Love the Christmas Season

I know this may sound a bit different to everyone and the reason for that is because for the first time in forever seth is not the one posting this note. Seth is playing with his xbox and I just finished putting together some potpouri on the stove. I decided to sit down and say hello while we are waiting for our Home teachers to come over. The lights, decorations, the smells, the goodies, the Christmas stories, Family get togethers and the true meaning of Christmas are just a few things why I love this time of year. It really makes you sit back and think about life and maybe areas that you need to do better. I do not have a way with words like my honey does but hopefully you all get the gist of what i am saying. It is even more fun this year being able to stay home and decorate our own tree and put up our own decorations and just spend this time together and begin our own family traditions. Not that we really have a ton but that will change as time goes by. Seth and I are staying in Denver for Christmas and spending the day with his wonderful family. I could not have asked for better in-laws, I have truely been blessed in every way possible. Well to update you on what has happened sense Thanksgiving....nothing!! We work everyday and thats about it. We are preparing for our little girl to come and are both incredibly exciting about that new step in our lives. Yes a bit nervous of course but ready! Well I don't really have a whole lot to say except i hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

A slightly belated Happy Thanksgiving...

There is nothing like the fun you can have when you are not at work. A drive to St. George which took a full hour less than we thought it would. Two mystery novels by Mary Higgins Clark in which, surprisingly, the culprit was NOT the person that you may have originally suspected. Some quality time with family. A salad that nobody really liked except for me. All in all, the Thanksgiving holiday was good for us. However, uneventful, it was not.
Everything was very good until Saturday afternoon. We put together a few puzzles, enjoyed a drive over to Price (not by Helper. By Bloomington, actually), a quick run over to the petroglyphs, a few football games and a Nuggets game where they really let me down.

But it was that dang trip to Tuacahn that got it all started. We went to Tuacahn because James had never been before. For those who don't know what Tuacahn is, it's a great theater built right into the mouth of a canyon in St. George. The back drop is a cliff wall, and even though it's a small theater, it's very cool. Seats about 400-500, and since it's outside, solid concrete steps. well it was one of those concrete steps that got the best of poor Isaac. Isaac's four, and like any four year old, he enjoys racing. Well, the stairs, like those of any theater are longer than normal stairs. I watched, seemingly frozen in place as he told Janette that he wanted to race, tried to take a step, caught the toe of his shoe and went down. He just couldn't get his hands up quick enough and the only thing that broke his fall were his teeth. There was nothing Janette or I could do. Or anybody for that matter. I was about 10 stairs up from him, Janette was carrying Gracie, James, Joanna, Mom and Dad were on the other side of the theater. Needless to say, he cried a lot, and bled a lot.
That's Isaac there. Poor guy ended up with a fat lip, a bunch of bruising, a cut on his lip, and a cracked tooth! He was a real trooper though. After the initial shock he only let out a few whimpers and by the time we got home he actually was eating. He couldn't leave the dang thing alone though and kept messing with it with his tongue. Apparently the nerve doesn't even extend halfway down the tooth in baby teeth, so I guess he probably could not feel it anyway.
When all was said and done, he had the very fantastic profile of a "Who"
Well after all of the fun of bashing faces and losing teeth, the time came for us to leave. Luckily we had filled our tank the night before, and prepared ourselves to fill our proverbial tanks with Mtn. Dew and other such fun road trip treats. Leaving St. George around 10:30 in the morning we made our way north through Cedar City, and just the other side of Cedar I saw the wonderful billboard for www.parowanprophet.com. Just past Beaver we got on to I-70 and smooth sailing from there right to our Exit on C-470 and Alameda, right? WRONG!!!

That's not Vail. It's just outside of Glenwood Springs and the only reason its included is to show why we didn't know that vail was closed. It was absolutely BEAUTIFUL on the west side of Vail Pass. It was from there on that things got rough. What kind of winter crap is this that on the Sunday after Thanksgiving there is so much snow at Vail that they have to close the highway. Well, luckily at Glenwood Springs we found out, and we could at least find a hotel to stay in, so stop we had to and stop we did.


Ever heard of America's Best Value Inn? Me either. But it's fairly clean, and fairly nice. So we stopped, and we stayed, and goll dearned if we didn't actually kind of enjoy it.

Just the other side of that truck is our charming little room. We tried to find a movie, but believe it or not, nothing is showing in a town of 278 people (that's an augmented dramatization. It's slightly larger.)
We stayed the night, we got up early, grabbed a bite to eat and hit the road. And it was messy. And it was not fun. But we got home safe and hear I sit a week later, telling you our incredibly fun Thanksgiving story. Hope you all had a good one too.

