Snowshoeing in Boise

I went snowshoeing again this year in Idaho. This time it was the day after Christmas up at Bogus Basin ski resort in the mountains just north of Boise. My brothers Alexander and Sam, Sam's friend Tyler and I were at about 6,000 feet and it was 15 degrees the whole time and snowed a bit - luckily, we made it out alive and didn't even have to eat each other. It was great.

Amazon Q4 Beard Challenge

The Amazon.com Movies team, of which I am a proud member, recently decided to meet the combined challenges of a dour economy and the fourth quarter (busiest time of year for us retail folks) by launching an initiative to improve team productivity (actually, it was all my friend Nick Love's idea): the Q4 Beard Challenge. What better way is there to save a few extra minutes each day than not having to shave? So, that's exactly what we did. Starting November 1st, about thirty or so of us (including some of the Music and Video Games guys) stopped shaving and just let our natural manliness manifest itself. There was supposed to be a contest and official judging for the best beard on Dec. 19, but Seattle was completely snowed out and the event was canceled because no one could make it to the office. Judging will be handled online (of course) at a future date. But, here are a few samples of my meager contribution to the effort - the devolution of a beard.

So, I'm a wimp...

I don't think I signed up for this...
Yes, that is my backyard.


The boys, of course, loved it.

Fragrance Flashback

So, I was in Walmart today doing some Christmas shopping when I decided to stroll through their fragrance aisle, just for fun. What a trip down memory lane! As I stood there, perusing all the latest fragrances by Brittany, JLo, Shania, and everyone else who has ever had any sort of music career to speak of, I was suddenly plunged back to 7th grade as I got further and further down toward the bottom shelves. There were all my old favorites: Navy, Sand & Sable, Exclamation (just to name a few). And of course, the classic tiny aerosal sprays of imposter designer scents featuring the 80's modern art splash-of-color cans...you know what I'm talking about: The bright yellow lid on a can that said "If you like Giorgio, you'll love PRIMO". Ah, suddenly I was 16 again, and I thought I was so sophisticated.
It was so fun to see all my old favorites there on the shelf. I have often heard that woman associate smells more closely with memory, and I had never experienced that more powerfully than the time I was getting a drink of water in the JSB hallway (at BYU), and some guy walked by wearing Obsession for Men. I turned around quickly because I totally expected to see Ryan (a boy I went out with in high school) walk by. Of course it wasn't, but it certainly brought back all kinds of memories. So strange. And then today, standing in that aisle remembering things like my first date, and what my room looked like when I was 17, and the first time I bought a "real" bottle of perfume (Navy), graduating from the aerosol cans. *sigh* Good times. And why did I ever stop wearing Curve after college? I loved that stuff...maybe I'll have to go retro and revisit my fragrance roots.

It's Christmastime in the City

So, this past Saturday, we decided to take in some urban Christmas activities in downtown Seattle (thanks, Audrey, for all the good suggestions!). We started at the Seattle Center (Space Needle) where they had a winter train village that the boys loved! Capturing that on film...well, less than successful. Then we took the monorail into the heart of downtown, and Liam thought that was about the coolest thing ever to ride "the big train up high".

We went to a gingerbread house display, saw the carousel in downtown, and rode the elevator in Macy's several times trying to figure out why there was a separate M button to push, but it never took you to the mezzanine, just back to the first floor. Still a mystery, but we finally found the FAO Schwartz and Santaland. No, we did not visit Santa (the wait was astounding), just stopped in to look at the moving reindeer and take in some general Christmas ambiance. Caleb was so excited about the whole trip that he fell asleep (which is why is in not in most of the pictures).


I think the most alarming thing to me was as we walked past the Nordstroms, and saw the waiting line to see Santa. It was like summertime at Disneyland, except that the "ride" only took one person at a time, for several minutes. Yikes! Many crying children in line, and an elf selling mini boxes of cheerios for $10. Okay, so I don't actually know how much she was selling them for, but when the man next to us on the street asked her how much they were, his exclamations and expletives lead me to believe that it was pretty pricey for a box of cereal. Ah, the holiday spirit of price gouging desperate parents who have run out of snacks and whose children are crying and whining. ;)

All in all, we had a wonderful time, and it totally put us in the mood for Christmas! Happy Holidays everyone and love to all!

My Friend, Santa!

Okay, so there are no pictures (yet) to go with this post, but I had to share something Liam said yesterday that was too precious and funny. We were in the mall and they have the "Pictures with Santa" set up, so as we were leaving we walked by to see Santa. There was no one in line so Santa was standing back by his "helpers" with his jacket off, checking messages on his cell phone, or maybe he was texting, who knows... the elves, maybe, Mrs. Claus...Santa has to keep up with the times after all, right? Anyway, so he waved to the boys and said hi and the boys both waved back and Liam said "Hi, Santa", etc. So as we got in the car and were leaving the parking lot, Liam said he wanted to go say hi to Santa again, and I kept explaining to him that Santa would be there for lots of days and we would come see him again. No satisfied with this answer he said very emphatically, "Mom! I need to go say Super Hi to my friend, Santa!" So there it is...Liam has a much stronger relationship with Santa than I knew about, and when Hi is not enough, give a "Super Hi"! Happy Holidays, all!

