The Boy's Birthday

So, I realized in April that my standard 12 of 12 would catch Trina's birthday, but sadly would never land on Alex's special day.  I determined that I couldn't let Alex's day go by without a good set of pictures.

The first thing that we did this morning is let Alex open his presents.  He wanted breakfast in bed, but when we told him that we had a gift downstairs for him.  He ran down to find a new bicycle.  (Then he went back upstairs for breakfast - a Dutch Baby.)

When we got dressed, Alex wanted to wear his v2.0 shirt, so I wore my v1.0.

For lunch, we went to Chuck E Cheese's.  We got new pictures off the sketch machine.

After Chuck's, we went to Discount Fireworks (Quebec and E-470 by the King Soopers) and got our fireworks for this year.  They have a BOGO deal on all of their fireworks except for the grand finales.  Alex also got a free one special for it being his birthday.

When we got home, we put together a Lego set that he got for his birthday.  We mostly bought this set as a topper for his birthday cake at his upcoming parties.

Trina gave him a game called Lego Pirates Code.  It's a game made of Legos that is similar to Master Mind, but also has a sense of chance.

The dessert that Alex wanted as a birthday cake was a pan of brownies with cookie dough drops in the top.

He also wanted to spend the night in the back yard.  We've been trying to do this for several nights now, but tonight the weather cooperated.

Trina whipped up a batch of trail mix as a camping treat.

I also made a batch of cocoa crispy treats.  Unfortunately, they weren't set before we had to head to the tent.

The Birthday - April 12 or 12

The 12 of 12 for April fell (of course) on Trina's Birthday.  An odd day overall, so a little weird of a photo montage.

The day started out with the Internet connection being down at home.  So I got to spend an hour or so on the phone with Qwest before leaving for work.

Since I got stuck at home for a while longer than normal, I got to be there when Alex gave Trina her present:  Tangled DVD.

Fairly uneventful morning, so not much to take pictures of.  However when it came to lunchtime, we asked Trina where she wanted to have lunch on her special day:  She wanted us to go have a school lunch with her.  Interesting option.

In the afternoon, I got to spend a little budget money.  This is the resulting stack of POs.

After school, I had a construction meeting.  I sort of miss going to these.  This was my first meeting for Phase III.  (It might be my last - it sounds like there's not a lot of work being done that will affect technology.

After my meeting, I went to meet up with my family at Claire's.  Trina wanted to get her ears pierced for her birthday.

And she followed through.  Fun little present for her!

For dinner, Trina had a little more vision.  We got to go to Chuck E. Cheese's for some dinner and entertainment.

Trina probably spent the most time getting her picture taken for these little ID cards.  I think she walked away with 8 cards!

We also played some of the carnival games.  We didn't really blow away any of the games today, but we got a good amount of tickets in the end.

On the way home, we got caught behind a fatal car accident.  We sat on the highway for over an hour.  It was interesting to see all of the different emergency vehicles that came to the scene, but it was very sad to find out what the result was.  Not a very happy ending to a great birthday.

I ended up with only 11 pictures and didn't have much more to take a picture of.  So, as I ended my day checking my email it gave me something to take a picture of.  (It is  a Blizzard Fan Club newsletter, so it makes it sort of interesting - maybe?)

Halo Flu - a month late...

So, for the last month or so, I've been working my way through Halo's 1 and 2 in preparation for the release of Halo 3. One of the things I like about the Halo series is that it's not a "kill everything that moves" game - there's actually a plot. I wanted to catch up on the story line before I got moving. I remembered most of the plot of 1, but since I had a one-year-old around the house when Halo 2 came out I wasn't able to play it at full volume and missed some of the story. I still have small kids in the house, but I figured out a way to hook headphones up to my 360. When it came to replaying the games, I knew that I wasn't in a hurry to finish because I wasn't going to be able to get Halo 3 until Christmas anyway.

Well, Wednesday of last week, I received a copy of Halo 3 mailed to me in an unmarked envelope. A gift I do appreciate (in case the random gifter reads my blog - you can consider this post to also be my thank you note), but it gave me a bit more incentive to finish Halo 2.

Well, I finished Halo 2 last night. Then I got "sick". My wife said that the smells eminating from the bathroom and passing out around midnight were convincing enough to take a day off from work.

So, I got to play a while today. My favorite part so far is a little Easter Egg that I found wandering down a random hallway. Two characters with voices STRIKINGLY similar to Simmons and Caboose on Red vs Blue arguing over knowing the password necessary to open a door. I got myself clobbered just so that I could share the moment with Melissa.

Perspective...

Last night, my daughter refused to eat a chocolate covered strawberry that was offered to her. "Dad," she whispered to me, "I don't want to eat a dirty strawberry."

