Long Lost Relative

My friend Jason Lunt found this book and sent me a picture of it. The book is about a Boy Scout, Paul Siple, an Eagle Scout from Erie, Pennsylvania with a deep curiosity of nature and the world around him who is selected for what is now a history-making trip to Antarctica in 1928. The book then follows Paul as he travels to Antarctica with world-renowned explorer Commander Richard E. Byrd.

The picture of Paul Siple seems very familiar. However I can find no family relation to this good looking young man. I do feel like my image was stolen though since this is what Paul Siple looks like.

I think I bear a stronger resemblance to the boy on the cover then Paul Siple does. All though this picture does him more justice.

Here is what he would have looked like at about my current age.

And much later in life.

Is this a preiview of the futer for me? It seems unlikely, I can’t grow a beard like that and I am not going bald.

Still I can’t help but feel that Paul might be some long lost relative or maybe even me in a past life; he did pass away in 1968, so it is possible that I am the reincarnated Paul Sipple. We have a lot in common, he was an Eagle Scout and I am an Eagle Scout. That’s about where all the similarities end.

Lucy Turns Five

Last week Lucy turned five years old. It’s hard to believe that my little girl is getting so big. When she got up that morning we let her open her presents.

Some of her favorites were the Perry the platypus shirt and the new Barbie clothes.

We found a fire fighter outfit, which Ariel is modeling, and a police officer outfit, though that looks like something you would see at a Halloween party rather than by a police officer.

Lucy said she wanted to have a Phineas and Ferb party this year. So we found a bunch of Phineas and Ferb party stuff at the store and we were ready to party.

Aunt Liz was nice enough to make a Perry the platypus cake for the occasion, and it looks great.

You can check out her blog, I Make Cakes, and see what other creations she has made. She may even be willing to make one for you if the price is right.

My sister Alison, who when she found out that Lucy was having a Phineas and Ferb party asked me when Lucy was going to have a girl party? Well she chose the theme not me this year. In the past we’ve had Cars, Sponge Bob and Star Wars and Lucy has loved them. So when she asks for Princess and Fairies then we will throw a more girl themed party, until then I'll keep enjoying these other parties.

This year we told Lucy she could have a party with friends. We had some kids from the neighbor hood over along with a few cousins and some other friends. We played a few Phineas and Ferb themed games. Like musical chairs with the music from the show, pin the tail on the platypus and my favorite game “Where’s Perry”, where we hide Lucy’s stuffed Perry the platypus and the kids try to find him, those of you who have watched the show know why that’s funny.

It was a lot of fun; Lucy had a real good time and was so excited the whole day. Maybe next year we will have a Princess themed party or a Denver Broncos themed party, we haven’t decided yet.

Lucy’s first basketball game

Last night Ariane and I took Lucy to her first basketball game; we went up to Weber State to watch the Wildcats take on the Northern Colorado Bears.

Ariane and I both played in the pep band at Weber State and have been to a lot of basketball games up in Ogden over the years. We had a pretty good time; it went better than I thought it would, since Lucy knows very little about basketball. We yelled, we cheered, we clapped, we ate popcorn and candy and had a great time.

Some of the things that impressed Lucy the most about the game was the wildcat statue outside the Dee Events Center.

Getting a big foam wildcat paw with claws

We wanted to get her a shirt but they did not have any small enough for her so this is what she choose instead.

Meeting Waldow the Wildcat

It was a lot of fun to go to the game, Weber State has a great team this year they are 18-4 on the season and 10-1 in the Big Sky Conference. The Wildcats have beaten in state rivals Utah and Utah State this year and have the nation’s leading scorer in their guard Damian Lillard.

It’s a good time to be Weber State fan!

Go Wildcats!

Television With Lucy

In the latest edition of “Television With Lucy” I present “Danny Phantom”. This show is one of Arianes least favorites, it hasn’t been watched out our house for some time. Part of it was Ariane saw a lot of this show for several weeks in a row and got really tired of it, Lucy gets into a show and then only wants to watch that one show over and over, our Netflix account makes that possible. Also Ariane was at the end of her pregnancy while Lucy was watching this show, she was pretty miserable at the time and I think that gave her a bad impression of this show.

The show is centered on Danny Fenton, whose parents are some kind of ghost busters, though they are not very good at it. One of their machines gives him ghost powers. His parents for most of the show are unaware that he has these powers.

Now he battles an assortment of evil ghosts who are trying to take over the world while navigating all the pitfalls of being a teenager.

His friends Sam and Tucker aid him in his fight against these ghosts and know about his powers.

The theme song tells it better than I can.

Lucy likes the show because it has ghosts in it. She thinks she likes ghosts and scary things but if it gets to scary she gets frightened. This show isn’t too scary and has quite a bit of humor in it. It’s not one I would sit down and watch with her but she sure likes it.

Tebow Mania

Tim Tebow Mania swept the nation this last fall especially Denver Broncos fans like myself. For those of you who don’t follow football or live under a rock, Tebow is the quarterback for the Broncos who has been known for his late game heroic comebacks and being very open about his Christian beliefs.

This praying pose, which Tebow makes several times during a game, has become known as “Tebowing” and became sort of a national phenomena.

