Getting Ready for Fatherhood - AKA Being a Good Uncle

Now, don't get all excited. The title of the post is not any kind of obscure reference to pregnancy. It's just the thought I had as I looked at these pictures. These were taken last night at Zak's mom and dad's house right before we left. I'm not even sure how the horsey ride thing got started, but at first, Zak was giving Beck a ride. Kaiya, ever the observant one, noticed that fun was happening without her (not to be allowed) and wanted to join in. At the tail end of the ride (somewhere between the dining room and living room) Kathryn noticed the fun and also wanted to join in. I thought for sure that Zak would say he'd give her a ride in a minute, but he told her to climb on and asked me to walk behind and make sure that no one fell off. It was too cute not to get some pictures!

The Latest

Having just recovered from a rather nasty bout of stomach flu, I am feeling quite grateful to be healthy today! I went home from work early on Tuesday and didn't come back until this morning. You really don't want to know any of the details in between - suffice it to say that Zak has been spraying crisp berry scented disinfectant on just about everything in our house. I hate that smell now. I am also quite sick of saltines, noodle soup, and Sprite. Blech.
Zak is getting more and more anxious for the semester to end. Unfortunately, there are still two full months left. Although, if you take out weekends and holidays, it's not quite that long. In fact, it's only a little over a month if you only count school days! He has been observing in a classroom at his alma mater, Mountain Crest, and comes home with interesting stories every day that he's there observing. All I can say is that I guess some kids are more motivated to succeed in life than others. I'll have to have him post some stories one of these days.
Sorry for the short post -- there is really nothing else going on in our lives these days. I'll write more when there is!

More Yellowstone Pictures

You tell me, what trip to Yellowstone would be complete without some kind of close encounter with wildlife? We were driving around and took a little turn-off to see some waterfalls or something, and suddenly all the cars in front of us stopped. We craned our necks to see what the problem was, and this bison is what we saw. He was just walking down the road, minding his own business. Zak snapped the first picture and I snapped the second. Zak almost could have touched the bison, it was so close to the car. And finally, what trip to Yellowstone would be complete without a picture of an enormous boot? This was about 9 pm Sunday night. I was struggling to stay awake when we stopped for a quick break in Alpine, WY. And there it was. Zak couldn't resist.
All in all, it was a fun trip. I'm glad we finally made it to Yellowstone!

More Yellowstone Pictures

These are just a few more scenic pictures. I took the first two at Lewis Lake and Zak took the rest of them.

Our Yellowstone Adventure

Zak and I have been meaning to go to Yellowstone for the last three years that we've lived in Logan. We finally made it over Labor Day weekend. I have included some pictures for everyone's enjoyment. Or puzzlement. Don't worry, I'll explain.

Here's a little background before I launch into full-fledged explanation mode: Zak and I drove to Yellowstone on Saturday, leaving Logan at about 9 am and finally arriving around 3ish. We camped in our car (since I was a little worried about the bear situation due to numerous people sharing bear horror stories with me before the trip) at Lewis Lake. It was a beautiful lake (as most lakes are) and the campsite was nice, as campsites go. Zak and I played around at the lake, shooting rocks into the water with his slingshot and walking along the shore. I also favored Zak with a stirring rendition of "Father Abraham" (complete with all the actions) and other beloved Girls' Camp songs. I didn't realize at the time that sound carried so very well across the water. I guess the boaters on the other side of the lake were entertained, too. Or disturbed. Anyway.

We went back to the campsite at about 8 pm when it started to get dark. We decided we would go to bed, since we didn't have anything else to do. So we reclined our seats and proceeded to attempt to sleep. I'll sum up the whole night briefly: it was COLD. We had lots of blankets and sweatshirts, but we still froze. Also, due to the cold temperature, I had to go to the bathroom several times. Zak, the wonderful husband that he is, told me that I could wake him up if I needed to go to the bathroom and he'd go with me. I was still a little nervous about the whole bear thing. You never know, right?

I woke up for the last time at 4 in the morning and couldn't go back to sleep. Zak woke up at 5 (when I woke him because I had to go to the bathroom AGAIN) and we decided to drive to Old Faithful so that we could be there to see the geyser erupt when it got a little lighter outside.

