Time flies when you're having... fun?

Quick(ish) update:

We are still alive.

I have been back at school since May. Full-time.

I will be mostly done with my degree by the time Evan graduates. I will have completed all my major credits.

I wish I had been as dedicated to my school-work last time around as this time.

Evan is still in school and will graduate in April. Full-time. Plus work.

Did I mention Evan is The Man and taking 22 credits this semester?

And next.

And we are both doing capstone classes next semester, too. Crazy? Why, yes.

We got a dog. Her name is Lulu. She is a 3 year old Greater Swiss Mountain Dog. With a puppy brain.

The kids love the dog.

Oliver turned two.

Evan turned 26.

Alena turned 16.

Oliver joined the circus.

We saw Aunty Hayley in CA in August.

The kids got 'bikes'. And love them.

Potty training is complete. (The grand finale was last night as Oliver wandered into my room and proudly announced, "Mummy, I did poops!" at which point I had visions of poop trails on my carpet. But actually it was in the toilet. Alhamdulillah.)

We went camping. Twice.

We went hiking. A lot.

And saw four moose.

We beached.

And parked.

Yes, that is our dog jumping up onto the slide. And, yes, she loves going down them, too.

And I ran a 5k in this:

Then overnight it went from this:

To this:

Ah, well. C'est la vie.

On with finals!

Music Junkie

This is Oliver.


Oliver like music.


One day, Daddy was doing homework. He let Oliver watch Mighty Machines on the laptop. But it was too loud for Daddy, so Ollie got to wear Daddy's headphones.Ollie loves Daddy's headphones. Oliver loves listening to music on Daddy's headphones. Sometimes, Oliver tries to sing along.
Mostly, he likes to listen. Oliver likes to be alone with music. He gets Daddy's iPod touch, turns on the music, puts it to his head like a phone, and wanders off to be by himself.

Recently, we walked in when Oliver was spending some alone time with Miley:

The best part is when - about 0:42 in - he starts weaving side to side.

Oliver likes Music.
anyone who makes snide comments about lotion or asks why Daddy has Miley Cyrus songs on his iPod will be annihilated.

Going the wrong way on a one-way...

RADIO!

Lena: "Hi gwampa, it's Lena. How doeeeng? I big twouble. I pay wiff Owiber. I not seeping. I big twouble. Daddy sad. I dunno where blanket stars. I dunno where blacelet. Daddy sad, Mummy sad, Kitty. I wuv my family. I be good. Ok gamma, I go seep now."

Having Our Cake (and Eating It Too)

Welcome to the family, Honda Accord Hybrid, otherwise known as 'Giggles' (Bwahahahaha). Part tree-hugging friendly, part anti-vegetarian, part comfortable family-mobile, part a$$-hauling 255 hp monster (0-60mph in 6.7secs... faster by a whopping 1.1 seconds than the 2005 BMW 325i, and tied with the 2008... neener-neener-neener!) - all of which is 100% worth signing away the next 60 months of our life. (It's so we can buy a house next, people... relax.) And all in a beautiful charcoal grey.

We love it. Now to teach Oliver how to say "vroom"... he did have the sputtering sound of the Jetta down pretty good. Thbbtttttttbbbbbtttttttthhhhhh!

Long Overdue... Bragging...?

One of my classes this semester focuses on the works of Lev (Leo) Tolstoy. This meant churning through both War & Peace and Anna Karenina in the first 8 weeks of the semester, a combined 3,000 + pages. I have learned that one of Tolstoy's favorite tendencies to ridicule is the desire to plan. Now planning in and of itself isn't a bad thing - everyone knows that. Even Tolstoy really lays into characters in his books who wander through life like chickens with their heads cut off. What Tolstoy is trying to criticize are the type of people who make concrete plans for every moment of every day.

This leaves me in a bit of a dilemma. I have a very full schedule right now, choc-a-bloc full of things that all seem to be fairly important. Have to work if we're going to pay the bills and eat. Have to go to school if we're going to ever be in a situation other than this one. Have to do homework and study if I want my schooling to be of any serious value. Oh yeah, then there are two lovely, growing kids and a wonderful wife to spend time with. Oh, and sleep.

And so, of necessity, my days are filled to the brim. Both with things to do, and with blessings. Blessings like a car breaking, and a kitchen floor that needs to be replaced, in the week prior to the two honking-est midterms of the semester, which is followed by the week wherein I have two large research papers due. I think Tolstoy and Heavenly Father must get along great. I can picture them both chilling out with some pryaniki and a hot drink watching and saying... "Nicely done, Evan, you managed to shoehorn everything in that needed to get done. Here's two more things that need to get finished off, and one of them is going to handicap the speed with which you can get all the rest of the stuff done. Betcha didn't see that one coming!"

I will be the first to admit that I have a motherlode-sized vein of obsessive compulsive tendency in me that manifests itself in my desires to plan. And plan everything into it's perfect little time slot, and know that everything will be finished within the 15-30 minutes I have allotted it. (Because everything that takes longer than that can be broken into perfectly manageable 15-20 minute sized pieces, obviously...) And know that nothing else will possibly come up that could take precedence or affect my perfectly thought out little plan. Because I have thought of all possible contingencies. That being said, the biggest things that I didn't see coming aren't even a broken car or a leaky floor that needed to be fixed.

