A quick report

So, since September 29 we've done a lot.

Mindy has grown a lot in the belly region. He's due in 5 weeks, but we're likely to see him in the next week or two.

The first mod ended and we went to NY for a few days. We had a great time. Driving the tank in NYC was not a lot of fun, nor was finding a place to park it. On the bright side, we got 19.5 mpg and met a really nice old lady at the farm where we picked up a motorcycle older that 90% of my classmates to haul into Queens for the boyfriend of a dear high school friend. While we were in NY the weather was great so we were able to do a lot of fun things outside. We went to Governors Island and rented bikes (for free on Fridays, so we didn't really rent them, but borrowing seems to imply that there is a personal relationship involved, which there was not). I was afraid they would take one look at Mindy and tell her there was no way they would let her ride a bike with a child seat on the back, but they didn't and the four of us had a wonderful time exploring the island. While we were waiting for the ferry to go back to Manhattan I got a call from JLG (you can look them up at jlg.com) and they offered me an internship for next summer. I have since accepted and am looking forward to spending next summer there. Tom and Kathryn came up on Saturday and all of us walked up to the new parks along the river between Atlantic Ave and the Brooklyn Bridge. Mom and Dad were very patient with the level of insanity and the volume we brought to the house and we had a great time with them. Abbey didn't handle it as well. She is probably still happy we're not there.


Cole has started going to preschool on Thursdays and Fridays. The bus picks him up at 7:10 and drops him off at 1. He loves school and his primary teacher says he is getting much better in class. We hope some of it has to do with him getting accustomed to the structure and holding still. I volunteered at his school one morning and had fun seeing him there. In his class is the neighbor's girl and two girls from the ward who also live in the complex. Parker was sad the first day when he woke up to find that Cole was gone. Now he really enjoys the alone time with Mindy and the chance to play as he pleases without having Cole tell him what to do.


About a week ago I finally got some clocks and artwork on the walls here. It makes a huge difference.

Also a few weeks ago I was out with Cole in the parking lot while he rode his big wheel. I distracted him at the wrong time and he drove into the trailer hitch of the truck. Off we went to the urgent care where the Indian doctor struggled to understand what a trailer hitch was and Cole left with two stictches just above his left eyebrow. Now both boys have scars above their left eyebrow - about 10 weeks apart.

Cole was healing up well until school the next week when the bus headed down a dirt road for the first time and the guy hit a pothole or something and Cole and the other kids on that side of the bus all banged their heads against the window. It wouldn't have been a problem except that Cole hit the cut and it came partially open. It has since healed up and I took the stitches out myself. Its no different than cutting the strings that hold a chicken together. I recommend everyone remove their own stitches. I also decided that an activity we need to do each time we move to a new place is a dry run to the Urgent Care to speed things up when one of the boys needs stitches.

It is now a couple of days later and I am out of school until after Thanksgiving. We spent a couple of hours at the hospital on Tuesday night. Mindy got another shot of horse tranquilizer to stop the contractions. She's taking it really easy until Sunday because if he decides to make his entrance into the world before then we'll be driving to Danville (80 miles east of here) to the NICU. After that, he'll be born here in State College.

We get a glimpse of winter every few weeks when the overnight lows drop to the low 20's. One of those morning Parker went out on the patio in his PJ's and, while standing in a cloud of his own breath, told me that it was warm outside because the sun was up. Poor child, he's thinks like a desert dweller. He'll figure out this winter that a beautiful clear sunny morning in the winter is usually the coldest.

That is about all. I'm headed to India for two weeks at the end of February for school. It should be a great experience. Mindy is glad her mom will be coming for that time.

Time flies

Just as I hit the post button, I noticed that blogger claims my last post was Sept. 1. While I do not doubt this, it nonetheless surprised me. We have had a wild month. Starting the day after Labor Day, Mindy and the boys and the critters and Dad, and a sister-in-law drove across the country. During that same week, the schoolwork really started to take off. Then we spent the weekend moving in and things have only gotten wilder. I think I got 6 hours of sleep one night last week - it felt so nice, but I woke up before my alarm simply out of habit and the fear of having missed my ride to school. The days all blur together. I'm thankful for Outlook and a phone that has my calendar on it - this way I know where to be.

Yesterday morning a classmate turned to me and said "You look like hell". I couldn't argue with it. I certainly felt it. Last night I did okay and got 5-1/2. I manage to get home for dinner one or two nights a week. There are classes, team meetings, association meetings, employer information sessions, job interviews, job fairs, meetings with career placement people, meetings to present assignments and then just the time reading and writing.

It is great to be together again as a family. I think Mindy was happy to see me, I know the boys were. They wanted to wrestle with me at 1am when they saw me. Mindy has done a great job of adjusting and clearing the house of boxes and making it look civilized, pretty much without any help from me. Each day a bit more is done...and each day the basketball she ate grows a bit.

It is now the end of the first set of classes. I've spent so much time in team meetings. No meeting tonight though! But there is accounting homework, an 8-minute speech (not reading a transcript), and a team paper. Final presentations and exams are next week. Then there is a week spent doing career development stuff and we start the race again.

Added to the picture

So the other afternoon on the bus home from school - home being a relative word, since it is the Christensen's home that has been my home for the past month - Adam told me their almost-4 year-old had drawn a family picture that day. It had five people in it. When asked to explain, she said, mom, dad, me, brother, and bro. Butler. So I'm in as far as she's concerned. I'm apparently getting close to being awarded an honorary uncle degree.

Classes race on. I've had quizzes the last two days, and the first round of assignments are due next week. For the most part, I'm enjoying it. Thankfully I have two classes that are case-based to offset the extremely thrilling statistics and accounting courses.

Next week is the big week. We'll be together as a family. It will probably require a bit of adjustment by all of us, but I think we're all ready for that.

I'm headed to NY for the weekend. I'm excited to see Brooklyn again.

This is kind of a rambling post.... my brain is fried and I've got another hour before the last meetings of the day begin.

Butlers in the news

We've made it! One step closer to our own reality show! Soon we can live out Brad Paisley's song "Celebrity."

Blogspot SUCKS! You cannot paste things into it.

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2010/08/25/no-parking-brooklyn-residents-get-creative/

For the lyrics referenced: www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/bradpaisley/celebrity.html

Time apart

Its been three weeks. Three more to go. I'm excited to see my family again. To see how much Mindy's belly has expanded. To talk with her face-to-face. To eat dinner as a family-our family. To talk with the boys about the exciting things in their lives. To see what they've learned and how they've grown. It'll go quickly, classes start in the morning.
Orientation is over. My textbooks are almost here from Taiwan or wherever they shipped from on the Asia-Pacific rim. I even have a few reading assignments for classes this week. I enjoy my classmates. I went for a bike ride with two of them yesterday evening. We started a bit late, and it was dark by the time we got back to the car. But we rode through some beautiful areas. Old farmhouses and barns, picturesque rolling hills, corn fields and pastures. I saw the first fireflies I've seen in years. And as I see all these things I want to share it with Mindy. But pictures won't do it justice and I hate talking on the phone. I just have to wait.

How old am I?