Here's the explanation of the pictures: The first was taken at ... Vault Geyser! Zak and I were sitting on a bench, waiting for Old Faithful to do its thing (from across the way, by Vault Geyser) and this lady approached us and asked with a Southern drawl, "Have ya'll seen the Morning Glory Poo'?" I thought she really said "pooh" and started to point to the pile sitting close to the sign for Vault Geyser, but quickly realized that she meant pool, as in body of water. I retracted my hand and said, "Nope. Sorry!" Zak and I laughed about that for a while, since he thought the same thing and had settled on giving the lady a blank look, rather than pointing out the pile of refuse by the sign. She probably thought we were a little odd, but that's okay.

The second picture is Zak, thinking that he's completely hidden from view since he was wearing his camo shorts. Little did he know, the white socks totally gave him away! What really happened was that he was trying to push a couple of logs that were laying on the shore into Lewis Lake (what is it about boys throwing things into bodies of water?) and one of them had splashed in, so he backed up in order to avoid being hit by the water. I'm just not a great photographer. Once we left and were on our way home, Zak lamented that he hadn't brought our little inflatable boat. It would've been fun (his words, not mine) to use it on Lewis Lake.

The third picture is one that Zak took of me at Old Faithful -- he is a much better photographer than I am! I'm not sure what I'm doing with my hands in the picture, but I thought that it was a really cool shot.

The fourth picture is one of those puzzling ones. We saw this lady with her family at Prismatic Pool and were unable to figure out why she was wearing this shirt. It's one thing for a guy to be wearing it, but for a lady with a whole passel of kids to wear it... we just weren't sure where that was coming from. Zak placed himself strategically so that he could get the shot and share it with all of you, so that we could all wonder about this together. Hmmm.

Unbelievable!

I guess I cursed myself somehow by blogging about how I learned how to fix my flat bike tire. That was a week ago Monday, and since then I have had THREE MORE flat tires! Unfortunately, they've all occurred after I got to work, and they happened this last Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Consecutively. Today I'm driving the car. Does anyone else think this is ridiculous?
Last night we bought some plastic stuff you can put inside your tires to prevent thorns from piercing the tube, and Zak is going to put that into my bike tires today. If it's done by tomorrow, I might give it another try and see if I can make it to and from work without any flats.
I have a really good husband -- on Monday, he brought me the car and pumped up my flat tire and rode my girly bike with flowers on it home. What a good man! The last two days, though, he's been in class or at work, so I've had to figure it out. Luckily for me, there is a gas station just across the street that has an air machine. I've been able to fill up the tire enough to get home and fix the flat. Anyway... this weekend is the Yellowstone trip. We're excited!

Mantua Lake

Last night we drove up through Sardine Canyon and turned off at Mantua. Those of you who are not Cache Valley natives will pronounce this very differently than those who are: the correct pronunciation (or so I've been told) is "Man-a-way". How they get that from Mantua, I've no idea. Also, Mantua is between Logan and Brigham City, to give you an idea of its location.
You need a little background before I continue with the story: After our Bear Lake adventure, Zak was browsing in a watersports shop while I got a "famous" raspberry shake. Really, he didn't want to wait with me while I got the shake. He was protesting on the grounds that you can tack a "famous" in front of just about anything; it doesn't make it taste better, or even make the item actually famous, it's just a marketing ploy. I guess it's one I succumb to often, and I'm okay with it. It was a pretty good shake. Anyway, he found an inflatable boat that looked like it could probably seat two people, so we splurged and bought it. We had borrowed his brother's floatation device for our Bear Lake trip and had been looking that day for one of our own. So we found one, and that was great.
We've been meaning to test our little boat since then and we finally got around to it last night on Mantua Lake. I was a little concerned that it wouldn't actually float with both of us in it due to the warning about the number of pounds it stated on the box that it was able to support. I won't go into that exact figure here, because, frankly, who cares? You don't really want to know what I weigh, nor do I care to share.
After a five-minute session pumping the thing up with this awesome (dare I insert "famous" here?) double-power hand pump that I bought for $8 at KMart and some tricky manuvering (read: Sarah couldn't figure out how to get in the boat without letting in LOTS of cold water), we were ready to go. We floated out into the serene lake and watched the ducks diving in the water. We didn't see any fish jumping, but we saw a lot of little bubbles where they came to the surface to feed.
As the evening wore on (we got there about 7:30), it got cold. I mean, come on, we're in the mountains, on a mountain lake. We drifted and just sat and talked for a long while - when the stars began to come out, we started making our way to the shore. Now, the interesting thing is, we didn't have any paddles. We hadn't bought any. Zak's flippant comment to the saleslady when she asked if we would like to purchase some was, "I have hands." Thank you. So we're out in the middle of this lake, it's getting dark, I'm freezing (and so is Zak, but he won't admit it), and we have no paddles. Obviously, we knew before we went out that we'd have to use our hands to paddle back in, or get out and swim -- just so anyone reading this doesn't think we're total dopes. So we start paddling. And we paddle, and paddle, and paddle some more. It took a really long time to get back to the shore, and we were COLD by the time we got there. Zak had a great idea after we got home last night. He said that next time (uh-huh, yeah) we'll tie a rope around one of the big rocks on the shoreline and attach it to the boat. Then we'll be able to pull ourselves in when we're ready to go. I think we should just get some oars or paddles.
I had to post a couple of pictures - the one of Zak because he is just so darn cute, and the crooked one (ah, my wonderful photography skills!) of the mountain, moon, and water, because it reminds me of how peaceful it was out on the lake. It was another fun adventure!

