Anniversary Trip

Did you miss me? Did you miss these blogs? Many people have asked me why I stopped doing the blog (by many I mean two). Life has just been in the way. With work, boys, being on a school board, Autumn, and life in general, it has been crazy busy the last month. Everytime I sat down to punch out a couple of hundred words to fill you in on the happenings here, I found myself feeling guilty about not doing other things that needed to be done. By the time it got to evening, I was too tired to even think about blogging. I have some more Connorism’s stored up, some laundry pics saved and Lego of the Weeks I’ll get to but for the next little while these post are going to be spaced out more. So without further ceremony, here is an update.

I could tell many stories from the last three weeks since I last posted about Connor’s wanting to hit himself with a frying pan but I’ll focus on the biggest event that happened to us in October: 15 year anniversary. October 9. 1999 (wow that was last century even) Mandy and I were married. 

For the last 15 years I have been wondering if today is the day she wakes up and realizes how much she was short changed. To date I’ve been lucky. In 15 years we have moved 8 times, had six cars, two dogs, countless attempts at fish, one cat and most importantly two boys. To celebrate we decided to take our first vacation away that didn’t include the boys. So what did we decide to do: Disneyland of course. Yes I have been indoctrinated with the purple grape juice that is Disney. I had two conditions on going there for an anniversary. We had to fly and we had to stay at a Disney resort hotel.  So with bags packed boys in tears, and airplane tickets in hand we left on Thursday for Disney.

Plane ride and getting hotel happened with no incident. Unless you count making fun of the guy drinking coffee and baileys and two bud lights (just on the way to Vegas) and then two Jack and cokes on the way to Anaheim, all before noon. We arrived at the Grand California Hotel without incident. Ladies and gentlemen, staying at the Grand was amazing. Piano music in the lobby, mints on the pillow, turn down service in the evening and a rotating shower head. Yes I am easily impressed but it really was an awesome experience. 

We had our anniversary dinner at Steakhouse 55 (WOW BEST STEAK EVER, best chocolate desert ever), drinks at Trader Sam’s (KRAKTOA! Two people will get that joke. Ask Mandy and she’ll tell you) and seeing a model of Thunder Mountain Railroad.

Friday was early morning in the park, Trick-or-Treating in the park, and closing the park down. That’s right 7Am-midnight at Disneyland/California Adventure (well there was a two hour break at the hotel/hot tub). After about 8PM when the normal park goers had been kicked out and it was just the Trick-or-treating it was five minute wait times on rides all night. We ate ourselves sick, rode until we bored and had a ball. Saturday was more of the park with Mandy, myself and 200,000 of our closest friends. It’s a good thing we were able to do everything we wanted on Friday because Saturday was crazy busy. It wasn’t too bad, we relaxed, took it easy and took awesome ride pictures and drank mint juleps:

We made it an early night in the park, headed back to Trader Sam’s only discover it was THE place to hang out on a Saturday night. We headed back to the hotel and the bar there. We had a couple of drinks there by the fire and relaxed. It was fun, it was recharging and we were glad to come back to the boys. It was a different experience to be at the park without our kids but we had fun nonetheless.

It was Rapunzel's Fault

I don’t usually condone violence, in fact unless it’s sticking up for yourself or family or whacking a car “with some stadiums seats because she almost hit you as you walked across a crosswalk then it’s acceptable but not necessary. Connor is another story.

Connor loves to rough house. Alex and I are the targets of drive by tackle hugs, (Mandy being Mom is exempt from these. He learned that lesson on his own) frequently. They don’t hurt and he’s not being mean, he just loves to rough house it up. One of his favorite activities is to climb up my back (while I’m sitting), sit on my shoulders, and then fall back or slide off my back. This was cute and fun when he was 3-5 but at a healthy 7 age, it’s beginning to wear thin. “No wrestling on the couch” and “Connor stop tackling your brother” are heard almost on a daily basis here. The cost of having two boys fairly close in ages I guess. I think back to what my brother and I used to do in the house at that age and it’s not so bad. Homemade basketball hoops(inside), jumping from landing to landing as we came down the stairs,  mini-hockey games with racquetballs and the mini-hockey sticks we would get from the Golden Eagles games. There were more than one broken vases or holes in the wall as we grew up. As I enter this phase with our two boys I only have one thing to say: “Mom I’m sorry.”

All of this has a point. Last week Connor received some news. His Aunt came over to drop the news that she was getting married. This is Connor and his reaction was, well, Connor. “I am so excited. I’m going to knock myself out. Someone hand me a frying pan.” Now I wasn’t home for this exchange. Mandy relayed this to me later that evening. After laughing and shaking my head I started to think of where this could have come from. They don’t watch Looney Tunes. They used to watch Tom & Jerry and their Grandparents house (Classic love the cat and mouse), but they haven’t watch that in over a year. Then a thought hit me like a, well a frying pan: DISNEY. Tangled. He loved that movie. The girl with the frying pan, then the horse using it and then at the end when the whole Royal Guard has to start using them, yup I blame Disney.

 

 

PS Those last two lines were sarcasm. Please don’t tell Walt or his offspring.

Bad Football, Bad Weather and Toilets

There is rain, there is football, there is wind, and there is late September, individually I love all four (well 3 of the 4. I hate wind, especially when I’m wet and cold sitting at the top of Rice Eccles stadium and I have a 7 year old who was wet and cold. I hate wind) but combine them and I hate them.  Saturday was a crappy day. Usually I try to stay positive on this blog but Saturday sucked.

It started out with me cleaning all three toilets in the house. Two young boys in the house, need I say more on why that sucked.