So we've spent some time at school in the last few days talking about Academic Integrity and how to behave during interactions with recruiters. We have been told to pay attention, dress properly, be on time for class, respect classmates, not ask obnoxious questions, not cheat, etc. They had us sign some thing today with the list of what we will and will not do. They even had us wear business clothes two days for no apparent reason other than to see how we looked when we dressed up. How old am I?

New people, places, friends, and everything else...

Its been two weeks since I saw the boys. I miss them. Only slightly less since I saw my wife, I miss her too. The other night Cole was in tears saying that he wanted to see me. That was tough to take. I've seen so many new places. I can't get over all the neat old barns and farmhouses - and it is so lush and green. I'm still surprised every morning when I walk out the door and am struck by how the air settles on me like a warm, damp blanket. Lotion is not required to prevent alligator skin.

Orientation began last Monday with a long line to set up my email access. After some opening remarks by the dean and admissions, we were split into teams led by a Penn State undergrad alumni and sent to explore campus and the downtown by taking pictures of us at various locations. It was a whole lot of walking and it was a warm sunny day. We saw close to 70 places. I also got blisters (a side effect of the humidity) and a sunburn. Half of Tuesday was spent trying to get Outlook to work. Wednesday was the beginning of the pre-term accounting course and the afternoon was spent doing the homework. Thursday was more accounting in the morning and then some meetings about how to behave in class and other things like that that I assumed were understood by this point in life. We spent Friday at a ski hill doing team building things including the acid river, balancing nails on the head of a nail (we had 32 at one point), designing a device to allow you to drop an egg from 6-12 feet without breaking and other things like that. It was a lot of fun. The best moment was when we were all standing in front of a stage at the end of the day and a golfer at the nearby tee box sliced it and hit a lift tower during one of the quiet points in the session. The ball almost got back to him. It still doesn't top when I was caddying for dad (he would have me go with him in the morning to adjust back to NY time after my summers in UT during high school) one day and his friend hit the ball and we had no idea where it had gone. About 5-7 seconds later the ball landed about 15 feet in front of us and embedded itself about halfway into the grass.
The activities ended later than usual on Friday so I couldn't take the usual bus home. I caught the bus doing the loop the other direction. It took over twice as long to get home, but I go to see more than twice as much. One of the neat things I saw was downtown Bellefonte. A classmate had mentioned earlier that day the beautiful Victorian homes in downtown Bellefonte. I saw what he was talking about. I walked over to downtown on Saturday and took a bunch of pictures.
... so I was tried adding in some pictures, but it wouldn't work, so here is the post without pictures. Some of you can see them elsewhere, the rest of you can google state college or Bellefonte to get an idea of what I'm talking about.

What a week!

The week began with me, Mindy and her brother Jeff driving from Provo to Phoenix. We were driving the new (to us) truck and pulling a 20' trailer with only ~ 2000 pounds of lumber and some stuff for a woman in Phoenix from her mom in Utah. Thank you KSL.com. It was an uneventful drive with some heavy rain in the middle. Our friends Jim & Becky let us stay at their house. On Monday I picked up a couple of day laborers (don't knock it 'till you try it) and Jim and I, and Julio and Antonio got the truck and trailer loaded in four hours. Tuesday morning we left at about 5. I headed toward Payson and Holbrook and Mindy and Jeff back toward Utah. I made it to just east of Denver the first night. It was a long day, with an amazing electrical storm in the evening. I even pulled over and slept for a while in the cab of the truck. Mindy and Jeff made it home that night. The next day I left at 5:30am and drove to Iowa City and got to Maryanne & Jared's about 9pm. I stayed in Iowa City on Thursday. We went to the library and I spent a lot of time working on getting last minute details wrapped up. I left Maryanne & Jared's at about 10:30 Friday. Things were going well until I pulled into a BP station and put 8 gallons of gasoline into a diesel truck before realizing that the green pump handle was not diesel as it is everywhere else, but some BP concoction. The guys said to finish filling the tank with diesel and put in an additive. That worked great and I drove to Cleveland to my uncle's house. This morning I left Cleveland at about 7 and made great time until milepost 53 in Pennsylvania. State College is exit 161, so I was pretty close. At that point the truck died.

A serive guy came out, looked at it and left, came back, looked and worked some more, and finally came back with the big tow truck. Budget told me I was getting towed to State College, the driver said Budget had not talked to him about that and that he had a wedding this afternoon and could pull the truck in tomorrow (Sunday) morning.

During the three hours I spent most of my time sitting on the embankment between the offramp and the travel lanes wondering what was over the crest of the hill and behind the trees that were everywhere around me. There is no shortage of green here. I saw more riding mowers on trailers and in the back of trucks during that three hours than I have ever seen in one day before. It is beautiful country and it was a lovely day to be outside. I could have done without being outside staring at a non-functioning moving truck full of 80% of my family's earthly belongings, but so be it, and at least it wasn't burning or on its side (like my vehicle was last time I had to call a tow truck 6-1/2 years ago). When we got on our way, I found out what was on the other side of the hill, more hills and beautiful tree-covered valleys with clear streams in the middle.

Three hours after the truck's death, they towed me to their garage where they worked on it for another hour or so before they gave me the keys to their parts truck (a 1993 Chevy S-10 with 135,000 miles on the odometer with the appearance of having gone at least four times that far). I must get photos of this truck. Words cannot describe it. Joe Dirt would love it and it is, quite simply, a piece of art. It is an incredible conversation-starter.

I drove it to State College where Dad and David had been hanging out all day. We put my old mission bike in the storage shed and then did some more driving around. A couple in the ward is letting me stay in their basement - I only really realized mid-day that I had no place to stay tonight. What a huge relief that is. The truck will get towed into town tomorrow and we get to empty it after church.

Meanwhile Mindy is back in Utah with the boys and I have gotten some really sweet phone calls from them. Today Parker said "I miss you. I love you" and the other day Cole told Mindy that "it is time for daddy to come home". I'm glad they didn't have to be along for the fun of today, but Cole would have loved the big tow truck.

Getting closer

So Mindy, her mom and sister and my mom are off doing girlie things. I've got the boys. Parker is asleep and Cole is watching baby einstein. So is Jack. He is getting ready to attack the TV. He actually got off the sofa, went over to the TV and took a swing at it. He's brave.

We're getting close to leaving. This weekend Mindy and I drive to Phoenix to retrieve our stuff. Then I drive a moving truck across the country and Mindy tows a large trailer back to Utah. In the beginning of September my dad will help her tow the trailer across the country.

The shed at work is pretty much done. I wish I had a place that big to live in for the next month.

If you've never been to Eden, Utah, go up there. It is really pretty. We drove up there on Wednesday morning.

I'm excited to start school in a little over a week. We're all looking forward to getting settled in in September. Then a few months later we get to turn it all on its ear when the baby is born...and then we'll be outnumbered.

Stuff to AZ

To those with family in AZ or UT. I've got room for a lot of stuff to haul to Phoenix next weekend. Let me know if you or your friends or family need things hauled to Phoenix.

Events of the week

Cole came to work and told me I needed to build the roof on the shed.

We learned that we're having a boy. Cole argued that it was a girl. He still tells everyone that he is having a baby brother and a baby sister.

The car is now officially for sale. I really should have detailed it earlier, it looks so nice.

Parker swatted at his full, sagging diaper with much vigor. It was hilarious.