It got us at our house all excited for Broncos football this last fall and winter, everyone at our house has a Denver Broncos shirt or two or six.

Some of us even have Broncos pajamas with matching bed sheets!

It was a very exciting year for football with the Broncos winning Tebow had six come-from-behind fourth quarter or overtime victories this last year. Check out the top 10 Tebow plays of 2011.



None may be more exciting then what happened in the playoffs last week against Pittsburgh.



Conan O’Brien tells it even better.



Tebow has been the subject of several late night shows including David Letterman, Jimmy Fallon and Saturday Night Live.

We sure had a case of the “Tebola Virus” at our house.



Hands down favorite part is the very end about the Mormons, it was awesome.



In all seriousness though, Tebow is a very humble and gracious athlete who is charitable and has an incredible work ethic and a great attitude.

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Wouldn’t it be nice if more athletes and celebrities acted this way?

Tebow Mania may have ended with a horrific defeat to the New England Patriots, but it sure was a fun ride while it lasted.

Temple Square With Lucy

This last week I took Lucy down to Temple Square for a father daughter outing. A great time to visit Temple Square is any time the Christmas lights aren’t on. It’s a lot less crowded and you can take in more of the sights.

The Church History Museum has a children’s exhibit, which is what we really went there to see.

Lucy got on the boat that Nephi built and caught us some dinner for our journey.

We built a temple in the New World and promptly destroyed it just like it happened in Third Nephi.

Checked out some gold plates to.

Lucy says that they are very heavy.

They have a LeConte Stewart exhibit in the art portion of the museum, which Lucy could care less about but they have a computer set up where kids can color in some of his famous paintings.

For those of you who don’t know Stewart was a painter who is famous for his works of Utah rural structures and landscapes.

Like this one that Lucy painted on the computer.

I showed her the replica of the podium that is in the Conference Center and she had to get behind it and give a talk.

We then went down to the pioneer exhibit, Lucy was impressed that they used wagons and hand carts instead of cars.

She tried out the bed in the sailing ships quarters and said it was not as good as her bed.

After that I had plans on leaving but she wanted to see more stuff. I took her over to the North and South Visitors Centers, which really aren’t geared towards kids. Lucy complained that they were boring and wanted to see more kids stuff and was disappointed to find out that there wasn’t much else for little kids there.

Finally we took around the temple and climbed the steps up to the door of the temple only to find that it was locked. How disappointing.

Retirement

What does my bar-b-que grill and St. Louis Cardinals Manager Tony LaRussa have in common? The answer is they have both participated in their last World Series.

Tony retired after managing for 32 years with the White Sox, Athletics and the Cardinals, he managed 5,067 games, winning 2,728 of those games, managing in six World Series and winning three of those, and he’s one of only two managers to manage a team that won the World Series in the National and American leagues.

I’m not sure what the stats are on my old grill but it’s been through my Grandpa, my dad and now me, it’s been around for about 15 years and unlike Tony it did not leave at the top of its game. It’s struggled to cook meat for the last few years and it was time to say good-bye.


Much like the Cardinals were in need of new manager I was in need of a new grill. We both got what we needed. The Cardinals hired a former player Mike Matheney and my dad got me a new grill for Christmas.

Both of them have one thing in common, they are inexperienced. Mike has never managed a major or minor league team and the new grill has never cooked a piece of meat. The experience isn’t a bad thing for my grill but it’s defiantly a gamble with the Cardinals and Mike Matheney. Hopefully next fall I’ll be grilling meat on the new grill while Matheney is managing St. Louis in the World Series.

Christmas Recap

It was a great Christmas at our house. Everybody seemed to get what they wanted. Lucy woke up Christmas morning and was really excited to see that Santa had indeed come.

However we have church at nine o’clock so opening presents, eating breakfast and getting ready for church was going to be hard to accomplish. Luckily for us Santa left a note for Lucy telling her that she had been a good girl and he had brought her a lot of presents but he wanted her to wait till after church to open them. Lucy was okay with idea and got ready for church without much protest. When we got home the real excitement began.

Lucy got her Perry the Platypus just like she asked for. We got a lot of Perry the Platypus actually.

In addition to getting Perry, Santa also brought Perry’s friends Phineas and Ferb, The Phineas and Ferb movie, Perry Shirts for her and my self and a Perry hat.

Funny thing about the hat, Lucy got two more that day, one from her cousin Kira and another from her cousin River, we now have enough Perry hats for everyone but Jack.

It was definitely the year of the platypus at our house.

Lucy had also asked Santa for two new light sabers, he delivered twice that amount. Everyone in the family had a light saber in their stocking.

Now if only we could get Lucy to turn them off so the batteries don’t run out.

Jack got some diapers and on a more exciting note Santa brought him a Swoop University of Utah pillow pet and some Denver Broncos shirts.

Jacks stocking is a Jack Skellington stocking that my Mom finds weird but we think is pretty clever and funny.

In celebration of the Cardinals winning the World Series we got some more St. Louis stuff.

My brother Greg got me the World Series Champions shirt.

As for Ariane getting more sleep, that hasn’t happened yet. I guess there are some gifts that Santa just can’t deliver.