Learning New Tricks

For FHE last night, Zak taught me how to fix a flat bike tire. I picked up a thorn some time Friday or Saturday and on our way out the door to church on Sunday, I noticed that my back tire was totally flat. I, of course, was a little distraught. Zak thought that I was a little nuts. I mean, c'mon, it's just a bike. And it's fixable. In any case, I went through the whole process of taking the rim and tire off the frame, pulling out the tube, finding the hole (which was pretty easy since the thorn was still in the tire), and patching it. Zak was a great teacher and helped me get it all done. I rode my bike to work again today after my forced one-day vacation from it yesterday. It's riding smooth as ever! And now I know how to do it on my own if I need to.
I don't think I've blogged since last week, so I'll tell a little about our fun Monday and Tuesday. Last Monday, I came home from work and Zak asked me if I wanted to go to dinner and a movie! Of course I did, so we went to Angie's (a great local place for those of you not familiar with Cache Valley) for a bite to eat, and then we saw The Bourne Ultimatum. We both really liked the movie -- I think it's the best Bourne yet, and I own the other two. So I'll probably own this one, too, once it's available to own!
The next day was Tuesday, my day off during the week since I had to work this past Saturday. Zak and I went to Bear Lake and had a great time. We borrowed a raft from his brother Rhett and alternated between laying on the beach and floating on the lake. It was a beautiful day, sunny and warm - so relaxing! It was just what we both needed. Unfortunately, I got a pretty bad sunburn on my back despite putting on copious amounts of sunscreen. We decided that the stuff we have isn't very effective, so I guess we'll have to buy something new before we go out in the sun again. Zak also got a bad sunburn--on the tops of his feet (not that anyone but me would know that, right, Barb?). He told me that next time he'll listen to me when I say that he should probably put sunscreen on his feet since they never see the sun. All in all, it was a great day!
Other than those fun activities last week, life has been pretty normal. I am back to work in the dungeon and Zak is relishing his last few days of freedom before school starts on Monday. I can't believe the summer is almost over!

Our Exciting Summer

Our summer hasn't really been terribly exciting, but as I looked back over the previous posts, I realized that I hadn't said much about it. I seem to have been dwelling on Zak's adventures.
A little bit about the summer: Zak has been taking his last English class since June 11th - Shakespeare. He's done after he takes his final today, and he is SO glad. He hasn't enjoyed Shakespeare very much. He had another two-week-long secondary education class in July that is over. He's also been working a lot with his dad on a home they're doing finish work on in the Smithfield subdivision.
I have been working lots, as usual, and dealing with the scheduling problems that came up when a co-worker left to have a baby (three weeks earlier than planned!) and another co-worker left (for two weeks) to get married. I thought summers were supposed to be more relaxing than this! Really, though, I'm grateful to have a good job, despite the occasional scheduling problems.
Some of the highlights of the summer include:
*Zak took and passed his first Praxis test!! (This is great because it means that he can student teach for sure in the Spring 2008 semester, and then he will graduate in May!!!) Congratulations, Zak!
*Zak's sister Nikkol and her family have moved back to Logan! Hooray! It is fun to have them here - we love playing with Beck, Kaiya, and Crede (and their new puppy, Steele).
*We were loaned a washer and dryer by Nik and Corey, so I can do laundry at my own house for the first time in three years! It is wonderful.
*The house hasn't burned down yet due to the jimmy-rigging of the electrical in the basement - Zak had to run a larger wire in so that we could hook the dryer up. We stay home while we run it - just in case.
*We finally gave the basement a really thorough cleaning. I wasn't going to do laundry down there until we got it cleaned up. It is a really creepy basement, complete with old coal chute and everything. We put down some of those sticky spider traps and have caught some really huge beasts. Zak discovered something that's really disturbing last night. His thinking was that we should cut the edges off where the spiders have been caught so that other spiders will go into the middle. He thinks that if the spiders see other spiders stuck at the edges, they will know not to walk on the sticky paper. (I guess this is along the same lines as leaving a dead, petrified mouse in a Mason jar with a baseball on top down in the basement to serve as a warning to all the other mice....) Zak started to cut the end of the paper off and the spiders started moving. They are still alive on that sticky paper, and some of them have been there for two weeks. That gives me the chills - yuck!
*I just finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on Wednesday! (Started it on Tuesday.) I had to re-read the last hundred or so pages three times - loved it!
*I got to see my parents, my sister Wendy and her family, my brother Michael and his girlfriend Sarah, all within about a week and a half in July. It was great to visit with family!
That's about all for the summer to this point. We still have one more month left - so maybe I'll have another post in a months' time, telling about all the fun things we did in August. We are planning a trip to Bear Lake, and maybe a quick trip to Yellowstone if things work out. I hope you are all having a good summer, too!

