Getting Back on the Horse, "Sunday Best", and Catching You Up

It was brought to my attention that it has been almost a full month since I blogged last. Now, let me bring something to your collective attention. It has been almost a full month since my beloved BYU Cougars let TCU trounce them on the football field. Up until that point we had faithfully watched every game this season. I even upgraded our DirecTV package to get The Mountain just so we could see the games. Since that loss, BYU has played (and won) 4 games. I have them all on DVR, but I haven't been able to motivate myself enough to watch 3 of these last 4 games. You see, I had had visions of perfection this season--visions of BCS bowls, claims to National Championships, and the unconditional respect of my alma mater by my peers. Sure, we're guaranteed a bowl appearance. Sure, we're guaranteed at least a 10-2 record. But, I let myself get too emotionally involved. Now, Megan keeps telling me I need to "get back on the horse" and get back into the games. I watched the 38-24 win over Air Force yesterday. I think that's a good start?

Naturally, this leads into my next topic. Growing up I thought that the term referred to the need to wear your very best clothing for church attendance. However, as an adult, I believe that this term has an alternate definition. I believe "Sunday Best" actually means "the best clothes that you can wear--not the best clothes that you have." Sure, I have a nice dry-clean only suit that I could wear. But, do I wear it? Absolutely not! And, why not? Because I know that by the end of the 3-hour block of meetings I will have some combination of the following on my clothes: blood, drool, crayon, marker, animal cracker slime, tears and/or nasal fluid. The real question is how long it will be until the former definition returns.

Now, let's catch you up with the last month of highlights from the family:

1. Max is walking. Well.

2. Max had his first haircuit.

3. Megan and I went to Charlottesville for a company recruiting trip, went to a tailgate and then attended the UVA football game.

4. I went to Chicago and Michigan.

5. Max, Megan and I went to Utah to attend my grandfather's funeral. (I'd like to dedicate a separate post to him in the future.)

6. While we were there we visited Megan's sister's family and saw their new house that they were building.

7. We also attended my other grandfather's 80th birthday party.

8. Alison started her basketball league.

9. Alison scored 10 points in her second basketball game. (Insert proud dad smile here.)

10. Cute Kaitlyn story (file photo): Today Alison was having a meltdown because a letter she had written to her cousin Grant mysteriously disappeared. Kaitlyn was immediately blamed. Kaitlyn, in her most loving voice, said to Alison, "Ali, Heavenly Father and Jesus want us to be happy" and then starting singing the song "If you chance to meet a frown, do not let it stay, quickly turn it upside down and smile that frown away."

Lastly, I won't bore you with my ramblings about Proposition 8 responses, freedom of religion, nationalization of 401k's, protectionism, expansion of government and other terrifying topics. I won't bore you with these today, but be forwarned...

Run Megan, Run!

Well, I have now officially been upstaged not once, but twice. Yesterday, Megan completed her second half-marathon. In order to be there on time for the 8:30 a.m. start, she left the house at about 7:00 a.m. and rode with another woman in the ward who was also running the half. The kids and I arrived a little past 9:00 a.m. and drove past Megan as she was at about mile 4. We quickly parked the car near mile 5 to get out and cheer her on, but by the time my molasses-like quickness got the children out of the car, we only saw her turn the corner from the distance.

We had to decide quickly what our next step was--whether to get back in the car and try to drive to a new location to see her or not--and opted to pile 3 kids into a 2 seat stroller and try to chase her down. That didn't work really. Fortunately, the course had a lot of backtracking. At mile 8 we finally caught up with Megan. The kids were happy to see her and waved excitedly as we jogged alongside her for about 100 yards. Luckily, we managed to get ahead of her long enough to capture the following photograph:


Mile 8 also happened to be mile 12. So, we saw her coming back as well. Being the genius she is, Megan wore a bright yellow t-shirt to assist us as we strained to recognize her in the pack from a distance.


I jogged alongside her while pushing the kids in the stroller again until she finally pulled away from us and out of our sight. Megan's parents also participated in the day, running the 5K. We all finally met up at the finish line.


Regrettably, Alison and Kaitlyn both upstaged me as well by partcipating in the kids' marathon: a 1-mile run. Alison participated by running (and taking a few walking breather breaks) the entire course on her own. Kaitlyn participated by sobbing for half a mile while I carried her in my arms and on my back as I ran and tried to keep pace with Alison. Megan met us at that halfway point and Kaitlyn almost jumped into her arms; I was surprised at the sudden ease of my jog.



As we turned the final corner I pulled ahead of Ali in an attempt to get her to sprint to the finish line. Unfortunately, it had the opposite effect: she stopped running and started walking. The large crowd at the finish line immediately took her side and started yelling things like, "C'mon...you can beat your dad!" and "Don't let that ugly, slow, out-of-shape old guy getting upstaged by his entire family beat you!" Somehow, I felt a great flood of opposition and slowed considerably, just as Alison took off again and surged out in front of me beating me by "about two feet" by her estimation.


