Busted

BYU is still number 1 in our hearts even if they didn't win the bowl game

Since we're too far away from Las Vegas to go to the BYU bowl game, we happily accepted the invitation to the Alpers' house for bowl game festivities. Also invited to the party were the Schneiders as the token Arizona fans. As part of our pre-game activites, we decided a little prank was in order. We went to the Schneiders and decorated their car in appropriate fashion for a BYU tailgating party. We intended to slip in quietly, do the job and then slip away unnoticed. Along the way, we made several mistakes. Learn from these follies, dear readers, so that you do not repeat them.


The root beer cans (noncaffeinated) were the final touch

Mistake No. 1: Pulling a prank in the daylight. The game started a little less than an hour after dark, so we would have been pushing it to be able to get the job done before the Schneiders had to leave for the party. So we decided it was worth the risk of going out in the light. As I walked up to the Schneiders' driveway, I looked around, decided things were safe and went to work. The windows of the first van were soon decorated, and I slipped under the van to start tying soda cans to the car. At this point, I was surprised to hear the sound of a small voice, one that didn't belong to one of our children. "My friend used to live here. Did he move?" I assured the small red-headed child that his friend did still live here and that we were just decorating his family's car. "I'm going to knock on the door and see if he still lives here." Evidently this boy didn't believe my assurances and wanted to see for himself. I begged him to wait until after I was done with the cans and then he could knock on the door. This seemed to do the trick and the neighbor boy continued to chat with me as I worked on the van.

Mistake No. 2: Assuming that the target wouldn't have a lookout. As I initially approached the Schneider house, I looked over the front yard and the windows of the house to make sure I wasn't going to be spotted. "You have nothing to worry about," Teressa told me. "They're never out front." And so it appeared at the beginning of our adventure. Up to the point when I slid under the back of their van, I had managed to go unnoticed by our targets. Of course, as I'm talking to the neighbor boy all of a sudden he says, "There's a man painting in there." This doesn't sound good, but I can't see the front of the house, so the significance is somewhat lost on me at this point.

Mistake No. 3: Pulling a prank with our children in tow. You know they won't sit quietly in the car waiting for me to finish vandalizing the Schneiders' car. Both of the boys wanted to be out of the car. And if they are out of the car they certainly couldn't hold still. And none of our boys has ever been known as the silent type. In fact, I would say that both Mason and Spencer display an utter lack of ninja skills. (The book is still out on Sam.) The red-headed kid was right. At this point, Randy was up in the second floor front bedroom overlooking the driveway, and he had already seen both Mason and Spencer, though he hadn't seen me and didn't realize what we were up to at that time.

Mistake No. 4: Not pre-tying the string to the soda cans. In retrospect, If I had strung up the soda cans before we went to the Schneiders, I could have just tied them to the car and we could have been on our way. Next time I will know better. As things were progressing, Teressa became impatient with the wait and decided to wander over to help decorate the other van that was parked out in the street. She didn't properly reconnoiter the surroundings, however and totally missed seeing the man standing in the window over the driveway. Randy saw her slink over to his van and start painting the windows. He alerted Cassie and the next thing I know, I hear her shouting, "What do you think you're doing!" At this point I couldn't hold it back any longer and I busted up laughing. That's the only reason they knew I was there. I guess even my ninja skills need a little work.

Fortunately the Schneiders were good sports about the prank. Of course, after BYU lost they returned the favor by decorating our van while it sat in the church parking lot the next day. But then there were those University of Utah shirts they gave us for Christmas. Now it's starting to get personal.

Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown

The boys were very intent on cutting down the tree

On Saturday we finally broke down and decided it was time to get a Christmas tree. Normally we have gone to get our tree on the weekend of Thanksgiving, but I was on call the day after Thanksgiving this year and we went to Seaworld for Spencer's birthday the day after that. By the time we made it to the Christmas tree farm, the place was looking pretty picked over. The tree we chose was certainly one of the more homely Christmas trees we have had. I know that if Teressa had her way, we would just go and pick out some fancy fake tree. The tree this year was so impressive that when Cassie Schneider walked through the door, the first thing she said was, "You got a Charlie Brown tree." It may not be the very tree that Charlie Brown had, but they may be cousins.

