Comic Con

For those of you who are unaware a Comic Con was held in Salt Lake City for the first time ever.  If you were unaware of that fact then you probably don’t know what a Comic Con.  It’s a convention for comic books, science fiction, fantasy and all other things geeky and nerdy.  Seeing as how those are things that I love I decided I needed to be part of the first Comic Con held in Salt Lake City.  I bought a ticket on line and went down for the opening night. 

I brought Lucy with me, since kids under twelve get in free.  I told her about it weeks before and that there would be exhibits and booths about comic book heroes and that people dress up like characters form their favorite shows.  She was way excited for it, especially about the part where she could dress up as a super hero.  So she got her Black Widow costume she got for her birthday last year and we got her a red wig and she went as Black Widow.  I decided to wear a Star Wars shirt and call it good.  Any costume I would have would have been of poor quality and looked shoddy at best.

Her costume was really popular we had about three dozen people ask to take her picture.  Like this lady who was also dressed as Black Widow and said she needed her picture with the “Little Black Widow”.  That’s what happens at these things when you dress up, people want your picture and Lucy was pretty popular.

When we saw Loki (the villain from the Avengers and Thor movies) we asked him if he would be in a picture with our Little Black Widow.  He said of course and I took a pic.  When I turned around there were ten other people taking pictures of these two, apparently it’s really cute.  Lucy was a little overwhelmed by that much attention.  When Thor walked by she said she did not want her picture with him, that she was feeling a little nervous.

We met up with my brother in law John and his wife Liz.  We walked around with them for a while and got our picture taken with the Good folks of the 501^st Legion, that’s the local group that dresses like the bad guys from Star Wars and attends events like this.    

 

They apparently also have Han Solo in carbonite in their possession.

We also visited the Rebel Legion, the good guy equivalent of the 501^st Legion, and Lucy was excited to get her picture with R2-D2. 

Lucy’s favorite part was meeting Spiderman. 

I’m really glad we went; it was a lot of fun.  I would have liked to have attended the other two days and gotten the chance to meet some of the celebrities they brought in and listen to their panels, all stuff Lucy would have hated.  But instead I ended up working the James Taylor concert at the Conference Center (Lucy also would have hated that too), I find his music boring and lame and now he’s keeping me from what I would rather be doing.  Life just isn’t fair I guess.

Star Wars Day

I don’t know how many of you knew that last Friday was an international holiday but it was Star Wars Day. According to the people at starwars.com, the official website of the Star Wars movies, May 4th has been designated as Star Wars Day. You may wonder why that it is, well its May the fourth, as in May the fourth be with you. It’s a play on words, if you don’t get it then think about it for a while. We celebrated the holiday by having my brother in law John and his wife Liz come over for a Star Wars Day party. We all put on our Star Wars shirts.

We had a light saber battle in the back yard, Lucy wore her Jedi Padawan costume and Liz wore her Jedi master robe.

After our battle we went inside and played with some Star Wars toys.

We didn’t watch any of the movies, since there are six I worried that picking just one to watch on Star Wars Day would make the other feel bad, so in the interest of fairness we did not watch any of the movies. We did play a very competitive game of Star Wars Trivial Pursuit, which I won. I can’t wait till next Star Wars Day.

Easter 2012

It was a fun Easter this year for us at our house, with three families to try and visit it gets a little crazy but it sure is fun.

Lucy went and colored Easter Eggs with the Evans family. Here she is with her cousin Kira.

And here is Aunt Rachel with an awesome hairdo and radiant smile.

I sure am glad this picture can be put on the internet.

There was also an Easter egg hunt with the Stevens family. Uncle Jeff was in town for Easter and Aunt Chelsea brought her kids down for the event.

Arianes mom bought all the kid’s yellow “Despicable Me” minion’s shirts, even the babies.

When Lucy finds an egg she likes to make a show of it by holding it over her head and singing a high pitched “AHHHHH”

Sunday morning Lucy found her Easter basket and all kinds of goodies inside.

Jack also had an Easter basket that was full of baby food and some new outfits, as well as the ABCs of “Star Wars” book.

Lucy needed to check out the book first though before it was good enough for Jack.

Everybody got some new shirts for Easter as well.

We sure are a good looking bunch.

The Easter Bunny hid the eggs Lucy colored at my parent’s house for her to go find.

Her favorite egg is the Perry the Platypus egg.

Since it is the celebration of Jesus Christ’s triumph over death, it seemed appropriate to take some flowers to Larianns grave.

Lucy complains from time to time that resurrection sure is taking along time. We all have faith though that it will happen some day and we all be together again as a family, just maybe not as soon as some of us would like.