Box Elders Bugs: They're What's For Dinner

Zak really dislikes box elder bugs. I think they might be some sort of cousin to fireflies. They move slowly, they sometimes fly, and they reproduce like crazy. Box elders are fairly harmless, but I guess for Zak, there's something especially annoying about them.

He has gone through several stages with the box elders. He started by burning nests of them whenever he could find them, then moved on to spraying poison every place he thought they might be living and breeding, and since they are still ubiquitous, moved on to eating them, starting last night.

We were playing Mafia at his parents' house and the bugs were buzzing around, and one landed on him. He announced, after brushing off the offending bug (is there any other kind?), that if one more box elder bug landed on him, he would eat it. We all laughed, thinking he was just joking, as he is wont to do.

The moment of truth arrived when another box elder bug landed somewhere on Zak...an arm, a leg, someplace; he grabbed it, placed it on his tongue, and swallowed it. He repeated the process twice more before the evening ended. Is anyone else hearing the theme to Survivor playing in the background?

I have to admit, box elders are not my favorite bug either. I don't have a favorite bug, because in general, I don't think or care about them at all. They make me jump when I find one crawling on my leg, arm, or shoulder, or when one is buzzing around my head when I'm trying to read. But despite the occasional annoyance of having them crawl on me, I don't think I would ever eat one. Blech.

The Demise of the Orange Couch

You may be wondering what in the world is going on with these pictures. Well, not what is going on, that's fairly obvious, but why. That's a question I can't answer. Sorry.
I can tell the story of the demise of the orange couch, though. Zak LOVES to sleep on couches, and this orange couch is the one he slept on for several years. I can't express how attached Zak is (was) to this couch. Barb and Larry have been re-doing some of the rooms in their house and the couch was sitting in one of the rooms that was being re-done. Also, it was pretty much just time to get rid of the couch. The cushions were all flat as pancakes and all the interior foam was disintegrating. Instead of doing something normal and sensible, like taking the couch to the DI or the dump, Zak decided that he needed to burn it. (And this only after much trial, tribulation, and dicussion -- he did NOT want to get rid of this couch and I did NOT want it to end up in the basement of some future house we will have one day.) Not only did he decide to burn it, he decided to sit (or stand) on it as it burned. I'm not sure where the motivation came from to do this... like I said, can't explain why.
Zak's brother Rhett decided to join him in this...adventure?...and so goes the progression of pictures above. They said it was pleasantly warm at first, like a seat warmer in a car. I guess it got pretty hot toward the end, so they had to stand up. During the time the last three pictures were taken, Rhett was saying, "I cannot abandon my post!" That part was pretty comical.
And where was I when all of this was happening?? Standing by, watching helplessly, trying to reason with Zak to get off the burning couch. (Um, duh.) Now that I think about it, I should've had my phone in my pocket just in case I needed to dial 911. But they got off before the conflagration reached too high, although the definition of "too high" is arguable. I kept thinking to myself, "These guys are so crazy! Why are they doing this?" I guess they were pretty entertained by it, and it will make a good story for posterity... of what NOT to do!

Mr. Freshman MC

I realize that it's a little unusual for me to post twice in the same week, and I don't want anyone getting any big ideas about that continuing, but I had to put a link on my blog for Taylor's Michael Jackson dance. He participated in a contest at school over the winter semester called Mr. Freshman MC (MC standing for "Mountain Crest," which is the name of the high school, for those unfamiliar with Logan and its environs). Zak explained it to me as sort of a prom king contest for freshman, so it's a pretty big deal. Taylor's talent portion of the contest was a Michael Jackson dance that is very cool (especially for a white kid). So here's the link to the video on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvKnjNJzVBc.
This "production" was a HUGE Lewis family effort -- everyone was involved in one way or another. There were lots of early morning practices, during which we gave Taylor our critiques of the dance, and Kelly worked a ton with Taylor on choreography. Rhett and Burke did all the filming and did an excellent job, as usual! All of us were there on the big night to cheer Taylor on (although all you'll hear in the video is the screaming of adolescent girls, as the entire school was invited to the assembly).
We were all pretty excited when Taylor won the competition, and after watching the video, you'll see why -- he was definitely the most talented kid on the stage that night!

The Cache Valley Report

Spring has arrived in Cache Valley...again. We had such beautiful weather in the last part of March, then it snowed last week, and now it's nice and sunny outside. I hope it stays that way!
Well, well...what have we been up to? Zak and I stayed with Taylor in Millville this last week while Barb and Larry were in St. Louis visiting with Nik and Corey. It's so much bigger than our little half-a-house in Logan, we loved having a backyard to go walk around, and we had a big bonfire (ask Zak how big) on Tuesday night and roasted hot dogs. I think Zak got a good picture of his creation, both pre- and post-burning. We also particularly enjoyed using the dishwasher (as opposed to washing by hand which is our norm mode of dish washing) and the washer and dryer (which we use every week--many grateful thanks to Barb and Larry for that--but it was still nice to use it). Last night was our first night back in our place, and while it was fun to stay in Millville, it was also nice to be home.
The semester is winding up for Zak -- only two more finals and one paper, then he's done for a few weeks. Hooray!! His first of two Praxis tests is coming up on June 9th, so please keep us in mind on that day.
Work is going well for me. Nothin' new to report there. Each day is very much like the one before. The thing that has been the most fun about work lately is riding my bike to work. Not, of course, when it was snowing last week, but on some of the nicer days. There have been a few days when it has started raining after I got to work, and Zak--bless his heart--has come to work and brought me our car and then ridden my girly red-with-white-flowers beach cruiser home in the rain. What a great guy! It takes someone really special to not mind being seen on a girl's bicycle on one of the busier residential roads in Logan. Way to go, Zak! Way to go!
Zak and I have always listened to NPR in the morning as we get ready, but lately I've been listening to it more and find that I really enjoy knowing what's going on in the country and the world. I am reminded of a conversation between Paul Rudd and Alicia Silverstone in "Clueless" (which I will quote here) -- "Hey, in some parts of the universe, maybe not in Contempo Casual, but in some parts, it's considered cool to know what's going on in the world."
Fact: I'm not trying to be cool, I just think it's good to be aware of happenings in the world. Another Fact: I'm a little embarrassed that I know that quote from "Clueless." What can I say, chick flicks of all kinds are a guilty pleasure for me. I say there's nothing wrong with being entertained, as long as the line between entertainment and reality doesn't blur.
Weeelll, it's back to work for me!

