Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We thought we'd help you enjoy the day by sharing some fun pictures.

Mark is now a tractor driving expert. . . or at least he can pose as such.

Mostly he likes to play video games and read.

Here's the dangerous Sadie-Fett.

Sadie watches what Marthe does. . . and then when Marthe is not looking. . . she tries to do the same things. In this case, Marthe was pounding sewing things with the hammer. . . Marthe was in the other room when all of a sudden she heard some pounding. . . this is what she found:

Sadie likes to go down the slides at the rink.

Anna didn't enjoy it so much.

The new Blast Zone is really cool. Everyone had a blast. . . get it. . . :)

Marthe got a good work out by taking kids down the slide over and over and over.

The boys think they can get lots of prizes with the tickets that they didn't pay anything to win.

Spencer made a turkey costume in preschool. He really has fun at preschool.

I got the christmas lights up on the house. . . I'm so excited.

Funny Old Home Video

So we found this funny clip the other night and decided to do a bit of editing to make it even funnier. Perhaps it is funnier when it is your own kids and it is time for bed. . . but Marthe and I were laughing for quite a while. So we thought we'd share it with you.

Fun Times in California

We enjoyed our vacation to California to see my grandparents.
Who knew that road construction in the middle of Nevada could be so fun. The following video shows how funny the little bumps on the side of the road are. . . you know. . . the ones that are supposed to keep you awake.


We stopped by the Reno Temple. It is the first small temple that I have seen up close. . . even though I have worked on several of them.

Tuesday was really stormy and rainy.

Wednesday before lunch we walked around downtown Sutter Creek and let the boys & Marthe peek in the windows. They always have good window displays.

Marthe caught a frog while we were wandering down there. No doubt it was out with all the wet weather the previous day.

Later on Wednesday, we drove in to Sacramento and went to the train museum. We all had a great time there. There are so many cool things to see.

They had lots of toy train displays along with the full-size trains. It is amazing how decked-out some of the train interiors are. Too bad the normal airplane cabins aren't as cool as old train cars. It kind of takes the fun out of traveling. Now they just try and distract you from how uncomfortable it is with a movie. Old trains would have been a really cool experience.

We helped Grandpa pick walnuts. Luckily no one came out with black hands. Apparently if you pick up walnuts without gloves, your hands will turn black and they will not go back to the regular color for about a month. Nothing will take the stain out. . . soap. . .turpentine. . . nothing. It was fun doing a chore that was a bit different than the usual ranch chores I have helped out with over the years. This is the first time I have been down there during walnut season.

We got home without too much trouble. Sadie barfed once. She is the only one of our kids who has ever gotten car sick. It wasn't a big deal. . .fairly tramatic for her. . . but she settled back down after we cleaned her up pretty quick.

First Lost Tooth

Tommy lost his first tooth today.
He had to be bribed to let me pull it out.
I learned how to pull out teeth from the Berenstain bear's book about going to the dentist.
So I just got a napkin, got a good grip and quickly pulled up.

Tommy was quite shocked that it came right out and didn't really hurt.
Mark never let me pull any of his teeth out.
Tommy is a little more die hard. . . especially if there is a good bribe.
Uncle Swayne gave him $1.50 for his bravery.
Here's the proud Tommy.

The State Fair

We made our anual trip to the State Fair. We saw lots of white trash, stinky animals, ghetto rides and got to tell our kids "no" a lot. But they were able to come home with a lot of free vendor junk that will probably get thrown away today. . .
We did go dow the big slide which is always fun. And we did the "Little Hands on the Farm" which the kids really enjoy. . . because they get a treat at the end.

Spencer Blowing Out Candles

St. George Trip - July 2009

We recently took a trip down to St. George.
My brother-in-law's family has a condo down there.
His family was going down and so we went with them.
We spent a lot of time in the indoor pool because outside was so hot.
Here's my niece McKenzie:

Here's another niece. . Michaela.

The other kid seems familiar. . . but he's too crazy to be mine. . . or maybe not. Here's another niece. . . Maddie
Michaela and Sadie spent a lot of time together. Sadie calls her kaka. . . somewhat amusing. . .

We took one day to drive down to Vegas and enjoy the aquarium at the Mandolay Bay casino.
We stopped by the M&M factory while we were down there so we could buy some M&Ms at twice the price that you can buy them at a regular store. Spencer had his birthday while we were down there. There were some candles there luckily. . . the funny part was that they were the re-lighting type.

We went to sacrament meeting down there before coming home. Before church the kids enjoyed playing with everything in the kitchen.
On the way home we tried to see a ghost town at Silver Reef, but it was pretty disappointing. However, we did stop at Cove Fort which was a much better historical stop. Cove Fort was the crossroads of a couple main routes for the telegraph, mail and travel in central Utah.

For more information on the fort go to : www.covefort.com

It was a nice break from the car.

There were missionaries there to give guided tours, so it took a bit longer than expected, but was more informative than just looking at the rooms and fort would have been.

Sadie enjoyed it.

Here's the big front doors. and a cute family.

(On a side note I noticed that the hinges to the doors leave the pins on the outside of the fort when the doors are closed. . . so when the doors were closed, someone could potentially pop the pins of the hinges and pull the doors off. . . so I guess it is good the never had any battles here. The fort was recently restored. . . so the hinges on the wrong side could have been a result of the restoration).

Anyway, it was a fun .

Rub a Dub Dub. . . A Bunch of Kids In a Kiddie Pool

After a fun day playing on the big slide, it was time to relax with the cousins in the pool.

Sadie enjoys singing.

Fireworks on the 4th were fun.

I Love Synth Pop . . . Especially From The Experts

So I forgot to post a review on this one back when I bought it a month or so ago. I get way too excited when my favorite artists come out with a new album. It is so satisfying when it is a really good album. Lately other of my favorite artists have put out albums that are ok, but "Yes", the new album from the Pet Shop Boys, is fun, happy and a beautiful example of lyrical and electronic architecture.

Every once and a while I dig around for some good new synth pop and find some artists that are really good at making their machines make some great ear candy, but pretty much all of them fail when it comes to lyrics and a good tune that you can enjoy even when the music turns off.

Hats off to the Pet Shop Boys, this may be my favorite album after Behaviour.

Track Listing:

01 Love Etc. - Some good synth sounds, a fun bouncy beat, creative lyrics

02 All Over the World - A good fusion of classical motifs and modern electronic sounds. It has a unique rhythm that is very catchy.

03 Beautiful People - Reminds me of some of their B-side songs, apparently made for a TV show called Beautiful People in Europe somewhere. . . with that background, it sounds very much like a TV opening/closing song.

04 Did you See Me Coming? - By far my favorite song on the album. All the classic dancy beat of old pet shop boys with great new electronic ear candy and great melody & lyrics.

05 Vunerable - It is interesting lyrically, the synth is fairly basic, but the bridges give the whole piece the feel of one of those screen savers that you keep watching even though there isn't much to it.

06 More Than A Dream - Good ear candy. Would be cool to disco skate to. Very dynamic and well orchestrated.

07 Building A Wall - Good blending of lower notes & electrical sounds during chorus.

08 The King of Rome - Ok. . .so maybe I have two favorite songs on this one. This one is just so full of feeling. It reminds me of something far away that I can't reach. It takes me back to the days of listening to "Jealousy" in the underground hut Jared built and takes me far ahead to speculate what the future has in store. . . . listening to it right now. . . I'll enjoy this one for the long term much more than track 04.

09 Pandemonium - This one would be good to skate to . . too. This one is just fun, upbeat and very Pet Shop Boys as only Pet Shop Boys can do.

10 The Way It Used To Be - Really good new synth sounds/blends. Would be good for driving across the desert of Nevada, through Canyonlands or Arch's. .

11 Legacy - This one is probably trying a bit to hard to be interesting. Some complex key

changes with a political march feel to the beat. The least interesting of all the tracks.

12 Love Etc. (Pet Shop Boys Dub) - This one was a fun extra track for the album because it gave me one of those fun extra mixes that I used to get only by buying the related single. Might make a good launch ramp song or a speed skate song. . . . maybe a blackout skate with a really good light show with some programmed track light patterns and occasional bursts of strobes. . . and really loud bass.

13 (Yes Track by Track Commentary by Neil and Chris) - It is nice to hear artists talking about their own music. It is nice to hear how normal their personalities are and the little things they find funny about the whole album-making process.

Good Album.

If you like the Pet Shop Boys, this is one to add.

Cool Clouds & Fun Dinosaurs

I got off the bus today and this is basically what I saw. To the right was clear skies, to the left was completely gray. This was in the middle. . . . so I took a picture. . . only my camera was on low res. so you don't get all the cool detail in the could. Oh well.
We went to the Ogden dinosaur park the other day. It was fun. Sadie likes dinosaurs a lot. She says rarrrr whenever she sees a dinosaur toy, on tv, and so at the park. . . that is pretty much all we heard from her.

Introducing The Sisty Uglers

So she finally did it. Marthe is online with her sewing talent at Etsy. Her sister has been prodding her to do it for a long time now. Lately, however, Marthe has delved into sewing clothes and that turned into making a few outfits for Sadie, a couple purses and even some of her own patterns. She's actually pretty excited about it which is fun.

So she is building her inventory and learning what it is like to have a small web business. Anywho. . . . I've posted a permanent link on my page to the right, so you can visit her site and see what she's up to anytime.

Enjoy!

www.thesistyuglers.etsy.com