Oh, There Is One More Thing . . .

Labor Day weekend always seemed like a great day to go to the beach. As a kid growing up in Tucson, however, we never had much chance to do a Labor Day beach trip. We had plenty of beach, just no ocean. So, we thought we'd take advantage of the long weekend and make a trip out of it.

I still had loyalty program points left over from my consulting days, so we decided to cash in some free hotel nights and see which beaches were open in Charleston, SC after the hurricane the previous week. We left early Saturday morning and drove straight to Isle of Palms beach.

Our first order of business was sending the kids into the water to stare wistfully out to sea while imagining being marooned on an uncharted desert isle on what was supposed to be a three hour tour, a three hour tour.

That, however, didn't last long as the giant waves immediately chased them back to shore. (We had spent a good portion of the drive reassuring them that at the depths they were swimming slash wading at, that there was little imminent danger of shark attack--no matter what the movie trailers said.)

After playing in the waves for a short 2 hours (give or take some hours), we set out on our first order of business: building a giant sand castle.  We were fairly exhausted from all of the wave jumping, however, so we paused to eat some snacks.  While we weren't looking, Max surprised us by creating a true beach delicacy: wet Twizzlers frosted with a light sand glaze.  

As we munched on our crunchy licorice, we discovered that building thousands of sand bricks would take far longer than anticipated, and so we settled on creating a more moderate plan of constructing a simple 3-tiered structure, adorned with sea shells and surrounded by a shallow moat.  (Architect's son.)  

We also enjoyed sitting in the "hot tub"--a shallow pool that was left after the tide receded and was quickly warmed by the hot sun.  (Max took advantage of the opportunity to practice his Jedi balancing moves.)

As the kids covered their appendages with a thick layer of drying sand, even Ava got in on the action and loved crawling all around and "splish splashing" in the water.

At the conclusion of our wonderful beach day we found that we had learned several important lessons:

1. Don't leave any food you plan on actually eating at the beach accessible to a 3-year old boy.
2. Salt water rushing up your nostrils from the force of a wave does not appear to clear your sinuses.
3. You can't push a stroller on sand very easily, but if you want a great work out you can load it up and carry it down the beach.
4. Kids aerosol sunscreen sprayed on in stripes, and not properly rubbed in, will leave your husband's back looking like a Bengal tiger with pink and white stripes after a day in the sun.

The next day, after enjoying a genuine South Carolinian testimony meeting at the local LDS meetinghouse, we set out on our first order of business: taking a boat out to see Fort Sumter.

At Fort Sumter we were able to see a cannon which Abraham Lincoln personally shot at the Russians to put an end to the Spanish American war.

Actually, I'm a little sketchy on the details because we skipped the tour to take pictures of the tourists listening to the tour guide and to find the restrooms for the kids. I think it may have, in reality, had something to do with the site where the first engagement of the Civil War took place on April 12 and 13, 1861.

Once we returned back to shore from the island of Fort Sumter, Max gave us a good scare by running off and getting lost for several minutes before we were able to find him.  I think he just grew weary of the diligent salesperson's pitch trying to sell us a massively overpriced photo of our family with an image of an aircraft carrier on a bright, sunny day in the background (despite it being a windy and heavily overcast day and the photo was taken in front of a green screen).

All in all, we had a wonderful Labor Day trip to South Carolina.

Oh, there is one more thing...

We now lived in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Merry Christmas!

Well, it's been just a couple of days (56 to be exact, but who's counting) since my last post, so I thought I would remind you of the new ground rules for the blog which I innovented back in November where I reserved the right to blog about any event or subject in any order I pleased. Today I would like to post about our Christmas (yep, the one in 2010) which I have yet to comment on, and which I probably should post about before I talk about our recent trips to Nauvoo, IL and Colorado, CO over the past 2 weeks.

We started off on Christmas Eve by singing some carols. My job was to intently try to play the right notes, while Ali corrected me as needed. Max's job was to give Michael a workout by sitting on his shoulders, while Michael's job was to point at the camera Megan was holding. Megan's dad's job was singing in perfect harmony with the others off camera--Kaitlyn, Ava and Megan's mom. All performed their jobs to perfection (as you can see below).


After we jollily finishing singing Christmas carols, we read the Christmas story to the kids from a beautifully illustrated book which my parents gave us when we were first married. After that, I started reading "The Grinch Stole Christmas" in my most entertaining voice to keep the kids' attention as they were already starting to get hyper. I didn't realize how long that story was and ended up quite exhausted and realized that my energy stores to perform such a reading were, in fact, "two sizes too small."