Should I Vomit NOW or LATER?

I am sick and tired of this, so I have to chime in.
Protests, complaints, threats, property damage and all done by the "forward thinking", peace loving, open minded left wing activists.
Now don’t get me wrong, other than the protests I think that gay people are not involved in the majority of this. I know too many of them to think that they are threatening bodily harm on someone else, for the most part.
I do, however blame these far left Marxists who are so very "open-minded" that they actually are trying to stifle the LDS church and its right to speak out on its beliefs. The LDS church knocked doors, the Marxists battered ours in. The LDS church used a grassroots approach; the Marxists burned books of Mormon in our grass. The church voiced their belief, and the Marxists are now trying to silence our voice.
Tell me now, how burning a book of Mormon in front of a church is so very different than burning a cross in someone’s yard. The only difference I see is at least the people that burned crosses had the guts to stand up and say "It was us. We did it." These cowardly activists do their damage, use their intimidation tactics and then run.
I have so many problems with this but will only address a few of them.
1) Since when are we "close minded conservatives" no longer allowed to disagree? For years our nation’s democratic process has established laws and amended the constitution. Some laws pass, some don’t, but that does not mean there will never be another chance to pass legislation. Do like we do when we get beat. Suck it up, formulate a new plan and try again another year. I honestly cannot think of a single occasion when a conservative law was defeated that we protested, but every time these socialists do not get their way, they act like spoiled children and cry until we tire of hearing them and cave. It’s absurd! I have better than a dozen nieces and nephews all under the age of fourteen who are more mature than this.
2) I am very curious how these activists want religious conservatives to allow them their rights when ours are being systematically taken away. Religious displays have been so reduced in the last ten years that I am just waiting for the day that the government gathers all religious literature, all religious displays and bans them. And this is not just happening to Christians. The city of Golden Colorado just told a rabbi that he could not place a menorah next to the cities Christmas tree so that Jewish people would not feel left out during the Christmas season. Their reason? "We don’t want the holiday season to be religious." IT’S CHRISTMAS!!! Christ-mas. It’s a Christian holiday for us to celebrate our beliefs! People get time off of work and school BECAUSE OF THE CHRISTIAN HOLIDAY!!!! And we really would not begrudge a menorah to our Jewish brethren because it’s a holiday season for the Jews too! But the liberal left has decided that the mere mention of the word "God" is so offensive that any display must not be tolerated. It's my experience that when I am so sensitive about things is when I guilty of doing something. For example, when I was a teenager, if I was acting like an idiot and someone mentioned my parents, I would immediately become defensive and tell them I did not want to talk about my parents. Is it my fault that people are perhaps not living in a way that makes them feel GOOD when we discuss religion? I'm not responsible for whatever guilty feelings the Liberal Left may experience when I talk about God, but that doesn't mean I should have to pay for their problem.
3) I don’t care if people agree with me in my belief that the constitution is based on Christian principles. It is up for their own private interpretation as far as I am concerned. However, I would like just one person to disagree with me when I say that the constitution was written by Christians. When they drafted the Constitution they opened the meeting with a prayer! Christians settled this nation when they sought freedom from the religious oppression that they faced in Europe. That being said, the only reason that we as a nation have ANY rights is thanks to the Christians that have granted those rights to us. I think we still deserve the right to speak if something makes us uncomfortable, and people had better be careful when they bite the hand that feeds.
So please, with this in mind, forgive me for not being more open to this new plight. Forgive me for not wanting to liberate a group of people while I have slowly but surely been repressed over the last decade by myopic left wing radicals who claim that they are just being fair.
The hypocrisy of the whole situation is just disgusting.

It's... A... GIRL!!!!!

So we went to the doctor...
And we got an ultrasound...
And the decided since the region that we don't speak of had no telltale protrusions it must be a girl. That's right. A girl.
And since it's a girl we obviously cannot name her Brock.
And since we can't name her Brock we have to choose another name. We would like to thank everyone that contributed ideas for names back in the day. It was fun playing. We actually have a name that we like a lot. Of course we aren't going to tell. That will ruin the surprise.
In related news, we watched the election results last night, and after the first minute or so we saw the futility of our cause. Democracy proved once again how flexible a system it is by actually changing to a socialist system! Kinda like those frogs that can change their sex. You know, the ones that theoretically could procreate with themselves if only they could find a way to be both male AND female at the same time? Well that is how our government just transformed. If only Democracy and Socialism could peacefully coexist and procreate with each other, we might actually see this fantastic "Change" that Barack Hussein Amal Faqir Nathan Obama is talking about (I threw Nathan in there because, after all, he is a patriotic American. Just ask Oprah). Alas, Just like frogs reproducing within their own selves, this hybrid form of government only exists in a world made of candy canes and planes and bright red choo choo trains (yes, I stole that line from Bad Religion). Fortunately I did see one shining ray of hope from our country. That's right, both Arizona AND California defeated Gay Marriage. Honestly, who saw that coming.
Gays defeated, Girl on the way, healthcare for all, life isn't as bad as it could be.