The whole day it rained. I mean rained. I thought the Utes were playing Noah and his family it rained so much. I mean Seattle doesn’t get this much (they do I know but this is the desert). I thought I was going to see vampires that glitter in the sun it rained so much (don’t get that joke ask Mandy she’ll tell you).  So usually on game day we get there early, grab some grub, and the watch the pageantry that is college football. This day we decided to get some dinner from a local sandwich/bakery shop on the way down. We were eating in the car when we discovered that of the four sandwiches we ordered were incorrect, Connor’s thankfully was the only one not affected. We were able to get our money back when Mandy made the phone call to said restaurant and calmly explain what had transpired. Downside our car smelled like the red onions that were supposed to have been held on those three sandwiches.

We then donned our rain gear (ark not included) and headed to the game. Did I mention that had been raining? The wind was howling? We were prepared for rain but not gale force winds whipping through the top of the stadium. Ok it was blowing throughout the whole place but our seats are so high up we pay extra money to the U for the oxygen tanks that are installed under our bleachers. The rain slowed to a steady drizzle for most of the game but we were all still wet and poor Connor was cold to the bone. At half-time we made our strategic exit. We were all cold and shivering and the hot chocolate for Alex didn’t help. We packed up and made our way back to our car.

On our way back to the car we have to cross 1400 East just in front of the theatre on 200 South. We arrived at the crosswalk, looked both ways, and started crossing the street. We were almost to the middle of the street when some headlights appeared heading south. We slowed down to make sure these people would stop, the car slowed and then inexplicably accelerated. Did I mention we still had our poncho’s on? I understand, its dark and slick, but the road is well lit, the rain had stopped and we were wearing BRIGHT RED AND YELLOW PONCHOS! See below:

Hard to see us in that picture isn't it. She was close enough to us that Mandy yanked back on Alex to be extra safe. I decided to hit her lovely new Corolla with our stadium seats to show my displeasure at her lack of driving courtesy. Editors note: The seats are soft cushion type, not the hard fold up ones. So no damage was done to her vehicle.
Should I have done that, probably not and I am sorry I wasn’t the best example of cool under pressure. However, the shear fear that the driver showed as I whacked her car was worth it and hopefully she is more careful in the future. 

We arrived back at the car, stripped off the brightly colored ponchos, got in the car, cranked the heater on high and headed home. Here is my rant on the game: Are you flipping kidding me? 24-7 lead at half and you cannot sustain it? Travis Wilson is not the best QB the U has ever had (Lance Rice anyone? I kid I kid) but the guy was running for his life every time he dropped back to pass. Not only that, but balls he was able to deliver without running around were promptly dropped. How many dropped passes were there in that game by wide open receivers? You win the turnover battle; have a RB that has almost 200 yards and you still lose the game? To Mike “I wanna be a Pirate” Leach of all people! The defense cannot do it all, especially when they spend most of the second half on the field. Worst of all I feel for the people who stayed for that entire fiasco. The ones in the stadium who say Anderson drop the sure go ahead for good touchdown. Oh well there is always next week to rebound……against #8 UCLA in Pasadena. Sigh……..

To summarize Saturday: cleaned toilets, bad food, bad weather, cold and shivering, almost hit by a car, and the U loses AGAIN in the Pac12.

Star Wars Stuntman that fought for General Lee

Recently Apple released the new IOS8 operating system. This is usually not a big deal when the system updates. Some font changes, new little tricks, and change some colors but usually not a big deal, except this time. I went to update and it tells me I do not have enough room on my phone to update (if it would have been Siri telling my instead of me reading it on my screen, my phone would have ended up in the canal behind the house). So I go about deleting APPS and transferring videos to the Cloud and hard drive, still not enough room. So I go about taking music off of the phone, still not enough room. So I take all my photos that are over six months old and back them up to the hard drive, finally I can update. Update goes fine, I have my new fonts, new colors and some system that allows me to store credit card info on my phone now (quick rant about this. All the hacking on the cloud with our precious celebrities and they want me to store credit card information on my phone? No thank you. If I lose my phone or it’s stolen, now someone has all my photos and my credit cards. Stupid, stupid). Well, after this is all done, I go back on the phone and see that all my photos older that two weeks are off my phone. Well crap, where did they go? Look on the cloud not there. Look in my iPhone cache folder I created, not there. For some reason they went to some folder that was somehow created on my hard drive. The moral of the story: Technology is starting to escape me. I’m getting old or stupider or technology is just getting that much more advanced that quickly that I cannot keep up.

Now onto laundry picture of the week. I went to type up the blog this morning and to search for this week’s picture on that mystical folder that suddenly appeared (yes I realize it was probably something I did but I cannot figure out how I did it and therein lies the problem) for a picture I took last week. Again this comes courtesy of Connor and his shorts pocket.

 

I know what you’re thinking; gee another Lego picture, whoo hooo (again I call on someone to invent a universal sarcasm font) but look closer. That is an Evil Kenivel type figure with a Civil War era cap and an Imperial Star Fighter helmet (nerds I know that is probably not the right description, so if it isn’t comment below and I’ll fix it. If it is the right description, bully for me). Does the stuntman use his Imperial helmet during the show then wear the cap after? Does he wear the cap after the show because he lives in the South and he participates in reenactments in his spare time? Is the Imperial helmet part of his Cosplay outfit for Comic-Con? We may never know that answer to any of these questions and frankly I don’t want to. It’s so fun to see the personality that emerges from the way Connor plays with his Legos, the randomness is awesome and I have learned to appreciate. Alex is getting older so he is more in the building them to look at them, not play with them all the time, which is fine but sad at the same time, so I have learned to appreciate these little moments even more.

What was I thinking?

