unless of course you like dealing with stinky monkeys.

The good old days

"Do you remember the good old days?"
"When was that?"
"Oh you know, yesterday. Last week. When mammoths were mammoths and possums were possums?"
"Yep, those were the good old days."

Can you name the movie? I'll tell you at the end if you can't.

That line has been rolling around in my head along with the stabbing pain of what is hopefully just a sinus headache and not a precursor to a sinus infection. Do I remember the good old days? And what qualifies?

So the first days I thought of were those wonderful pre-return-to-college days when my wife and I spent time together after putting the kids to bed or she crafted while I watched movies or played video games. Back when I actually knew what was going on in some TV series'. Back when the stress in my life was only generated by my job and my children.

Then I went back further to that great summer after high school graduation when I played until way late every day and got up friggin' early for work. And for some reason that was the way I saw my life...play first, work later.

Good times. But then I thought about the line again. "You know, yesterday. Last week." Was yesterday a good day...what about last week? Decidedly no-ish. Valentine's Day was a saga that I'm not going to bother posting about at this point and then I'm still apparently sick and Michelle was getting sicker and life didn't stop or pause long enough for us to get better. Sure I made to church before primary started and we had a great lesson in Elders quorum. But unfortunately that didn't cure me.

So if you need me, I'll be sitting here trying to tape markers or pens or something to the side of my head to keep pressure on my throbbing temples. Merry George Franklin day.

P.S. The movie is Ice Age 2: the meltdown

Poo foot and other great Saturday activities

Oh yes...there is nothing quite like your toddler limping towards you crying like he hurt his foot. Then you kiss your fingers(cause I only kiss baby feet when they can't walk on them) and touch them to his little injured foot only to stick them into poo. Seriously.

I don't know where it came from or how it got there but somehow poo got on the floor in the twins room and Lance stepped in it. Then limped out of his room leaving a brown spotted trail(rated better than bread crumbs by 4 our of 5 fairytale characters) to me. Luckily I was in the recliner not very far from their room. I scooped him up and hauled him to a sink to wash us both off.

Then I grabbed the 409 and a damp wash cloth and began following the trail from the recliner into their room. It even ended in this nice little loop. It was the smelliest Family Circus impression I've ever witnessed. And now I'm considering just blowing kisses to their feet cause you just never know what's going on underneath!

Double your pleasure

So there have been many times this past couple of years that I have said I wouldn't wish twins on my worst enemy. They have definitely been a struggle for Michelle and I at many times. But so often the moments of joy are overwhelmed with the other moments. Those times I sit on the couch with one little turkey on each side just leaning on daddy and watching a movie. Having Cameron tell me "Boo!" while I'm changing his diaper and I say "AAHHH!" and he responds with a "Yay!" and claps for himself.

Or like this morning when I walked into their room to get them up and they are both bouncing in their cribs with their hats on. These are the hats that Michelle knit for them for Christmas. I don't know how they got them both but there they were grinning with their hats. It was so cute.

Some mornings only one will be awake and being kinda noisy but as soon as I walk in the room I get "ssssh"-ed by them because the other one is still sleeping.

And I have officially become a huge proponent of PBS. My three youngest are all sitting here totally engaged by Reading Rainbow and now Between the Lions. I can't get this kinda of concentration out of them for Disney movies. Plus it's teaching them.

Know when to hold 'em, know when to run...

Ok, so she's sticking to her guns and we are all going to be casulties. Who? What? Huh? Exactly. I'm in class and my teacher has been building this semester project since summer when I took her class. Well she has this idea that this calculator we are making should be on a handheld calculator because....I really don't know. Common sense says there is no freaking way an Electrical Engineer is going to design a circuit on a freaking handheld calculator instead of in a cool computer program that we built last semester. It's like pulling out the abacus because you don't like using the calculator on your laptop. Good grief. But she is sticking to this ridiculous idea and forcing our class to suffer through her deranged end result.

It almost makes me want to cry. She's old but she teaches computer programming in Java. This isn't an old language! This isn't 1980 when computers were huge and expensive! An EE is going to have a very good computer they can pull up our cool app on and do their design work. Why not improve that? I swear that if I make it out of this class alive....I will forever despise handheld calculators. Or old people. Or people who can't open their minds to common sense.