On a related and more serious note, I am glad that I got to vote. Even though it didn't go the way I would have liked, at least I had my say. Too many will say that my vote doesn't really matter, because in the end, the electoral college will decide who gets sworn in. But saying my vote doesn't count is like saying that only the one that fertilizes the egg has any relevance. Personally, I find that ridiculous and I would have been ecstatic if any one of them had assisted in creating my little girl.

Is this what they feel like when they graduate?

It is official, Reginald no longer looks like a toad. He/she has matured/grown/evolved/metamorphosed from frog to human. Don't believe me? Check the pictures. As a result, we have decided that in classic Native American tradition, Reginald deserves a much more adult name. Thus he/she shall henceforth be referred to as Gerald until further notice. Gerry for the boys, Geraldine for the girls. Our second appointment for an ultrasound was today and near as they can tell from what they could see is that Gerald is healthy and active. Growth is about standard, lots of movement and jumping around inside of Janette, and who knows why it matters, but the skin on the back of his neck is an appropriate thickness. What a strange measure of health for a little baby fetus. No official blood test have been done yet, but to this point there is a good feeling about it. And we of course are more and more excited every day. On a independent note, over the Labor day weekend, we took advantage of an invitiation to go jet skiing at Lake McConaughey in Nebraska. I won't go into much detail, but after a frustrating five hour drive, we actually ended up about 160 miles away at Curt Gowdy State Park half way between Laramie and Cheyenne Wyoming. Why is this significant? No real reason other than to point out that when it comes to camping there is no substitute for dutch ovens. And also to note that there is something magical about towing your wife behind a jet ski on an innertube at forty miles an hour. The screams of "SLOW DOWN!!!!!" and "AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!" are quite literally intoxicating. Although I could not get Janette to fly off, I think I was the winner of the day, getting her to let go after just a few minutes of riding. We are posting the video in hopes that someone will find it as fun as we (I) did. We feel that this was a day of maturation for Janette, similar to that of Geralds day today. I am so proud of my wife and my unborn thing.

The Pughs Inspire Us...

We find ourselves more and more like the pughs every day.  They were the ones to introduce us to "Ticket To Ride", so we bought it for ourselves.  Now we play at night to.  They got pregnant and had a boy named max.  We are pregnant with a toad named Reginald.  I'm gonna buy a "How To Be A Good Daddy" book just like Brian did... Everything they do or did, we do too.  It's probably either flattering or creepy to them.  I would go with creepy because I would feel weird if someone mimicked me like that.

In other news, Janette has discovered that Xbox live is not a creation of the devil, rather it has served her just as well as it has served me.  See, she thought that Xbox live was exclusively for playing online.  Little did she know that we could download and watch the seventh season of scrubs!  Also worthy of note, and to my everlasting shame, we downloaded P.S. I Love You.  Long story short, Janette cried for two hours straight and I rolled my eyes for the same period of time.  The thing about the movie is that Hillary Swank is not that cute, and, sorry to all women who may read this, every guy with an Irish accent is not automatically a heart throb.  The guy is GOOFY LOOKING.  The best looking guy in the entire movie was the lady that played Hillary Swanks mom.

Not much else to update everyone on.  Just make sure that if you have not seen them yet, go watch all of Michael Phelps gold medal races on nbcolympics.com.  It is the best sports story in a long time and he is a guy that everyone can get behind.  Absolutely amazing.

March 24,2009

7 weeks and 1 day. That means that once we started trying, it was nearly instantaneous. The title of the blog? That's the due date. According to what we can see in the ultrasounds it would appear that we are going to have a toad. We will name it Reginald.
In all seriousness, we are very excited and can't wait for what family and friends will say. I am certain that nothing but advice will come pouring in, and rest assured, it will all go ignored, but hey, nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? Right.
We are also currently accepting offers for names, so post your favorite name in the comments section, and if we should choose your suggestion, there will be a processing fee of 250 dollars or the cost of a crib.
In other news we got a neat HD Video Camera and hopefully we will figure it out to the point that we can put video on here. Definitely not video of a child birth some 7 months down the road, the mere thought of that makes me shudder, but maybe video of our camping trip next week. We will see.