We all have been there. Admit it. Go on think back to the one time in your life that you uttered those words. “Well it seemed a good idea at the time.” For some of us, that was heard on almost a daily basis in say, High school or Jr high. Some of you (you certainly not me) may have said in your 20’s. You should have most of this out of your system by the time you hit your late 30’s, but alas when you are 36 going on 12 like I am, maybe not. This is not a tale of trying to cut down a tree with a hatchet at two in the morning after some barely pops (that was fun). Nor is it a tale of hitting smoke bombs off a golf tee in a condo complex (stiches were involved in that one, huh Steve). It’s not even a tale of trying to get a picture of a bear off the side of the road in Yellowstone and stepping in goo so think and vile that you had to throw away a perfectly good pair of K-Swiss shoes that were your favorite pair of shoes ever in the whole wide world (wait that was in July of this year. Crap I’m still a 12 year old trapped in this body. Damn you immaturity). No this involves something more dreadful: lunch.

My job is in sales, so most of my day is spent behind a windshield. I go to the office, out on the road. Back to the office, out on the road and so on and so forth. I try to plan out my day in advance but that plan is usually shot by 827AM. Because of this I eat out a lot. Mandy hates this because I love her cooking. Absolutely love her cooking, so I want homemade meals. It’s much better to eat her cooking than to constantly eat out.  However, she needs a break from cooking once in a while so much to my chagrin, we go out (I guess I could cook more but we have kids and I don’t want to expose them to my cooking. Unless it’s Pancake, eggs or a dead animal I get to grill, I can’t cook). Such was the dilemma today. A customer emergency took me south around lunch time so, again I’m eating in the car. This is where, “it seemed a good idea at the time,” comes into play.

I decided on a place for food I hadn’t had in quite a while. I wanted a chili cheese Coney dog with mustard from a certain chain drive through chain. I don’t know why I crave these every six months or so. The cheese is glorified canned cheese. The hot dog is usually lukewarm. The chili could double as kibble for the dogs bits but you combine all three of those ingredients, throw on some mustard with a side of tater tots and we are in business baby.

Then evening hits and I think to myself, “a chili cheese Coney dog seemed like a good idea at the time. But man I am regretting it now.” Why do I do this to myself? I know the consequences. The rest of my family REALLY knows the consequences, yet I still do it. I hadn’t pulled out of the parking lot and I had realized my mistake. I get back to office and I was asked, “Was that your stomach making that noise?” “No I reply. I heard on the radio there is a wolverine on the loose. Maybe it’s hiding in the office.” Later I hear, “what is that smell? Did the sewer pipe back up?” A sad statement in and of itself but it’s made even sadder when I’m the one who said it, without realizing the real source. It was over 90 degrees here today. I drove home with windows down. I tried quenching the build-up with a Fat Tire, to no avail. In fact I think the beer acted like a Mentos to the chili dog acting like a diet Coke. This is getting ugly. Does this agony have no end? You’ve seen the scene in Star Wars where Luke gets pulled under that water in that garbage bay? That’s being reenacted in my stomach right now and Luke still hasn’t come up for air. I don’t have an iron gut anymore. I carry Tums in my car for such just an emergency. I have Lactose pills and acid blocker medicine, yet I still do this. I am not sure how this sordid tale will end (well actually I do but that gets WAAAAAYYYY too graphic) but I will not do this again. How could I even think to eat chili dumped over a meat tube with mustard lovingly draped over the top? To pop open that bag for that first smell of American goodness mixed with the wafting scent of potato goodness that is a Tater Tot.

Man I’m hungry again.

 No I’m not.

But its chili.

 Yes its chili...and leftover meat in a casing.

It smells so good though.

 Your car didn’t on the drive home.

Think of the boys, should they be exposed to the aftermath?

They’re boys.  They should be exposed to this at some time, might as well be now.

What about your wife? Should she have to suffer?

You’re right. She doesn’t deserve this. No wife should have to deal with this. Next time I’ll have one when she’s out of town.

No you’re thinking.

Personal Victory

When you were a kid there were always the little kitschy items that your parents hated you to get when you went on vacation. The keychain with your name on it (you were a 6year old kid why did you need keys), the spinner with lights on it that said the name of the national park you were at, and of course the souvenir stretch penny. They were everywhere when I was growing up. We went to see the sea lions on the Oregon coast and there was a machine next to the lookout binoculars that you paid to use. There was one in Zion’s, USS Lexington in Corpus Christi, and Sea World. I even think they had one in the gift shop at the Alamo. FYI the gift shop is not in the basement of the Alamo (Does anyone even get that joke anymore?). 

All of this brings me to this weeks (month’s apparently) laundry picture.

These little pennies are all over Disneyland now. Disney is not a stupid company. When we first started going as a family the big rage was the lanyards with the pins. People would pay to get in the park, merely to trade pins all day. I know because I asked a couple of people that had huge binders full of pins. It was kitschy and people flocked to them. Our last trip in June we noticed that they were putting up the stretch penny machines everywhere (I mean everywhere) and of course the boys loved them. We first saw them on our trip to Park City last October. They both got one at the Olympic Park and the Mining Museum. Well, put machines in Disneyland, slap Mickey or a ride picture on there and boom instant new collectors for kids. Mandy even bought them these collectors’ books that Disney graciously sells now to keep all of your pennies in. There is even a map that tells you where all the machines are in the park. Guess what we are doing next Disney trip?

I found this penny in Connors laundry a couple of weeks ago but I am just remembering it now. If you notice that is from Thunder Mountain Railroad (it’s hard to read but trust me it is). If you are a regular reader then you know what a struggle that particular ride was for Connor on our trip last June (if you’re not a regular reader, you should be. Go back to the June blog and read about our June vacation to southern Cal). There were tears, yelling, and cajoling (by all parties involved) to get him to ride that ride. Of course, once he actually rode it, he loved it. Like I said I found this a couple of weeks ago in Connors laundry. It is semi-ruined because it did go through a wash and dry cycle before it was discovered, but he still loves it.

