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?