Yum, dirt

Nothing better than a fistful of dirt

According to the stories that my parents tell, when I was a child, it was quite common for me to go outside and feast on dirt. I ate so much dirt that it would pass straight through and when my parents changed my dirty diapers, they were literally filled with dirt. Perhaps this is a genetic proclivity. While we were out cutting our Christmas tree, I set Sam on the ground, and before I could stop him, he was grabbing fistfuls of dirt and shoving them in his mouth. I think we were able to stop him before his next diaper will be filled with nothing but dirt, though. Hmm, I wonder how this Texas soil compares with that tasty eastern Idaho volcanic loam?

Andy's dinner

Andy proves a blind man can learn new tricks


I thought about titling this post "Blind man fixes dinner, family survives." While Andy was visiting over Thanksgiving, Teressa decided to put him to work. So under her supervision, Andy fixed dinner. We had spaghetti and meatballs along with salad and bread. Andy did all the work himself. And yes, everyone lived to tell the tale.

Kiddie candids

This untitled self-portrait was found when the camera was connected to the computer for the first time

Spencer's big gift for his birthday was a children's digital camera. He has spent hours taking pictures with Teressa's camera phone, so we figured it would be a gift that he could get great enjoyment from. Evidently he wasn't the only one. In the first few days, the camera ran out of batteries twice. We were even starting to wonder if maybe the camera wasn't broken, at least until I hooked it up to the computer for the first time. On the camera I found 233 images, mostly photos of individual Pokemon cards, but also including the great photo you see above. After consulting with Teressa, I realized that she had already deleted numerous Pokemon card photos. It seems we solved the mystery of why the batteries were drained.

Mason's baptism

This photo in the hall was rushed, considering baptism to follow and Mason's dip in the font

After waiting nearly a month so that the grandparents could be here, we held Mason's baptism. We scheduled the church several weeks earlier and then made sure to spread the word to friends and family. We held the baptism after church, and since we were waiting for the bishop and some other friends while they were in a meeting, we decided to have a little lunch so that people wouldn't have to go home and then come back. While we were having lunch, the first councilor in the bishopric approached me and said, "Did you hear that the missionaries are at 5 o'clock?" My response: "No they're not. We have the building scheduled until 6."

OK, so I'm not really that difficult to deal with. We ended up moving Mason's confirmation to the chapel while the missionaries moved their meeting over to use the font right after we were done. Things ended up working out all right for everyone.

So, back to the photo caption. After Mason put on his white jumpsuit, I told him to go back into the other room, meaning the room where we were holding the opening part of the meeting, while I got dressed. A few minutes later Teressa pokes her head into the bathroom and tells me that I need to get Mason out of the font, now. It seems that Mason had misunderstood my directive to go back to the other room. He thought I wanted him to go to the font. By the time I went to go get him, he was doing the dog paddle. Teressa had been alerted to his hijinks by the sounds of his splashing. I fished him out of the font and had him put on a dry jumpsuit right before we took our photo in the hallway.

Happy belated birthday, Sam

The wait for his birthday cake seemed worthwhile for Sam

Samuel had been waiting for his birthday party for a while. Even though his birthday was on Oct. 23, we decided to wait to celebrate until his grandparents were in town for Mason's baptism. The best part is that Sam didn't even care. He was perfectly contented to wait until the cows came home to have his little party. He didn't even realize that we were holding out on gifts for him. And nothing could have lessened the pure, unadulterated joy he felt as he was mowing down that very first birthday cake. (OK, so it was mostly the icing.) At least by waiting, though, Sam's grandparents were able to participate in that first birthday ritual. Of course, the rest of us knew there was going to be cake the next day at Mason's baptism, so Sam was the only one to really pig out.

All for one

Sam certainly seemed to be enjoying himself, too, even though it was well past his bedtime.


Mason and Spencer enjoyed going trick-or-treating with the Schneider boys.