That part of the trip was a real struggle for all of us. There were some moments on that particular day that I am not proud of. I said some things to him that looking back I cannot believe I said. I was mad, hot, angry and embarrassed and I took it out on him. I won’t go into what I said, just know that I am ashamed and I learned a lesson that day. Our kids will have struggles and fears in life, just like we did when were that age. But our kids are not us. Not matter how much we like to think they are a reflection of ourselves, they aren’t. They have their own personalities, their own fears, their own likes, their own triumphs. That day, in that park, on the bench just to the left of the exit of Thunder Mountain, is when that hit me. That is when I kneeled down in the middle of the park, looked him squarely in the eyes and told him how sorry I was. I told him that I should be supportive, not demeaning. Talk TO him, not at him. Listen to his fears, not dismiss them. I am not a perfect parent (perfect everywhere else in life but not as a parent or husband) and I still make mistakes daily and it’s ok to make those mistakes, as long as you don’t repeat them.

I asked Connor why he carried that particular coin around with him. “I loved that ride, duh Papa.”

“Is that the only reason?” I asked him.

“Yup, I loved that ride. I wouldn’t ride it at first but now it is my favorite. Even more that Pirates.”

I hope he carries it as a reminder of his own personal victory. I keep a picture of it on my phone to remind me that I am not a perfect parent. 

And now thanks to Disney Connor can carry it and dozens of other pennies around at the same time.

Alexism???

In my life on a daily basis I deal with our boys, Lego’s, brotherly love and Connorism’s in some sort of combination. If not every day, it’s at least 6 of the 7 in a week; I deal with some of these. But what if these four forces combine all at once and it’s not a Connorism but Alexism?

Mandy is out of town on her girl trip with her Mom (no worries she’s only been gone a day and the boys and I are fine, so far….) so it’s my job for the weekend to take care of the little things that Mandy usually does. Cook, make lunches for school, take them to school, pick up from school, buy present for Alex’s friend b-day party tomorrow, and so on and so on. I got off easy tonight, it was a Spirit night for their school so I HAD to buy dinner at Chik-Fil-A. It was after dinner that we made our way to Target to buy a present for Alex’s friend who has a birthday party tomorrow. Let me back up a minute. The birthday party is tomorrow but due to some other circumstances, we cannot make it. Alex still wanted to buy this boy a present because he was invited and, “it’s the right thing to do.” How could you say no to that? So away to Target we go.

He wanted to get this boy some Pokémon cards. Sorry inserting side rant here. Pokémon? This is still a thing? Did it every really go away? I remember when Mandy and I started dating, her little brother was really into the Pokémon thing. That was 16 years ago. He used to play it on his Gameboy all the time. At least there is no Gameboy anymore. Crap they can play it on the DS’s now. Well hopefully they can’t watch the cartoons that he used to watch. Damn it, there is Netflix now and they have a dozen different options for Pokémon. You go to buy the packs of cards and I don’t kid when I say there were at least 10 different types of cards for this thing. So again I ask is this resurgence or did it never go away? I wish Mandy would have never let them get the cards (with their own money I add). Wait this just in. I let them get the cards. Mandy was firmly against them because she was there 16 years ago. Double damn. Side rant over.

So we pick up the cards (seriously a 10 minute process), a gift bag and tissue paper (I know there was probably some at the house but I’m not looking for it and Mandy is out of town. I win!). At this point we wander back to the toy section and more specifically the Lego aisle. It is here we see the new AT-AT Lego. Not a Star Wars nerd, well here is the AT-AT:

 All $110 of Lego AT-AT and of course both boys (ok all three of us) immediately want it. Side note, I really want the Snow Speeder one.

Ahhhhh trying to relive my childhood. Anyway, that is all they talk about throughout the rest of the store and on the way home. It was on the way home where boys, brotherly love, Lego’s and Alexism combined. Connor pipes off with, “Papa was it really that expensive?” “Yes Connor it was really $110,” I replied. “But I really want it,” he pleaded. “Well, unless you have $100 hidden in the folds of your neck, you’re not getting it,” was Alex’s retort. I say that to Connor and there are instant tears from him. Alex says it and we are all in tears from laughter. I don’t know where he came up with that. I would not have come up with that. The best part was the perfect dead pan delivery. He didn’t even look up from the Pokémon cards he was carrying. Didn’t crack a smile until Connor and I started to laugh. I love my life.

Knife candunct Knife candunct

Yesterday, the boys started scouts back up. Yes, it’s time for Cub Scouts. That magical time of year learning about knives, camping, soap carving, knives, first aid, knot tying, knives and some other stuff also. Rest assured, Alex and his friends are all about learning how to better use their pocket knives this year. They learned the basic safety and handling last year. They learned about blood circles, (yes it’s a real thing), how to hand off a knife to a fellow scout and all the ins and outs about knives. It’s a boy thing and he is excited to learn more.  In honor of scouts starting I bring you this week’s laundry pic.

Like I said, pocket knives are a boy thing. Both of my grandfather’s always carried one, as far back as I can remember, they just always had one. I have carried one off and on since after high school (no way I could have carried one in school. Even then people would have freaked out). I’ve lost some going through security at airports (I’ve also inadvertently carried them through security also). I’ve lost one in a pond. I even broke the tip on one using incorrectly. And now Alex and I have done the same thing to a knife: put one through the clothes washer.

Clothes in a dryer make a very distinct sound depending on the clothes. When I did Alex’s the other day, it was making its customary, soft, soft, da dunk sound. Clothes, clothes, button hitting side wall. So it can really throw you off when you hear soft, soft, candunct, soft, soft, CANDUNCT. I get up off the couch muttering about Connor and what has he left in his pants this time (there was almost an incident of Pokémon cards going through but Super Dad found them before the drama ensued), then it hit me. This is Alex’s laundry. If you read this blog regularly (or at least as regularly I get off my lazy butt and write) you know that most of these pictures are Connors contributions. Not this time.

I walked in there with a sense of dread of what I might find this time. This was the last thing I thought I would find.

