Most Excellent Week(end)

Monday:
6:00PM, I took the Elaina, Carter & Maddie to Lindon Skate Night at Classic Skating. This must have been our 5th trip and we had the usual good time. Carter was happy to be on a scooter instead of skates. Elaina did really well on her blades.
Tuesday:
9:00PM, Ward Basketball Practice, we won.
Wednesday:
10:00PM, Watched all of NEXT while running on the treadmill. Worth a second viewing.
Thursday:
8:00PM, Stake Basketball Game, we lost.
Friday:
8:00PM, Watched V is for Vendetta with Robbie. Very good flick.
10:00PM Ward Stake Basketball Game, we lost. Guess we're not that good.
11:00PM, Sat and talked with Amber, Chelsy, Elise & Paige.
1:00AM, Watched Swing Vote w/ Robbie. Worth one watch, no more.
4:00AM, Go to bed.
Saturday:
10:00AM, Woke up, helped Amber get ready for Elise's baby shower.
11:00AM, Ran away to avoid tons of women playing silly games.
Changed out backup hard drives at work.
Traded the RX350 back for the IS250 at Lexus of Lindon. (factory recall)
Took down the rest of the Christmas lights.
Played basketball at the park with Carter.
Gave the cul-de-sac kids rides on the little four-wheeler.
Got invited to push kids on the swings at the park.
Pushed kids for 1/2 hour.
Played an epic game of MONSTER at the park for nearly 2 hours!
Kids eaten by the monster: Elaina Watson, Maddy Sutton, Lela Wooly, Haley & Ethan McGilvary, Rachel & Kenny Godfrey, Josh Logan, Calvin & Marin Walker and probably some others I am forgetting.
Then we smelled the grill... I surveyed the area until I found out that it was Jim Godfrey so then I had all the kids at the park run to Jim's and ask for hot dogs. Jim wasn't having any of it so Elaina suggested that we make the hot dogs. Well if you know us then you know what happened next:
Impromptu BBQ at the Watsons! We must have started about 6 and ended at almost 10PM. We started with hot dogs on a stick because we didn't have any buns then we started throwing on pineapple. For desert we started roasting marshmallows and then as it got late and everybody started to freeze, the Australians broke out the hot chocolate. We went through a Costco pack of hot dogs and four cans of pineapple before everybody was fed. The kids couldn't get enough of pineapple on a stick, especially little Marin.
In the end we had the Watsons, McGivalrys, Suttons, Halls, Walkers, and whatever the Australians last name is... Eventually. everybody froze and had to go inside for the night but we had a great day!
Sunday:
10:00AM Finally woke up and made it to church by 11:00.
12:00PM Taught (watched movies) the 11 year olds primary class.
2-5:00PM Took a sweet nap while the kids watched church movies because I was wasted!
6:00PM Made dinner for the family then invited the Suttons over for games.
7-9:00PM Played up & down the river while eating home made Skor bars, home made ginger snaps and popcorn. The kids played nicely in the basement.
10-??:00PM Watched a few youtube clips and blogged about a very excellent weekend!!!

Bored kids

So Carter and his entourage have been very bored lately and all they want to do is play Wii, DS, or other computer games. I try to think of things for them to do but usually have a worse imagination than they do. After all, it's freezing outside.
So today I grabbed Carter, Sam, Braden, Logan, and Elaina, took them to McDonalds Playplace and turned them loose. Thinking of how boring this could have been for me, I decided to bring my laptop with a Verizon Aircard. Ten dollars and three hours later, I had made quite a dent in my email inbox and the kids were exausted! I've got to remember to do this again.

My 33rd Birthday!!!

Barkley wishes me a happy birthday:

On Jeff's birthday eve, I stayed up until 4AM re-working all my network backups. I moved Backup Exec to a bigger drive, upgraded it to V.12, and upgraded the clients all to V.12 as well. Very Nice. In the morning, I spent a couple hours preparing a report of all the projects I was working on. It was massive. At noon, I met with Jim Jensen for lunch and gave him my report. It went well so I came on home for some birthday fun. On my way (in the Lexus), I listened to both 1010AM (The BBC) and 100.3FM (Easy Listening) and I liked it. It is now official: I am OLD!
At home I flew my new R/C chopper a couple of times and then went out for my annual birthday dinner at Tucanos. You see, Carter and I are members of the Tucanos birthday club and we eat free every January. Byron and Rachelle Martin came with and we showed them how to do Tucanos right.
Finally, right before bed, I saw the two packages from my and Amber's parents. I got a couple notes, a funny card, a little dough, and some sweet hair! I have always wanted to be salt and pepper gray! What a great birthday!

My first Car

SWEET!

Nuclear Sunset

Grandma

Today we traveled up to Aunt Pam's chapel for Grandma's funeral services. As always, it's great to see all of my family. We spent an hour at the family viewing mostly greeting those that we haven't seen for a while. It makes me really miss those yearly trips to Grandpa's farm so many years ago. Without those trips, I doubt I would have any real relationship with all of my cousins.

Unlike most viewings, Grandma actually looked really good lying there in her coffin. She looked just like I remember her, beautiful as ever. Only this time was very different because she was not talking.

I remember once at the farm when I was around 8, I walked into the kitchen looking for food and she started talking to me about something or other. About 15 minutes later she was still talking but hadn't turned to look at me for quite some time so I decided I would just wander off and pick up the conversation whenever I passed by that way again. I wonder if Grandpa ever did the same thing.

Mark, Dave, Pam, Dad, and Chuck all spoke at the funeral and I actually took some notes. But for the most part they agreed on the following: Grandma loved and lived the gospel for her entire life. She was always found reading the scriptures until the day she died. She was the driving force that got her family to the DC temple to be sealed. She was as thrifty as the day is long. She farmed and canned and preserved and prepared so that a family with so little could feel like they had much. She made do with what she could find, often making clothes and blankets out of feed sacks and factory scraps. I am not sure if she was the first but it appears she was definitely the one who passed the love of reading down to her children.

At the end of the service the area 70 said a few words calling the service "a sacred moment". He said that he always tries to take one lesson from events like these and this was his for today: "The lives of faithful parents will bless their children for all eternity." It's easy to agree with such a statement when you walk into a room of over 150 of Grandma's decedents and feel the love, respect, and happiness that we've been so blessed with. Thank you for your fine example and we look forward to our next reunion.

Ellie's Baptism

This morning we got to go to Ellie Laws' baptism and then to a waffle breakfast at Dru's moms house in Provo. Ellie and Elaina were as happy and as goofy as ever.


It's fun to have both sets of girls together again.