That night, Santa came and left us all kinds of presents under our tree. Max's Disney Cars bicycle, Kaitlyn's fashion hair salon station, and Alison's super automatic Nerf gun, were all too large to fit neatly underneath the tree, so Santa has his slaves elves assemble them as quickly as they could and leave them set out for the morning.


Before we could open presents in the morning, however, Alison and Kaitlyn had to show us what they had stayed up much of the night working on and which they had dreamed up: their own rendition of Santa and Rudolph. They took an old cardboard box and covered in green construction paper and cut out red letters spelling "Santa's Sleigh" and glued them on the side. Alison stuff pillows underneath her red sweatshirt and made a beard using Megan's white make-up removing pads. (I wondered why they asked where those were!) Kaitlyn was dressed in her brown long-sleeved shirt and skirt and they had made antlers out of brown paper and taped them on a headband; she had also taped a red fuzzy ball on her nose. Reigns were made from a medal from some award one of them had won. I died laughing! It was one of the cutest most original things I've ever seen--and they came up with it on their own.


After that we tore into present-opening mode. Kaitlyn was puzzled by the orange and red things she received in her stocking. We told her it was called "fruit" and it was nature's candy. I don't think she bought it. Actually, I don't think we told her that.


Max had a great time passing out and opening presents and then getting wrapped up playing with each one before wanting to open the next one.


Avery had a great time eating the paper her presents were wrapped in.


Megan and I also got presents which we opened and loved but have no photographic proof of.

In short, we had an amazing holiday...6 months ago. Merry Christmas!

Happy Spring Sphere Hunting

You would have thought it was Christmas morning. Kaitlyn came in before 7:00 a.m. this morning and shook me awake asking if they could do downstairs and look for Easter Eggs (or, as they're called in Seattle--"Spring Spheres"). I was able to convince her to hold off briefly by groggily explaining that we hadn't set out the eggs yet.

It wasn't long, however, until she had gotten everyone else up and ready (and I use that term "ready" loosely as you can see from Max's tired eyes in the photo below).

Ava, however, was up and at 'em wondering what all the excitement was about.

While I locked the kids in their rooms, Megan hid the Spring Spheres throughout the house, and, as was suggested, she put several in some quite difficult hiding places:

It was especially enjoyable watching them try to figure out how to reach the unreachable ones!

Of course, Easter morning wasn't all Spring Sphere hunting and waking up early. Megan had also procured some matching dresses for the girls from the website Etsy.

Avery did her best to look like she should be modeling for Target catalogs and Babies R' Us circulars.

Max successfully demoed his GQ poses and neighbor-friend haircut featuring a trademark missing patch over his right eye.

Max was, however, just as excited about his Easter suit and new (clip-on) tie.

Kaitlyn tried (unsuccessfully) not to be photogenic.

Alison agreed to wear a pink headband to prove that while she does love basketball, she is also capable of giving anyone a run for their money in the cuteness department--as evidenced by this head-to-head duel with her younger sister.

Put them all together in a single frame and one can easily see how fortunate Megan and I feel ti have such great kids with such astounding Easter Egg finding skills.

Conference Weekend

As happens every six months, this Saturday and Sunday our family will spend approximately 8 - 10 hours listening to speakers from our church (or in the case of the kids, carefully watching to see what color neckties the speakers are wearing so they can color them in on some worksheets we printed off to keep their attention) in what we affectionately call "General Conference Weekend."

During this conference, the leaders of the church speak and give counsel and instructions to the members. If you've ever wondered what "Mormons" believe about Jesus Christ, what other core doctrines of the church are, what the leaders of the church are officially and publicly telling the members to do or what kinds of activities the church is involved in, but have never wanted to go to an actual church service--then this is your chance to peak in on us "risk free"!

Conference is broadcast on BYU-TV and video is streamed on lds.org, so you can watch it at home in your pajamas like our kids are doing...

If you've never seen a Mormon meeting, but have always been curious or heard some "interesting" things about the church, this is a good chance to check it out and determine for yourself what you think. And if you happen to have any any follow-up questions at all, we'll be happy to do our best answer them.

Now...time to get back to the kids to make sure Conference Bingo is ready to go.