We think we've figured out how we're going to get to PA.

I learned that mint chocolate chip ice cream with homemade yogurt on it is quite delicious. It sounds odd, but you really need to give it a whirl.

Cole saw his first movie in the theater - Toy Story 3. He loved it, and when he got scared he cuddled against me. He then came home and pulled out all the Toy Story toys.

The funny event in sunbeams today was when one of the boys shared with the class that someone in his family (I couldn't tell who) said "What the hell is going on?" and then the kid sitting next to him turned and told him not to use "potty words". Between the teacher's reaction and the kid next to him, it was great.

Schizophrenic weather

I'm trying to make sense of this. In the last week there have been highs of 95 and 70, rain, sun and wild winds. If nothing else, Phoenix was predictable. On Monday evening Mindy and I went to look at a couple of cars in Salt Lake. I really do not like dealing with car salesmen. It was a late night for the boys. On Wednesday we got together with some friends from our Las Vegas days. It was a whole lot of fun. It is amazing how you can pick up with good friends after almost three years and seems like there never was the break. The number of children had increased significantly and that was probably the biggest challenge.

On Saturday we went to see the hot air balloons take off. They never did. I then went for a ride with my uncle up Provo Canyon and almost to Strawberry. It was a lot of fun tearing through the canyon.

I took the boys swimming in the afternoon and they both had a great time. When we got home at 5:15 Cole asked for his pajamas and went to bed. He slept for 13 hours. That is two nights in a row where he has asked to go to bed.

Parker had a cough last night and was sounding like Joan Rivers. He seems to be okay now.

On the list for next week: painting, framing a roof, and some miscellaneous trim work.

The primary chorister put it well today after I had to have a little talk with Cole during sharing time, we are asking them to sit for what would us be 10 hours, and they do quite well. During sharing time Cole spent some time licking his chair. His teacher just thought he was being quiet.

The things we do

Yesterday (Saturday) we went with the boys to the children's parade. The boys and Mindy enjoyed it, I come from a long line of parade non-fans. It wasn't done on my account and the boys liked it so that is what matters. Mindy spent the remainder of the day taking care of some family issues. I took the boys swimming for a long time. They loved it. I got a life jacket for Parker. It doesn't work as well with him, he doesn't have enough weight in the legs and backside. It lifts him up enough that he just rolls from his front to his back and over again and again. However, he does not sink and that is what really matters.

Sunday was a lively day, with lots of fighting between the boys, but it ended well with the three of us wrestling in the backyard. The boys loved it, and they fell asleep quickly. Well, 6am will be here shortly; I'd better get to bed.

Long, hot summer nights

Well, not so hot. I love summer evenings in Utah. They last forever. It is almost 9:15 and is still light enough for the kids to be playing in the backyard. And then they cool down. We sleep with the window open at night. Side note - Maya is asleep on the floor resting her head on one of the boy's sandals, what a strange creature. Only a week ago, it was 45 in the morning; and 46 in our room. I love it. The boys play all day every day. A few times a week Mindy brings lunch to work and we eat at the picnic table under the pavilion. Then Cole asks to see what I am working on and we go look at it, he asks a few questions and indicates his approval. Cole spent last night with his cousins. On the way home from dropping him off I pointed out a moving truck to Parker. Parker responded that it was not a moving truck. Mindy commented that if Cole had been with us there would have been an argument. They argue about the most absurd things - such as whether Parker is a big boy or a little boy. Cole will call Parker a big boy and Parker will respond that he is a little boy, and pretty soon they're yelling at each other.

Poor Maya, we woke up in the middle of the night last week to Jack assaulting her. The cats are both fixed, but I think Maya still has some of the hormonal issues, and Jack knows just enough to respond to them, but he looked pretty confused and Maya was quite angry about the whole thing. We wish she were having kittens soon, at least it would provide an explanation for her huge mid-section.

Of my three projects at work, two of them are almost wrapped up - the wall infill and the photo studio walls. By the end of next week the roof framing of the shed should also be complete. I've done all kinds of assorted things this summer - asphalt removal, concrete, painting, staining, framing. It is really nice to be able to do a lot of the work inside on a relatively flat floor. It is also nice to have some knowledgable resources because despite my 8 years of managing construction, none of that included doing the actual work. The major asphalt work should also start in the next week or two.

That is about all that I am willing to write about. We've got a lot of other exciting things going on, but will update you with those as we work out details.

Good times in Primary

Last week Cole's primary teacher, when asked how Cole did in class, responded "he likes to run, he really likes to run, we tried to incorporate the running around the room into the lesson." She then said that he would probably do a little better if I came to class with him. So today I went to primary with him. It was an experience. At one point during the lesson, a girl in the class was telling a long story. He looked at her and said "Be quiet, stop talking!" It was pretty funny. Later, during singing time he licked the kid sitting next to him, not once or twice, but a bunch of times. After a break of a few minutes he decided that ramming the thigh of the kid sitting next to him with his head, an attempt to push him off the chair was a good idea. I was exhausted just watching it.

We'll see how it goes next week. I will take a pen and paper this time to ensure I don't forget any of the gems.

"Hi Dad, I want to go to the park"

Cole has learned that I can be reached on the telephone. He had Mindy call me Monday afternoon so he could tell me he had seen three cement trucks. Today I picked up the phone and heard him say "Hi Dad, I want to go to the park." He is growing up so quickly. Tonight I was talking to him before he didn't go to sleep and told him he was a big boy. He looked at the ceiling for a few seconds, smiled and said "yes, sir". He thinks a lot about the relative size/age of things and people. He thinks a lot about most things.

We are enjoying our time in Utah. The boys love playing in the backyard and seeing their cousins and other friends, even if the other friends get chased by Cole and Parker.

On Memorial Day Cole and I went to the World Superbike races at Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele. It was out in the middle of nowhere! It was so far away that Cole started asking when we were going to turn around and go home. We found a spot against the fence between two corners and set up our chairs. We were actually closer than the bleachers (which were behind us). Cole had a great time. We wandered around the tents and gathered all the swag we could. Cole got a small blue and white checkered flag. He loved the races and stood on his chair waving the flag. It went really well until he dropped it over the fence. I thought our race day was over, because he was devastated. I got a MMP employee to retrieve it for us, and we stayed to the end. Cole fell asleep about 4 minutes after we got into the car. I recommend it, especially if you can get your ticket for $20. We packed in all our own food and there is all kinds of stuff being given away.

That evening we went over to some friends' for dinner. They have two daughters who were playing with Cole, and another friend also had a daughter. At one point the girls came in and told us with great concern/disgust that Cole had stepped on a spider with his bare foot and scraped it off with his finger. Cole then poked his head around the corner and with his huge mouthy smile proudly told us what he had done. He's great!

Wow!

I still can't get over this one. I saw an able-bodied guy drive - and I'm not making this up - 685 feet to church this morning. Really? You would walk farther than that walking from the front door to the milk cooler at a super Wal-Mart. Even a round-trip to the back of a standard sized grocery store would be farther.

When speaking to Cole I will often say "Yes, sir" or "No, sir". Now when I ask him a question he responds with "Yes, sir" (if it was going to be a yes response).