However, Max was the most exhausted of all us and immediately crashed as soon as we were able to hobble back to the car to drive home.

Thursday Night

I don't even want to talk about the BYU-TCU "game" on Thursday night. Leave it to BYU to get your hopes up and con you into getting emotionally involved, only to dash your hopes into small, unrecognizable pieces.

I was in Chicago on Thursday night so we watched the game on DVR on Friday night instead. Rather than watch the game on Thursday night, I was at a team dinner where the topic of discussion turned to politics.

The intelligent and enthusiastic younger team members tried their vigorous best to argue in favor of wealth redistribution (i.e. taxing the "have's" to give to the "have-nots" still leaves the "have's" comparatively better off and makes the whole better off). My problem with this is that it actually takes away individual freedom by placing decision making control in the hands of government instead of the actual individuals, and is a remarkably similar excuse to those oft given by felonious kleptomaniac n'er-do-wells. One of the major non-Republican candidates, for example, is proposing, as I understand it, to raise taxes on social security on those who make over a certain amount, but without providing any additional social security benefit whatsoever. In other words, if you make more than X, you have to pay more in social security tax, but the social security benefit you receive at retirement wouldn't change at all. Paying money for zero benefit at all hardly seems fair. At least with income taxes, you can argue that the wealthy are paying for the public resources they consume since trade-enhancing infrastructure enables business, whose profits flow in proportionately greater measure back to them. If 40% of Americans who pay no taxes at all will suddenly get a "rebate" check from the government for no change in behavior that doesn't strike me as a particularly efficient way to incentivize improvement. That's called welfare or handouts. Which leads me to a second point: I believe in work.

In the case of healthcare, the proposal on the table by one of the major non-McCain candidates actually seems to put in place a structure that moves us significantly toward a single-payer system. I'm certainly for healthcare for those who need it; no one wants to see others suffer. My problem with a single-payer system is that there is no competition. Competition is a very good thing. We have anti-trust laws and government reviews to prevent monopolies. This is because monopolies can essentially charge what they want, which leads to little to no incentive for improvement. Competition, on the other hand, forces improvement because today's customers may leave tomorrow if they're given a better, lower-cost option. Constant improvement is the mandate for survival. No competition, government run healthcare is a scary prospect.

As you know, I'm not really one to post for reasons other than to inform or to entertain. And, I don't think I've done this subject any justice whatsoever. However, with the election drawing near, I feel a desire to weigh in. I'm not really enthused about either candidate, to tell the truth. But, when you vote in a few weeks, please carefully consider which candidate values each person's individual freedom the most, and is most likely to keep government interference at a minimum. Please do not vote for Barack Obama.

Happy Birthday Mr. Max

Can someone please tell me what happened to the last 367 days? I turned around and suddenly my little boy is one! We held the official celebration today as Megan and I had another commitment on Friday night which prevented our being able to celebrate then.

We took the girls to Toys R' Us to pick out presents for Max, but their initial selections were, shall we say, less than desirable. Kaitlyn insited that Max wanted--needed--a "Maggie Leigh Magnetic Dress-up" doll kit.

Alison, on the other hand, thought Max would enjoy a tricycle, nevermind the fact that he's still learning how to walk. Her other top choice was something like a 6-ft. basketball hoop. It's clear that the family tradition of getting family members the gifts that you really wanted yourself lives on (a la the time that as a teenager I gave my father electric guitar strings for Christmas when I owned the only electric guitar in the house).


Fortunately, we were able to settle on some things that Max actually might enjoy: stacking boxes, a Sesame Street push-botton-door-opening thingy, and a firetruck he can sit on and push around.

Max also scored on thoughtful gifts from our neighbors Todd and Amy, from his cousins, and from his grandparents.


However, I think Max may have most enjoyed his birthday cake, which he finally figured out how to eat after trying several different approaches:


Unfortunately, when Max was finished he eating, he thought the best way to indicate that he had consumed enough was to take handfuls of the remaining cake/frosting/saliva mixture and toss them over the side of his highchair.

Megan took floor clean up, and I took bath duty.

Student of the Month

On Tuesday, at approximately 2:30 p.m., Alison was one of two students in her class presented with the prestigious "Student of the Month" award in front of a crowd of about 100 other proud parents. The other recipient from her first grade class was a little neighbor girl who lives just 2 doors down and who is a friend of Ali's.

Ali was recognized for her high IQ, vice-presidential demeanor, genetic good looks (particularly from her maternal parent), ability of her father to dress her in matching clothes in the morning, AND/OR "academic achievement." I'm pretty sure that all of the other things were implied, and that they just didn't have space on the certificate so that's why they abbreviated it to just "academic achievement."

We're proud of you Alison!