But then, I have done the same thing. Two Christmas’s ago, one of my vendors gave a bunch of us a pretty nice little knife from Browning. The little 3” blade had the Browning logo etched in it and their company logo on it. It was a great little knife. I had it two weeks and I put it through the washer….and the dryer. I was sick. Such a great gift and I ruined it in only two weeks. It wasn’t ruined and in fact I still carry it today, so with that thought in mind, I couldn’t get mad at Alex for leaving this one in his shorts. It was a great learning moment and Klein makes a good knife. The only thing wrong with his knife was that it washed some of the grime off the handle.  

He was distraught it was clean.

Chicken soup for the soul or at least Connor

How many times have you wanted a snack at night? I mean you’re in bed, lying awake and a sudden urge hits you for food. That piece of cake calling to you about midnight to come and devour it, to end its existence, we've all been there.  It’s been awhile for me. If I act on those late night cravings, I find myself up the rest of the night, so to me it’s not worth it. However, it might become a trend in the Hedrick household, if someone has their way.

Monday night I had a fantasy football draft party to attend, so Mandy took the boys and went out to dinner to Kneaders. We love Kneaders. They have great sandwiches, great éclairs, great homemade chips, great cannoli (leave the gun, take the cannoli), and great homemade soups. Alex always gets the turkey sandwich on sourdough and Connor always gets chicken noodle soup. He is not a sandwich kid; he just doesn’t like them for some reason. We have tried and tried, but to no avail. It’s usually not that big of deal but when we go on picnics or hikes, it’s hard to pack a filling meal that is not a sandwich. Mandy has become very creative when it comes to packing his school lunches (cheese and pepperoni anyone?). Nothing wrong with not liking sandwiches, he’s just no son of mine.

So the meal Monday night goes without incident. The boys eat most of their meals. Ok Alex devours his like an offensive linemen eating for free at Chuck-a-rama (football metaphor! Nailed it) and Connor eats most of his. For the record they both eat their entire sugar cookie. After they are all done eating, Mandy goes to clear the table. Connor suddenly has a revelation, “mama don’t throw away my soup.” Mandy replies, “Buddy there is not that much left. You won’t get a good meal out of it.” Here it is, “Mama, we need to save it. What if I want a midnight snack?”

So here it sits, ready for Connor and his midnight cravings.

FOOTBALL IS BACK!

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, it’s that time of year again. The leaves are starting to change (look east if you don’t believe me), the morning air is a little crisper, and kids are back in school; this can only mean one thing: Football is back! Yes kids the English Premier League is back in full force. EVERTON! EVERTON! EVERTON! Oh, sorry I forgot this is America and we only care about soccer every four years.

While I do like soccer, it’s fourth on the list behind baseball, football and hockey, this is America and we like our violence and spectacle that is Football. This is the time of year that every team in the NFL starts at zero and thank the Lord for that because after that joke of a stupid Super Bowl last year the Broncos better redeem themselves. For hells sakes, did they even want to be there? No defense, Wes Welker and Eric Decker disappeared, Peyton “I’m not Elway” Manning couldn’t do it on his own, and horrible special teams. Run game, what a fetching (sorry we saw Saturday’s Voyeur for the first time on Sunday so I’m saying fetch and heck all week in honor of it) joke, there was no run game. Sorry I started the blog in March and I didn’t have the proper venue to express my frustrations on the state of the Super Bowl until now. Thank you for allowing me to get nine months of frustrations off my chest.

But this is Utah and while most of the state is either Broncos fans (closest team and we get 90% of the games locally) or 49ers fans (Steve Young? BYU? Duh.) and most recently Seahawks fans (hmmmmm Bandwagon), we are all about college football. Heck, (see I told you heck and fetch) even Utah State is starting to get better; the drubbing by Tennessee this Sunday is not evidence of this. So it’s the 2^nd day of September and everyone is optimistic about their teams.

Utah State has Keaton and plays in the Mountain West, so they are in a bowl already.

BYU. Oh BYU. Our dear, dear neighbors down south. What do we say about you? It’s September so you already have a national championship on the way, and a Heisman Trophy candidate in Hill. You may get to 11 wins this year (it would have been 10 but you don’t play Utah this year. Zing!) but alas you will still be in the Miami Coconut Oil Silicone bowl or whatever it’s called this year.  I respect the Cougs and what they have done over the years. It’s hard to recruit the type of students they the Y requires and still win on a consistent basis. So that I respect, but that’s about it. I know all Utes fans are drunken louts who only care about being in the PAC12 and nothing else so I guess I won’t lump all Y fans together with the arrogant blue hairs that make up a majority of the fan base. There are some good Y supporters out there so I’m sorry for some of the words above (only some not all).

Then of course, there are the Utes. While the Y lives off of their National Championship from 30 years ago, the U is still hung-over from the Fiesta bowl in 04 and the Sugar bowl in 08 and now we have the PAC12. It’s a sad state of affairs when I talk to people this year and the consensus is 6-7 wins is a victory this year. I agree that with this schedule and the non-automatic win over the team down south, 6 wins is tough and 7 dang (see I slipped a dang in there) near impossible. I know I’m supposed to be patient but I am tired of being patient. I knew they wouldn’t take the PAC12 by storm and compete right away but I’m supposed to be happy with 6-7 wins?  

Sorry done ranting. Back to the positive. It’s football season. Time for tailgates, wearing red on Friday’s, hot coco and hot coffee later in the year, Connor going to the restroom 5 times a game, walking up and down the stairs and Rice-Eccles more than five time a game to accommodate Connor and Alex’s restroom and food requests. Here’s to Utah Man, not Utah Fan, I will never sing Utah Fan it’s stupid and it should never have changed. Here’s to late November home games that we will freeze at but enjoy anyway. Here’s to crashing the in-laws during every Ute away game because we don’t have the PAC12 Network. Here’s to the drums that they play after the third quarter at every home game (YouTube it. It’s fun) and finally here’s to family time during the fall. Every Saturday we are able to get together as a family to enjoy each other and some football (ok Mandy tolerates it but she goes because the boys love it) every week. Ahhhhh I love football

And apparently its time for me to work on my selfie skills. Next time I need to cut out all of my face to improve the picture.

Stupid alarm clocks

After the incident with our A/C a couple of weeks ago, you would think that I would have been better prepared for failures of modern conveniences. Say like the electricity going out in our house, but alas I was not.

The past week or so, we have had storm after storm after storm. Last Friday we had a hell of a storm. Lightning that filled the whole house, thunder that shook the very foundation of your soul. Mandy and I were on the front porch watching most of this until we had a lightning strike that was a little too close for our comfort. Have you ever been so close to a strike that you can feel the heat off the lightning? Well, now we can say we have and the thunder that hit immediately after seriously hurt my ears it was so close. After we came inside and the storm subsided somewhat, the power went out. We have had power bumps here in the past but in the three years of living here, never had it go out for a prolonged period of time, especially four hours. Power comes back on and I set to task resetting all the clocks, ok not all just my alarm clock. I’ll get the both boys rooms in the morning I told myself. Yup, you know where this is heading.

Fast forward to Monday morning; I’m wake up, stretch look at the clock that says 610, think to myself, “whohoooo I slept in on a weekend.” Then it hits me, that’s its Monday and you’re running late. I got up, showered, shaved and got dressed in a record time that I was certain that would never be broken. I had set my alarm but forgot to reset the time so it was set to go off at noon. Well, as I’m getting myself coffee I realize the boys aren’t stirring. That’s about the time Mandy flies down the hall to wake the boys up because I forgot to; A) reset the time on their clocks and B) reset the alarms. Everyone got to school and work on time but again Andrew struck again on Tuesday.

Monday night we had more storms. Thunder that was so close that it literally knocked bottles over that were standing on our kitchen counters. I maybe got three hours of sleep total. So when Mandy’s alarm on her phone went off at 630 and woke me up, I thought crab another power outage. Nope, I forgot to set the stupid, frickin, no good, gosh darned, dash it all alarm (editor’s note. This is a family blog so the actual language used yesterday morning has been edited. Heavily). That record time that I set Monday morning? Yeah I beat it handily on Tuesday. I am happy to report that last night there were no storms and that I woke up at my normal time and everything is kosher and right in the world.

 

Editor’s note. I now have a backup alarm on my phone. Just in case.  

Camping, laundry and Dorito rock

This week’s Laundry picture comes courtesy of me and our camping excursion (ok not excursion, it was to a lake 20minutes away with high six figure homes around them but it was sleeping in a tent, so it was camping) this past weekend.

Some friends of ours asked if we would like to accompany them on a camping trip. Let me pause here. We have not been a camping family in the past. We have sleeping bags but they were $30 Targets specials. We had a tent but it was only used for backyard camping and Alex broke the zipper so it was junked. We had purchased a new tent from Costco a couple of months ago but that was for the purpose of backyard camping and upcoming scout campouts. Mandy and I hadn’t been camping since before we were married. We love to hike, the boys and I love to fish, but camping, hadn’t been done. So when Mandy enthusiastically said yes, I (being the resident family worry wart and party pooper) was a little concerned. We conveyed to our friends that we had no cooking gear and the bear essentials (get it outdoors bear not bare. I kill myself) to go camping overnight, much less the two nights they were proposing. They said just get up here, bring some food and we’ll take care of the rest. Ok, camping on.

To ease my mind Mandy reminded me that we had some really nice sleeping bags stored away at a storage facility, or Mandy’s parents’ house if you want to get technical, ready for our use. We had the new tent to use. They would take care of the cooking; we only had to provide lunch on Saturday (hello sandwiches, no flame involved there).  Mandy was awesome during the week proceeding. With me being a bum and not wanting to go and continually pouting, she packed and arranged almost everything. The only thing I insisted on was a sleeping pad for her, the boys and I could rough it on the ground (my back is still pissed at me for that decision). Car packed, boys loaded, beer in the cooler, bug spray packed, and away we went.

We arrived and setup camp with no issues (marriage survived setting up a tent in the outdoors, check), so we headed down to the lake (reservoir) to scope out the beach. It’s we when arrived on the beach that I realized what a horrible parent I had become. I grabbed some rocks and started skipping them across the water. Alex was enthralled that I could do that and that is when I realized I had a nine year old boy who had never skipped rocks across a lake. That is when I vowed we were going to spend more time in the great outdoors. How could a boy not know how to skip rocks? I had failed as a father. Sure he can fish and knows how to handle a pocket knife but how could I have failed this?

The rest of the trip was a complete success. Well other than the teenage boys that kept us up most of the night in the next camp over and the whole sleeping on the ground thing. I am not in my early 20’s anymore where sleeping with a mound of hard pack earth in the middle of my back is easily overcome the next day. Other than that, camping went off without a hitch. We cooked hotdogs over an open flame. Had some s’mores, pancakes and bacon, enough licorice to drop a horse, chips, instant coffee (bleh), all the food a good campout requires. We spent most of the next day on the beach and in the lake swimming. I had forgotten how fun it was to swim in the great outdoors.

I think I had more fun than the kids did. My friend had brought a wrist rocket that we taught all the kids how to use. Saw a great horned owl in a tree above our camp (sorry pictures didn’t turn out). Connor discovered the pure relaxation of a hammock between two trees.

It was a great overnighter. Two regrets: not taking fishing poles and lack of sleeping pads. Other than that everyone had a great night.