Cole enjoyed the evening with his cousins. At one point he was being dragged on his belly on the grass holding onto the wagon handle as his cousin was pulling on the other end of the wagon - and he was having a blast.

Cole is excited for tomorrow. We're going to the World Superbike race at Miller Motorsports Park. He gets in for free, parking is free and we can bring in our own food.

Jack has the crazies and just ran sideways into my feet. He will soon be saddened by my construction of the barricade between the upstairs and downstairs. It consists of two child gates, one above the handrail, one above, and a blanket over the top of it to eliminate footholds and cover the gap between the gates. Last night he tried to bolt up the stairs as I started to put it up. The reason for the wall? Mindy's parents have an old grumpy cat who has no patience for our cats and they go to war at night. This prevents the growling, hissing and spitting at 2am.

And the final decision...

Penn State

Some of you know we had a surprise last week when MSU offered a sizable scholarship. Well, I spoke with Penn State and they matched it, and so that is where we're headed- Penn State.

It is slightly disturbing, they have a mountain lion as their mascot, their colors are blue and white, and they're located in a place called happy valley. But off we go and we're excited. Oh, and it stopped snowing and we went swimming yesterday (even though it was only 68 outside)

We made it

We made it to Provo on Saturday. It was a long trip. I was on the motorcycle and Mindy, the boys and the cats were in the car. There was a lot of wind, blowing dust and sand. And then once we got to southern Utah, it started to get cold. But we made it. We were all happy to relax.

And then we woke up to snow this morning.

17 hours and counting

In 17 hours the EQ shows up to load the stuff into the truck. I hope to have most of the boxes gone by then and be down to the big items. We have a lot left to do. Lots of little things, and then the wrapping of most of the furniture.

We've sold all the things we wanted to, except for a chair and a tub of garland.

We're back in the air again as to where we're going.

Final thought, why would someone vote to increase their sales taxes? Did you get a raise last year? Or the year before, or the year before? Did your medical out-of-pocket increase while your coverages decreased and co-pays increased? Is your job guaranteed? Do you have a guaranteed pension after 20 years?

Most of us didn't get raises and our out-of-pocket increased and our coverages dropped. We also don't have pensions. But gov't employees and the teacher's union make sure they get all those things. And WE pay for it. What a screaming deal for them! Hey, let me pay some more sales taxes so they can get a raise while the rest of America takes a pay cut! Sure they claim it is for the kids, but if it was, the teacher's union wouldn't be supporting it. They don't give one rip about the kids. They care about preserving the "rights" of the unionized employees with no regard for where the money is coming from.

This is an intergalactic...

Cole was playing with what they call "Big Buzz"; the buzz lightyear that talks and Mindy walked in right as it said "This is an intergalactic..." but it cut off before it got to emergency and instead he let rip a big one. Mindy said it was hilarious.

We're missing some more furniture now. As awful and uncomfortable as the green Ledcor sofa (we called it that because Ledcor bought it for us when we moved to Tucson) was, I miss it. I also miss the TV, even though we didn't use it often since we don't have cable. Cole misses it too. It is still in the garage, the girl who bought it is coming tomorrow. After the garage sale on Saturday Cole sat in a lawn chair in the garage (it was quite warm) watching a movie. When he dropped goldfish on the floor I didn't even care.

We got rid of a whole bunch of stuff. I don't think we'll ever do one of those again. If I'm going to give stuff away, I'd rather do it knowingly and just take the stuff to DI.

Now the boys and the cats are confused. The boxes are piling up, the fridge is emptying out, and we're now to the point of just wanting it to be done.

I helped the boys build a fort this morning. It did well until Parker jumped on it and it fell apart. Then they completely trashed it and freaked out when I put it away.

Mindy taught her final Sunday School lesson today, and I did my final membership clerk stuff, including send our records to our new ward. We'll miss the ward. We've made some great friends and were welcomed from the moment we got here. We were just really getting to know people, and we'll miss it here.

None of us are going to miss the hot summer and we're looking forward to seasons, farm fresh corn on the cob, and some time with family as well as PSU in the fall.

Cole was complaining a few weeks ago about it being cold, it was probably 65. I told him he had no idea what was headed his way.

Let the games begin

Our week has consisted of a whole lot of excitement.

On Monday Cole got his staples out. I watched closely and brought the staple remover home with me. I'm certainly not going to pay for that again. I had a Finance final that evening. I'm trying to block it out of my memory. It was a truly horrible experience. Tuesday was Mindy's last day of work. Wednesday she started packing and I started going through the garage in earnest, sorting out our garage sale pile. We've got a lot of stuff going, tomorrow morning should be busy. Wednesday night I had my marketing final. It was much more pleasant. The case study was about some company (I got the feeling it was Ann Taylor) who was considering entry into the active-wear segment (sweats, hoodie and a t-shirt). I will spare the few remaining readers of this my opinion on the topic. Afterward most of the class hung out for a while. It was a little awkward, knowing that I wouldn't be back in the fall, but they all think I am. I didn't feel like having to explain my rationale 41 times, so I just didn't tell anyone. Thursday and today have involved more packing and sorting.

I did take the boys to the park this morning. I failed to catch Parker and he fell about 5' from the rings. I got some death glares from the moms that saw it. He was okay, but kind of scratched his hip. The poor kid had woodchips stuck in his forehead. I'm pretty sure he still loves me, so it'll be okay.

We're quickly coming up on our move. We put the stuff into storage next Thursday, and are completely out of the house on Friday afternoon. It is a bit nerve-wracking. Oh well, we'll survive.

Sign you're not from NYC

You named your kid Riker. I don't care if you spelled it Ryker. That is a bad mix of Ryder (remember the official bomb-hauler of the 90's?) and Riker, a sort of a youth hostel with limited rights and lots of razor wire off the north shore of Queens.

I just got back from the pool with the boys. They had a blast and Cole looks like he is about to pass out and Parker is sound asleep. Lots of interesting children's names... It sounded like one lady had gone with the All-names-starting-with-'R'-convention. What makes people think that is a good idea, or cute, or that their kids will not be annoyed and/or embarrased later in life. Think about the awkward 14 year-old boy who has to tell some older kid what the names of his siblings are, and then has to explain that they all start with the same letter, and may even sound quite similar. Oh yes, I'm sure that will be a pleasant experience for the kid.

Life can be quite uncomfortable as a child, and especially as a teenager, (I didn't participate my entire 8th grade year because I never knew what octave my voice was going to be in, or if it was going to change mid-stream), kids don't need assistance from their parents in making it worse.

Did I mention that the thermometer at the pool said 95 at, and I'm not making this up, 11:30?

Why does there have to be a title?

So this will only be funny to Butlers.

Yesterday at the park some lady kept calling her kid. Apparently his name was Benjamin. She was calling him Bennie. I laughed a little.

Thoughts

I've got lots of opinions. Right now I'm ready to share. I'm always ready to share, but right now I'm especially ready to share.

So the house was listed yesterday. We had a showing last night. The realtor scheduled 3 for today starting at 1:30. I got additional calls from a couple of other people. A 10:00am, a 3:00pm and a 4:00pm. They didn't have a lockbox on the house, so I had to be home for all of those. The 10:00am showed up and nobody else did. At 4:10 there was a car sitting out in front of the house, a realtor waiting for the people who were late. I got in the car with the boys and left. You called my number to say you were coming- how about calling that same number to say you're not coming. Oh, and be on time.

