Father's and Son's

Wyoming, the Cowboy State

Not too long ago we bought an atlas of the United States for our boys. As we were going over the western states portion of the atlas we realized our boys had not been to Wyoming. What you say? How could that be? It is so close! So we packed up the car for an adventure.

We didn't get a picture of the Welcome to Wyoming sign, but Evanston is only 4 miles away.

You can see the excitement in their eyes.

Here are the boys with a mounted bear in the grocery/hunting supplies store. They think of the greatest combinations in Wyoming, there was also a liquor store, but you had to go outside to access it. There were probably in excess of 100 trophies on the walls of this hunting store.

This is the river walk, we didn't see the river, but we saw some tracks, lets see where the lead us.

A metal bear with a fish!

We didn't see the river because it was cold and windy. As you can see I had no jacket and the younger boy wanted to be carried (no surprise there), so not trek to the river.

The worst part of this whole experience is that I didn't even get any fireworks. What was I thinking, I saw at least four different places I could have bought them, maybe next time.

Christmas Fun... What?

So my sister didn't want more junk to shove into her 300 square foot apartment so she was given activities this year. A while back she and I took Miles to the symphony and then we made rings from silver coins. Hers was made from a quarter, I made mine from a half dollar.

Here we are pounding the coins to flatten the edges, this was a rather tedious step and later I found out our neighbor thought her washing machine was broken because of the noise.

Here I am using the drum sander on my dremel to open up the middle of the ring.

It is pretty cool that the writing is still legible, here's the quarter.

I finished mine later, you can see that it still says half dollar.

Liberty

Some photos of my weekend in SoCal

This is what I saw Saturday morning.

Bob the Builder with me and my boys.
E taking the Lego Volvo for a spin around the track.
M driving exactly along the line of track because that's the kind of boy he is.
Meeting a Lego family outside Legoland.
Cajun jambalaya pasta for dinner.
Learning how to hold the reigns to drive a team of horses.
Trying to open the locked jail cell.
Three days of fun, what more could I ask for? maybe a week or more.

The Joy of Fatherhood

On Monday I was asked to make a Robin Hood/Peter Pan hat with some specific instructions. It was to be green and it needed a red feather. I don't know that I have ever made or seen a paper Robin Hood hat, but I think I made it successfully, or at least good enough for a 3 year old. He has been wearing it most of the time for a week now.

The results

Wearing it opening a Valentine

Wearing it eating Valentine M&Ms

Posing for a photo wearing it

Who knows what he's trying to do here

I think the hat has a couple days left before it's torn apart from all the use it has seen, but it's easy enough to make another.

Out with the old...

...and onto a new year that's hopefully happier and all together better than the old.

The hopes and fears of all the years a met in thee tonight.

At this hour of the morning when I usually prefer to be sleeping soundly I came across a blog post that was comforting to me as my first Christmas with a significant loss is about to begin. The other day I was very sad at the thought of having lost Nolan and that Christmas just wasn't going to be all that good this year. I started thinking of Christmas a the celebration of Christ's birth and what Christ did for us. It was relieving. I can't say that this christmas will be what I thought it would be 3 months ago, but I have a new view of what it will hold for me this year.

Merry Christmas

Take a moment to think of the significant role Christ has had in your life.

Oh Christmas Tree

Our trees through the years

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

Doing those things we don't love to do

I just got around to the annual cousin letter. I've always been a procrastinator when it came to the letter, but this year I really didn't want to write anything. I think everyone around me knows that Nolan passed away the day he was born and that it was the most challenging experience of my life. I have written a few things about it, mostly for myself, so I'll remember and so others will know how I feel. I didn't want to revisit those feelings to share with the family too much, but I got something out and it's been a challenge even in its brevity. That's that, so I'm just gonna say it now. If I have another year like this one was I'm not writing anything.

Is there something wrong with my tastes?

Nabisco, what’s going on with you guys? Why can’t you make a proper Mint Oreo cookie to meet my needs?

I got hooked on the idea of a Mint Oreo when those stupid Keebler Elves quit making their old Grasshopper cookies that were essentially a Mint Oreo, not the Girl Scout cookie knockoff that they market as a grasshopper now.
I really liked the Mystic Mints, which evolved into Fudge Covered Mint Oreos. From what I could tell this was an Oreo with a minty filling covered in fudge. But that was discontinued and they introduced a Milk Chocolate Covered Mint Oreo, it wasn’t nearly as good as the Fudge Covered Mint Oreo. As best I know that, eventually, disappeared too.

A while back there was an Oreo Double Delight, the filling was green and white. I was supposed to be minty and creamy, it was tasty, but the consistency of the filling was off. Now there are Cool Mint Oreos, they taste the same to me as the Double Delight Oreos and the filling is off on these too.

Much to my pleasure, the other day I was at the grocery store and I say a limited edition Mint Fudge Covered Oreos. They aren’t quite as good as I remember the original, but still a nice find that I will savor for the time they are available to me.

Just know, I'm really not sure

If you ask me how I'm doing, I'll probably tell you I'm OK all things considered. The truth is I'm not sure how I'm doing, I've never been through anything like this before. I'm getting by, I go to work, I'm trying to do other things that I've always done. Just know that it is alright to talk to me, I am still me and I still like to being social. I may not want to talk about everything that has happened though.

Now you can test for yourself

I came across this colorblind test and thought it would be fun for you to see where you fall in the spectrum. Maybe you're colorblind and don't even know it, but probably not.

Something Fresh, Something Exciting!

While trying to figure out what I should be posting about to generate more interest in my blog I noticed lots of lists on other blogs. Hmm, what could I make a list about?

10 Top ten David Letterman top ten lists? No, I haven’t watched that show consistently for years and have no idea where my brother’s book of top ten lists went.

9 List of things I thought of listing? I think that’s been covered before by many others.

8 Why I’m glad to be the Cubmaster and not the Scoutmaster? No, I’ll just be put in as Scout Master if I make a list like that.

7 Best Moments on Fresh Air with Terry Gross? Ok, I know I’m grasping at straws here.

6 Things I’ve overheard at stores? I actually wanted to make this list, but I forget the funny stuff I hear before I can write it down.

5 Why Reaganomics was so good for me and the country? I didn’t have a clue what economics or Reagan’s policies were while he was in office, so I’m not going to go there now.

4 Poor grammar and why it bugs me? It really does bother me when then and than get mixed up, but I am no master of the English language and grammar in general (as I’m sure you’ve noticed by now).

3 Why The Simpsons is such an enduring television show? I love this show, but I mostly watch it out of loyalty to my reputation as a Simpsons fan. The show is no longer what it used to be.

2 Best Movies Ever! according to Gage? That just generates questions or invites criticism and I don’t want either of those.

1 Bologna and the many ways to pronounce it? Now that’s and idea that came from a David Letterman top ten list, so It’s already been done.

I guess I have made my own top ten list of lists, so suck on that Mr. Letterman!

Gotta use what you can

I took my boys to the zoo this afternoon, it was a fun outing, even if the Utah St., Utah game made the drive home difficult. There was a Snow Leopard cub at the zoo and this sign.

I thought it was a good way to advertise the new Apple OS and help the zoo out at the same time.

Some Random Thoughts with Pictures

It was the DWs birthday a couple weeks ago. I built her a cake for the occasion. It's an orange cake that I made from scratch. Here's the frosting in progress. I've made this cake for her birthday before and I'll probably make it again.

It's summer and pretty nice outside when it's not too hot. The boys love to spend time outside whenever we will let them. The enjoy eating lunch or any meal for that matter at their picnic table.

The other day the DW and the boys went no a tour of the Beehive House and looked around Temple Square. They have been obsessed with vests and cowboy hats. This is what they were wearing for the tour, cowboy hat ad fishing vest for one and cowboy hat, cowboy vest and fake pull over cowboy boots for the other.

I hope you enjoy the pictures.

2 Car Garage

Two months in the new place and we can get two cars in our garage.

I have an idea for a family photo

Recently the Big Sis posted a funny link about an awesome shirt. A web comic that I like reading had a reference to said shirt that I thought was priceless. I'm now considering getting the whole family some of the shirts for a family photo that will be worthy of this blog. Enough with the links.

More from around the house

I spent Saturday working on all sorts of project around the house. I started off putting some shelfs up in the closet in the office/nursery. I was able to clean up some of the boxes and other clutter sitting on the floor.

Next I moved on to installing dimmer switches in our bathrooms. These are the best ever, you don't have to have the light blindingly bright at night or any other time of day for that matter.

Now this is the stage of my blog where electrician should look away. I installed an outlet in the area Kinsey has set up for sewing in the basement. She had run several extension cords to get power where she needed it and I thought a proper outlet would be more appropriate. I added the splitter because she needed more than two outlets.

Many pictures, shelves and other decorations were put up as well. It's really starting to look like our home here.

And the home improvement begins

We spent a week in our new home before heading off for a week of vacation and now reality is setting in. There are no big projects to do just yet, but I've officially started on one of the little ones. Today while I was home for lunch, I started patching small holes from nails and other such things in the walls. The best was the entryway from the living room to the Kitchen. The corner bead had been hit pretty hard and dented. It was covered with scotch tape and painted very poorly. I wanted to get at least some of the patching done at lunch so I could get it better filled after work. I went to all the effort of patching and painting at the old place just to do it again in the new place. Once the patching and touch up is complete I'll move on to replacing the kitchen sink and faucet. It's just more fun than I should be allowed to have

Reporting as a Citizen of Disneyland

My family as become Honorary Citizens of Disneyland! If you look at the picture closely you will see that the boys are wearing buttons that say Honorary Citizen.

We were all given these (everyone in our family that is).  We ended up getting to the park before we planned and were at the head of one of the entrance lines.  A worker (or cast member as the are called) came out and asked us how we were doing, he then asked if we wanted to help open the park. He then gave us the buttons and and a book to sign our name and where we were from.  He said he'd be back later for our help.  When it was time for the park to open we got to go inside the gate to be introduced and welcome everyone for the day.  Pretty exciting, huh?