Thursday, November 30, 2006

Christmas Time

I really like Christmas. I mean, a LOT. Its not because I get presents, but is because of the season. First, its a b-day celebration for Jesus. What a wonderful thing to celebrate, the birth of the savior. Second, it celebrates what humanity is all about. The giving, caring, sharing, being together are all part of the season. You sing Christmas carols, drink egg nog, have family parties and generally just have an opportunity to be happy.

I do see that sometimes it is a stressful time of year because of what has happened to Christmas. Having little to no money for gifts or seeing others with lots of "stuff" and it not being enough for them. I sometimes get caught up in the idea of "buying" Christmas, but that is not what its about. I remember being a kid and the magic of the season. It was so special. Christmas songs, Christmas movies, and looking at the lights on the tree, all part of the magic of the season. As I see people get caught up in the $$ of Christmas, I remember a story from my father's youth that has become a family classic and will probably be an immortalized story within the family.

Years ago, when my father and his siblings were kids, they were a poor family. Unfortunately they lived in one of the richer parts of town. How and why, I don't think I'll ever know but they were definately out of place. Grandma was a divorced mother and during those times, it wasn't very common and was frowned upon. Talk about piling troubles on a family.

When Christmas time came, money was lean so presents were scarce. Grandma made I.O.U.'s for Christmas. These were little things like helping to do one of their chores or cleaning their room or something that was performed to help out the recipient of the I.O.U.

Now the kids, having received this, didn't understand the repurcussions of this gift. They went outside to see all the neighborhood kids playing with their nice, new, shiny toys and were upset.

Years later, they understood one basic fact from that Christmas. Christmas wasn't about toys and things but was about giving of one's self. Sharing with others who you are. Giving them time is more important than a shiney, tangible item. Love and charity are what Christmas is all about.

I've had Christmas' where were able to spend abundantly and other Christmas' where you had very little and had to get creative. Of all the Christmas' that I remember the most, the one's that stand out are not the times where we received a lot of gifts, but the times where we spent watching Christmas movies together, or singing (badly I might add) along with the Christmas albums.

I hope I am able to instill that into my own children as they grow up. I hope they will find more enjoyment in the season than in the gifts.

Merry Christmas, and in the immortal words of Tiny Tim, "God bless us, everyone!"

Monday, November 27, 2006

Beating the Tag

Chels is sitting next to me writing a blog because she was tagged. So since I know she is going to tag me, I'll just go ahead and do my list at the same time. It's a Christmas Tag...

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Egg Nog, Hot Chocolate is good but I have to be in the right mood for it. Otherwise it gets really cold and gross. Out of 5 cups of hot chocolate, I drink about 2 of them.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Wrap. That way we can watch the money we spent on the wrapping paper go right out with the trash.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? Color. It makes it more festive looking. White lights are all over the place. Colored lights are cool.

4. Do you hang mistletoe? Who needs it. Kissy, kissy, kissy.

5. When do you put your decorations up? Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of the Thanksgiving weekend. So around Emily's birthday. ;)

6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? Spiral ham...duh!

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child: The power was out one year. We woke up to no lights on the tree, but we started a fire in the fire place and opened the presents by the light of the fire. It was nice because with every present the flames got bigger when we'd throw the paper in the fire. See what I mean about the money. Oh and every one since my kids have been old enough to get excited.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? What truth about Santa. He's real. I will not stop believing.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? The kids open some pj's. We also have a Christmas party at my grandparents house and we open gifts there.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree? Lights first, then ornaments. No order really to the ornaments. As a matter of fact the kids are doing the ornaments now and Chels and I just go around and space it out a little. Star on last of course.

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it? Dread it. Lived in Utah my whole life and there have been some good snow storms, not like Minnesota I'm guessing, and I don't like snow. If I lived in Minnesota I'd hate them too. I'm not a cold weather fan.

12. Can you ice skate? Yep, not good, but I don't fall down much.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift? My favorite gift, hmmmmmmm. I'd have to say that it was probably my Nintendo when I was young. You remember when the original Nintendo came out. I can't think of many gifts.

14. What's the most important thing about the holidays for you? The family. The fact that it is to celebrate the birth of Christ.

15. What is your favorite holiday dessert? Same as my all year round dessert, Angel Food Cake.

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? I'd have to say the Santa letters. We changed Chels' family tradition a little. Here's how it went, and then how we changed it. The first snow fall after Thanksgiving, Chels and her brothers and sister would write their letters to Santa and he would come pick them up and leave a little gift. We do the same thing, but we do it after we finish decorating the house for Christmas. He comes and makes sure the decorations are fit for the season and festive enough.