Spring Break

Well, well. I find it so hard to blog consistently. My apologies to those of you who are faithful bloggers and who also faithfully check others' blogs, hoping for new posts. I have good intentions, though I know those don't do anything but pave a road I have no interest in taking...
Zak and I took a trip to St. Louis over spring break, and we had a lot of fun. We were able to see my parents and to see Nikkol, Corey, and their kids, Beck, Kaiya, and Crede. We made trips to the St. Louis History Museum (there were cool exhibits on the first horseless carriages in St. Louis and one on Charles Lindbergh), the Magic House (found out we missed some of the cooler stuff -- we're just amateurs, so that's why -- we didn't know where to go), Laclede's Landing, and the Arch. My mom and dad's newly remodeled kitchen is very nice! It was fun to see it in person after seeing all the pictures. It seems so much bigger than before. We had a great time talking and catching up on things.
We spent quite a while on the MetroLink on Wednesday afternoon--much more time than we'd planned. Zak and I thought it would be fun to take the MetroLink into the city to see the Arch and have a bite to eat somewhere on Laclede's Landing, so that's what we did. We found a restaurant called Hannegan's which had good food and a fun, downtown-1930s kind of atmosphere (if that makes sense). Then we walked around the Arch and down by the riverfront as it poured rain. Luckily, I had a jacket with a hood, so I was okay, but poor Zak got soaked! After we were done at the Arch, we hopped back on the first westbound Metro we saw, and didn't pay attention to the fact that we would need to switch trains at the Forest Park station to get back to the place we parked and got on MetroLink. So instead of a short, twenty-minute trip back to the Galleria, we found ourselves all the way out at the airport. There were plenty of colorful characters on the Metro with us. It's such a totally different culture than what I'm now used to, living in Utah. Once we got headed back in the right direction, we managed to switch trains and get back to where we needed to go. It was a fun little hour-and-a-half adventure. All in all, the trip was enjoyable, except for the fact that I wasn't feeling very good the whole time. I always seem to get sick while on vacation. C'est la vie.
Zak, the lucky devil, got to stay in St. Louis after I flew back to Utah on Wednesday. He has been helping out at Nik and Corey's house and discovering that parenting isn't as easy as it looks to those on the outside of things. Nikki has been getting ready for a huge stake extravaganza and Zak has been able to watch Beck, Kaiya, and Crede for her while she sets things up at the church building. Some of the things I have been hearing in our frequent phone calls are, "Man, this is exhausting!" and "I am so tired!" He has discovered that Happy Meals and movies are very effective bribery tools. The movies give him much-needed chance to nap. I know he is enjoying being there, but I sure miss him and will be glad for him to fly home Monday night!
Today I took my first scooter ride of the year! Unfortunately, it was to get to work. But still, it's great to have it warming up enough to ride again! I have missed riding the scooter during the winter months. It's great to finally have spring arriving.

Birthday II

Here are some pictures of more Wii-playing. Zak and I are playing Rayman's Raving Rabbids in the first one -- we were doing a dance competition. (This was a few weeks ago.) I really like the game, though it isn't Zak's favorite. It has a variety of games, some of which are really fun, while others are just okay. The last two pictures are from the birthday celebration last night. Zak is performing surgery in the middle picture. Trauma Center has turned out to be pretty cool, as long as you skip all the boring dialogue. The last picture is of the guys playing Mario Kart. It's funny that we bought the Wii, and it seems like the games that everyone gets the most enjoyment from are the old school Nintendo games. Anyway, that's what we look like while playing the Wii. Pretty exciting stuff.
I don't know of anything too exciting to report other than our impending trip to St. Louis. Zak and I are going to St. Louis in March and we're really excited to see my parents and Zak's sister and her family. It will be great! I will only be there for about five days, but Zak gets to spend a week and a half, lucky kid! We will meet Crede, Nikkol and Corey's third baby, for the first time. I'm sure that we will have lots of fun.
School is going well for Zak. He is observing at one of the middle schools and taking several secondary education classes, and one grammar class that is the current bane of his existence. Every day we are inching closer to his being done with school, and that is a good thing!
Work is still going well for me. My job has become much busier as my manager has been visiting dealers in the Salt Lake City area and getting them to try out the CU. It's good because the days fly by, but bad because we are a little short-handed for the volume of work that's coming in. If we keep the same level of work coming in, though, we will be hiring additional help. Then the workload should even out a little. It's not so bad to be busy, though. Job security is important.
In unrelated news, I finished a new book yesterday by Guy Gavriel Kay called Ysabel, which was excellent. Any of you SF/Fantasy readers out there, I would highly recommend the Fionavar Tapestry trilogy and then Ysabel (which loosely ties in to the trilogy, but takes place 15-20 years later). One of Kay's influences was J.R.R. Tolkien and it shows in his writing. He's an excellent author. I have also been enjoying the Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold. Her Chalion series is really good, and she has a new book out that starts a series called The Sharing Knife. Reading is great! (Also - Many thanks to Barb for the pictures. She is great about taking them when we are together. They make it more fun to post on my blog!)

Happy Birthday, Zak!

Happy Birthday to Zak! He turned 29 yesterday and we had a fun birthday celebration with his family last night. (Incidentally, Zak will be 30 in 364 days. The only reason this concerns me is that I am only eight months and six days behind him. Yikes!) The unconventional cake is actually a platter of Tex-Mex dip with Zak's name spelled out in sugar wafer cookies. When Barb has made cakes in the past for birthdays, they are mostly left uneaten and just get dried out, so she has been making other things for birthday celebrations. I think it's a great idea!

