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.

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.

Famous Fans

Famous Fans: Denver Broncos Addition

Now that we are well into football season, it’s time that I presented the famous fans of my favorite football team the Denver Broncos.

Actress Jessica Biel
grew up in Boulder Colorado and when asked by ESPN if she was a fan of Colorado or LA she said, “I am definitely a Broncos fan”.

Tim Allen is most famous for his roll as Tim-The Tool Man-Taylor on “Home Improvement” where he is often seen rooting for the Detroit Lions but it turns out Tim is a Broncos fan. Tim spent lived in Colorado for a time and he even had Hall of Fame Broncos quarter back John Elway on the show.

In his latest show, Tim Allen’s character, Mike Baxter is a Broncos fan.  The October 18th episode opened with Mike Baxter sitting at the table holding his grandson.  While reading the paper, he points out, with a hint of frustration in his voice, that the Broncos would have won five Super Bowls if Elway had receivers like Jerry Rice.  A few minutes later, while the family is discussing the grandson’s attachment to his blanket, Mike Baxter’s wife points out that everyone has something they hold on to – Mike’s being his irrational attachment to the Denver Broncos!

Patrick Warburton who is best known for his dead pan style voice has done work in animated works such as Kronk in “The Emperors New Groove”, Brock Samson on “The Venture Brothers” and Joe Swanson on “Family Guy” or from “Seinfeld” where he played one of Elian’s boy friends Puddy.

Although he was born in Kansas, Don Cheadle moved to Colorado where he graduated from Denver’s East High School. He did several commercials for the NFL promoting the Super Bowl from 2002 to 2005

Pam Grier became famous in the early 1970s, after starring in a string of moderately successful women in prison and blaxploitation films such as 1974's “Foxy Brown”. Her career was revitalized in 1997 after her appearance in Quentin Tarantino's film “Jackie Brown”.   She also attended East High School in Denver and was a cheerleader for the Broncos at the age of 19; but quit after two months. 




Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of “South Park” are huge Broncos fans and often reference them on the show. These guys may be the two that I am least proud of.

NASCAR driver Kyle Busch is a big Broncos fan and attends games as often as he can. Being a Broncos fan can be a little risky for him since he races for Joe Gibbs Racing, who is a former Super Bowl winning coach of the Washington Redskins.  ESPN asked Kyle if to make friends with the folks at Joe Gibbs Racing, was he obliged to be a Redskins fan? Kyle responded, “No, not at all. I'm actually more of a Denver Broncos fan than anything. That's my team. I've met Rod Smith and John Elway before. It's been cool to get to know those guys.”

Quiet a bit different from the Cardinals edition, no country singers and more actors which really surprised me.

Television With Lucy

It’s time for another installment of “Television With Lucy”, where we take a look at what entertains four year old.

Today we’re talking about “Wild Kratts”, a PBS show that follow the adventures of Chris and Martin Kratt and their friends as they travel the globe to study different animals. Being a PBS show this is marketed as an educational show for kids. The theme song drives Ariane nuts because it’s pretty catchy and gets stuck in her head easily.

The show is mostly cartoon but does start and end with the real Chris and Martin along with some real animals.

The cartoon portion, which is the bulk of the show, has the Kratt brothers traveling to a different part of the world to study a new animal and usually involves them saving that animal from one of the many bumbling idiot villains who have some reason for wanting to capture animal. They save the animal by using that animals “creature power” and their special creature suits.

The Kratt brothers have been doing some kind of animal themed show for PBS on and off for about the last 15 years. It’s undergone several changes moving from all live actors and animals to actors with puppets and now to mostly cartoons. I guess you gotta keep changing to keep the kids interested.

It’s defiantly not the most entertaining show for adults to watch with their kids but it occupies Lucy for a little while and is somewhat educational so I don’t feel like as bad of a parent for turning it on for her.

Photo Shoot

We recently had some family pictures done. My cousin Amy came down from Idaho and was able to fit us in to her busy schedule. This time around the theme was firefighter, so I brought my bunkers and helmet from the station so we could have a few props and we all wore out firefighter shirts. I think they turned out pretty good.

Some of Lucy

We took some of Jack

And some of both the kids

We got some shots of me with the kids

And Ariane and Jack

(Lucy was finished by the time we got to this phase so no Lucy and Ariane)

Also some of the whole family

I think they turned out really good. Amy did I good job as always, she is also available for hire if you are looking for someone to take some pictures. She does great work and highly recommend her.

Now we just gotta figure out which ones should go on our wall. Let us know what you think.

The winner of the Photo Caption contest would be my brother Greg who wrote "I have herd lucy talk so I know there is NO WAY that you could put what she said into such a small box"