17. What tops your tree? A star, that Jarik put on this year.

18. Which do you prefer giving or receiving? Giving. I like to give meaningful gifts.

19. What is your favorite Christmas song! Carol of the Bells.

20. Candy Canes! Yuck or Yum? Depends on the flavor. I know you could argue that real candy canes are only in peppermint or whatever flavor, but I like the cherry ones. They are the best.

21. What is your favorite holiday movie? I have a few. The Santa Clause 1 and 2 and Miracle on 34th Street. I also like A Christmas Carol and A Christmas Story. They are all pretty good.

22. Do you go all out with Christmas lights outside or just enjoy riding around seeing them on ther homes? Both, but not too close to Christmas for the riding around, it gets too crowded. "Whey don't these people just stay home?" Guess who said that.

23. Have you been Naughty or Nice? Nice, yeah, nice. *wink, wink

24. Do you shop on Black Friday and if so what is your most memorable experience? A little. But we don't get up early to do it. That's just stupid. Sleep in people, it's a day off.



Add a question to the bottom of this list asking something that YOU would like to know. Post it in your blog (or put your answers below) for others enjoy this tag!

25. Do you like to listen to Christmas music? Yep, on my mission we would start listening to after Halloween because they don't celebrate Thanksgiving in Ireland. And we get sick of the music that was approved. Since that was all I listened too, approved music. *wink, wink

26. When do you take down your Christmas decorations? Usually New Years day. Or thereabouts.

Pretty Fun Weekend...Common Theme

So the Thanksgiving weekend has come and gone without too much weight gained. We are now in full Christmas mode. Thanksgiving was good. Total of 4 dinners, with the last one being last night with my wife and kids. It was nice. Lots of turkey and stuff. The day after Thanksgiving, while the rest of the world is shopping, I am busily setting up Christmas decorations. I like to decorate, it is fun. Usually I take the Friday and Saturday after to do it, but our Saturday was booked. So I did the outside lights on Friday and the indoor stuff on Sunday. Looks nice.

Saturday we went Geocaching in Spanish Fork. When I say we, I mean me, Chels, kids, B, Aly, Mason, Nikki, Jayna, and Harold. I got my Garmin Legend not too long ago and now I know how to use it a little bit better. It's pretty cool. It was fun, we found 9 caches on Saturday. Then things started going south. Here's where the common theme comes in. I'm a sports fan, my favorite teams include the 49ers (NFL), Jazz (NBA), and Utes (College). This weekend all of them lost. The Jazz got their butts kicked and the Utes and Niners lost on last minute drives. What a bummer of a weekend.

Besides the big loss to the Cougars though, Saturday ended pretty good with a fun game of the Amazing Race, Darden style. Our friends the Darden's put on a party where we were in teams and did a "Amazing Race" style race. It was fun. Long, hard, but fun. Well that's my weekend in a nutshell. Have a great day!

Saturday, November 18, 2006

Geocaching fun

Today was supposed to be Tracy's first geocaching expedition (yes, I'm rubbing it in.) He called yesterday to tell me that instead of going geocaching, he was going to St. George (see previous blog.) Anyway, we went anyway. Solved a puzzle cache that took us up little Cottonwood Canyon and a very long hike.

It was a lot of fun and felt, since I was logging the cache, that I would write a quick blog to tell Tracy, "We had fun with out you so there."

Next Saturday is a special geocaching trip. Am extremely excited about it and it appears we will have a fairly decent group going. It's so exciting!!!

Surprise for Mom

I am sitting in St. George blogging. Yesterday at about 12:30pm, Chels and I decided to join Rick and Nic in a trip to St. George to surprise my mom. We came down as a group to have a Thanksgiving dinner since she won't able to make it to Salt Lake for dinner at Grandma's. It was so cool to get here and have her totally surprised. We sent the kids up to the door and it was fun to watch my mom look through the window to try and see who was at the door. Bob opened the garage and Rick and Chels go running across the front of the house trying to hide. It was hilarious. We are here and it's been a good weekend so far. Here's a picture we took on the way down.

Thursday, November 16, 2006

heynerd.net Changes

So I am moving slowly but surely on heynerd.net. I've added some text on a couple of pages, including my playlist and my geocache pages. These pages are kind of taking form, there needs to be some styles added to it and I need to put some pictures on there, but for the most part, they are moving. Go for a visit and enjoy what I have on there for now.

