Very, very, very merry christmas!

Driving around this morning, Eric and I saw multiple joggers in the Avenues of Salt Lake City. There are many things wrong with this - first, it's the Avenues (for anyone unfamiliar with the Avenues, it's a neighborhood on the foothills of Salt Lake...more like foot "mountains" and some were running uphill). Second, it's Christmas. And C, it snowed a good 8-10 inches last night. We couldn't imagine what compulsion makes one run in such conditions, but then again we're not runners in the most optimal circumstances - on a warm-not-hot day, level terrain, at sea level, NOT CHRISTMAS MORNING. We quickly concluded that they were either without shelter and they needed to run to keep warm or they are running from something. But that something must have been invisible and that's really freaky...

409 Days of Davis

We finally finished raking our leaves! That's huge for us, especially since we have 12 trees on our property. While raking, bagging, freezing - we discovered our son is a workhorse! We had to tear him away from his "mini" rake, little man hands with an iron grip, running away to get to sweet freedom with his new gardening implement... This bodes well for our future as tyrants. Maybe he'll big enough to do the gutters next year.

In Our Opinion...

Typing out our Christmas lists, I thought about how much I would love to get Toy Story 2 (hint,hint)-I think I was glued more than my niece and nephews when we saw it in the theater. Then I pondered, "was that one of the only sequels that was better than the original?" And then I remembered that I've had this debate before and that reminded me that I don't have that great of a memory anymore... So, after dusting out the cobwebs in my skull, the list of Eric and Jenny's "better/equal sequels" started to come back to me along with some newer ones as well (some of these are considered trilogies, for the technical people out there):
Empire Strikes Back
Gods Must Be Crazy II
Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Shrek 2 (not "the Third")
Wayne's World 2 isn't bad for a sequel
Lord of the Rings - Two Towers/Return of the King
Bourne Supremacy/Ultimatum
Ocean's Thirteen
not Pirates of the Caribbean

I know there are more out there. Please leave your opinions and suggestions - we can better our list only if you leave your comments...

Trypto-fan

I'm still not a little bit country...

But Garth Brooks puts on an amazing show. Beautiful, adventurous Miranda flew in from Florida for 24 hours to see cowboy Garth and his awesome live performance. Of course, this does mean that I am open to all kinds of scrutiny from country fans and country haters alike, but that's OK. There were a lot of cowboy hats, boots and twangs. But the Wranglers were the most interesting part. Some people should not wear these second-skin pants, it's a privilege not a right. Fun fact: Wranglers aren't just Wranglers 'cause they're tight - they actually don't have a seam on the inside so as not to chafe the wearer while riding horses, mechanical bulls, fences, etc,. But Miranda and I saw no horses or mechanical bulls parked outside the concert so I'm thinking Wranglers were worn for the "tight" aspect. The closest Miranda and I came to "cowgirling" up was the twang. It was like being around someone from London, eventually you take on a little British accent.

This brings up the topic that Kansas City has a new venue that just about everybody is coming to - Billy Joel, Dancing with the Stars Tour, Elton John, the Blue Man Group... So, if you find yourself with nothing to do and a hankering for some entertainment, you are welcome to come stay with us. Yes, we're talking to you Hannah Montana fans.

Boo

It's been a fun fall and the people around here change fast. Well, maybe just Davis. But here is a smattering of photos that I haven't had a chance to post yet.From the actual Halloween in our old neighborhood. Trick-or-treating=chasing Davis, chasing all the kids dressed-up funny. A little after school Daddy-son giggle. Who needs toys when you have a Dustbuster to drag around? But it has to be turned on and full of stuff that can be potentially shaken loose for it to be tempting...
Davis finally has a tie, and doesn't he look employable? His skills include dust busting (see above picture). He also likes to put his tie in everything - snack cups, water fountains, Daddy's mouth. I guess he's more like a monkey with a tie, and they're not so employable (Fact: I misspelled "employable" in a elementary school spelling bee. Not my finest moment. That will be Davis' first word.)

Davis' newest bear friend. We hope it sticks for now 'cause it's just too cute to see him hugging. But we don't think he's monogamous, since he lunged for the giant bear outside of Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory and would not let go. By the way, I highly recommend the Apple Pie Carmel Apple.

The Vampires Are Early This Year

Wow. I can't believe it's finally October 27th. That means that the blood drive that I've been coordinating for the last two months is finally over... I've learned that trying to get people to donate a pint of blood is like asking them to give a pint of their blood...wait a minute... Sign-ups, taking appointments, reminder calls, having a cookie decorating station for kids, and giving a pint of my own is more than I thought it would be. But we made our goal of 25 units and, hey, free t-shirt...