Next opinion - At the grocery store are your margins so thin that you cannot afford more than two people at checkout during the after-work rush? Then you put the organic (read overpriced) bananas in the middle of the regular bananas. So, yes, I left the bananas, which were all I had gone to the store to get at the self-checkout kiosk after it kept telling me I had stuff on the scale when I didn't.

I can't wait to go to school tonight!

Fun weekend

We had a good weekend. We went to Tucson and the zoo.

We also went to the mall where I spent nearly two years of my life. It is nearly finished.

Today Kathryn and I drove to Snowflake.

We got snowed on in Snowflake.
And shortly after I got home from church, Cole and Parker got in a fight. Cole split his head open on the cedar chest and an hour later after a visit to urgent care had three staples in his head. He did really well there.

Where did he learn this?

Tonight Cole went out in the backyard and left a gift to be cleaned up. So now, despite not having a dog, I get to go out there tomorrow and clean up.

Good news

I got accepted to Penn State full-time MBA program today. I'm thrilled. I'm still not sure where we'll go, I have yet to hear decisions from the other three schools. But the interview with PSU was only on Tuesday.

In other news, I lost the rent check (cashiers because we ran out of checks) at the park today. The bank told me they couldn't cancel it. We went back to the park and Mindy found it in the bushes.

And to top it all off, Kathryn is visiting. The boys keep calling her Aunt Rachel, I don't know why. I think she's having fun.

Flat paint

Have I mentioned that I despise flat paint? I spent 3 hours running around with a paintbrush touching up the walls so it looked respectable for the realtor to take photos. Sure, we have two boys who like to drive things on the walls, and who sometimes touch the walls, but it was absurb how much painting I had to do. At least I know that the leasing company isn't very bright and certainly will not notice that the paints appear to be slightly different in color and sheen. That's what happens with flat paint. Back at Pulte I remember the switch to flat paint because it saved $20 in paint and $50 in labor. We couldn't match anything. The painters had to leave the exact bucket in the house for any touchup work. It was a disaster. Oh, and one more thing. Those houses were selling for $300,000. Last I checked many are listed for $120,000. I don't think the extra $150 in the selling price of the house to cover the semi-gloss paint would have helped.

When we moved out of the house in Las Vegas (which had been lived in for four years - although there was only one year of a child in that house) there was almost no paint touch up required. It wasn't flat paint.

Are my feelings about flat paint clear?

We're still alive

Today is the 12th consecutive day Mindy will work. She's been working for Pearson grading standardized tests. She's worked nights during the week and days on the weekends. Tomorrow she starts a new project working days for the next couple of weeks.

This has left me with a lot of time with the boys. We've had fun...at times. We've had friends who were nice enough to help watch the boys the nights I have school.

We're getting ready to move again...long story.

Cole started speech therapy two weeks ago. The sessions are 30 minutes once a week. The first week he didn't say a word to the teacher. The second week he noticed her painted toenails and had a lot to tell her about that.

I've started washing the windows in preparation for moving out. It is amazing what you can see out the windows once you remove all the dirt.

One final note in this collection of random statements. Cole fell asleep in the car at about 5:45 last night. He woke up at 4am to get a drink, and then woke up at 8:15. Impressive.

The ground shakes

So today after conference mom and I were sitting on the sofa working on the computer. It felt like someone was pushing on the sofa. Mom asked if I felt it. Cole was upstairs in the middle of a tantrum (he had a rough day). After a few seconds I noticed that the blinds were swaying and the glasses in the cupboards were clinking around. I looked on the computer to see if there was anything about an earthquake nearby and it showed one several hours earlier. Then I looked on facebook and saw that a friend in San Diego had just posted about a large earthquake down there. Take that CNN, you got beat by facebook. As for the house moving, it was a weird sensation. It a distinct moving back and forth motion, like the entire house was sitting on a piece of cardboard and someone was moving the cardboard back and forth.

Random

I'm sitting on the sofa watching Celebrity Apprentice. It is pretty nice to be able to run the s-video cable from the computer to the TV. Sharon Osbourne just used a phrase that I think was great in reference to Cyndie Lauper and said Cyndie was "totally barking mad."



Cole is asleep here next to me. He's barfed twice. Once was right after I got home from school. I put him up on his bed and he yakked all over the bed and himself. The poor kid got put in the bathtub and he was shivering.

That was started last Monday. He got over it the next day.

Oh yes!

I remembered one more thing from today. Sometime after I left for college/mission etc, dad and my little brother cooked up a bizarre game they called Spider. To some wackjob from CPS it probably would have been abuse, but they both enjoyed it. Dad would hang out on the sofa and David would be over near the stairs. Dad would have some kind of ball and the object of the game was to hit David with it. David would run between the stairs and the entryway attempting to avoid getting drilled. Abbey the dumb fat dog seemed to get into this game as well at times.

I bring this up because this is now one of Cole's favorite games. He especially enjoys that I can throw the ball at him in the loft from over near his room (over the downstairs living room).

As Maryanne pointed out tonight, I could now complete the parallel by painting "Cole" on the wall while repainting and still have it visible ten years later despite several attempts to cover it up. For those who haven't seen it, the letters were about 4" wide and 2' tall. It was not small. But it is still funny. - Dad, is it still visible? Maybe you can take a picture and I can post it on here.


And Mom gets here on Tuesday. I'm excited for her to visit!

Book

I just finished "The Coldest Winter" by Halberstam. It was about the Korean war. It was a good book. I've read plenty of World War II, but no Korean War. It is amazing how much you can learn about how we got into various situations over the years just by reading some history.

MacArthur... what a piece of work.

I've started "What Hath God Wraught" by Howe. It is about the United States during the transformational period from 1815-1846. I'm enjoying it so far.

Parker and the funny things he does

Cole does some funny stuff. Like wear underwear all day and night, and never have an accident; except for when he goes to his closet brings you a diaper and tells you he needs to poop. Then he physically pushes you out of the room so he can have some privacy.

But he's got nothing on Parker. He will sit on the dining room table, sit on the armrest of his booster seat, and best of all come over to you when you're sitting on the floor and just park it on you, complete with the starting from about two feet away and backing up until his feet or legs hit something and just parking it whereever he may land.

He is also quite attached to his blanket. He can pee faster than his diaper can absorb so we do a lot of bedding changes in the middle of the night. This may seem like a simple problem to solve - don't give the kid as much to drink at bedtime. The problem there is that he will pound his bottle of milk or sippy of juice and scream for more and never go to sleep. OR, you can give him both at the same time and never hear from him again (until 2 or 3 in the morning when he's yelling "Help mama! I'm wet! Help me!")

I taught him to bump fists (this seems to have a whole bunch of different names depending on where you live) a few weeks ago. Now at bedtime he insists on two or three of those per hand and several give-me-fives per hand as well as some waving. He then says "night night", drinks his 16 ounces and goes to sleep.

As for the adults around here, we continue on. Life is still very much up in the air and we dream of some day having some stability. Until then we can enjoy the fact that the boys don't know the difference.

Pronunciation

Cole now recognizes ant hills. He will ask "Is that an ants hole?" His pronunciation is off - the t is kind of silent. Its pretty funny.

