Happy Birthday Monica!

This past week was Monica's Birthday!!  She almost caught up to me in age, but I'm still a year ahead.  Maybe she'll catch up to me next year!  We had a grand birthday celebration, and Brooke even helped with the candles!

Brooke was especially happy with mommy's birthday as she picked up Monica's old watch!  Finally a watch she can play with whenever she wants.  She's already managed a 2 hour 20 minute run going a total of 0.68 miles, so basically a fitness freak!

We'll talk a little more about Monica's birthday in a minute, but first lets rewind to last Sunday.  We headed over to the park in the afternoon and blew bubbles and flew a kite.  I got to show off my exceptional kite flying skills for Monica this time too!

On Tuesday the young men really wanted to do a hot dog eating contest for mutual.  I arrived with 48 hot dogs and 48 buns, and some ketchup.  They talk a big talk, and told me I didn't have near enough, but when all was said and done I ended up taking home a dozen hot dogs!

Here they are going at it!  There were enough for 8 each for everyone in the contest.  The winner (Monte) was whoever could eat 8 the fastest.  Second place (Caden) I believe ate 7 in the same amount of time, and everyone else ate 2 and talked and enjoyed themselves.  Not quite what I had in mind when I heard eating contest...

Wednesday takes us back to Monica's birthday!  In the morning we decided to go out to breakfast.  There is a little French bakery we wanted to try, so we stopped in and got crepes and an omelet, along with a few pastries.   It was great!  And Brooke had a great time playing with the ketchup, sugar and coffee creamers while we waited.

When I got home from work we finished up cooking brownies (Monica's "cake") and then headed out to Indochine for dinner.  We got their amazing curry, and everyone was much pleased.  We said multiple times that we needed to not forget to grab a family picture before we left, and here I am without a family picture... oops.  We came back home, lit up some candles and sang happy birthday (as pictured above), and then had some brownies and ice cream!  After we put Brooke to bed, Monica found an old book she had remembered on the drive home called two-minute mysteries, and we started to read them and see if we could solve them!  It was a lot of fun, but it's amazing how fast 2 minutes can add up.

Blue Jelly continues to grow up, and is so much larger than the kitten we brought home!  For the most part Jelly and Brooke get along, and when they don't it's always been Brooke so far.  Brooke has had a few time outs this week for pulling Jelly's fur, followed by no longer being allowed to touch Jelly for the rest of the day.  Hopefully she's learning because Jelly doesn't stick up for herself at all when Brooke does it!  It's so sad, but I'm glad we have such a well behaved kitty!

In other news, and as you may have seen on Facebook, I launched the Kickstarter for my game, Egyptian Architects.  There has been a LOT of learning in the process so far, and I'm sure I'll learn a lot more before it's all said and done.  The campaign funded in a little less than 26 hours, so now we're looking at unlocking stretch goals, such as additional new cards, printing on higher quality paper, and even upgraded art work!  Here's a link to the project so you can go take a look!  And feel free to share it with your friends, enemies, etc.  And if you have already or do back the project, THANKS!

www.kickstarter.com/projects/2124836706/egyptian-architects

Our stake conference is coming up soon, and as it's fast approaching I find myself looking back to conference 6 months ago.  I'll admit that last time I did not have a good attitude about conference, especially the meetings on Saturday.  We'll, in the Saturday evening adult session a speaker talked about expectations, and how our unmet expectations cause us to not be happy.  This came with a challenge to contemplate our expectations and honestly decide if they were unreasonable or not.  Unreasonable expectations will still lead to unhappiness, but they need to be addressed and fixed because not only can they lead to unhappiness, they will!  As I heard it I immediately thought about what my expectations had been for that Saturday.  I definitely had unreasonable expectations.  The root of my problem was that I expected to not need to do anything on Saturday, and to get to do whatever I wanted.  That's dangerous to expect, especially with a 1 year old!  The council I heard that day has really helped me since.  I encourage all of you in times of unhappiness to reflect on what is wrong, and what your expectation is that was not met.  If it is unreasonable I encourage you to take steps to either make it reasonable, or get rid of the expectation.  If it is a reasonable expectation, then talk with those around you who can help to meet that expectation.  Working on our expectations will help us to live happier lives.  I share this in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Happy Anniversary!

Hello everyone!  I hope you are all doing fantastic.  We sure are!  Brooke is still loving bubbles, and we just got a great bubble wand!  It's brought new life into bubble time!  Brooke chases them around yelling "POP!"

Last Sunday Brooke was going crazy so we had to get out of the house.  Right as we headed out it started to rain.  It was only a little, so luckily we were still able to be outside for a while.  We even saw a rainbow while we were out there!