Ever since Mason was small, his Grandma Scott has been making his Halloween costume as a birthday present. When the other kids came along, we begged Grandma to make their costumes, too. We're lucky that Grandma is a softee. Of course that now means that Grandma is making three costumes instead of one, so she has to start preparing earlier. We had the costume idea and the pattern picked out over the summer this year.

This year the boys went out as the three musketeers (if you couldn't guess by looking at the photos above). They went to the ward trunk-or-treat and then I caught up with them after work, and we all went trick-or-treating with the Schneiders. And yes, those are mustaches that are painted on their faces.

Overheard

On Saturday we went to see Mason's karate graduation where he received his purple belt. Graduation is a big event with hundreds of parents and family members there to watch these kids get new belts. The event includes videos and music playing while the classes demonstrate different techniques. As I was listening to this music play, I initially thought I was hearing well-known popular music. Then I started paying more attention and realized that the tunes were those I was familiar with, but the words had been changed. The words had been changed to something more in line with evangelical christian tastes.

My favorite example was the song where this band had taken the song "Pour some sugar on me" and turned it into "Learn some Deuteronomy." But since "Deuteronomy" has one more syllable than "sugar on me," it came out sounding like, "Learn some dude-er-om-ny." At first, I wasn't sure whether the song was some strange joke, or whether the song was supposed to be serious. I found the song on iTunes, and supposedly the song is meant to be a parody, though I suspect the song is not meant to be as big a joke as it comes out sounding like. It goes to show that sometimes you don't have to try to be funny to be funny.

In case you are thinking that I am being a little too harsh on the tune thieving evangelical christian crowd, feel free to check out this column printed in September 2000 where I pillory the Mormon crowd who brought us Book of Mormon action figures, among other things. Boy I sound like a hothead.

I've never quite been able to get into the christian rock thing. I think the mix of religion and heavy metal is just too much for me to wrap my mind around. And I will admit I feel the same way about Mormon attempts to mix religion and popular music. (See the paragraph on Afterglow in the above column.) This experience has done nothing to sway my opinion.

Mason's party

Mason broke this board with one swift kick

Mason turned eight years old this week. In celebration, we rented the tae kwon do facility Mason goes to and invited 37 kids to come to a birthday party. Luckily for us, only 21 showed up. I'm not sure how we would have dealt with 37 kids. We were happy, however, to not have to plan activities for that many kids or have them running wild through our home. The kids had a good time playing games and running through different tae kwon do drills. Mason enjoyed being the center of attention. He even got to break a board with his foot. I managed to catch the photo of him above but unfortunately missed the look of utter surprise on his face when the board actually broke.

Conference craziness

Before General Conference this year, we read a story from the Friend about a family that put up tents to watch conference, just like the people put up tents around the temple to listen to King Benjamin in the Book of Mormon. Of course the kids thought that was a great idea and wanted to do it, too. As you can see from the photos above, the tent may have been more of a distraction than a helpful conference tool. Even certain adults were getting in on the fun.

Here little fishie

The panfish were biting on nymphs just like this.

In the two years we have lived in San Antonio, I have heard stories about how it was possible to fly fish on the Guadalupe River north of town. At some point, I found out there is a member of our ward who goes fly fishing every once in a while. After several months, Joe Zamarripa and I were finally able to make our schedules come together and we went fishing Saturday afternoon. Not only did we go fishing, we also got to kayak up the river for a ways to get to the fishing hole. Even Teressa was slightly jealous, and she has no patience for fishing.

The fishing here is a little different from what I had grown up with. The Gualalupe is a warm water fishery unless you are fishing right below the Canyon Lake dam. So we weren't fishing for trout. We were looking for bass and panfish. I had never fly fished for bass or panfish before. My other issue was that we were using wet flies. I had never had any success with wet flies in the past, but I was sure willing to try again. I tied on a fly and started to fish.

In the end, I hadn't caught so many fish in a long time. The panfish were biting on the bead head nymphs I had been holding onto for a long time. (I think I had gotten these flies from Dave Falkingham 10 years ago.) Later on, when I saw Brother Zamarripa catching bass I switched to a wooly bugger I had tied myself ... and caught more panfish. That's OK. I think the seven panfish I caught would almost add up to one of those bass.