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Black Hole

OK, so I've decided that black holes exist and they aren't in the vast expansions of space but right here on earth. Impossible you say, I don't think so. The dictionary has this as part of the definition of a black hole. Something that consumes a resource continually. So what is this black hole I speak of. E-mail. While e-mail, or email how ever you flavor it, is a necessary evil, it is one that can cause someone to enter a black hole. One of the biggest black hole issues is the e-conversation, you know that conversation that is going back and forth in email, black hole. Get IM for these things. Anyway, just wanted to mention that. Laters.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Number 400...Wow

Well this is the 400th blog in Whadda Blog. We've come a long way since that stolen Red Socks cup way back when.

Right now it is so quite in my house, minus the coughing by Bree, that the click, click, click of the keyboard is the loudes thing I'm hearing. It's is a little after 10 and if I was smart I'd head to the softest warmest place in my house, my bed. As a matter of fact, I think I hear my pillow calling. Such sweet sounds, haha.

The reason I'm writing right now instead of heading to bed is because Daddy gets to be proud about something before Mommy. Mommy gets to stay home and see all the fun stuff the kids do and gets to get all the fun information, good and bad, about school. So she got this good news but I get to be the first to brag about it. I know pride is a sin, but I'm pretty proud. Tiaree came home and was really excited because her and one of her classmates got the "Principal's Pride" award at her school. This is an award that is handed out to good students. She was so excited, her and Mommy get to go have lunch with the Principal of her school tomorrow. It's an exciting thing. In my day, having lunch with the Principal and my mom meant that I'd done something wrong and a simple phone call wouldn't do. But my kids are better, smarter, and cuter that I was. They are smarter then I am come to think of it. Well the proud daddy is now going to publish this post and head to that wonderful pillow and mattress that is calling me ever so sweetly. Goodnight.

Monday, November 13, 2006

While We Are on the Subject

I'm not the biggest fan of TV shows, usually. I don't like the time commitment, I'm afraid of commitment. Anyway, the shows that I actually like are Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and Crossing Jordan. These shows rock. However, I'm in fear for both of them. Crossing Jordan aired on Sunday nights, now thanks to the NFL, NBC has football on Sunday evenings, kicking Crossing Jordan into the great vast emptiness of space. While I like football, my wife isn't the biggest fan and watching Crossing Jordan was our one last ditch effort to do something together on the weekend without the kids. Won't work with football, I've tried. So while we wait for the season of Crossing Jordan to kick off, no pun intended, we have been watching Studio 60. Then today I read this article about it. I guess it helps me remember that TV isn't the cure all to family entertainment, but you can only watch Cars so many times, thank the entertainment gods for Netflix.

Blog This!!!

Acually, I guess the title would indicate that I'm angry but I'm not really. I think I'm just in a cranky mood. First, I'll tell you why than move into the reason I wanted to blog.

Last Monday, I did something to my shoulder/back area. It got really sore. Tuesday, it was so bad, I didn't go to work. Wednesday and Thursday it seemed to be doing better but Friday was aweful. I spent the weekend down mostly. What we have determined I have, (self-diagnosis anyway) is a pinched nerve. So, Its been a miserable week and I have a doctor's appointment today either to fix it or give me enough drugs that I don't care. (I'm really a wimp when it comes to pain. Not that I can't stand it, I just complain a lot.)

Anyway, reason for the blog: Since I was down all weekend, I found out that Season 2 of "Quantum Leap" was at the library. Having borrowed Season 1 a couple of months ago, I felt it time to spend the weekend on the couch watching Season 2.

For those of you that don't know about "Quantum Leap", learn. It was an awesome series back in the late 80's/early 90's and was one of the very few series that I actually watched and kept up with on a regular basis.

Anyway, one thing I always wonder about is "after the story." What happens next? This is always something that has plagued me because, while you get to know Sam Beckett, you also get to learn about the characters quite a bit. What happens to them AFTER Sam leaves? What happens to the person that Sam leaped into after they return to their body?

In the show, Al states that they are in the waiting room. Basically, the souls change places but the bodies stay in their respective time frames. So, while we see Sam as Sam, everyone, including Al, sees Sam as the character in whom he leaps. You assume then, that the person displaced leaps into Sam's body. Does the displaced person, upon return to their body, remember that they leaped into someone else's body? Do they have a recollection of the past few days that they experienced through Sam? Given that Sam doesn't have their memories, my guess to that question is no but I think I could make a good Devil's Advocate arguement for it as well.