Our kids are growing up faster than I can process it. Granted, my life is pretty busy right now so one of the last things on my mind when I'm playing with them is a comparison of how much further they've progressed. I guess that comes with a busy schedule - it has a way of causing... even forcing... you to live in the present. But I would like to post my rebuttal to things that I can imagine Tolstoy would have to say about my currently crazy state of existence with the following videos.

Exhibit A: Lena's Birthday Party. I personally find the first attempt at blowing out the 2 candles adorable, due in large part to the fact that it was punctuated by a characteristic "Oh no!" when it proved unsuccessful.

Exhibit B: Pop rocks. We recently picked up a couple of packets of pop rocks. Lena thought they were great. She found it hilarious to leave her mouth hanging open and listen to them popping. "Look, Daddy, [gaping mouth], so funny!" Naturally, we fed them to Oliver too.

Exhibit C: Playing pirates and sword fighting. Because a toothbrush and one of Mummy's wooden spoons are perfect for it.

Exhibit D: Lena tearing around the house at her birthday party and nearly running over two little kids, the couch, and a few grown-ups.

Exhibit E: Oliver's new trick. He has moved from crawling on to greater heights, and now spends most of his time policing our ottoman in the middle of our living room to ensure that anything on it is removed to the floor.

He could pull himself up on anything else in the house just as easily, but we think he likes the ottoman best because it is the place that we are in the habit of keeping things that we don't want him to get into.

I must admit that all of these were "something"s I definitely failed to plan for. And it's a good thing that they, like the floor and the car, still found their way into my life.

Trashy McFeline Update:

--to read more about how the nastiest cat in town forced itself into our lives--
--visit our friend's & neighbor's page here--

Although I truly wanted to let my imagination run wild with ways to mitigate the cat "problem"... Hannah talked me into taking it into a shelter.

Unfortunately, on the way to the animal shelter my practical side got the best of me and I had a bit of an epiphany...

Why was I going out of my way to take a rather gross not-really-a-kitten-anymore cat that I didn't want to a place full of animals that nobody else wants?

So I had a little bit of a training session with the cat and explained that it pretty much had two choices.

By choosing option one, it could go with the more conventional stop, drop & roll, where it would quickly learn about gravity. In case it preferred to postpone the effects of gravity, I gave it a crash course (pun intended), in the principles behind Bernoulli's theorem and the mechanics of flight: lots of speed, right attitude, and a tail to hold it steady.

Then I pulled into the fast lane on the freeway, carefully rolled down the passenger's side window, did the pre-flight checks, (landing gear, flaps, tail, engines,) and positioned the box it was riding in in the "eject" position.

... man that cat can JUMP! ...

At home, Hannah told me that Lena searched for the cat for all of 5 minutes...

"Kii-iii, wheah d' go?!" (Kitty, where'd you go?)

"Oh no! Wheah cat!"

"Caaa-aaaat" (the "t" is actually silent)



Then she got absorbed in a book and forgot all about our little visit from the stink fairy.


Disclaimer: No animals were harmed in the actual making of this post. Some, however, may have been harmed in the research material for it. We take no responsibility for damaged windshields, broken headlights, paint chips, spray, splatter, or plopping of animal bits or other material that you may have come in contact with as a result of your reading said post. Also, this didn't really happen. The cat was taken safely to the shelter, of sound body... we can't vouch for the mind.

The Gateway Fountain

One of the things we have been wanting to do this summer is visit the Gateway Mall in SLC with Lena. Yes, shopping would be nice, but we really wanted to go because of the fountain in the main plaza. They call it the Olympic Legacy Plaza and the mall was a part of the urban redevelopment that SLC did for the Winter Games in 2002. The fountain is particularly cool because not only is it in the shape of a snowflake to commemorate the Games but it is also at ground level so kids (and kids at heart) can play in it. We figured that it would be a fun thing for Lena to do, especially with how warm it has been up here, and also since there is nothing remotely like it (to my knowledge) in Utah County. Oh yeah, and it's free.

On the flip side, we really needed a reason to head up to Salt Lake, especially with gas prices the way they are, and yesterday we came up with the perfect excuse. Evan and I decided that we were long overdue for a date night and needed to go out for a good meal. We also decided that Provo was lame and we didn't want to eat at any of the restaurants it had to offer. We actually both independently came up with the same restaurant, which just so happened to be located at the Gateway Mall. We were planing on finding a babysitter, but we both decided that the experience of having Lena crash our long-looked-forward-to meal was far outweighed by the possibility of seeing her have fun in that fountain. So we packed ourselves up in the car, armed with cameras and extra clothes and headed north.

And I am so glad we did.

The meal was good... sadly, we didn't finish our food, which was more a combination of the fact that Lena had had enough and I don't have enough room to eat bowl of cereal let alone a full 3 courses. Lena actually did really well. Usually her limit is a maximum of 30 minutes sitting at the table, but we were there for a good hour and a half before we left the restaurant giving us just enough light to head over to the fountain and let Lena get rid of her excess energy.

I guess I could talk about it, but I think pictures are better.




Needless to say, she had a lot of fun. And she got very wet. She loved being around other kids, even though she was by far the youngest and smallest there, and she ran around like a maniac for the most part. It was really cute. And the best part... she was out cold before we even left the parking lot!