Chain saws: Part 2

One week after heading down to Houston to do hurricane cleanup, I headed over to the Schertz animal shelter to help Cameron Alpers with his Eagle project. The project included cutting down brush and trees from behind the building and hauling it to some dumpsters. Once again the chain saws came out. This time I couldn't help it. The Schneiders had an extra chain saw sitting around and offered me a chance to use it. I just couldn't say no.

I've decided that chain saws are like crack. Only better. Way better. I could feel the testosterone surging through my body every time I felled a tree. I have to get one of these things. I even tried suggesting to Teressa that she could get me one for Christmas, but from her response, I would guess the odds are not good. I'll just have to be persistent. New contest: The person who comes up with the excuse that allows me to buy a chain saw will earn my undying affection and gratitude. What better reward could there be than that?

Cleaning up after Ike

These piles of brush on the side of the road are just part of the debris we gathered out of this yard.

The call went out last weekend for people to help clean up after Hurricane Ike, so a group of us from the Schertz Ward gathered up at 5 am Saturday morning to travel to Houston to help. The emails we received made it sound like we would be cleaning up after water damage, which would have meant smelly, nasty, moldy stuff. But fortunately, the places where we went had managed to stay above water, and we were able to stick with cleaning up after wind damage.


This is the group from the Schertz ward that went to help clean up after Hurricane Ike.

Our work consisted of using chain saws to cut up downed tree limbs and then hauling the logs to the edge of the road. (My work mostly consisted of hauling logs to the road since I promised Teressa I wouldn't handle the chain saws. Oh well, I'll have to find some other way to get my power tool fix.)

Be careful what you ask

Background information: Every Idaho state license plate is prefaced with a number and a letter. So it's easy for those of us familiar with the system to know where someone in Idaho lives just by looking at a license plate. The first councilor in our bishopric, Dan Taylor, is originally from Idaho. He has a car for sale, and I made a crack that he should be able to get an extra $500 just by switching his 1B license plates (Bannock county where he is from) for 8B plates (Bonneville county, where I grew up).

This led to a deeper philosophical discussion about how people from outside of the state would have no idea what the code stood for. To prove his point, Dan turned to some other members of the ward standing there and asked, "What does it mean if I tell you that I'm a 1B and he's (pointing to me) an 8B?"

The reply: "Well, if it were the other way around, I would figure it was your bra sizes."

BYU 59, UCLA 0

All eyes were on the tasty assortment of tailgating treats, including these candy eyeballs courtesy of the Schneiders.

After going the last two years with nothing but rabbit ears to provide television reception, we finally ponied up for cable TV. Perhaps the best part of finally getting cable, at least from my standpoint, is that we actually get to watch a few BYU football games. So as a special treat, Teressa decided to throw a tailgating party and invite a bunch of friends over to watch the game and eat lots of good food.


Attempts to use voodoo to stop the BYU onslaught proved to be futile, but the fact that Cassie Schneider is using a gummy heart might have made the spell a little less effective.

We had to invite the Alpers and the Hills since they are BYU fans. Then we decided to add a little spice to the mix by adding the Schneiders, since they aren't fans of BYU, but we enjoy their company anyway. Last of all we invited the Zamarripas to top it off.

Before the game started, the manfolk were discussing the possibility that this could be a close game. At that point I remember saying that I would be OK with a BYU win by a nice comfortable margin. Little did I suspect the shock and awe that was about to follow. The game was so one-sided that even poor Randy Schneider had to agree that it was a magnificent performance by BYU.


A BYU point for every year of Steve Alpers' life—plus a few extra.

At the finale of the game, we celebrated Steve Alpers' birthday. For my birthday can I pre-order a big-time BYU win at a BCS bowl?

Time for school

Spencer is pictured here with his preschool teacher Emily Ramos and with Marcus, her son.