One episode that brings this up very strongly is an episode called "Sea Bride" in which his ex-wife is about to be married to a mafia-type and Sam is supposed to break up the wedding. In the process, the mafia-type groom tries to kill Sam by hanging him by his wrists and then throwing him out with the garbage. Sam escapes running up to the area where the wedding is taking place to announce that the groom tried to kill him. He succeeds in stopping the wedding and winning the girl, but then leaps out.

My question is this, did the mafia mobster get arrested and convicted of attempted murder? I know its not important to the show because the person being helped is the bride, but sometimes Al and Sam get a minute or two at the end of the episode to discuss the future of those helped and so you can know the rest of the story.

Knowing the impact of what Sam is doing, in my opinion, is very important to the story line. When you change something in the past, you change the future. This show does show that some of what we do is directed but that we do have free choices to make and somethings are meant to be.

Anyway, I really like this series and have my reservations in for Season 3 at the library. The show ran for 5 seasons and is, in my opinion, good, wholesome family programming.

A Long Wait

I'm a Simpsons fan and just wanted to let you know you can watch a new trailer on The Simpson's Movie.

Saturday, November 11, 2006

Other Favorite Things

So my last post was about my favorite foods. I thought I would now write about some of my favorite music, movies, and other stuff like that.

My Favorite TV Show is Crossing Jordan. This is a show that Chels and I have watched for the last few years, it's our show and it's pretty cool. It was on Sunday evenings so we would get the kids in bed and watch it. Now we are just waiting for it to come on again. Another show that we are getting into is Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. It's pretty cool too.

My Favorite Movie(s). This is hard to say because there is so many movies out there that I really like. Here's a short list of some of them. LOTR Trilogy; Serenity; House of D; The Legend of Bagger Vance; I, Robot; Independence Day; I really like Will Smith as an actor and a singer, so most of his movies. You'll notice a pattern when I get to my favorite albums. So moving on...

My Favorite Albums. I like a lot of different music, but to find whole cd's that I like seems to be rare. I like a lot of the Disney soundtracks, Little Mermaid, Lion King, Beauty and the Beast...etc. Avril Lavigne, both albums, Let Go and Under My Skin, They Might be Giants - Flood, Most of the Garth Brooks albums. But I think that my favorite one at the current time is the newest by Will Smith. I like all of his, and a lot of his DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince albums. Lost and Found is a great album with some good guest artists, Snoop Dogg and Mary J. Blige to name a couple.

Well that is quite a bit. I'm putting together a list of my favorite songs and artists, a playlist of sorts, that I will be posting on heynerd.net in the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned.

Friday, November 10, 2006

Cheese and Crackers and Other Favorites

So I'm sitting at my desk at 8:00 in the morning munchin' on saltine crackers. I have come to believe that saltine crackers are one of the best munching foods of all time. You can add a little cheese and have your own little tray of Hors'Douvres and I know we all love Hors'Douvres. So today I'm going to blog briefly on what are my likes for food and what not.

Favorites broken down by category:
Fast Food: Cafe Rio. We have been there twice this week and it was excellent both times. However don't eat it and then go to bed shortly after.
Sit Down Restaurant: Chili's, still my favorite, just haven't been there in a while.
Snack Food: Cheese and Saltine Crackers, I found that mild cheese is better than medium.
Drink: Dr. Pepper, though I do like Diet Pepsi or Diet Dr. Pepper with a lime.
Candy: Right now I'm in a bit of a any candy is good now. Frozen Snickers are good, but if I have to choose one I'd say Milky Way Dark.
Dessert: Angel Food Cake or White Cake, it doesn't need frosting. Just hand over the cake. Frosting is ok, but the cake is just fine.

Anyway, just wanted to blog since I haven't for a while. And this was a good topic. Well that just about does it for today. Laters!

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Happy Anniversary



Nine years ago, I married a woman that has put up with me for the last nine years. So I decided to take a minute and give a short list of our accomplishments as we have been together:

Nov. 7 1997, Sealed for time and all eternity in the Salt Lake Temple
1998 moved to Logan, UT to go to school at Utah State
April 2000 welcomed Tiaree into our family
December 2001 finished up school in Logan, moved to Salt Lake
March 2002 welcomed Jarik into the family
November 2002 I started working for the U
October 2003 welcomed Bree into the family
April 2005 moved into our new house
June 2006 welcomed Keighlee into the family
July 2006 endured 6 weeks of Bree being in a spica cast (half-body)
Today celebrate 9 years of marriage.

There isn't a lot in that list, but it has a lot of our life changing events. Life has been great and we have had a good marriage. To my dear sweet wife, I love you and look forward to forever more with you.