The banana (a.k.a. Steve) I spruced up for Brooke grew some stubble!  That guy has seen better days!

Anyway, on Thursday it was our Anniversary!!!  Happy 4 years Monica!  We decided to head out early, since it was a school night, so we could get a baby sitter.  We headed to Kurosawa, our favorite local sushi spot.  It was wonderful!  We did have to avoid raw fish, but that's not hard to do.  It was also really fast, but I suppose that's to be expected when you beat the dinner rush and you're one of the few people there.  Afterward we went to Kneaders to get some dessert!  We also wrote in our anniversary journal, which is a journal that we fill out each year on our anniversary with some questions in the front that we answer every year.  It was a fun night.

On our way back to the house we ran in to practically royalty!  Look at that car.  Chick-fil-a Award Winner!  Yeah, we basked in some of that glory while waiting for the light to turn green.

On Friday we had a backyard BBQ.  We were planning to have one once a month at the start of the summer, and I think we had 1 or 2 back then.  We've sadly forgotten since then, but luckily Monica remembered.  So we did a hot dog roast in the back yard with Brooke!

She had a great time, and was very good at not going by the fire.  She somewhat enjoyed the hot dogs and fries, and especially the ketchup.  She was eating that by the handful!

On Saturday morning we went to help clean the church.  We got there a little early and just used my key to get in and start going.  While we were there Brooke wanted a drink from the drinking fountain.  When you turn the fountain on it shoots the first little bit of water really high, and then the rest is normal.  Well, I gave her a drink, and then she said more, so I pushed the button again and it sprayed her eye.  You would have thought it was sunscreen or something.  She walked around for 5 or 10 minutes rubbing her eye saying "Eye!!!"  She was still helpful and carried the paper towels for us though.

As a reward for cleaning the church we went to get donuts.  We went to The Donut House, which is a relatively new donut place here in Parker.  It is really good, and they have Cro-nuts.  It's a donut made from a croissant.  They are super tasty!

That night as bedtime approached, Brooke wanted to make sure Magon was ready for the night as well, so she folded up blankie and laid him down and played some music for him.  Great news, he slept all night!

In other news I got just about everything done for my Kickstarter this past week, and I'll be submitting it for review tomorrow.  It should go live sometime this week, I'll post updated on Facebook.  The finishing up process took a little more time than I anticipated, especially when the first video I made for the game turned out less than ideal.

Also, I forgot last week, but I'm trying to end these with something spiritual from church now.  This week we talked about marriage in Sunday school.  My big take away from the day was the thought that once we're a family, it's no longer about MY future, or the Lord's timing for ME.  It should instead be OUR future, or the Lord's timing for US.  We need to be united as a family.  We need to share a cause, and a mutual goal.  While we of course will all have our own interests and pursuits, we need to make sure the things we choose to engage in help to build and strengthen our family and our bonds together.  They also made a great parallel between a family and the Godhead.  Just like how God, Christ, and the Holy Ghost are 3 beings, but 1 in purpose we as a family are all different people, but we need to be united in a common goal and purpose.  Our families should strive to be one, just like the Godhead is one.  In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

So Long to Summer 10K

Hello all!  This week went by pretty fast!  Things are going great around here, and I hope you are all doing well too.  Most of the adventures this week came around the weekend.  We ran in the town So Long to Summer race yesterday morning, and later in the day as we checked items off our to-do list we found the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile!!  They even had sweet cut-outs for pictures!

Anyway, let's get back to the week and not spoil all the good ending bits.  (Blue) Jelly has been doing great!  She's definitely one of the family now and loves to be around us all the time!  She really likes playing with Brooke, and is always so nice to her (even when Brooke isn't nice back).  She likes to go in Brooke's room while she's sleeping and sleep under her crib, but we've had to put an end to that because sometimes Brooke sticks a foot out of the crib and Jelly jumps up and swats it.  In such an occasion as being swatted by Jelly, Brooke must stand up and scream and cry until we get her, so Jelly doesn't get to go in anymore while Brooke is asleep.  One night recently I was in Brooke's room putting her to bed, and she stuck out her foot.  I thought it would be funny to grab her toes, and as soon as I touched her she woke up and said "Jelly... Jelly?"  I told her it was just me, and she immediately went back to sleep... sigh.  Anyway, here's Jelly stretched out on the couch!  I should try to get a picture of her curled around one of our heads while we sleep at night...

To celebrate the new Despicable Me movie they had stickers attached to bunches of bananas so you could make a minion banana.  I found the stickers and put them on a banana for Brooke.  She hasn't gotten it yet, but hopefully she loves it!

So as mentioned at the start we participated in a town race on Saturday.  I ran the 10K, and Monica and Brooke did the family fun trek (1.3 miles, untimed).  Here's Brooke getting psyched up in her stroller before her debut!