It's that time of year again, when the kids go back to school and the house gets nice and quiet, at least for portions of the day. Mason is in second grade now, and Spencer is going to a friend's preschool. They were both very excited to start school, and I think Teressa was ready for summer to be over, too.

Taking the cake

Teressa knew she must have the cake mould for this cake for her Beehives.

A few weeks ago, Teressa was out shopping with her friends when she came across a cake pan in the shape of a beehive. Since Teressa is the leader of the Beehives at church, she took this as a sign that she must have the pan. To put the pan to the test, Teressa baked the cake pictured above. She even used the exact recipe that came on the pan. I would be the first to admit that Teressa did a fantastic job, though Teressa might be the first to admit that baking isn't usually her thing. Alas, Teressa gave the whole cake to a new Beehive who had just turned 12, and we didn't get to sample the final product. And since we don't have any girls in our family (unless you count Teressa, who turned 12 a long time ago), we may not get to taste this recipe for a long time.

Where shall we go?

The initial list of Army anesthesiology postings for next year was just released. The list won't be finalized until December, but the list does give us some idea where we may end up. Of course, there's some behind the scenes involved. What we can get will partly depend on what other people want. For instance, it would probably be very hard to get the slot in San Antonio because we know that someone else wants it. Anyway, the poll I've included is just for my own curiosity. We already have some ideas where we would like to go.

Girls will be girls

This Labor Day weekend, Teressa's best friends from high school, Julie Kern and Lynndy Hurdle, came to visit her from Mississippi. So Teressa decided to have a girls night out and left me with the three boys while she and her friends spent the night at the Riverwalk. (Of course, I was post-call, so I was perfectly happy to stay home and go to bed early. It was a win-win situation.) Teressa had a great time having her friends here, and so did the boys. I think Mason talked non-stop about Pokemon the whole time they were here. (I wouldn't be surprised if he was even talking about it in his sleep, but I didn't stay up to find out.)


Jenga was a big hit at Family Home Evening

On Sunday night we had Family Home Evening with the whole nine yards—lesson, treat, game and everything. To finish the evening, we played Jenga, the game a blind man can play with his whole family. (More on that in our upcoming Thanksgiving post.) As you can see from the photo above, Jenga was a smash. The next morning I got up bright and early and drove Julie and Lynndy to the airport on the way to work. Teressa is already missing them and looking forward to the next time they visit.

Arranging the furniture

It's not quite the same, but I think the room still looks nice.

Teressa loved what she had done with the boys' room. And she loved the symmetry of the room. I wasn't sure she would ever want to change it, but after spending the last two years with a collection of toys in the loft, Teressa decided that she had had enough. She was ready to move all of the toys into the boys' bedroom in the hopes that the mess would stay there rather than being dragged out to the common areas of the house. So Teressa finally broke down, destroyed the symmetry of the room and had me put the bunk beds on top of each other. The room still looks nice, even if the symmetry is gone. And so far, the mess in the loft has been better.

Invasion of the Girly Girls

You would think we would have less wrestling and more tea parties when entertaining a bunch of girls, but not so.

This week we had the opportunity to watch four little girls (the Barton girls and Ashlyn Lara). It was a chance to experience what life might have been like if we had little girls instead of little boys. One one hand, there seemed to be just as much wrestling and roughhousing, but the addition of the kissing games was somewhat disconcerting. On the other hand, Ashlyn seemed to be in culture shock when we put on an episode of Avatar to calm the kids down. "Do you have Little Mermaid?" she asked. Nope. "How about Pocahontas?" Um, no. We've pretty much shied away from that genre of Disney cartoon, considering the demographics of our home.

One of the most interesting parts of the day, though, was hearing the pontifications of Brinkley Barton. For those of you who don't know Brinkley, let me just say that she has a tendency to, shall we say, embellish her stories and life history to make them much more interesting than they would normally be. So in honor of Brinkley, we are including the following stories as told by Brinkley herself.

Unbeknownst to her parents, Brinkley has been sneaking out at night to do plumbing jobs. It has always been her dream to grow up to be a plumber. In fact, while Brinkley was visiting us, she even did her best to dress like a plumber. (We have photos to prove the event, but because this is a family website and Flying Furball does not condone the plumber lifestyle, we will not be publishing those photos here.) Come on, Brinkley. Even Whitney Houston knows that crack is whack.

