I survived July

Since it has been since June since I posted, I thought I would explain briefly as to why. We took our annual summer excursion up to Bear Lake. It was delightful and the water was very warm (relatively speaking). After Bear Lake, we had 2 days to transition our mounds of laundry over to clean clothes as my parents were coming to watch our children while Kris and I went on a trip to NYC for a week for company party and staying over to Tuesday for some management training.

At some point, I'll have to say what I do for a living and describe how I got there, but that will be for another time......

Burnin' Down the House

It all started early in the morning. I had just put the youngest back in her bed after her nocturnal trip to mom's and dad's bed and was just dosing back off to catch a couple of additional winks before the alarm goes off at 6:30 when I heard what I thought was the alarm clock going off, so I turned over to hit the snooze button. When to my surprise, it didn't turn off.

In my semi-conscious state, I got up and fumbled around with the alarm clock until I realized it was the smoke detector going off. Not the built in ones that came with the house, but the one that we purchased after the fact.

So, I got out of bed with a start and flew to the front of the house to see what was amiss. When what to my wondering eyes should appear but 2 rooms full of smoke with no reason to be initially found.

After some investigation, our oldest finally came out of hiding and somewhat fessed up. He didn't immediately tell us why the smoke other than he did it. After a little more prodding, he finally showed us the pan of burned marshmallows that he had stashed (still hot, mind you) in the pantry. It seems as though he wanted to make some "marshmallow goo" for breakfast. Marshmallow Goo is just simply melted marshmallows. It seems as though he had turned up the burner to a medium-high temperature (6 on the dial), and threw in some marshmallows. Well, the marshmallows did what they would do at that temperature, and promptly burn. That filled the rooms with smoke.

Well, needless to say we were all up for the day. We opened up all the windows to help air out the house, and scoured the pan out. Needless to say, we won't be having marshmallows in the house for a while.

The Dinosaur Museum

(I figured I'd better write something before Amy calls me out :) ).

Aunt Michelle (my older sister) invited her nieces and nephews (my children) to go to the dinosaur museum there at Thanksgiving Point. We had a good time and managed to spend several hours there looking at the various exhibits. My favorite part was playing in the "erosion pit". Basically it is a sink with sand that you can move, mold, shape, and do whatever. Then the pumps auto-kick in and water starts to flow down hill. The idea is to show that because of erosion, many dinosaur bones were found.

The children had an enjoyable time. Their dad even managed to have a good time as well. Mom, who was conspiciously absent due to previous commitments, also had a good time.

Happy Mother'sDay!

I do it

I have a precocious 2 year old daughter who has clearly entered her independent era. It starts out helping her into her car seat, only to be greeted with loud comments of "I do it!" when attempting to help buckle her in. So, as a good father who values his hearing, I let her do it. Afterwards, I verify that she is indeed buckled up in her car seat for the ride. Grrrrr. I'm ready for this phase to be over.

Where is all this sick coming from?

Our two oldest got invited to a couple of their friends houses for sleepovers last Friday night. When I picked up our oldest daughter last Saturday, she commented that she didn't feel good. I wrote it off to her staying up very, very late, and told her to go hop in her bed when we got home. We went and picked up her brother (#1 child), and when we got to that home, our oldest daughter said, "Dad, I think I'm going to throw up. DAD, I THINK I'M GOING TO THROW UP!" She was still in the back seat of the car, so I got out, literally pulled her out of the car, and she threw up all over the driveway of Eth's friend's house. I apologized to the family for the sickness stuff on their driveway, and we went home.

Sunday, the vast majority of people stayed home from church.

Monday, children #2 & #3 stayed home from school and went to the doctor's. They have some beastie that does goofy things to the digestive and respiratory systems.

Tuesday, all 5 children have it. Kris is starting to feel the effects of something and has her parents come take her to the ER to get checked out. Given her history, that was a very good thing.

Wednesday, I'm trying to help out around the house while Kris is dealing with the sickness more than the children. For whatever reason, it impacted her quite a bit. and again, the children spend most of the time laying down attempting to rest. Some were even in their beds before 7pm.

Thursday, I'm here at work trying to get caught up with things missed yesterday and keeping my head above water. Hopefully everyone is doing ok at home. I'm tired.

Learning how to ski

I haven't posted in a while because I took a trip up to Ferndale, Washington (thanks Kris), to visit with Kris's sister and brother-in-law. While I was there, they treated me to a skiing lesson on Mt. Baker.

Yeah.

I struggle with the basic concepts involved with roller skating on level ground where the most danger I could be in would be road rash and a bruised ego. Now I am to learn how to let myself slide down a mountain where worse things can happen? I'm glad that they forgot to bring along a video camera.

I fared fairly well, only falling down once. Not bad for a 36 year old, computer geek, skiing novice son of a pistol.

Girls, Girls, Girls

Oh my goodness! I am the father of 3 girls ranging in age from 8 years to 2 years.

The 2 year old has a thing for shoes. They must be on her feet at all times. If not, they soon will be. It doesn't matter if they are on the wrong feet. They just have to be on. Even when she is going to sleep. They have to be on. Makes for stinky feet and stinky shoes.

The middle daughter is in the middle of her princess phase. Everything has to be pretty, cute, or princessy (is that a word?)

The oldest is seriously in her tween years. Likes High School Musical and Hannah Montana. Likes borrowing her friend's clothes (and leaving her stuff there). I'm going to pull out what's left of my hair.

A good mechanic?

I'm in the market for a honest (decent) mechanic. I took my car in for a routine oil change at a convenient auto-care center (convenient to my work). Since it was the first time they saw the car, they wanted to do a free analysis to make sure all is well. Since it was free, and since I knew that everything would be well as it was a relatively new car (bought it less than 1 year ago), I said sure.

Well, when they called me to let me know that the car was ready, they reported that the air filter was in dire straights and needed to be replaced. I told them to hold on that work, since it was under warranty. I took it to the dealership (who traditionally charges more $$$$$), and told them specifically to look at the air filter as I had reports that it was dirty and needed to be replaced. They said that all was well with the vehicle and that the air filter looked fine and didn't need to be replaced.

So, whom to believe? The dealer or the mechanic that's convenient to my work? For all intents and purposes, I'm going to the dealer from now on for my new car, and the convenient mechanic will lose out on my business.

Also, there is a very good mechanic shop on the corner of 4500 South and State Street (Midas) there in Murray/Salt Lake City. They have always treated me right and have never gave me a line of BS when it comes to my car care.