While I was with my friends from the American Red Cross, Davis got to hang out at a kids Halloween extravaganza. He was happy as long as they let him do what he wanted to, which was never. But he sure looked cute. He's a monkey if you can't tell...

Would you look at that!?! It seems that there might be a first turn bingo that racked up a nice little cusion of 76 points. We may be Scrabble nerds but at least we know it. The specific nerd that slammed this down would be me, Jenny. I "pillaged" Eric all right, so much that it made me talk like a pirate all night. Arg matey! Shivered his timbers!

Annual Checkup

Happy birthday, Davis! D-Liv had quite the celebration, if you know what I mean. He went to the Dianna Rose Farmstead and didn't quite pet the animals 'cause he knows where they've been, if you know what I mean. And he said "thisss" a lot, but we don't know what he means. It's been so exciting that Davis forgot to sleep all day. But that's okay because he has new toys to explore. Like the dancing monkey, totally worth it.

His favorite parts of his day... balloons, attention, grilled cheese sandwich for dinner, new books, all-you-can-eat banana for lunch, chasing/being chased, sitting on mommy's face, opening presents, laughing, being up-side-down, stacking blocks for minutes, and of course, chocolate cake & ice cream (after the initial 5 minutes of being revolted by it and shivering from its weird new texture). He got to be quite comfortable being the birthday boy - adoring paparazzi capturing every moment and getting away with everything, even murder of a perfectly good piece of monkey cake.


















More pictures to the right

Mug Shot

Our neighborhood has mature trees that shade the road as you enter, the houses are unique from each other and are well taken care of... But since moving into our house a year and a half ago, we've learned that our neighborhood isn't as perfect as it looks. Last summer while talking with some neighbors, we found out there have been several car theft attempts in our little strip of the street. A month ago, we drove up after going out to dinner to find a fire truck sitting a few houses down with just it's lights on. All we could see were a few people standing around what we thought was a corpse, then it tried to get up; he was taken away in a ambulance, very quietly. Then, a week ago, Eric came home in the evening and said there was a police car in front of our house. And he just sat in his car making notes with his headlights on for almost an hour. We're not sure why...

The most recent event happened yesterday as I was turning onto our street. The driver of an oncoming car flashed a hand gesture over his steering wheel right as I was passing our "Neighborhood Watch" sign. I didn't know the "assailant" and, at first, I didn't know the symbol he directed toward me. After a millisecond of confusion, I realized the two fingers looked like a peace sign. Whether it was a time traveler from the '70's or just a quick half-wave, I was caught of guard. For the most part, our neighbors are good people; I should be the one offering a friendly salute. And don't worry about our safety - apparently we are well patrolled by officials. And hippies...

This morning after our little bi-polar bear's mania came to an abrupt end, I found myself saying what I seem to be saying a lot these days - "Davis, don't rub your eye with a _____." The fill-in-the-blank has included (but not limited to): ketchup bottle, block, cell phone, dirty diaper (I don't know how he got that one...), bowl of rice cereal, flip-flop, cup, curling iron (not plugged in, of course), and pair of my glasses. Then I thought of all the objects I've used to scratch an itch. A pine cone is my personal favorite. So, I figure Davis is almost mature enough to know what to rub his sleepy, delicate baby eyes with. But I draw the line at pine cone.

We Are Fans

...so much that some of us can't even look away from the game to take a picture. It's too bad things didn't turn out so well for the Cougars in Tulsa. It's probably because Davis had to go to bed.

Eat It Up

Dinner, well any meal, turns into such an interesting mix of yinging (yell-singing), banging, and food between our toes when we step in Davis' discarded food. Yet it still seems to be getting in and sticking to his bones somehow...Cheers!

I get this nagging feeling right in the middle of my keyboard every time someone tells me that they've started a blog. Do I need to blog? I've got a perfectly good email address and cell phone that people have been communicating on for tens of years...there's always the United States Postal Service and, though slower, it is so gratifying to send and receive a piece of mail. There's nothing like feeling the sender spent more than mere seconds and just a few keystrokes to address, stamp, and walk to the mail box (not forgetting the flip of the flag if you've got one) just to make my day...a few days later. So, as a tribute to good ole mail, every once in a while I'll print out this blog and send it to you. Whoever you are...