Miss Congeniality

When we go to church on Sunday it's difficult to hold Ava for long. That's not because of her fusiness, her wiggliness, or her innate capability to project fluid on you from Jimmer-type distances, the truth is that she's just an adorable and good baby and every female in the ward lines up for a turn to hold her. (She obviously gets her remarkable cuteness from her mother.)

For those who may, at present, be unable to wait in the queue or to pounce on an opening to hold her while I'm walking laps with her in the church halls during gospel doctrine class, we thought posting a few fairly recent pictures might help to hold you over:

(Yes, those are leg warmers!)

(We liked the dress. She didn't.)

When Max Gets A Hold of The Camera (Or Things on Our Countertop)

A couple of Christmases ago, we invested in a nice SLR camera to try to improve the quality of the pictures, photos, images, stills and portraits we uploaded on the blog. However, despite our reading and re-reading the manual several times it seems that the improvement has only been marginal at best (at least for the shots I've taken!).

Maxwell, however, seems to be an aspiring photographic artist. At some point in the last several weeks (since we last downloaded the pictures from the camera), Max began what must be his early attempt to give Ansel Adams a run for his money. The photos below are from his "Scenes from a Countertop" collection:

Photo #1:

• Notice how the center of the picture is in focus while the outer edges are out of focus. He used a low F-stop setting to make sure that the letters E-I-J-E were in focus as if to beg the question: "How is that that the word Meijer is pronouced exactly the same way as Meyer?" He included his glasses laid across the paper to be sure to add emphasis that this is truly an intellectual question.

Photo #2:

• Using a technique similar to the above, Max directs our attention to the phrase, "Benny will need the help of Dora, Boots and a super explorer like you!" Surely this is to communicate to the viewer that his photographs are his form of being a super explorer as he explores the true meaning of the back of DVD cases.

Photo #3:

• Here the focus of the image is not the DVD case, and not the iPhone, but rather the fact that it is plugged in. Clearly Max is pointing out our dependence on power and energy in an increasingly connected world. A subtle call for simplicity? I don't know. I'll have to ask Max what his intention was with this one...but he's in bed now.

Photo #4:

• Probably a continuation of the message from the previous picture--"Your camera (notice the strap in the foreground) is nothing without this precious missing battery (followed by sinister laugh)."

Photo #5:

• I'm not exactly sure what this is. It's either a new and conclusive photo proving the existence of the Loch Ness Monster or it's a picture of the lens cap of the camera--a subtle way of Max's proclaiming his photographic excellence: he's so good with the camera that he can take a picture of the lens cap of while it's still on!

In short, keep your expensive camera out of the reach of a 3-year old.

Daddy-Daughter Dance

A few weeks ago the girls' school hosted a "Daddy-Daughter Dance" on a Friday night. I asked the girls if they wanted to go on a date with me to that dance. Kaitlyn's answer was representative of the response I got from both of them:

"My friend Rebecca is probably going to be there so, I'll be able to play with her, so...sure."

There was no "Dad, I would love to spend time with you and bond with you." There was no "you are the best dad ever for asking us on a special daddy daughter date." Fortunately, they at least agreed to go and we're not to the age yet where they asked me to enter the building via a separate door!

(Max wanted to be in the picture even though he understood that he wasn't invited on this date, but that we'd have a Father/Son outting another time where we'd pick up a basketball jersey and or sports cap for him. You know...something manly.)

The dance was published as a luau theme, so the girls dug out their grass skirts from the dress-up bin upstairs in their closet. Kaitlyn also inquired as to whether or not we had any coconut bras that she could wear; Alison actually consented to wear a flower in her hair instead of just the usual ponytail. So, at least they both thought it was a special occasion of some sort!

When we got there Ali and I did our best to hoard what we could from the cookie and punch table while trying to appease Kaitlyn as she pulled on my pant leg trying to get me out on the dance floor. Once I convinced Ali to come out to the dance floor, we did our best to remember all of the dance moves we had learned from our extensive playing of Just Dance on the Wii at home.

Unfortunately, none of the songs from Just Dance were featured as the DJ just played a perpetual loop of Hannah Montana, Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber and songs sung by stars on various and sundry Disney Channel shows. That left us doing our very best to improvise our best dance moves--as the 50% of the dads that were teaching their daughters how to be chicken / wall flowers looked on in amazement.

All in all, I think the girls had a fun time and we were still able to get home not too long after bedtime.