A little perplexing

So I was supposed to have an 8:30 phone interview with Cisco. It was using their WebEx software. I didn't know if that meant it would be a video interview, so I put on my suit and tie and put a vase of flowers behind me so that the background wasn't just a blank wall. I called in early too. It is now 8:58 and nobody has entered the meeting on their end. I've emailed several people and called the one person whose phone number I have. I guess if I was in charge of university recruiting I wouldn't put my phone number at the bottom of my emails either. So now what do I do? Mindy took the cell phone with her and we don't have call waiting. I think back to high school when there was one phone line and that was it. We never even had an answering machine while I lived at home. There certainly wasn't the internet and we didn't feel disconnected from the world. Sure, it was sometimes inconvenient and there were a few warm contentions about who was hogging the phone. Really, what were we talking about with friends for what seemed like hours at a time? I can understand my kids talking for hours at a time since they're not bound by any need for continuity in conversation, but then, Mindy would say that neither am I. Wow, I wandered away from the topic of that paragraph. It is now 9:15 and still nothing. Guess I'll just wait until 9:30 and see what happens. Maybe California wanted to be different and not change their clocks.

I forgot one really funny thing from last week. I was in the office working on stuff, Mindy was in the kitchen and the boys were upstairs. There was a whole lot of yelling and laughing and banging. Mnindy went up there and both of the boys had plastic buckets (about the size of a 1gal. ice cream bucket) on their heads - covering their eyes? you might ask. Of course. And they were running at each other knocking each other down (Parker was doing most of the falling) and having the time of their lives. They kept at it until Parker got injured- this is how most games end - and we took the buckets away. Cole has an awesome scratch on his neck that looks like we tied something around his neck.

Slow Sunday

So we're all at home today. Right now Mindy and Parker are asleep and Jack is sleeping between me and Cole on the sofa and purring with gusto. Mindy has a hacking cough, and Cole had a well-publicized case of pneumonia this week.

Cole told us at about 3 on Tuesday that he wanted to take a nap. He woke up screaming a few hours later. He barfed a couple of times and slept poorly. He told us his right sie was hurting. We were afraid it was appendicitis, so we took him to his doctor on Wednesday morning. They told us to take him to the pediatric ER. They quickly determined it was pneumonia and then ran a whole boatload of other tests (wouldn't you if you got paid by the test and were worried about some crackpot suing you?). Once the painkillers started to work he started to act like himself again. After four hours they let us out. He fell asleep on the way home and when I got home from school at 10:30 he was wide awake eating chicken nuggets. There is no sign that he was ever ill. He coughs occasionally and tells us how much he doesn't like his medicine.

Parker is learning shapes and Cole has his assessment for speech therapy preschool tomorrow.

Oompa Loompas

Will someone please send the Oompa Loompas to clean the kitchen. Why is it always a mess after dinner?

Two years makes a difference

P.S. His hair hasn't been that under control since the picture was taken.

Why I will never buy a computer from anywhere but Costco again

So we got a family laptop from Costco in April '08. It worked without problems for as long time. Actually, about 18 months. The factory warranty expired at 12 months, but Costco doubles the factory warranty. In the last four months we have sent our computer back twice. The first time they replaced the hard drive and the cable/ribbon for the monitor. The second time they replaced the motherboard. It only cost us the time on the phone with Costco and HP, and the time to backup and reload all the data. We figure we're good for another 15-24 months at this point.

That is my plug for buying a computer from Costco. By the way, in 2004 or 2005, of Dell's $4 billion net profit, 25% of that was from the sale (and non-use) of extended warranties. Costco costs less and you can still use your membership the rest of the year.

Toddler's pants/shorts

I know there is not much of use coming out of DC these days. I think I may have found a task they could accomplish and one that I am comfortable with.

Is there a reason there need to be four different closing systems on the clothes? Here are the ones I can think of: snap, plastic button, the clasp (like on adult dress pants), the big button that they put on denim.

This creates almost too much challenge for me when Cole is jumping up and down in front of the toilet and I'm trying to figure out the closure design of the pants he is wearing and get them down without damaging them and before .... you get the picture.

I propose the simple snap for all their pants.

Hilarious

I find this character from the Ice Age movies hilarious.Also, the best post I've seen on facebook regarding curling at the Olympics: "To make Curling watchable, they should use feral cats instead of rocks."

Two more

I don't know what Cole is doing. He was in a grumpy mood, and he cut his lip in primary when he banged heads with someone.

One night I'm suckin' on lemons and spittin' out the seeds

Here is Cole helping wash the lemons. I went over the wall and took the stepladder with me. I heard a lot of noise and then Cole yelling in his funny way "Dad where are you?" He had pushed his car to the place where I went over the wall and then climbed on top so he could see over the top. Some of you saw the picture on facebook of him standing on top of the car. He took it to a whole new level of difficulty by doing it in the rain. Thank goodness for the reflexes of a puma.

New belt & the redhead funnyman

He is so proud of his belt. About 10 minutes into church Mindy informed me that Cole was wearing Parker's shirt. My defense: it was in his closet and it fit him. He didn't mind, but his feet must have grown in the last week because he was crying from the pain in his toes. Note how he tries to crowd out Parker.

Mindy's Christmas Present

You can play "Where's Jack?" in the third one.

The fun goes on

I thought I was going to bed after I posted the last one. Not so! Parker met me on the stairs. "Ice cream!" "No." "Mac and cheese!" "No." Then Mindy said he didn't eat much for dinner. So I heated up the leftover M&C from lunch and fed it to him. Now he wants to "go bye bye" and he has his crocs on and is trying to open the blinds to the back door.



This afternoon the boys threw a ball over the wall into the yard of the vacant house. I hopped the fence, threw the balls over and discovered a lemon tree with a whole bunch of ripe lemons. I picked a bunch, made homemade lemonade tonight, and will pick a bunch more . They're kind of a mix between an orange and a lemon, and they make a mean lemonade.

Another trimester done and a whole BUNCH of other stuff

Just a little intro - be grateful this isn't a huge rant. I went to save and post about 10 minutes ago and the website locked up and booted me out. At first I could only see the portion I wrote this morning. But then I got back everything except the pictures of Cole. Those were easy enough to add back in. Enjoy.

Two down. We just finished our paper that is due this afternoon. And I just sold back some textbooks - not to the bookstore where they give you 3% of what you paid for it, but through textbooksrus.com. I was pleased with the amount they paid for them, even if it was only because books are "included" in my tuition and fees and so I do not know what I was really charged for the books.

Earlier this week Mindy pulled the weeds in the front yard. Cole kind of helped. Mostly he sat under the oak tree (this is not an oak tree is the sense of the majestic oak that most people think of) and examined acorns and discussed their relative sizes. He was quite cute about it. Later on I pulled weeds while Mindy went through my test review.

The adult-sized hat worked really well. It shaded his entire face and neck.

I know I complain about the summers here, but the winters are incredible. It has been almost 80 all week and then cools down to 45 at night. We're really enjoying the time outside.

Parker now makes believe he is asleep. We need to get pictures of it.

I took Cole when I went to drop off my textbooks at the shipping place. On the way home we drove by the municipal airport (who knew there were still so many airworthy biplanes) and there was a helicopter flying toward us. "Look Dad, it is coming straight at us. Its white." He is quite observant. Sometimes in the late afternoon we are able to see 4-5 contrails at a time as well as the airplanes on approach to Phx and the small ones for the local airport. He will explain to me which airport each plane is going to land at. He explains that the jet airplane lands at the big airport and the small plane lands at the small airport. Yesterday I pointed out an airplane with a blue belly. This got him talking and asking about planes having bellies.

Later this afternoon I took Parker to Sam's Club. He didn't want to sit in the seat, so he sat in the back for a while. Then he wanted out and walked next to me until he got tired and then he did what Cole does, put his feet on the bottom rack and held on to the side of the cart. It reminds me of straphangers for some reason. Maybe Mindy will let me try it some day when we go to the store. I watched him closely, until I stopped and then I realized that the cart suddenly felt like it was dragging something. I was kind of dragging Parker along and he was trying to get his feet underneath him. It didn't bother him. He then helped put everything on the belt, and later at the car, handed me everything to put in the trunk.

Despite all this excitement, having friends over all day, getting 10 hours sleep last night and a one-hour nap, he is still awake. After leaving him in his bed for 2 hours we let him out a half-hour ago. He wasn't crying, just jumping up and down, taking his bottle apart, banging on the mirror doors (a mighty impressive sound through the monitor), and having many conversations with himself and his animals. He was quite pleased with himself.

This was dinner from a few Sundays back. It tasted as good as it looks.

Parker came downstairs a couple of weeks back really angry about something. Turned out one of his toy apples that is held together with velcro stuck to his diaper. At first I thought it was a piece of a Mr. Potatohead with the pointed end and understood why he was so angry, but it was just velcro. I promise that we sometimes put pants on him.

A kind of random assortment and weekend update

Cole found one of those measuring tapes that seamstresses use and was running around the house with it tonight. I decided to measure him. He is about 42" tall and has a 24" chest and a 10" neck. I don't know how you measure the size of a hand, but his are huge. They are like bear paws.

It is fun and scary to watch him grow up. He has started to take a lot more interest in his appearance. He will now let me brush his teeth to make sure they are not "yucky" and is so excited to wear his blue dress shirt, tie and Parker's size 10 (at least one full size too small) dress shoes. Mindy said that he is really good with his colors and almost always brings shirts and pants that match. She said he does better than I do. Oh well. He is also discussing a lot more things with us. In many ways he is becoming the better-behaved of the two, except that when he is on one, it is a whole lot of kid to wrassle.

We had a breakthrough yesterday. Some of you know we've had some challenges getting Cole to completely abandon the diaper. I was able to talk him into using his little toilet, and then he decided he wanted to use the big toilet. Anyway, without going into detail, we went to Sam's Club and got him an ice cream cup. He may just have a bicycle by the middle of the week.

We also took the boys to Borders and read books. Cole had a really good time. He read books for about an hour. Parker didn't do as well. After he got bored of reading, we went outside and he played in the amphitheater area and a little in the water fountain. It was 75 degrees and he had a great time.

Getting back to ice cream; Parker is on an antibiotic for his ears and dislikes (nowhere near a strong enough word) the stuff. We've had a tough time getting him to take it. We've tried it in milk, ice cream, yogurt in addition to the good-old-fashioned hold-the-kid-down-and-force-it-down-his-throat method. The boys have had a lot of ice cream in the last week. There was one day last week where they got it three times in one day. Unfortunately, Parker doesn't have the same insatiable appetite for ice cream that Cole does. We've found that if we wait until he is a bit hungry and then give him the ice cream he'll eat it.

Cats - we like ours, most of the time. They have made some arrangement with eachother about the food. Maya is responsible for begging for the dry stuff and Jack is in charge of begging for tuna. Maya loves to sleep on our feet at night. Jack enjoys being in the room for much of the night, but then he typically starts to do things like slapping the blinds, climbing on the dresser and knocking things off, walking around on the bathroom counter and knocking things into the bathtub or onto the floor. He had been locked out of our room at night for the last few weeks. On Saturday Mindy said he was looking and acting depressed and that we had better let him sleep in our room. We made some accomodations which primarily involved pulling up blinds so he could look out without waking us up. He did really well. Mindy said she woke up at some point in the night and Jack was sprawled out on her feet looking happy and content. He has been happier today. We'll see how it goes tonight.

Cole, Parker and the highlighter

I don't think the photos or the story ever made it to the blog. I got a call from Mindy one day saying that Cole had drawn all over his brother and the wall with a highlighter. She wasn't kidding. I was finding highlighter on Parker for a couple of days... in his hair, behind his ears, on his neck. But he was a good sport about it. Mindy said Cole was quite proud of himself, so she couldn't be angry with him. We called in the cat in the hat and he brought little cats A through Z (Z has the Voom in his hat) and got the highlighter off the cheap flat unwashable paint that this house has. Honestly, flat paint on walls? When Pulte switched to flat paint when I worked there I was appalled. The cost to paint a house two colors and to use decent paint are so minimal and if nothing else help the customer to feel that their builder was looking to increase the value - oh, and this is when homes were "appreciating" like a Saturn 5 rocket after launch. But alas, we have flat paint in this house and it looks like we've lived here for nine years and never cleaned the walls.


Enjoy.

Hot seat

This has been a busy week. Next week is the end of the trimester (at school). I clarified that because I posted something like "One trimester down" on facebook last fall after the first tri of school was complete and had several people ask if there was some news I had to share. There was not then nor is there now news to share. I've got a final on Monday and a project due Friday. I've also had two interviews, a dinner and possibly a fourth interview this week for internships. I doubt there will be a fourth interview considering how the third one went earlier today but either way I'm feeling fried.

The boys are getting over their coughs and that is nice. They've adopted a new schedule which I am not too fond of which involves going to bed shortly before I get home from school at 10pm. Both have gone back to sleeping through the night which is quite welcome.

Time to go grocery shopping...fun times.

The boys

So I went to church early today to get a bunch of things done. When Mindy brought the boys in they were both wearing blue shirts and ties. They were so handsome. Cole had his tucked in and with his new haircut looked like such a big boy. Parker didn't have his tucked in but was excited to tell me that he had a baseball tie on. Mindy said he threw a massive cow when she tucked his shirt in. Cole had on some dress shoes I had picked up for Parker at DI a few weeks ago. Cole told me his shoes were too big so he had on Parker's. I'm glad he can still walk. They looked really small on him.
As for Parker and throwing fits, the kid is throwing everything right now. We finally took him to the doctor on Friday after a month of coughing. They said he had infections in both ears and prescribed a steriod and an antibiotic. I really hope his behavior since early Saturday is a result of the drugs. The kid has been a complete terror. He has been throwing trains, cars, books, and food. He has brought Cole to tears a couple of times after thumping him with things. Last night at dinner Parker picked up his big plastic sippy cup and thumped Cole on the side of the head with it. It didn't seem to both Cole very much. Parker has been quite lucky that Cole hasn't responded in kind for obvious reasons.
Today after church we were making dinner and there was a lot of yelling coming from the boys upstairs. When I went up there Cole was in the hall holding the playroom door shut with Parker inside because Parker had been throwing things at him.
Cole is really growing up. He is calming down a lot, which is a real blessing considering Parker's recent behavior. The other night he actually said triangle, instead of tricycle. He is also learning the difference between two and three. The other morning I told him he could bring two cars with us, and he came back with three and told me he'd brought three. He also knows what an oval is.
That's about all. It is going to be a crazy week.

Church today

Church with Cole today was a blast. After leaving twice in the first 40 minutes, I just brought him home. When I got back the people I'd been sitting next to asked where Cole was. I told them he was at home. They were amused. Mindy said he promptly fell asleep and he was still asleep when I got home. I'm sure his primary teacher appreciated the break.

I finally got a calling. Membership clerk. So far so good.

Six years ago today

Hold onto your hair

This afternoon we went to the new park that just opened here in Chandler on top of the old landfill. It is a pretty cool park, and it is easily the highest point in town. They still have a lot of work to do, but the parts that are open are really neat and the boys had a blast. On the way home we had the windows rolled down -- yes, it was that warm. For those that are jealous of the warmth remember what May-October are like here. About halfway home I realized Parker was complaining about something. I looked back and he was holding onto his hair. I guess he was afraid the wind was going to blow it off. He held onto it all the way home. It didn't fall off.

Cole's bath routine

Cole has a funny bath routine. He insists on taking a fire truck or two in with him. He hates having his and face washed, but has yet to learn that if he stops screaming and closes his mouth, he won't have to taste the cetaphil. After he gets out he insists on deodorant - he hasn't caught on that I cover the top with my finger so he doesn't get any on him. He then wants aftershave and cologne. Today he grabbed the bottle and went to town. He sprayed it on the scrapes on his knee - lucky for him they were scabbed over. Anyway...he smells like he took a bath in the stuff, as do I since he sprayed me at least four times before I could get the bottle from him.

On the more practical side, I've gotten him to accept crazy glue as an alternative to band-aids.

Parker talking & things

Parker says some funny things.

Earlier this week he was playing with one of those talking Buzz Lightyear figures his grandmother got for him. Buzz: Have you ever thought about joining the space ranger corps? Parker: Nnnnooooo!

Tonight at the table without looking away from the show on the junkyard that he and Cole were watching: Apple! A few seconds later, Cole: Mama, cut apple please.

At another point today Parker got frustrated with Cole taking a toy away from him and launched a ball into Cole's face.

Cole's reaction to me picking him up from the kid zone at the gym after nearly 1-1/2 hours- crying on the floor. I had to go inside and pick him up.

In other news, Cole caught a baseball this morning with his mitt 3 times. This evening he caught his football twice. We ought to get some video of his catching method and the flailing arms. It is a wonder he caught it at all. His throwing is far more advanced.

The other new move is to gather up toys he doesn't want to share with Parker, throw them in his room and lock the door. This works out well until he decides he wants the toys out of his room and has to ask one of us to unlock the door for him.

Many Blessings

We've been home for almost a week. We spent almost three weeks in Provo. As always it was good to see family and friends. My parents and brother David flew in from NY and Rachel and Dave drove from Calgary.

We were impressed as we drove up through Flagstaff, Kanab, and Duck Creek with the beauty and variety of the landscape as well as the sheer immensity of it. The awareness of how small we are was most acute when driving from Flagstaff to Page. We drove through low desert, mountainous desert, pine forests, more desert (moonscape desert) and then the small valleys that Highway 89 follows as it heads north from Kanab. The most beautiful section was the drive over the mountains near Cedar Breaks. There was about 2' of snow on the ground and it was amazing.

We thoroughly enjoyed our time with family. This included gatherings where portions of four generations of my family were there and others where an ever growing three (the third is the only expanding group) generations of Mindy's family were represented.

The boys got to go sledding/tubing. When I went with Cole it was all ice and I decided I didn't have enough padding. After nearly hitting a park bench and stand of scrub oak we went home. If I'm going to pull a Bono I'm not going to do it while holding Cole.

I was really bored at times so I volunteered to run a log splitter for a day - great hamstring workout I might add (but probably just because I'm not accustomed to manual labor), and a chainsaw in the snow for another day.

Dad gave each of us a game for Christmas called "Dutch Blitz". www.dutchblitz.com. We played a lot of this game and stayed up way too late. Cole spent a lot of time wrestling with Dave and was a big fan.

Midway through the second week Cole started to cry at night "Go home, go my house, see my cats".

We got home and had a monstrous pile of mail. Among the mail was a thank you card with no return address label. Inside was a note that stated "Hello- You witnessed an April 18 accident on I-10. My mom and I were the ones hit in the Honda CR-V. I want to thank you for your kindness in offering your witness account of what happened and I wanted to let you know me and my mom expect to make a full recovery. Thank you! Gina & Phyllis."

This was completely unexpected and we were impressed that this lady went to the trouble of finding out our address. It is still somewhat of a mystery how she tracked us down since we were living in Tucson at the time. I think I didn't write about it at the time since we didn't know if we'd end up in court to recount it. We had driven up to Phoenix to meet my Uncle and his family at the Desert Botanic Garden. It was a typical sunny day and was warm (probably almost 90). We had gotten past the last large exit in Phoenix and I was looking in the rearview mirror or at the radio or something when Mindy said "hey look at that guy". I looked up to see a vehicle traveling the opposite direction swerve onto the left rumble strip, overcorrect and shoot back across the two lanes, overcorrect again, come across the two lanes, through the median and hit the CRV that was about 200-300 feet behind us. At that point we pulled over and I went back to the scene. There were a lot of people already there and the first thing I noticed was the smell of motor oil. There was also an engine block on the road that looked ready for initial installation. It was the engine block of the CRV. The two women were trapped - the impact had taken off the entire front of their car forward of the doors and had wedged the doors shut. The other car, another mid-size SUV was on its side 50' off the side of the road. There were a couple of customs agents on scene, and there was at least one nurse. The driver was getting pulled out by the time I got there. Then the people started checking on the passenger who was down against the ground trapped in the car. I was assigned to keep the driver seated so I just stood behind him and tried to keep him in my shadow. Highway patrol got there first, and they just kept coming. There were probably 8-9 officers on scene. It seemed to take the fire department a long time to get there. We now live parallel with the exit this happened near and the fire station is at least 10 miles from the interstate. When the HP and fire department finally got there we gave them whatever information we thought they needed to get working. The firemen quickly got out their car dismantling gear and started to cut up the car. I ended up at the back of a cop car filling out my report. A helicopter started to circle and after a few times around it landed on the off-ramp. It quickly took off. A few minutes later another one did the same. Sometime while filling out my report they pulled the passenger out of the car and started CPR. As I was handing the officer my report they covered her with a sheet and the second helicopter took off empty. I went back to the car and gave Mindy a big hug. We'd been there almost an hour and the two women who sent us the note were still trapped in their car.

We got a call from highway patrol about a week later and the investigator spoke with each of us. I beleive they were investigating the driver for DUI.

We are grateful to be alive. It is amazing what a difference a few seconds make. Had we been hit broadside, Cole and I would have been hit. It was also a vivid reminder of how fragile and passing life is. We are also grateful that Gina and Phyllis are okay and we were impressed by their simple note.