Another interesting tidbit that Brinkley told us was that she has been betrothed to her boyfriend, Eddie Vedder (names have been changed to protect the innocent), a professional skateboarder from Colorado. She said her parents had arranged the marriage so they could use her dowery to pay for a skiing trip.

Please note that Flying Furball has reserved the right to edit and change Brinkley's stories for the sake of reader interest. Brinkley's fiance is really a scrawny 9-year-old nose picker named Petey Morganstein. He once saw a skateboard on TV. The dowery money was actually used to buy pizza. The contents of the plumbing story are entirely true and have not been adulterated in any way.

Back at BYU

The boys prepared for the big visit by dressing in their BYU jerseys.

While on our trip home from out West, we decided to stop at BYU so the boys could get some exposure to the school. We started out at the natural history museum, a place that I loved to visit when I was a kid and my father was getting his master's degree at BYU. We continued on to eat lunch in the Wilkinson Center, just like the old days. Then we spent some time in the bookstore shopping for BYU paraphernalia. At this point we met up with Aunt Kenzie and cousins Kylie, Megan and Will and went to the BYU creamery for some ice cream. (Just a word of advice: The double scoop waffle cone is plenty big enough for two people, but that didn't stop me from eating it anyway. Best ice cream ever.) Then we checked out the new visitor and alumni building. Teressa is already using her influence to try to convince the boys they want to go to college at BYU, and a campus visit seems like a good way to start.


Samuel was having so much fun visiting BYU ...


... that he finally couldn't take it any longer and collapsed from exhaustion.

Summer soccer fun

This photo really sums up Spencer's first organized soccer game.

Last year when Teressa and the kids went to visit her family in Washington state, Aunt Opal signed Mason up to play soccer with his cousins Drew and Cody. This year she decided to continue the tradition, but on a grander scale. This year Spencer was signed up to play on a team with cousin Baylee in addition to Mason playing on a team with the older cousins. I only caught one game before I had to fly back to Texas for work, but it was an interesting experience. Mason was a bit timid at times, but it was obvious that he had played before and knew the flow of the game. Spencer on the other hand, was the youngest player on his team. (In fact, he was so young that he was under the age limit for the league.) It showed. At times, Spence ran to the ball and tried to kick it, and at other times he stood around in the middle of the field as if he didn't have a care in the world. It looks like we have a long way to go to realized that college athletic scholarship.

According to Teressa, as the season progressed, Mason became a bit more assertive, but Spencer was still off in his own world. In the middle of a game, he would stop tracking the ball and start doing karate moves. I suppose in Spencer's mind that if soccer equals kicking and karate equals kicking, you put the two together and you get some really wicked soccer moves.

For more photos of the initial soccer game, click on the link below.

2008 soccer photos

Back, and better than ever

Our summer's vacation is over and we're finally back at home. Of course, we weren't all on vacation that whole time. Some of us had to work. Teressa had to deal with pleasing family members, a baby who wouldn't sleep and the occasional fist fight. I just had to go to Dallas for four weeks to do neuroanesthesia. Needless to say, Teressa is happy to be back in her home house, where she can dish out "Texas tough love." In other words, the baby is allowed to fuss when he wakes up at night until he can put himself back to sleep, rather than getting him immediately for fear that he will wake up Grandma, or the people in the hotel room next door. More posts with trip details will follow, and in spite of the face Mason is making in this photo, even he had a good time.

Fishy story

Of all the days to forget the camera ...


Yesterday the whole family went out to Canyon Lake to go fishing with the Deacons and the Beehives. Mason, of course, is always excited to go fishing. Spencer was just excited to be able to "catch" his red fish, meaning that I would cast out the red fish tied to the end of his line and then he would reel it back in. On the first cast I took, the fish went sailing out into the lake, but the fishing line didn't follow. It seems that I had tied the fish to the swivel quite well, but the swivel hadn't been tied to the line quite so well.