A little story about the rock that came out of the laundry that is pictured above. Saturday morning while all the kids played in the water, Connor was getting in the water, getting out, looking at rocks and bringing us the best looking ones. Alex was getting in the water, getting out, looking at the rocks and skipping the best ones across the lake. Rocks to boys young and old are fascinating for some reason. Like moths to a flame, show a boy a cool rock and he is entranced. I am no exception. I found this rock while watching them play and Connor agreed it was the best rock found on the trip, while Alex said it would skip the best across the water. I sided with Connor and decided to keep the rock, especially after he told me the rock looked like a Dorito.

We are already planning at least two camping trips next year and will start accumulating the proper gear to make it happen. Yes, a good, no a very good sleeping pad will be included in that list.

Lego Family

There are those little moments in a parent’s life that can make or break your child’s day. I’ve written about these little moments before and since that day I have tried my hardest to appreciate them more and take advantage of them more. I had one of those yesterday and it ties in for a Lego of the Week, so it’s a win-win really (Lego of the Week, more like Lego of the month).

I was in the kitchen reading something that I needed to read for the school, when Connor snuck up on me. “Papa, do you want to help me build our family in Lego’s,” he asked. I am ashamed to say my first instinct was to say no, I needed to finish this but the look he gave me was a pleading please face and I couldn’t resist.

“You want to build our family? Like our house and yard?” I replied.

“No, just you, Mama, Alex and me in Lego guys. It’s really easy, all the Lego people are in the same place, remember.”

After he explained that, it was a lock, so we headed downstairs. Now let me explain that our basement could double as a Lego store if we wanted it to. Hell, it could double as a toy store if we wanted. A couple of months ago, there is no way I would have ventured down there and there was no way we could have found the Lego people. The boys and Mandy really deep cleaned it about a month ago and they have done a great job keeping it organized since (ok Mandy deep cleaned but either way the boys have kept it clean since. Give credit where credit is due.).

He found the Lego person bin and started to carefully go through each piece and put them down, when I decided way to slow and not nearly fun enough. So the entire bin was dumped out on the floor. We had a riot. Picking through to see what he thought each member of the family should look like. Who should have hair, who should have a hat, should Mama have long hair or short hair like she does now; all of this went into his thought process. We had them done when he was hit with a lightning bolt of an idea; we didn’t have accessories! So back in we went to find us all accessories.  After about thirty minutes, we were done and cleaned up and ready to present.

Here is Mandy and I. That is the shortest “girl hair” (his words not mine) that we could find. Mandy’s first accessory was going to be a cell phone but then he found a second coffee mug and thought that would be better. You can’t see because I couldn’t get the picture to show it well but Mandy is actually a queen from his castle set, because “Mama is really the Queen here.” I am wearing a green sweater vest and if you look really close you can see a lightning bolt scar on my forehead. Yes I am Harry Potter but Connor decides that hat would hide the scar and besides, “you have to have glasses Papa.”

Here are the boys.

Alex was the easiest to do for Connor. The hard part was finding the mitt he knew was in there. The only issue, “too bad we don’t have a Lego Angels or Utes hat. Alex would like that better.” Connor saved himself for last. I was happy with the way he portrayed himself. The hair he choose came from a surfer dude and it fits perfect. His accessory was the hardest of all the people we built. He wanted a sword, then a lance, then a gun, then he looked for a slingshot (I am still shocked with all the Legos down there we didn’t have a slingshot), then a frog, and then he decided he like the binoculars, because he really like looking at birds in the backyard. Works for me.

I am not tooting my own horn here but I am so glad I said yes to Connor yesterday. Too many times I have said no, that I am too busy or too tired. Too many times I have been this guy:

instead of being the dad he built for me.

Again I am ashamed to admit this but I was being selfish with my time instead of looking at what it would mean to him or Alex for that matter. We can’t be perfect as parents but we don’t have to be. We have to be there for our kids no matter what, even if it means stopping what you are doing for half an hour for some quality Lego time.

Connor your concern is overwhelming

As a Dad there are certain responsibilities that you are required to perform. How to properly throw a baseball, how to play Texas hold em’, how to mow the lawn, how to properly pee in the outdoors (always downwind), teach them how to make the perfect pancake are all tasks that as a father I am required to perform and teach (sorry I don’t make the rules). I could go on and on about all of these tasks but one of the most important duties I am to do is fix bicycle tires.

Connor has his new (well it’s new to him) big boy bike that he has been tooling around most of the summer on. He loves the big bike with the big tires that make him go faster. He and Alex will do pretend jousting matches on bikes, and Lord help us when they drop the pretend from that sentence, all day long if we let them. Well just so happens that Connor was introduced to a bike tires worst enemy last week: goat heads. You know those little weeds that feel like Legos when you step on them in bare feet in your house because your boys tracked them in on there shoes and you never know it until you step on one in your bare feet at 1030 at night when you are taking the dog out to potty because you forgot when you still had your shoes so know you just hurry to do it so you can go back to bed. You know those goat heads.

 

Sorry a side note hear. I just googled goat heads to get a picture and there really is a goathead.com website. I hope it’s a humor site because if not it is the best unintentionally funny website I’ve been to in quite a while. Sorry had to share, I thought it was funny.

His back tire, of course it was the back tire, was damaged when he rode in the neighbors weed patch (not in my lawn). Not only did he need a new innertube but the actual tire needed replacing. It’s Dad time. Those of you who know me know that I am not the handiest of Dads. I am all thumbs and most of the time common sense seems to run away when I start these “man projects.” There is the setup for the next paragraph.

Bike tires are not that hard to get off rim. I have the little plastic tool that helps get it off and on, so getting off not that hard. Getting on is another matter. I am sure there is some trick to it but I have yet to figure it out. Because I have not figured out the trick, it takes me some time to get the tire back on. Again, it wouldn’t be so bad but when you have a little boy anxiously waiting for you, the pressure gets ratcheted up a notch. Connor is also the boy that hovers while you watch. He wants to know why you do this, and how did I do that. Its admirable trait to have but when I’ve been wrestling with a damn tire for 20 minutes it’s not so cute.

After 20 minutes and lots of swearing (internally the boys were close. Ok maybe some did slip out) I had the tire back on. Time for the training wheels to go back on. Ok, wrench on one side, ratchet of the other and tighten and slip and bang my stupid thumb between ratchet and bike frame and curse out loud. Connor bends over to examine me after my cursing. In his immediate concern for his old man he tells me, “You’re ok. No blood no foul.” As I’m sitting there with my thumb pulsating with pain and bruising instantly, I didn’t know whether to strangle him or laugh uncontrollably. I laughed.

I love him.

Work Night at the Bee's

So last night was my company’s party at the Bee’s game. I love baseball, I love my family and I love my job (not in that order) and last night is an example of why I do. Every year they rent us a free pavilion or as like this year, a patio at the top of the stadium, with all the burgers and hot dogs you can eat. There is also soda and water on the house and free beer for the adults who want it (alas that is not all you can drink). Last night was the perfect night for baseball.

See look at that view. Mid 80’s, a little overcast and shade over your head, what else could you ask for? Just some great family fun at Triple-A baseball. Connor tried to eat his body weight in potato chips and kettle corn and probably succeeded. Alex drank his weight in Sprite that I’m sure of. For the record I did not drink my weight in beer (allegedly). The boys had some Dippin Dots (by the way when does that stop becoming the ice cream of the future? It’s been that way for 20+ years?)  and Connor wore some of his. 

The boys met Bumble.

To be honest I don’t remember much of the game. I know the Bee’s lost and there was a great play at the plate where our right fielder threw out a Chihuahua (yes I said a Chihuahua. They were from El Paso) at home plate. But tonight was seeing friends from work, letting the boys get giddy on sugar and junk food and if there is time, watch a ball game. We did make time for silly pictures before the fireworks.

All in all a great night for baseball, friends and family. My headache in the morning wasn’t even that bad either.

Lego Paradise

Legos. There I have your attention. The other night the boys had an opportunity to go to a birthday party for one of Alex’s friends from scouts. It was of those instances where we had double booked ourselves. Mandy had to work, I had to work and we had a party. The plan was to drop Alex off and then I go home with Connor and work al little bit from home. Great plan right? It was until we were told by the boys’ mom that she planned on Connor staying. Curses, foiled again. Double curses when they saw the backyard. There was a huge tarp with four blankets placed on it. On those four blankets were roughly 4,000 Legos.  The idea was for the kids to build their own Lego racers and then race them down a track; Boys and girls welcome to Lego Nirvana. Picture a dog that you just gave peanut butter to in a Kong toy. You know how they just wag their tails in hyper drive and run in circles until you actually give it to them. Yup that was pretty much their reaction also. (Did I just compare my boys to a dog? Crap)

Come to find out this was a business that they had hired. He comes in with the tarp, blankets, Legos and track. Sets it all up, gives the kids building tips, and lets them loose. It was really cool to see the kids building and racing. To see the imaginations come to life within the cars, or planes with wheels or Connors car with propeller.

To top off the evening they had setup a screen in their backyard, had cake and watched the Lego Movie. Full disclosure here, I had left after only 45 minutes because I had to work and I had to get up early Friday morning for a very important event (Company golf constitutes important event). Mandy is the best to take one for the team and stay in Lego Heaven (watching the racers and building) and Lego Hell (EVERYTHING IS AWESOME) for two hours. Mom of the year!

It even inspired Alex to come up with his own racer for President Business the next day.

I really do hate the little things but I love what they bring out in the boys.

 PS you’re welcome for getting the song stuck in your head the rest of the day.

Public Service Annoucement

Its funny how we take our modern conveniences for granted. Electricity, indoor plumbing, Wi-Fi, DVR (top five of any invention ever) and A/C have become perks that we cannot live without. Especially when say, the A/C goes out on a 90  and it’s humid outside. Then you can really see what lack of air conditioning does to a person.

We were sitting in the living room just goofing off, when Mandy commented how hot our house was. I immediately passed it off as, it’s humid get over but she insisted it was hot. The A/C was going but the air was a little bit warmer than usual. The thermostat was set to away so I figured it would take a while to cool back down. After ignoring the problem while Alex and I finished playing FIFA13, Mandy did her own investigating. Yes, the A/C was pushing air but the compressor outside was not going. Crap.

I took off the side of the unit and discovered that one of the wires going into the contactor was burned back and melted a little bit.

 I turned off the power, pulled out the disconnect and cleaned up the wire as best I could. Nope still wouldn’t work. Ok, the contactor is bad. Well I work at an electrical distributor, we should have one. Nope, we don’t stock this type. At this point Mandy and the boys are getting ornery and hot because I think I can fix this. As a guy we think we can fix anything and save us some money. Well, with the temps getting above 90  and the humidity building up, it was time to call in reinforcements.

We called Bills Comfort System and Layton, and the gentlemen offered to sell me just the contactor to install myself. Great that is something I can do. I can fix this. However, I (by “I” I mean Mandy) decided this was too big of deal to try and fix myself, so I asked the technician to come out today to look at it. The tech was here in 30minutes took one look at it and said, “Your capacitor is bad.” Great just what I thought, the contactor was bad. Wait, he said capacitor, not contactor. Crap. Double crap. Not only was I wrong (shocking) but he said, “Well, the capacitor is bad and that is an unusual type. I don’t think I have one of those on the truck.” Are you serious? Well, he went and looked and he ended up having one, thank goodness.

After another 20 minutes, with my pride hurt and wallet a little lighter, the air conditioning was fixed. I always try to see the good in a situation like this, to learn a little something from a life situation. Yesterday I learned that I am not always right(again shocking) and it’s hard to admit defeat. That and I would listen to Mandy more often, life would be easier. So gentlemen, take heed and listen to reason and your wives more often. So ends today Public Service Announcement.

 

Stupid capacitor.