Halloween: Trunk or Treat

We went to the Church trunk or treat event last night: everyone pulled their cars into the parking lot, opened up the Halloween decorated trunks and started passing out candy. Liam dressed up as a tiger and Caleb was a lion. Appropriately, Kathy and I were big game poachers (our secret identities were Svetlana the Fearsome and Gunthar "The Knife" Volker) and I literally did spend most of the night chasing around a little lion cub who wanted to play in traffic. Both Liam and Caleb loved the idea that people would just keep handing them candy to put in their bags. Some of you may recognize these costumes from a couple years back ... short story is there were too many good ideas for this year to actually settle on one, so we had to fallback to the old standby. Next year it's going to be the Peter Pan theme. Or all Middle Earth folk. Or a chummy family of Borg. Or ...

The Inevitable

It's happened. Finally. I was always afraid it would, but was unsure when the day would actually arrive. Now that it's happened, I'm not really sure I can undo it. And the scariest part is that I'm not sure I want to.

I grew up. I've become an adult. Yes, Samuel, I'm finally a man now. Bye bye childhood, adolescence, glorious self-delusion, whatever it was I was before, I am no longer. Full fledged big boy now. Do you know how I came to this horrifying realization? All last week, through my wonderful 10-hr. work days, bus rides, diaper-changing, kid bathing, church callings, bill paying, fat exorcising and charming conversations with the representatives from the Chase Visa card I had at Disney who are still calling and telling me I owe them money even though I quit the company 6 months ago and closed out all my expense reports before I left, the biggest thing I looked forward to wasn't a happily irresponsible death session of Xbox glory or some candy-colored popcorn DVD I got at work, but rather WHEN I WAS GOING TO GET TO LANDSCAPE MY BACK YARD.

(Sorry Dad, no offense, but I've always considered gardening, yard landscaping and other constructive outdoor creation activities the domain of old guys. You've always been 28 years older than me, you like landscaping, before there was TV there was mulch, it's only natural).

So, we have a long line of nasty juniper bushes that runs along our backyard fence and leads into a pit of vicious PacNoWe (Pacific Northwest - my brilliant wife's term) creeping ivy that is slowly strangling a couple beautiful and very large trees (don't know the variety, still not that grown up yet) and trying to wend its way onto our lawn. The junipers are on a small slope that leads up to our neighbor's fence as their yard is 3 feet higher than ours. Looking at this big mess and wondering how to make the best of it (because I read somewhere that this is what homeowners are supposed to do) we thought about pulling out all the vegetation (fear not fuzzy tree huggers, there's plenty of the green stuff in the PacNoWe) and building a rock retaining wall at the base of the slope and around the tall trees that would create a terraced garden against the fence and a flattened play area for the boys at the back of the yard. Now, this is a multi-month project requiring some brutally hard work (juniper roots anyone?), several hundred dollars at least in tools and materials and far more skill and knowledge than I have accidentally gathered in this long avoided subject area. And yet as I spent my days trundling through spreadsheets, studio complaints, downtown transit lanes and more little boys' shoes than I thought existed in the world, the idea of tearing out all that springy veggie stuff and throwing down some nice artificially formed gray flagstones or maybe some mottled cobbles and scoping out the grade to ensure proper drainage so that the wee ones could stomp around and the tomatoes could grow tall ... was strangely appealing and the only spot of brightness in my long week.

Now that I've accepted the heartbreaking truth that I've finally grown up, I suppose I have to embrace all the rest of it and just throw in the towel entirely. The balding (no wise cracks monkey crew), weight gain, wrinkles, graying hair (found the first one 2 months after Caleb was born - a frighteningly prescient precursor), back pain (met a chiropractor with surprisingly gentle hands), aversion to popular music, sudden affinity for game shows, conveniently selective memory loss, alarmingly fertile nose hair that has somehow spread to my back, almost uncontrollable urge to dole out advice and the inevitable melting of the buttocks into the upper thighs and the ascension of pants to sternum and beyond are all sure to soon fill the rest of my remaining days. The boy is dead, the boy is dead, God rest the boy.

(Just to try to hang on to a scrap of my previous glory days of irresponsibility and comic book fantasizing and to prove that I hadn't slipped over the age edge entirely I just bought a wicked cool chopping axe and zombie-decimating Ka-bar Kukri machete ... to help me with those pesky juniper roots).

Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

Last week we decided to get in the Halloween mood so we took a trip to a local pumpkin patch. The farm we went to has a Hay Maze in the barn, a huge play area for the kids, complete with hay-bale playground, petting zoo, and corn-pit (think "ball pit" at McDonald's, but with corn kernels). We got to take a hay-trailer/tractor ride out to the "patch" to pick our pumpkin, and the boys had a ball! It was a great trip, and Caleb is apparently practicing to become a baby model (see below)... Too bad he doesn't have any hair. :)

Happy Halloween, everyone!