The last picture is Zak's present from Rhett and Burke. I can't really explain it, other than to say it's a picture of a flunger, which is a version of a finger Zak and Rhett dreamed up when they were younger... Yep, doesn't make much sense, but it is pretty funny. It's something. You can do some amazing things with computers. If I can get permission from the artists, I may post a picture on the blog. We all got a good laugh out of it.

The Eagle Has Landed (and so has the Wii)

The Wii(s) arrived a week ago!! (It looks better somehow to type "Wii(s)" as opposed to "Wiis". It's easier to read. So that's why I'm doing it. I know it's probably not correct punctuation. But this is my blog. So who cares?) We got a Wii, Taylor got one, and our friend Ben got one. We also got a LOT of controllers, as you can see. And Rhett's favorite birthday present, Wedgehead, is also featured in the first picture. Still haven't figured out how to put pictures throughout the post.

My favorite thing about the other two pictures above is that I noticed I'm sitting in the background reading instead of playing. Typical, right, Zak? I figured that since we were taking one home with us and I was quite involved in my book, I may as well let others play and enjoy. For his birthday next month, Zak has asked for nothing more than a coupon stating that I will come home from work and not read my book for one solid week. I'm not sure if I can provide that coupon. How about a sweater? :)

Incidentally, for those Tamora Pierce fans out there (you know who you are--Karen, Carolyn, and Nicole), the book was Beka Cooper: Terrier. It's about George Cooper's ancestress who is a city guard. I was hesitant at first, since the formatting was a little different, and the vernacular she uses is a little odd. It's in a journal format, which I think can be a tricky way to tell a story, and she uses words like "cove" and "mot" to mean "man" and "woman," respectively. It took a few pages before I caught on to that. "Gixie" stands for "girl." About halfway into the book, I realized that there was a glossary of terms in the back. I'd pretty much worked out most of the words by that point, but it was still helpful. Anyway, it turned out to be a really good book, and I enjoyed it a lot! You girls should read it if you get the chance.

Back to the Wii(s): We had two Wii(s) set up, one in the family room and one upstairs. Everyone had loads of fun playing the different games we rented. There haven't been any Wii horror stories for any of us yet, no broken light fixtures, tv, or furniture. Zak will take anyone on in boxing, and he'll usually win. He's hit the professional level with one of his Mii(s) named Ge. We really like some of the party games in Monkeyball, and I like all the Metal Slug games. It's old school Nintendo, and that's probably why I like it. All it requires is proficiency in button-mashing and perseverance. We tried Need for Speed: Carbon (racing game) and couldn't figure out the controllers or controller formatting. We thought it was dumb. Too "Fast and the Furious" for me, anyway. Zak said that Red Steel is okay, but not tons of fun to play. We haven't tried Zelda yet, but since Kelly and Kristy bought that for everyone (thanks, guys!), we will have a chance to try it anytime we like. That's the rundown on the games.

We are also enjoying making Mii(s). I have only made a few, but Zak has been going to town! He has made Rocky, the four characters from Seinfeld, Nina Myers, Jack Bauer, and a host of others. We are growing a town full of them.

Now on to the "Eagle" part of the post: Jack Bauer and 24. The premiere was GREAT! We are very excited to see how the show will unfold. I like Wayne Palmer as president, but not as much as David Palmer. I really don't like his advisor, Tom Whatsits. Where's Mike Novik when you need 'im? One other question pertaining to Jack: Where's the Listerine? For those of you who watched, you know what I mean.... That was one of the toughest things I've ever seen, but also one of the grossest. Monday nights are now the highlight of my week.

24 and the Wii

The following takes place between 12 pm and 1pm.

It's the first post of the new year! How exciting! Zak and I celebrated the new year by watching season 3 of 24. I hadn't seen it before, and mostly I just needed to be sure that Jack finished off Nina Myers. And he does. Whew! Sorry to any of you who haven't watched that season and were planning to... don't worry, there's plenty of other good stuff in there!

[Explanation of the picture: January 4th is Rhett's birthday - hence the cake composed of Hostess cupcakes. Unfortunately, Rhett isn't in this picture, but it's the only one I have from that night.]
I was at the doctor's office yesterday for a routine check-up and the doctor was making small talk, asking how my new years was, etc. I told him that we watched 24 for part of the weekend and he got excited. I guess he and his family are big 24 fans, too. We talked about Jack and how he's put in impossible situations, and he does some crazy stuff but it feels like it's warranted -- I mean, come on! If he doesn't do his job, the world will end! The countdown continues (I wish I could make the sound the clock makes as the seconds tick by -- you 24 fans know what I'm talking about!) ... only 10 days until season 6 premieres!
Zak and I are getting a Wii! Unbeknownst to us, our sister-in-law has a cousin who works for Nintendo. Kind of handy, huh? So our Wii is in the mail, we got a Nintendo employee discount, and we are excited. Zak has decided that we need to rearrange the house so that we'll have more room to play. (Mostly to box. I beat him at boxing when we were playing at Carolyn and Jacob's, and I think he's gunning for a rematch. Bring it on, Z!) So that is most likely what we will be doing this weekend, moving furniture and awaiting the arrival of our Wii!
Zak is gearing up to start the semester on Monday. I know he's not really excited to go back to school, but this is the third-to-last semester (keep your fingers crossed!). He will do great, like he always does.
Work is still going really well. Zak informed me yesterday that I'm happier when I come home from work now. That could be due to the job itself, or the fact that I no longer have to fight traffic to get home. Either way, it's a good thing. And that concludes today's post!

Deliver Us From Savage Garden (and Other Post-Christmas Stories)

I am not very good at putting in these pictures yet... I meant for them to go at the end of the post. Oh well! Here they are:

1. Building our candy houses

2. Displaying our candy houses

3. Eating Christmas Eve dinner (mmmm... chicken and sukiyaki)

4. Zak playing the Lightning Shock game (look at that bicep!)

5. Christmas morning at the parents'

Now, for the rant that originally started this post: You know, I don't have anything against Savage Garden as a general rule. But when you're made to listen to their entire (lame) cd due to forced proximity, it's really not cool. Quite distressing, actually. "I would fly you to the moon and back if you'll be, if you'll be, if you'll be my baby"?!? Come ON.

Coming back to work after a weeks' vacation is hard enough, right? Whatever happened to a little peace and quiet? Or a little U2? Some Beatles? Maybe even some Elvis or John Denver? Can we get some cool music in here, please? Come on, people!

Zak and I had a great Christmas. We took a trip to Lava Hot Springs in Idaho last Wednesday. We enjoyed the outdoor hot springs only slightly more than the jetted tub in our hotel room (it was 14 degrees outside...brrr), and ate at the only two open restaurants in town. There are probably about ten restaurants total in Lava, but only two are open in the winter. Typical, right? We took some pictures in Lava, but they were taken on our camera phones since our camera wasn't working. I haven't gotten around to downloading the pictures to a computer yet. Look for those in an upcoming post.

We took a short trip to Provo as well and had a chance to play the Wii (thank you Carolyn and Jacob!). It was very fun to play, and many of you know that's saying a lot for me. I don't usually enjoy video games much, but I stayed up until 3 am playing Wii Sports... that should give you an idea of how fun the Wii is. Zak wants to save some money so that we can buy one... We'll see!

We got back to Logan in time for Festivus on the 23rd. We got together at Burke and Ben's place and the guys played Halo or Far Cry (who knows?! aren't they practically the same game?) while the girls sat around and chatted and watched Law and Order. We went for hot chocolate at Village Inn, which was fun. I think there were supposed to be some feats of strength and airing of grievances, but that never materialized. I guess the video games were too much fun.
Christmas Eve and Christmas day were spent at Zak's parents' house. We had a good time just hanging out with family. I got a new flat iron and a facial at Serendipity Salon, and Zak got a Keane cd and some framed Van Gogh prints. We also received a few gift cards -- my favorite, guilt-free shopping!

We learned from my mom on Christmas Day that my uncle, David Thompson, was in a bad car accident on the 23rd. He was life-flighted to LDS Hospital in Salt Lake from St. George and has had an operation to re-fuse base of the skull and the top of the spine. From all reports, he is doing well, and can move all his limbs, so we are hoping for a full recovery for him. Please keep him in your prayers!

And finally, the countdown until 24 premieres is down to 17 days! Can't wait to see Jack Bauer back in action. Come on, January 14th!

And on that very happy note, happy new year, everybody!

Glory Part II

Here's that other picture. I couldn't get it where I wanted it on the other post... Two posts in one day!! That is unprecedented in the history of this blog.