And here I am at the start of the 10K.  The 10K starts first, and then 5 minutes later the 5k, and then 5 minutes after that the Family Trek.  It's a pretty good plan because Brooke and Monica finished up their trek just 10 minutes or so before I finished my race.

Here I am coming into the finish.  You may remember that last year I was first overall male finisher, so I had to defend my title... and I lost it.  But I still finished 1st in my age group.  I was 6th overall, and 3rd male.  I had a really hard kick at the end (sub 4 min/mile pace) and passed 2 other men a little before the finish line!

After the race I almost threw up twice, and then we went over to the pancake breakfast!  They always have this same place do breakfast after each race.  Sadly, they're just a food trailer thing for events, and there is no actual restaurant.  They probably make the best pancakes I've ever eaten in my life, and I wish they'd open a restaurant!!  Anyway, we had a fun time together after the race and even got a picture together at the finish line!

Brooke really liked my medal and wore it around for a while after we got home!

Also as mentioned at the start, we went to King Soopers and the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile was there!  They had a corn hole game you could play, which Brooke totally aced, and won these awesome stickers!

Back to Jelly, she sure loves to lay in bins.  She likes to climb into Brooke's toy bin and take a nap.  She even shifts herself around and buries down into the toys!

Saturday night Monica was having Brooke try on all her dresses to find out which ones had gotten too small.  Brooke was having a fun time with it, and when we finished she decided it was time to spin...

Also, in game company news my Kickstarter is almost ready to start!!  I just need a tripod so I can shoot a video for it, and once the video is cut together I'll kick it off!  I'm hoping to start it sometime this week, so watch for a post on Facebook!

I think that's all the highlights around here for the past week!  I hope everyone is doing great!

San Diego (Blood-cation)

Well... I wrote this once and it deleted... so here goes attempt number two.  This past week found us all out in California (Mission beach to be more specific).  Here is a family picture at some tide pools!

I headed out for San Diego on Tuesday night.  I took off from mutual, which was going quite well before I left.  We were playing Bavgai Chih (Bear's ear) which is a game I learned in Mongolia.  I left mutual a little early to make sure I made it to my flight on time.

I did make it in time, though it was late enough in the day that much of the airport was closing down (in fact, the security line closed right behind me).  I managed to snag a window seat on the plane, though after sitting down I realized I was in the only window seat that didn't actually have a window...  Win some lose some...

I made it there around midnight, and went straight to bed upon arrival.  The next morning when I woke I found to my horror a caged baby!  And I thought the Blood family was cage-free and free-range!  Poor Jake!

We headed out to the San Diego zoo on Wednesday.  It was a lot of fun, but really hot.  We had a good time seeing lots of animals, and even got a picture of Brooke with a tiger!

We tried to get Brooke to take a picture with a monkey mask, but she wasn't too willing.  This was the best that we got.

While stopping to get a cool treat I saw a bucket full of souvenir straws with animals on them, and thought I'd grab one for Brooke.  They even had one with a cat of some kind.  Brooke calls it a tiger, but I think it looks like a cougar.  Albeit it does have stripes on it's back and legs...

Wednesday night I went out for a run on the boardwalk, and at my turn around point there was a guy blowing giant bubbles!  They were bigger than all the people there!

Thursday we went to the tide pools.  Brooke enjoyed walking around a whole bunch, until she over heated.  Then she'd immediately go from "don't touch me" to "pick me up I won't move another inch!"  I'd pick her up and blow on her face to help her cool back down, and soon enough she'd be running along on the ground again.  The real conundrum here though was what to do with her swim suit while I was holding her.  Naturally my head wasn't really doing much at the time.

Thursday night we went out to watch the sunset at the beach.

And when the sun got low a sail boat swept right through and cut it in half!  It was amazing!

Brooke enjoyed some time climbing the ladder on the end of our bed.  This may have been one of her favorite things to do the whole trip!

Friday night found us at a Blood family favorite restaurant, Pat and Oscar's.  It was delicious, and even better we got to spend some time walking around the neighboring duck pond after.

While walking around we found this statue that was very California.  Its a family riding a bike, but they have umbrellas for heads.  Trust me, if you were from California you'd get it.

On Saturday night we stayed at one of Monica's friend's houses.  The next morning I let out the dog and got it some food, and when it came back to the door to come in I found this on the floor on my way to let it in.  Good thing I found the lizard first so the dog didn't eat it!  I quickly rescued the lizard and took it to safety (if the backyard is a safe environment for a lizard).

Well, I think that's about all the highlights.  We're back and we've at least mostly recovered!  I hope everyone had a wonderful week!