Church Baby

So, during the 3rd hour of Church yesterday, I took Caleb with me so that Kathy could do her announcements and other womanly activities in Relief Society. Caleb by this point was very tired and exploratory, meaning that he was enjoying teetering on the edge of the stage during Priesthood opening exercises and running savagely toward the stairs scaring half the old guys out of their seats. I had just sat down in class and popped a bottle in his mouth when a member of the Stake Presidency called me in for an impromptu interview. We talked for a while, the whole time with Caleb sitting on my lap happily sucking away at the bottle. The counselor finally asked me to be in the Elders' Quorum presidency as 2nd counselor. I said yes, we talked some more and at the end he asked if I had any questions. I said, "yeah, is he asleep yet?" And he was. That's my boy.

Seriously, Kenley?!?!

Okay, for those of you who do not watch Project Runway, this post will mean nothing to you and you can go ahead and skip it. Unless, of course, you'd like to read my inane ramblings about reality TV... they're your braincells, I guess.

SO, Kenley should have been GONE! Suede's design might not have been exciting, but at least it was on the right track and well-made. I'm sorry, Kenley's pants were HIDEOUS! It wasn't only the style that was bad (don't get me started on the nightmares pants like those would give to us full-figured girls with actual hips), but the execution was atrocious! She took teeny tiny little LeAnn and made her look like like a whale (with bad accessories). And then to blame LeAnn for "not selling the look" and "being a total poser"..good grief, girl...just own your own shortcomings already. We all know that you you are a fantastic designer and make amazing clothes in your own design asthetic, but let's face it, she failed miserably this time. I think Jerrell put it best when he said she makes one heck of a 50's dress and that about it. I really kind of liked her at the beginning, but the last several weeks, she is getting to be a real brat. She fights with Tim - Tim, for pete's sake, who is only there to help them succeed and is like the nicest man on television - laughs in the faces of other designers, refuses to take anyone's criticism, and continues to make the same things over and over. Okay, so they all make the same things over and over (love you anyway, Korto!), but I'm talking about Kenley right now. My favorite part of the whole catastrophic evening was when she actually assumed that LL Cool J, a man who most certainly understands Hip Hop fashion (both male and female elements) better than herself, wanted her to make baggy clothes for LeAnn. She didn't even let him finish his thought before she blurted out that she didn't wat to make it all baggy. Sweetheart, this LL talking. If you knew the first thing about his career, or had even ever watched one of his videos, you would surely understand that he was NOT suggesting you make super baggy clothes for a Hip Hop woman. And for pete sake, Kenley, let someone finish a sentence already (i.e. Tim, LL Cool J, Dian Von Furstenberg, or apparently as evidenced by next week's clip, Heidi). I know, I know...someone has to play the villain for the sake of television. It seems to me that the show's producers thought it was going to be Suede at the beginning of the season, with his third-person commentary on everyone else, but then he got all soft and sensitive with the whole Hedda Lettuce debacle. That's okay, Kathy liked the softer side of Suede.

And speaking of Suede. Poor Suede. All I can say is: Suede, Kathy thinks you were totally robbed. And while the judges thought your design lacked oopmph, Kathy thought that both the design and construction of it were far superior to Kenley's. And Kathy, for one, will mourn the loss of the third-person references on Project Runway. Peace out, Suede.

Phew! It feels so good to get that off my chest! Thanks for tuning all, y'all!

Blog-Stalking

Okay, I confess. I'm coming out of the cyber-closet...I am a blog-stalker. I enjoy looking up people's blogs and reading about what's going on in their lives. Not random strangers or anything, but the people that I know, or am getting to know, but don't know very well yet...I find it gives me insights into some people that I might not have otherwise. Weird, I know. But I enjoy it. Sometimes, people are far more open on their blog than in person (which I find utterly fascinating, but true). Of course, that is when I have a few moments on the computer to actually read without one child standing on the chair behind me shoving me forward in an effort to propel my face IN to the computer saying " I help you look on pooter, mom." And the other child standing at my side whining (because he can't get up the chair) and trying to poke out his eyes on the corner of the keyboard tray. But I digress...

Is blog-stalking wrong, you ask? I don't know exactly. In some ways, it feels like it's a bit of an invasion of privacy, but at the same time, I suppose if people didn't want just anyone to read it, they'd make it a private blog by invitation only, right?

So, there it is...it's out in the open. I blog-stalk. Anyone else enjoy that? Or am I all alone in my cyber-creepiness? Probably, but hey, I guess I can live with that. And if all the sudden, everyone I know makes their blogs private and I don't receive an invitation, then I'll know they all read this post. :)

And by the way, this is Kathy...I accidentally posted in under Andrew's log-in. Sorry, hon! Didn't mean to make you sound more creepy than usual. :)

Happy Birthday, Caleb!

Caleb turned one yesterday. Hard to believe it's been a year already. We celebrated with chocolate cupcakes, as is our one-year birthday tradition (if you do it more than once, it's a tradition, right?). We had to light the candle and sing "Happy Birthday" twice because after it was Caleb's turn, Liam wanted a turn. I'll let the photos speak for themselves, and yes, I did put them in order of occurrence... enjoy!