I do a lot of flying by the seat of my pants. Not as much as I did in high school granted but my days aren't really structured at work and our team has to be fairly flexible because new projects walk in the door all the time with very close deadlines. But I don't feel like a teacher should fly by the seat of their pants. It doesn't instill confidence that they know what they are talking about. And when she throws out a statement and then retracts that statement and you watch her think outloud in class(like she just did as I was typing this) I actually yearn for a math class where there is structure and a syllabus! If you need me, I'll be banging my head on the table because it seems like that will do as much good as trying to follow her teaching method.

Resolutions

For this new year I have decided I need some resolutions...and for Family Home Evening last night I decided our family needed at least one too. So after the song and prayer and talking about what a resolution is, I asked my three older kids(the ones who can say more than "Daddy" and "[S]now wet") what they felt we should do as a family. Bless is heart it was Ethan who raised his hand and said we should read scriptures. He only started to like reading this summer so he could play my Wii. And here he is the one suggesting we do it. So I said that was a great idea. Then he follows that with this gem, "I don't know how to read the words in the scriptures." He feels he can't read them and yet he knows we should be reading them as a family. I would have hugged him but was afraid in my joy I might break some ribs.

I guess this is where I reveal some of our short comings because we have never had family scripture study. But this year we, as a family, are resolving to have family scripture study twice a week. I have great kids.

My personal resolutions are less spiritual. I resolve to get my Associates Degree. I resolve to do my best to get A's in all of my classes. I resolve to keep myself under 200 lbs and I'd like to get under 190. I resolve to do 100% Home Teaching this year and invite my Home Teachers over at least once a quarter to help them do theirs. I resolve to do better in my calling.

I think that's enough for this year. *horn blows* And I'm off!!!

Rating and reviewing and such

So here it is, the first part of 2009. What a year 2008 was. On a scale of 1-10....yes I would put it somewhere in there. :) So let me review the major developments and such and maybe when I get through, I'll have a more solid number.

2008 IN REVIEW

- The year started with planning: a family vacation and going back to school.
- The twins started walking finally.
- We went to Disneyland for the first time as a family and my first time in 2 decades
- Ethan met Buzz Lightyear in person and has never been happier.
- I started school again and it has consumed me as only school work can.
- Shortly after starting school I changed jobs from IT Helpdesk to Software Tester in the same company and saw my stress level drop dramatically.
- Michelle discovered spinning and has found many exotic new things to fill her craftroom with.
- I got a 4.0 GPA for summer semester...my first 4.0 EVER!
- We got Ethan into soccer in the fall and he loved it.
- Ethan was forced to read a book before he could play my Wii over the summer and went from a so-so reader to one of the top 6 in his class. Who knew video games would make my son a better reader??
- Cameron started saying words we could understand.
- Adeena continued to read like there was little else in life.
- Crickett finally had a real growth spurt and actually outgrew her 2T clothes.
- Michelle and I celebrated 10 wonderful years together.
- Michelle had a birthday and still looks 18.
- Christmas snuck up on us and the kids were lucky to have a tree up this year.
- I posted my second 4.0 thanks to the support and butt-kicking from my beautiful wife.
- Lance started saying, "Momma".
- Cameron will tell you the snow is wet as often as you will let him.
- I took 2 weeks off from work for the first time (voluntarily) ever.
- Christmas came and went with all of the usual hustle and bustle and horrific weather.
- Adeena got a 623- page book from my parent's the Sunday before Christmas and finished it a little over two weeks later.
- The twins continued to get into every little thing they could find regardless of how many times we told them to stop causing much stress, many broken items and a lot of poor dead eggs.

Despite the economy and high gas prices we have survived. We had enough car repairs to pay for another car but we now have two decent vehicles. There were no major accidents or injuries. While school consumes my life, it usually isn't until after the kids go to bed except for the nights I have class. Our long term financial and family goals are still intact and we are moving forward.

We had rough spots and by no stretch was this a perfect year. But we got wonderful new neighbors across the street and right next door. We made new friends and rediscovered some old ones. We decided that two weeks is just about right for me to be home....too much more and things will go south REALLY quickly. I'd rate this year a 7 overall with hopes for an 8 or 9 in 2009.