Jack At Six Months

Jack is now six months old. In honor of this milestone I thought I’d take a look at some of things that enjoys.

He likes to bounce around in his Jumparoo.

He enjoys a warm relaxing bath with a rubber duck or two to keep him company.

He is able to sit up on his own, at least until he gets to excited and falls either forward, back ward or off to either side.

He likes some of the attention he gets from his big sister, tolerates a little more of that attention and hates the rest of the attention. Lucy though loves her little brother and loves to give him attention, whether he wants it or not.

He likes to play with toys. His favorite is probably Boba Fett, the famous bounty hunter from the Star Wars movies, probably because I insist that we give it to him, but it was a gift from his aunt and cousins.

He also enjoys eating food; sweet potatoes are one of his favorite flavors. I sometimes wonder if he gets more on him than in him.

Sometimes it feels like out little Jack is growing up so fast, but he gets more fun every day. Now if only he would start sleeping through the night.

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.

All I Want For Christmas

With Christmas now a week a away I thought I would take a look at what everyone wants for Christmas.

With Santa appearing at several Christmas parties Lucy has been to and a trip to the mall to see him as well Lucy has had several opportunities to let Santa know what she wants for Christmas. It’s been the same thing each time, so she is at least consistent.

Lucy has asked for two new light sabers, to replace the ones that we have now which no longer light up and get stuck when they extend. I’m really excited about this present, I don’t know how much longer she will continue to embrace Star Wars like this so I figure I should ride it out as long as I can.

The other thing Lucy asks for is Perry the Platypus. You may remember him from an earlier post about one of Lucy’s favorite TV shows, Phineas and Ferb.

As far as I can tell Jack would like some more diapers. I can only assume that that is what he wants by the amount of diapers he goes through in a day. With as many as he uses he must enjoy them, so maybe Santa could bring Jack a package of diapers.

Ariane would like a good night’s rest. Since I work most nights anytime one of the kids wakes up, Ariane is forced to get up with them and handle whatever problem they are having. It’s been a pretty rough stretch the last couple of days, both kids have been several times during the night and not at the same time, so Ariane is feeling sleep deprived these days. What she really needs is both kids to sleep through the night so she can as well. I don’t know how Santa is going to pull this one off but if he could Ariane would be eternally grateful.

As for me, I feel like Christmas came back in October when the St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series. For those of you who don’t remember I wrote a blog post about it, you can relive the magic here. It was one of the best World Series I have ever seen and I would like to thank Santa for bringing Christmas to me early this year.

In all seriousness though, I am really grateful to be able to spend this holiday with my beautiful and sassy daughter, my loving and gorgeous wife and our brand new baby boy.

Thanks to them I am happier then I have been in a long time and the holidays aren’t as gloomy as they used to be. I like to believe that this what Lariann would want for Christmas, her family to be happy again.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Manly Names: Star Wars Bonus Round

Jack defeated the other three finalists to take the victory in the manly name contest. However due to protests from some of my loyal readers, particularly Cole Brock, and the fact that Ariane still hasn’t had the baby and probably won’t until next week I’ve decided to proceed with a bonus “Star Wars” round.

There are six “Star Wars” movies so there should be six characters one representing each of the “Star Wars” movies. Let’s begin.

From Episode I Qui Gon Jinn: The wise Jedi who’s trying to teach Obi Wan about the force while trying to save Queen Amidala and the planet of Naboo from the trade federation when he discovers Aniken Skywalker and has to fight the Sith lord Darth Maul. The man has a lot on this plate and completing three out of his four tasks successfully is pretty good.

From Episode II Jango Fett: The bounty hunter who was so great that they decided to clone him into an entire army.

From Episode III Mace Windu: Samuel L. Jackson plays the bad @$$ leader of the Jedi. Though he meats an untimely end in this movie he is still one manly Jedi.

From Episode IV Obi Wan Kenobi: He also had major roles in the first three movies but when he hits this movie he is the wise Jedi master who pushes Luke Skywalker towards his destiny. In the other movies he proves himself quite tough and manly by fighting and defeating multiple Sith Lords, droid armies and bounty hunters.

From Episode V Lando Calrissian: He’s one smooth scoundrel, played by Billy Dee Williams he makes betraying your best friend seems almost cool. In the end though Lando mans up, rescues his friend and helps defeat the Empire.

From Episode VI Luke Skywalker: I know in the first movie he’s whinny brat and in Empire he gets his butt kicked pretty good and accidently makes out with his sister. But by the time “Return of the Jedi” hits Luke is ready to kick some butt.

Ariane will be induced on Tuesday if she doesn’t have the boy before then, so this may be the last pole. Vote now.