At this point I figured my only recourse was to throw some bait on the end of the line. Worms aren't as exciting to reel in as red fish are, but it's better than nothing. So I put a worm on a hook for Spencer and tossed it into the water. Then I turned my back to bait my own line. Next thing I know, Spencer says something to me, and I turn around to see that he had reeled in the line and a fish is flopping around on the pier at his feet. How about that for beginner's luck.

Fortunately, Spencer wasn't the only one who caught his first fish last night. Mason managed to catch a fish as well. In fact, by the time we went home, Mason had caught three fish and Spencer had caught four. I even managed to catch one, which was amazing considering all the time I spent baiting other people's hooks.

Spencer went for a swim with Sister Schneider

After our campout in May, we had vowed never to camp in the heat in Texas again, but our sense of duty got the best of us. After all, Teressa is the second councilor in the Young Women's presidency, and it had been her idea to have a campout to help foster unity among the girls—she had just been hoping to hold it earlier in the year. This time we left Mason home with friends and brought just Spencer and Sam.

On this trip I discovered that camping with a group of girls is not exactly my idea of communing with nature. As we arrived we were greeted by the sound of girls singing popular music at the top of their lungs, and apparently their goal was volume rather than proper pitch. Eventually they were convinced that the other visitors to the campground had come to listen to the sounds of nature rather than an impromptu concert and they quieted down.

That night was windy. The good news was that the wind cooled things down. (Teressa didn't even have to break out her battery powered fan.) But the wind did make plenty of noise as the tents were billowing back and forth. I was tired enough that I could have slept through just about anything, and when Spence finally fell asleep, he was fine until morning. Teressa on the other hand, hardly slept at all, and she wasn't the only one. Lack of sleep was a common complaint among camp the next morning.

On Saturday most of us went out for a 4.5 mile hike. The terrain on the hike was rough for part of the trail, so Teressa stayed back with the boys. There is talk of making this a once a year tradition for the Young Women of the ward, but I suspect that Teressa will vote that I stay home with the boys. Then she can just relax and sing popular music at the top of her lungs.

Boys and frogs

In wetter times, frogs like this are plentiful in our yard.


We found this frog under the the base of the basketball hoop.

As mentioned in a previous post, during wet years we have an abundance of amphibians. This year is dryer, so we are seeing more lizards around the house. But that doesn't mean the frogs are all gone. When the weather gets wet, the frogs come out. There are also a few places in the yard where we have found where the frogs like to hide. One day while I was moving some things around, I discovered four of the frogs hiding under the base of our portable basketball hoop. Mason begged to go back a few days later, and that is when we discovered this frog. It seems that we had scared off his other friends the last time we had been in to look.

Great wall of Scotland

Here I am cutting the last brick down to size.


The last brick was placed on Memorial Day.


Here we are with the finished brick wall.

The brick wall in our front yard has been a long-term project, as well as becoming an ongoing joke. Teressa has had a running commentary with her friends about how long this project is taking. (Answer: about six months.) I started pulling out the sod last fall. Then I laid the footing over New Year's. Then the project sat as a hole in the ground up until April.

Once April rolled around, I finally had some extra time to work on the project. I was invigorated and vowed to finish the project as quickly as possible. Well, that and Teressa bribed me with the opportunity to get a new iPod once the project was finished. Now the bricks are finally done. All we need to do now is to plant our shrubs. Take that, doubters and naysayers. Don't you wish you had a brick wall in front of your house?

Got milk?

This gallon of milk was 10 days past its prime.

After returning from our trip to Corpus Christi, we had the opportunity to sit down for family dinner on Sunday. We decided to have some milk to go with our meal. When I went to the fridge, I was surprised to find that our gallon of milk was 10 days past the expiration date. I'm not sure how this could have happened because we never let a gallon of milk last 10 days in our house. I can only assume that either the store had let its milk sit around a bit too long or perhaps the milk had been pasteurized or irradiated or otherwise preserved so well that the date should really read "05/15/2009." As Teressa and I were discussing the situation, Mason astutely realized the potential consequences of the situation and blurted out, "That milk could be bad. Let's have Dad taste it first." Nice to see that I'm the most expendable member of the family.

As it turned out, I did drink the milk first. The milk was still OK and we had drank it for Sunday dinner.

Beach trip

Mason was the first one in the water

For Memorial Day weekend, we decided to head to Corpus Christi to visit the beach. It wasn't a hard decision. I have been working at the children's hospital for the month, and my hotel room was already paid for, so all we had to shell out for was for gas and meals. I was post-call on Thursday, so I drove back to San Antonio, picked up the family and away we went. I had to work Friday, but I still got out early enough that we were able to head to the beach.


Sam looks serious, but he had a good time

The next day we went to the beach again, this time to meet friends who drove down that day from San Antonio. The kids had a great time playing in the sand and the surf again, and nobody got sunburned too badly (except for Teressa who missed some spots with the sunscreen).


Spencer wasn't sure about the water at first.

We returned to San Antonio where we finished our Memorial Day weekend with a decidedly lest festive (although wildly productive) note. But that will be covered in another post.

Saving the earth

For our Memorial Day weekend trip to Corpus Christi, we decided to save a little gas money by piling the boys in the back of the Sentra rather than taking the minivan. Near the beginning of the trip, Teressa expressed some trepidation about how the boys would do in the car. But since we had been driving the for a whole 20 minutes in peace, I think I said something like, "See, the boys are doing fine back there." Well, it didn't take long before relations deteriorated and Mason and Spencer were going at it in the back seat with Samuel stuck in between them. The rest of the drive down there continued pretty much the same way, and the drive back looked like the same song, second verse—until I came up with an idea.


All three boys in the back seat seemed like a good idea at the time.

My original brainstorm was to have the kids tell us stories. If they were busy telling stories, they couldn't argue. Spencer started off by telling a cute story called "The Five Buffalo," but we soon found that the stories were short and soon the boys were arguing about who's turn was next. That's when I took matters into my own hands. It was my turn to tell stories. My stories filled up the next hour of the trip, and all were as long as I could possibly make them because the kids were listening, and they were being quiet. And the silence was like sweet music to my ears. All of my stories had similar themes. They went something like this.

Two boys were taking a walk through the forest. Their names were Mason and Spencer. As they were walking they came across a large dark shape sitting in the trail ahead of them. "That's a grizzly bear," Mason said. "I can tell by the teeth." "No, that's a Kodiak bear," Spencer said. "I can tell by the claws." (Any guesses where I got the inspiration for my stories?) "Grizzly bear!" "Kodiak bear!" This argument went on for some time until the bear could take no more. He stepped from the shadows, stood up and said, "I'm neither a grizzly bear nor a Kodiak bear. I'm a polar bear." "You can't be a polar bear," Mason said. "The polar bear's natural habitat doesn't extend this far south." The two boys continued to bicker until the bear couldn't take the noise anymore and swallowed them whole, just to make them stop.

There were several other stories that were told along similar lines and were somewhat more detailed. I was just trying to eat up as much time as possible so the boys would stay quiet. Overall, I would say that my strategy was successful, but the next time we take a trip, I'm pretty sure we'll take the van.

Aftermath of a campout

This weekend we decided to head out of town for a campout. Unfortunately we picked the weekend when the weather got hot. We also made the mistake of picking the campground with plenty of ants. The boys slept in their underwear. Spencer managed to get bitten by ants and his left ankle swelled so badly that he refused to walk on that foot for the next several days. Samuel was about as perfect as he could be (although as he was cooing and blowing raspberries at 10 pm, we did start wondering if he was planning on going to sleep or whether he would just party all night long). He paid for it in the morning, though, as you can see from the picture above.

Blind man feeds baby

Uncle Andy is visiting us for the weekend. When he comes, he enjoys doing the simple things in life—riding bicycles, bowling and helping to take care of the kids. I came home from work yesterday, I noticed that Sam had been stripped down to nothing but his diaper. I didn't realized the significance of that finding until I was looking through the photos on the camera and noticed the one above that Teressa had shot while I was gone.