When she was offered an ice cream bar last night, it seemed that "dirty" ice cream is acceptable.

Highlights of our vacation

Roger (driving through Glenwood Canyon):
"I know the guy that made that!"

Imagined on a sign entering Utah:
"Welcome to Utah: Inspiring Sarcastic Comments Since 1896"

Katrina (seeing the pool at the hotel):
"That pool is bigger than ME!"

Katrina (after watching the fountain at the Bellagio):
"Do it again Daddy!"

Katrina (upon arriving at the vacation rental in Running Springs, CA (a beautiful resort town in the mountains)):
"They even have a TV!"

Katrina (referring to the groom):
"So, who's the guy?"

Katrina (after getting off 'it's a small world' - her third ride of the day):
"Can we go to Disneyland now?"

Katrina (leaning in my shoulder while eating dinner at Disneyland):
"I had a great day Dad..."

Roger (upon arriving at our final hotel - after navigating California for 6 days relying almost entirely on road signs):
"Hey look! A road atlas!"

Roger (noticing how disoriented Alex was upon arriving back home):
"I suppose that to him it's like he's been away from home for a year."

Yep, she's a girl!

(Trying to get Katrina to sleep last night.... She was crying... I was doing what I could to console her.)

K: Daddy! I'm not sleepy!
Me: Are you hurt?
K: No!
Me: Are you sad?
K: No!
Me: Well, why are you crying?
K: I'm crying for fun!

Isn't it BEAUTIFUL?

So, Katrina was doing paints at Grandma's house today. After she painted the above shape, she pointed out to her mommy, "It's pi mommy!"

My Birthday Present

Yeah - she loves me...

Living a Parable

So, a short summary of my life:

1. Our school district is switching student information systems in less than a month. Part of my job description is to support the whole school staff through the whole process. Part of my job description is to train all of the teachers at my school how to use the system - most importantly, how to take attendance on April 3rd. (It's also a personal goal to train a few other people in just a little more than just attendance to make my life easier in the long run.)


2. The staff meeting where I was planning to introduce everyone to the primary concepts of the new system got cancelled today because of a pep assembly.


3. I had a four day training on the new product about three weeks ago - I have yet to recover from taking four days off.


4. On the last day of that training, I received notice that (thanks to decisions at the district) Apple Computer was shipping almost 100 new computers to my school - to arrive within the next week. I don't have storage space for 100 computers.


5. My son had surgery on a dermoid cyst last Wednesday. All went well, but I missed yet another day of work and he seems to only feel the pain at bedtime. He also learned two tricks this week: crawling and pulling up. These are two really fun tricks for a child with eight fresh stitches over his left eye. He likes to practice these at bedtime too...


6. The bookkeeper is ending the budget cycle next week so that purchases have time to amortize by the end of the fiscal year. Suffice it to say that I still have budget money to spend.


7. Today, I got a call from my wife while I was at work saying that she had thrown up and that she would like me to come home as early as possible.

I think that sums up the primary points - there are other points, but they involve that I still have family life, normal job duties, and stuff going on at church - so on to the parable.

Tonight, my son was having trouble falling asleep and, of course, only I could attempt to comfort him. It was obvious that he didn't want me, he wanted mommy. It was obvious that his eye was bothering him. It was obvious that he wanted to be moving around and not lying down.

I found myself saying, "If you would just slow down and rest here with daddy, you would realize that everything is going to be okay!"

hmm...

Yeah, she's gonna need extensive counseling...

Last night, my wife and I were playing a game. I made a good play and said "Oh, yes!"

My sweet daughter responded "Wyoming!"

Baby's first Star Wars quote...

OK - so we all know that she was quoting her daddy quoting his favorite Han Solo line. But I couldn't have been more proud.

Last night at dinner, I asked her if she wanted more chicken for dinner she just looked at me with a confused look on her face and simply said "It's me!"

It's an obscure quote, I know, but hey - it's me!

Anonymous confessions of a lunatic friend...

This is for a friend of mine: Sunday night my friend had a baby dedication for his 4-month old son. During the dedication, he read a letter of dedication that he and his wife (mostly his wife) wrote together. Now he is getting all sorts of compliments for the things he shared - his wife is getting nothing. Please pray for her that she would realize that the compliments are about the letter and not the horribly sappy way in which the letter was read.

THAT'S my GIRL!

The other day we were in the car listening to CD of Vivaldi's Four Seasons. My two year old daughter actually complained, "Not Vivaldi, daddy! Beethoven!" :)

Our kids?

So do you think this is what our kids will look like?

I never understood...

There are some Bible verses that I don't think I fully understood until I had kids.

Psalm 73:21-23
Psalm 131:2
Isaiah 64:6
John 3:3-4
Deuteronomy 10:16
Genesis 7:9-10