Disneyland

When I was growing up, we lived in Orange County in California--not too far from Disneyland. My younger brother Andy had a birthday just 2 days before mine (Feb 5, while mine is the 7th). My Parents would take us to disneyland for our birthdays, and it was awesome.

I remember being 9 years old (almost 10) and my dad brought home a newspaper article about "something has gotten into the matterhorn." They had enclosed the track to make it seem more like riding down a real mountain, and they had put a 9 foot tall image of the abominable snowman into it. I was so excited I could hardly stand it. I didn't sleep at all the night before we went.

Anyway. Disneyland has always been a place that I have enjoyed, and I have also really enjoyed taking my own kids there. We go during this time of year because the weather is usually super nice (high 60's or low 70's), and since school is still in, there is *nobody* there. Here are the pictures from our latest trip:










Here we are at 5:00 am in the morning trying to get out the door to catch our plane. That was dumb. Next time we'll fly in the evening and go to bed when we get there.












On the plane. Owen was very concerned about Airline Safety.












Walking from our hotel. Note similar shirts. It has become something of a tradition for us to wear the same shirts. It makes it so we don't lose anyone, and it is kind of fun to figure out what kind of shirt we'll make. We use the iron on transfers that you can print out from your inkjet printer. This shirt has the toy story little green men on it.










Space mountain is one of our favorites. Owen can go on it, but he decided that he didn't like it. "I don't like rides that drop you." he says.












Charlie enthralled on the jungle cruise. He was the only one on the boat who *honestly* laughed at the jokes the driver made.











Bengal Grill. This is the best place to eat in disneyland. It costs you a million dollars like everywhere else, but this food is REALLY good. Chicken and beef skewers. And bacon wrapped asparagus, grilled. Delicious.










After lunch, you can have a Pineapple Dole Whip. Mmmm.












C'mon Audrey!!!











Dumbos. It's funny how we like this ride so much. I still think it is fun.










Seth loves the roller coasters. "Let's go on the 'Wildest Ride in the Wilderness' again Dad!"











My favorite shirt we did this year was the BnL sweatshirt. I was happy they had a place we could take our picture. I was mad that wall-e wasn't an actual 3-d thing. This sweat shirt was cool because people recognized it but they didn't know what from. They would look and look. And some would say, "BnL, where is that from?" and some even fewer would get it and say "Oh man that is SOOO cool! Where did you get that?" To which we proudly replied, "It was audrey's idea. And we made them."











The second day the rain came in.











We were prepared. Disneyland is awesome in the rain. No one is there. They still run all the rides.










Zoom in close on this picture. Look toward the rear of the train. Jenny and Audrey are riding this thing (california screamin') full on in the rain. It was cold, but we went on it like 6 times in a row because no one else was there. Owen and I got a little tired of the carosel right next to it. :o)











Charlie is too cool for his glasses. You need the 3d glasses for the midway mania ride which is cool as heck. My high score? 167,000. Not really very good when the daily high scores are like 490,000. Hmmm... I'll have to surf the internet and find the secrets.











Finding nemo. It is surprising that so many people wait in line for this thing. There was never any wait for pirates of the caribbean, space mountain, splash mountain (mom's favorite), indiana jones, big thunder mountain, and buzz light year. The longest wait was midway mania, which was about 25 minutes. Nemo was about 20 minutes too.











Mom and Seth and the girls went on tower of terror (behind us). Charlie and I and Owen wanted our picture taken with Mr. Incredible. You can see that the rain blew over periodically, long enouch for us to take our rain ponchos off.


We had a blast. The time came and went too fast, as all vacations do.

Festive Christmas Fotos

Here are some photos we took during our Christmas celebration.









The kids made gingerbread houses out of graham crackers and frosting and a million candies, most of which are still stuck in my teeth.











Charlie and Seth as 'wise men' in new pajamas.















Owen as Joseph and Maddie as Mary. Mr. Tibbs as [insert favorite barn animal]









Me as the over-emotional Narrator (in new pajamas.)












Here's the picture of our house on the day after Christmas. It started snowing Christmas eve, and snowed most of the night. It then continued to snow all day on Christmas day. It was awesome and cozy--a story-book Christmas morning.










The hill in our back yard is a 'winter wonderland.'










Audrey got a new stocking cap. Isn't she cute!











My brothers and their families came over the day after Christmas for dinner. Both my parents and Jenny's parents are on missions in Canada. We got some tukes from my parents and thought we'd make a little tribute.



It was a great Christmas. We love this time of year. Lots of time spent with the family, lots of good food and a general feeling of happiness and unity. We love each other very much and are glad for the time together.

Owen's "concentrating" mouth

I was watching Owen draw pictures of the local climbing gym the other day. It had lots of O's (his favorite letter) for the handholds and himself climbing them. The best thing about when Owen colors is his mouth. When he is concentrating really hard he sticks his tongue out and swishes it around. Think about it a little-- we all do it. When I am concentrating I ball up my little chin. What do you do??

Mister Tibbs

We have added a little dog to our zoo. His name is Tibbs… Let me relate to you how he came to join our little family.

It was a girls night out!!! Dad loves these or so he thought until the girls arrived home with a special package. Girls night out = boys stay at home and shoot one another via the computer. Good deal for both parties.

The story really starts August 1^st 2006 in which Maddie received a rat which she lovingly called Lucy. Unfortunately Lucy was the stunt rat used in many horror flicks. If you got near her cage she would look peacefully at you until she detected you were close enough to draw blood. She would shoot out at you barring her teeth ready to enjoy the taste of the blood spurting from your nose, or finger. Needless to say we told Maddie that her pet was going to disappear and never come back…. No further explanation needed.

Madeline was sad. Any who knows Madeline know of her loving nature. "I know Lucy wanted to kill us but…" No buts Maddie I am starting to have bad dreams of a rat escaping it's cage…

So it was February, Lucy the rat had magically disappeared (evil laugh inserted here). I felt somewhat guilty so as we were driving by the Petsmart on our girls night out we stopped to look at hopefully non-violent rodents. Unfortunately it happened to be "Adopt a Dog" night. We had fun perusing the doggies. One doggie was whinning—pass we have enough of that already. They had the usual assortment of big doggies one who desperately needed to go out…he left a nice stinky package for all of the Petsmart patrons to enjoy. Then there were 2 little doggies, very rodent like actually. Our mistake was holding one of them… He had this pleading look in his eyes. We could tell immediately that he loved us and wanted to come home with us. Audrey began begging "Please mom he's so cute."

I say "Who will water and feed him?"

Audrey "I will mom I promise"

I gave her the look. She tends to love all of our animals for at least a week…

I look away from her "Maddie what do you think? This would be a replacement animal for you (since her other birthday animal disappeared) it is your decision."

"I don't know Mom I think I want a little rodent type animal"

OK great! Audrey stays with Tibbs while Madeline and I peruse the rodent isles. Truth be told—I dislike caged animals, they look at you with that imprisoned desperate look and spend there lives on a wheel that goes nowhere… At that moment I decided that I was done with caged animals besides Jeff was the one that liked rats and he wasn't there (insert another evil laugh). I diplomatically talked Madeline out of the rodent idea and into the cute little dog.

I paid for him signed all of the papers stating that "I would care for him as long as we both shall live". It seemed quite that serious the adopt a dog lady seemed as if she might hunt me down if I didn't. Need less to say about 10 seconds later I had buyers remorse. I had a cell phone, I hadn't bothered to call Jeff I already knew what he would say. My motto is that sometimes it is better to beg forgiveness. My girls and I began concocting stories. We found him on the side of the road nearly killed the poor chap or he was in the garage can we keep him? I knew if I said that Jeff would make me take him to the pound—I would have to face serious adopt a dog lady or Jeff. Do you suppose they have doggie adoption enollment?? So we had to tell the truth. Confess and forsake your sins- this is the worst part, would he our wonderful father and husband forgive us?

So we hid him between us and entered the house. We found them in the office, as expected, electronically shooting one another. We walked in rather sheepishly "Dad we have a surprise…. don't get mad…. and sorry." The look he gave us when he saw the little animal was one of utter disbelief and how could you do this to me?

Months later we absolutely love our little dog. He give us circles when we get home, snuggles and amazingly doesn't pee in the house. One low point—he loves to poop in Charlies room.

The moral of the story, husbands beware of Girls night out…. It might not be as good as it seems.

Christmas Letter Substitute

Jenny convinced me that instead of "publishing" a long Christmas letter this year, that we should take a more "modern" approach to tricking our acquaintances into reading our long family history. Her argument is that "if they don't want to read all your drivel Jeff, then they just won't." Isn't she nice?

So here it is, our entry into the blogosphere.


First of all, let us just say that Audrey is a full-on teenager now. Not that she wasn't before, (I mean technically, she has been a teenager since she was 13, right?). But it doesn't really settle in until they start going to high school, and *wince* driving. She attends Weber High as a Sophomore which she likes a lot. She doesn't like her Chemistry class though.
"It has too much math." she says.
"Audrey, EVERYTHING has math." I say.
"Yeah, I know, but math is such a pain. It's so BORING."
Me: "Yeah, I understand. Too bad *all* classes can't be as gripping 'Foods,' huh?"
"DAAAAD..."

Ironically, she is doing pretty well in her Algebra class. She's also doing amazingly well with her piano study. As of this writing she is preparing two pieces to participate in a competition. An impromptu by Franz Shubert, and "something from the Classical era," she says. She still also plays the viola beautifully. It is really great to have our house filled with music. Lastly, she seems to be doing pretty well navigating the danger-filled waters of teenager-land. She is respectful and happy, and seems to have good friends. She's kind (most of the time) to her siblings and helps her mom and only wants to go shopping 2 or 3 times a week. And we can usually get her to do unsavory things like work in the yard, or baby-sit by bribing her with "iTunes."


We also took up rock climbing this summer. Here's Audrey and some of our friends in St. George (Crawdad Canyon). Audrey is pretty good at climbing, and even has a few 5.10's under her "harness."




But we suspect this is the real reason Audrey likes rock-climbing. Lots of boys.










Charlie and I have the same sense of humor; he makes me laugh my head off. After reading uncle Brian's "Zombie Survival Guide" earlier this summer, Charlie and I purchased a copy for our own preparations. He regularly quizzes me on my knowledge of the subject: "Dad, what's better for get-aways in a zombie out-break? A motorcycle or a bicycle? You'd think a motorcycle right? But you'd be wrong, a motorcycle makes too much noise. That's a broadcast to any zombie within earshot: 'dinner is served!' "

He's also playing the piano wonderfully, is attending Snow Crest Jr. High and he is a pretty good boy scout. He's almost 13 and he is full of all manner of good-natured mischief. He still plays legos, loves computer games, is a pretty good strategist (he'll beat his dad regularly at chess and StarCraft). This is a great picture of the face charlie makes most of the time. "Dad! What are you thinking!?"




Note the look of glee on Charlie's face in this picture. Smashing younger siblings is also a favorite pass-time. This is a great picture of our back yard in the summer, btw. We live in really cool place.






Madeline is a beautiful 10 year old.

She is never far from her little doggie. She loves her younger brothers and is very motherly toward them. She brushes their teeth and reads them stories and lays by them and sings them songs when they go to bed. Instead of yelling for mom and dad 13 times, they yell for MAAAAAAAADIEEEEEEE! She brings them a drink of water or makes sure the hallway light is on. What a blessing she is!

She is home-schooled right now and her mom keeps her pretty busy. She plays the piano and the violin and is also an excellent rock climber. Her strength-to-weight ratio allows her to climb amazingly hard things. She can do like 12 chin-ups. I think she mostly likes climbing because it gives her a chance to be with us. She just loves to be with people.

Here's a picture of maddie going off a jump that we built on the sled hill in our back yard. Note the wad of snow in her face. Also note Charlie's position. Coincidence? I think not... Nice air, Maddie!






Seth is a super intelligent little man. He has an amazing little inquisitive personality. Here he is with a pizza that he made.
I also wake up sometimes on saturday moring to the smell of sizzling 'little smokie sausages' that he knows how to cook by himself. There are not many things that he can't figure out how to do. He loves to play outside, loves to play on the computer, and loves to watch the "backyardigans."

He and owen get along really well. Of course they tussle over this and that, but for the most part they are pretty good friends. Seth is also really helpful, and if you ask him, there are few things he wouldn't do for you. Seth is also home-schooled. He hasn't started playing an instrument yet, but thinks he'd like to play the piano and "maybe the violin."

He loves to collect things--he has a nice collection of rocks. He collects bugs too, but most of all he likes moths. He has captured all kinds of interesting moths in our yard. He's also a pretty good climber, but he doesn't like to go very high. This picture is of a little climbing wall we built in our garage...







Owen is out of control. This picture is awesome, as it demonstrates his hair in complete rebelious mode which matches his personality well. But note also the look of complete innocence on his face. His mother can never get him in trouble because of just how darn cute he is. He's also the 5th child, which puts him in the same position as Jenny and that causes an amazing amout of understanding and sympathy from his mother. He is so much fun! He is funny, mischevious, happy-go-lucky, light-hearted and clever. But he is so honest that it is hilarious. I overheard a conversation between Jenny and Owen the other day:

Jenny: "Owen, you are such a good boy!"
Owen [thinks about it for a minute] "No, mom, sometimes I'm naughty."



Well, this has gone on plenty long. We'll try to keep the blog up to date. It is kind of fun to put stuff up here and hear your comments. We hope you are all doing well. We are doing great. People are healthy, we live in a wonderful place, we have great neighbors and things are going fine at work. The kids are getting to the age now where we can really go and do lots of fun things together as a family. We are excited for skiing this winter, and family vacations in the summer. We hope you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Jeff Loves Jenny

Jeff would like to make sure that everyone who reads this blog knows that Jeff loves Jenny.

--jeff