K, Ya'll Ready?

This sweet phrase was uttered by my adorable sweetheart on the way to church this morning as she asked the children if they were prepared to make a rapid exit from our mini-vanular vehicle when we pulled into the parking lot. It looks like Indiana has wasted no time in re-infecting Megan with her crazy lingo. K, ya'll ready, for the stories from the week?

Alison is really getting into stories. For months she has been working on her magnum opus entitled The Thing That Really Happened--a 4-chapter, 17-page exploration into the events that took place during an actual day hike. It's still not quite ready for publication. It will likely go through several more drafts and revisions before making the final cut. That, and it's in Word and she's much more into PowerPoint these days.

Speaking of PowerPoint, Alison shared the following story (on PowerPoint complete with "Fill Effects" her favorite feature):

Slide 1: "Family" by Ali
Slide 2: I have a family.
Slide 3: The End

That was pretty good. However, I told her that although her story had a good beginning and an ending, that it needed a middle. It needed characters. It needed the introduction of a challenge that the characters faced, struggled with and eventually overcame so that they could live happily ever after.

Later in the day, she told me the following, revised story:

Once upon a time there was a girl named "Once Upon A Time." She had a really big problem, but...she figured it out. She lived happily ever after. The end.

Aah...much better.

Since I didn't have to travel this week, I've had a great time playing with Kaitlyn as well. She loves to play a little game we made up where she lays down on the ground with her arms up and answers questions about letters or numbers. If she gets the question right she gets a pat on the head. If she answers the question wrong she gets tickled. Given the set-up of this game you might suspect that she tries her best not to miss any questions. You'd be surprised at how many softball pitches she tanks just so she can get tickled.

We've also been pretending about the future. At bedtime she walks up to the faucet at her sink and now says, "Water, activate!"

I find this so hilarious I'm posting a video of it:

Max had his cute and adorable friend Gavin (as well as Gavin's mom, Michelle) over from Utah this past week. The boys throughly enjoyed feeding each other blocks and seeing who could spit up on the carpet the most. They also enjoyed pulling each others hair and taking away each other's toys. Well...they took turns enjoying that while the other one took a turn enjoying crying.

Regrettably, Michelle was able to defeat Megan, Megan's parents, and me during a game of Settlers of Catan and now must unfortunately be "heralded as the Lord[ess] of Catan, and [receive] the eternal gratitude and love of the people of Catan forever. Or at least until the next game starts..." (Settler's Almanac). I think we're going to see if Max can ask his friend to come over again soon so the title doesn't have to last so long...

Lastly, I don't have to travel this week I'm looking forward to going out on a date with Megan for the 18th (a little late). K, ya'll ready?

Stairs, Preschool, Green Tongued Climbers: The Usual

(Nathan's Famous Magical Wonderblog)

Over the past 14 months, I think I've used about every excuse in the book for missing a week (or two, or three) of posting. Unfortunately, given the weather, the market, the economy, the election and the lack of new shows, I have nothing to blame it on except myself--but that can't be right.

I can't believe that Max is approaching his first birthday. This has officially been the fastest year on record, coming in only slightly faster than the year Kaitlyn turned one. Max is now standing on his own and going up (and down...mostly) stairs on his own. It's true. Here's proof:

Unfortunately, my attempts at teaching him sign language to express himself have fallen on deaf hands. He continues to just scream to indicate his hunger, tiredness, or general displeasure. And, his screaming seems to come on most when I'm trying to actually pay attention to something--like talks at church or Sunday school.

Kaitlyn has officially started her "school"--which is pre-school for 2 hours, 2 days a week at a local church. But, she loves it. Loves it. She feels so grown up and she loves that we make a big deal out of it. She loves that she's just like Alison.

And, she's unbelievably adorable here on her first day of school:

She didn't even freak out at all on the first day. She just hopped right out of the car. She's so big.

Alison is getting settled into her first grade class. She has "amazing" spelling words that she has to learn. The other day she was asked what she was learning about in school. She answered, "We're learning how to count. I already know how to count!" She's very confident in her school skills.

Yesterday during FHE, Ali did something cute and Megan praised her for it. Ali replied, "I'm a better mom than you are--except I don't know how to cook!" Perhaps our next lesson should be on humility.

Ali has also perfected the ability to turn her tongue green by eating treats and candy, as well as the ability to go through the monkey bars as opposed to just swing from them.


Speaking of monkey bars, Megan, Kaitlyn and Max went to the zoo with Megan's sister and kids a couple of weeks ago. See if you can pick out Kaitlyn from among the wildlife.


Now, in an effort to hide the fact that it's late and I am suddenly unable to produce anymore intelligent content, here's a random assortment of pictures of the children as well as the people who wear all white and reflective vests in the middle of the afternoon.







Finally, a warning and a sad commentary on parenting in our society that I took when Megan and I went out on our date a week or two ago: