A good time was had by all. Even the "I can't do it, but really he can" scout had a good time.

 
Thu, 23 Oct 2008

GRUESOME

T-y receives a vocabulary word every Wednesday. He has to then take that word and and make a poster doing the following:
1. Write the word on a paper that can be clearly seen from across the room.
2. Define the word in kid language.
3. Write a complete sentence using the word.
4. Use colors.
5. Use a pop-out.
6. Quality work.

T-y's word was "gruesome". I printed out an 8x10 picture of T-y, and here is the poster that he put together.

 
Wed, 22 Oct 2008

Literary Response #3

While we were in Colorado, T-y wanted to make a video for his literary response to the book "The Bridge to Terabithis. T-y wanted to file his response because of a small bridge that spans one of the irrigation ditches at my Grandmas house. It took Shantell and the kids about 35 minutes to rehearse it. The acting was superb, while the editing is not. So, if you cant say anything nice about the editing then don't say anything at all.

The class really enjoyed the video.

 
Sun, 19 Oct 2008

Welcome to Colorful Colorado!

We took a trip to see my grandmother in Colorado over the UEA break. Shantell and Amanda haven't seen Grandma K since her stroke. We left Wednesday night around 4 and got there around 10. The kids spent most of the 6 hour drive glued to the DVD screens watching movies. That is until Amanda broke one of the screens. Good thing there were two other screens to watch movies on. Otherwise the 6 hour drive would have seem like 87 hours.

T-y and I are early risers, so we were up at the crack of dawn, 6:00, and went out exploring the ranch. We saw a beautiful sunrise, countless wild ducks, a fox, some pheasants, two bucks, an eagle, and three does. The only thing that we didn't see was a partridge in a pear tree.

Grandma K wasn't aware that we were coming, so it was fun surprising her at breakfast. She still doesn't have the use of her right side, but her mind is as sharp as ever. We talked about a lot of things, especially of my childhood memories at the ranch. It boosted my spirits to talk to her and to see that she is doing better then the last time that I saw her.

After breakfast the kids and I went exploring the ranch. Amanda didn't want me taking any pictures of her because she didn't have her makeup on. I told her Max Factor doesn't make her pretty. Needless to say, I was only allowed to post this one picture.

The kids were going a little stir crazy after lunch, so we took them to the city park. Amanda was content sitting on the park bench checking out a number of boys that were playing at the park.

The day ended with a beautiful sunset.

The next day I had to take my Aunt and Uncle Galbraith to the airport in Montrose. On my way home I stopped at a yard sale and found a very nice orange jump suit. An orange jump suit that prisoners wear in jail. So I bought it. I bought it with one mission in mind; To wear it while hitchhiking. I knew the perfect spot to wear it. More on that latter....

The gentlemen that rents out grandmas pasture let us use his four wheeler to ride around in grandmas pastures. It was a hit. I think the kids and I spent just under 2 hours riding around on it. The only mistake I made was to let Bre, aka "Speed Deamon", drive. I don't think it went fast enough for her. T-y now wants to buy some and keep them at the ranch so we can ride them when we go over there. He figures that he will inherit the ranch when I die. Here is a blurb of the conversation we had about it.

T-y: Who gets the ranch when Grandma K dies?
Me: Probably Grandma Berrett
T-y: So that means that I will get it when you die.
Me: Huh?
T-y: You will inherit the ranch when Grandma Berrett dies and I will inherent the ranch when you die.
Me: How do you figure?
T-y: Rus won't want the ranch cause he loves living in Washington, so you will inherit it cause you are the second oldest. Then I will inherit it from you when you die.
Amanda: Um, T-y I am the oldest so I would inherit it.>
T-y: You wouldn't want it cause you couldn't live without the big city. Plus, you have cow crap on your pants.

That was the end of the conversation.

Later that night we went out to dinner at Aspen Trails. The food isn't anything fancy, but they have a "Tony Scoop". Grandma and I talked while we were waiting for the food. During the course of the conversation Grandma smiled and laughed out loud. This nearly made me cry. I was able to catch a fleeting moment of what she used to be like before her stroke. According to mom, getting her to laugh was a rare treat. In fact, my mom couldn't remember the last time that she heard her mother laugh.

A Tony Scoop is a quart of ice cream packed on a cone. After dinner I got the family single and double scoop cones, and I ordered the Tony Scoop. There are about 15 giant scoops of ice cream on a itty bitty ice cream cone. T-y wanted one, but I think the cone weighs more then him.

We had a great time at Grandma K's. On the way home I stopped the car, put on the orange jump suit and snapped the following picture. The faces of of the people driving by were priceless.

What a Lovely MuuMuu You Have.

My dad is the girls volleyball coach at Cottonwood High School. He was in Colorado while I was there. While there, he was telling me about how he has "Wacky Wednesday" practices. The concept is that the girls are able to wear whatever outfit they want to practice on Wednesdays. The only condition of this event is that the girls have to be able to practice in their chosen outfit. My dad is a pretty no nonsense type of fellow, so it was a shock to me when he said that he actively participated in Wacky Wednesdays.

This event reminded me of a similar activity that I created at work about 8 years ago. I established "Fashion Faux Paux Fridays". It only lasted about a month, but I sure was able to find some great outfits to wear on those Fridays. One of the outfits was a rainbow colored MuuMuu. I told my dad that it would make a perfect outfit for him to wear to Wacky Wednesdays. He is a picture of dad sporting the MuuMuu.

He said that the girls absolutely loved it! In fact I think they voted the MuuMuu their all time favorite Wacky Wednesday outfit. Good thing that I have such an eye for fashion.

Here is a picture of one of the outfits that I wore on Fashion Faux Paux Friday.

I am trying to convince dad to wear the orange jumpsuit, but he is refusing to.

 
Tue, 14 Oct 2008

Brielle and her socks

Brielle is a sock-o-holic. She likes to wear socks. She eats, sleeps, and practically does everything with socks on. In fact, the only time she is without socks is when she is taking a bath. She doesn't even like to run barefoot through the grass. She says "Things itch my feet so I gotta wear socks".

Her choice of socks today reminded me of a high school friend that I had. His name is Jared Young and he is the head chef at theFaustina restaurant in SLC.. It's not that Jared had to wear socks all the time, it's that he never wore matching socks. He didn't care if one sock was an ankle cut sock and the other sock was a multicolored knee high soccer sock. Socks were socks to him. Brielle is of his same opinion; socks are socks.

Procrastination is spelled A-M-A-N-D-A

It seems that Amanda put off her science project and book report project until last night. She had all weekend to work on them, but somehow she forgot about them. She and Shantell stayed up until midnight working on the projects.

Her science project was titled "Ice Ice Baby". Here is what she did with her project:

Question

If I put one gallon of ice in one container and one cup of ice in the other, which one will melt at a higher temperature?

Hypothesis

If I measure the temperature of the different amounts of ice when the start melting then they will be the same.

Conclusion

Both pictures of ice started at the same temperature and melted at the exact same temperature.

For the book report thingy, Amanda made a merry-go-round of pictures based on one of those "Twilight" books. Her pictures included a vampire, a warewolf, some shredded pillows, a broken headboard, feathers, bruises, a clawing fetus, and other pictures. It turned out really nice.

 
Sat, 11 Oct 2008

BYU Game

Johnny had 4 tickets to the BYU game today. Only Reese wanted to go with him, so he asked T-y and I if we would like to go. Being that it was such a beautiful day, T-y and I decided to go. The game was fantastically boring. We sat on the 50 yard line in section 105 Row 10. Pretty decent seats. The score at halftime was BYU 7 New Mexico 3. The score at the end of the game was BYU 21 New Mexico 3. The temperature at the end of the game was 39. T-y had a good old time and didn't complain about how cold it was.

 
Thu, 09 Oct 2008

'Cause this Is Thriller, Diller Night

For Thursday Stretch Your Legs Night, we took the family to see Odyssey Dance Theatre Thriller show. The Owens and us have seen at Kingsbury Hall in SLC. Ever since we saw it, we have been wanting to take the kids to the show. I was reading the newspaper this morning and noticed that they are performing at the Covey Center for the Arts October 9th-11th. Shantell just about jumped out of her skin when I told her this. She called Andrea and they had purchased the tickets by 8:30am.

Some of the members of the cast were dressed as zombies and wandered throughout the auditorium before and after the show. These zombies would do their darnedest to scare the digested food waste out of you. This is something that Brielle really didn't like.

I was sitting next to Johnny and kept telling him that I was going to scream my lungs out if one came up behind me. Shantell was a zombie magnet, so Brielle sat on my lap; that is until a zombie came up behind me. My blood curdling scream brought Brielle (sorry Brielle) to tears and made the people in front me jump out of their seats. It was way funny. (sorry Brielle)

The stage wasn't as big as the one in Kingsbury Hall, so they weren't able to use some of their props. The lack of props is probably my only complaint about the show. My favorite dace was "Dem Bones". In the dance, the stage is lit up by black lights and the dancers, dressed in black jumpsuits and maskes, dance around the stage in white shoes. Some of the shoes even appear to be dancing in the air. After a bit, the dancers take off the jumpsuits which reveals their skeleton costume. So now it appears as if skeletons are dancing on the stage. It is very cool. Brielle liked the "River Dance of Blood" and T-y liked the "Sugar Plum Fairy" dance. I can't remember what dance Amanda and Shantell said they liked. The only dance that wasn't well liked by any of us was "Lost Boys".

Don't waste your money on haunted houses this Halloween; waste it on Thriller!!!

P.S. Amanda is available to babysit for those that want to go see this without your kids.

 
Wed, 08 Oct 2008

Jr. Bob

Today, Brielle asked me the following question.

"Can I call you Jr. Bob?"

We then carried on the following conversation:

Me: Why do you want to call me Jr. Bob?
Brielle: Cause your dad is named Bob.
Brielle: Jr. means you're littler than your dad.
Brielle: and you're both named Robert. Me: Ok. You can call me that.
Brielle: Jr. Bob! Jr. Bob!
Me: What?
Brielle: Hi Jr. Bob

Brielle is such a funny little girl. I love having conversations with her. She says the most random things. We were shopping for her Halloween costume on Saturday, she is going to be a Black Night Power Ranger. She doesn't like to wear girly clothes or costumes. We stopped for lunch at the Berrett Cafe. While there she out of the blue informed me that her favorite number is 324. I think she chose that number because she was reading the nutritional label of her chocolate milk. I guess it is never to early to worry about your calorie and fat intake.

Brielle has been working hard lately learning to tie her own shoes. I had to help her a little bit, but she basically learned how to tie them all by herself. She is pretty proud of this accomplishment and wanted me to fill her doing it. Why did she want me to film it? SO I could post it on YouTube.

We also went on a bike ride on Sunday. She loves to ride her bike, especially since it is T-y's old bike and not Amanda's old pink bike. I think she likes it better cause it has a "water carrier" on it. I asked her where she wanted to ride, and said Amelia Earhart; she wanted to see if she could ride all the way to her elementary school. I told her that she had to lead us there and that we would have to turn around if she got lost. She said "alright" and took off like a bat outta hell. She led the hole way, only stopping once to get a drink. It took us about 25 minutes to get there. She is such a schemer! I think she wanted to ride to the school so she can say that she can and that she knows the way to get there. I can't wait until she asks to ride her bike to school.

 
Wed, 01 Oct 2008

Pinewood Derby

T-y participated in his third and final pinewood debry as a cub scout today. He took 1st place his 1st year, 4th place his 2nd year, and was looking to take 1st place this year. He and I created the following car:

We were both hoping that this design would bring home the 1st place trophy. We choose this design hoping that having more lead weight then wood weight would burn up the track. The race track never caught fire, and T-y's placed fifth. He should have taken fourth cause the boy that took third used his brothers car from last year. If I had know that I could have used an older car, then I would have used the one that I made last year. It set the track on fire and beat last years winner by at least a car lengh. Oh well. T-y had a great time. His best friend Reese.

The best part about building a car this year was painting it. For the past 7 years or so the Webelos den have gotten to paint their cars using automotive paint. A gentlemen in the ward graciously donates the paint and his time to help the Webelos paint their cars. I think he just uses it as an excuse to make his own car. Since T-y is a Webelo scout, he was able to do this. I was lucky enough to also be able to paint my car this way as well. It wasn't very fast, but it sure looks good.

I was the cubmaster in 2005 and was in charge of the pinewood derby. During that derby I had to put together the race heats. I found the following website that describes how to setup the heats based on the number of racers and number of track lanes. It was a lifesaver. I also created drivers licenses for the kids. I have been asked back each year to continue this wonderful tradition. Here is what T-y license looked like this year: