POLARIS!.. and the Mayor's Day of Service

Howdy, y'all!  We had a pretty good.... well... I guess basically this whole post comes from the weekend.  We didn't tame many pictures through the week.  We did get a video or two of Grayson doing something cute or new, like how he's started to do "bye bye"!  This weekend Monica headed off for a girls trip with her friends to Breckenridge.  Few pictures returned with her, so I'll just focus on what the kids and I did.  One such event was getting to meet the mayor!  Brooke was super excited, and he seemed really nice!  We chatted for just a few minutes on our way back home to put Grayson down for a nap, bur more on that later.

At bedtime one night this past week, I lured Grayson over to the door to play with me.  He was grabbing my fingers and also hitting me with toys he was holding.  I was trying to grab them away from him, but wasn't successful.

Monica left on Friday a little before 2.  That was while Brooke was at school.  When I went to pick up Brooke she was SO excited to show us that she got Polaris, the class mascot!  Polaris goes home with a different student each weekend, and you make a little scrapbook like page to return him with.  Brooke will get to tell the class about what they did this weekend together, and we'll stick her page in the binder that goes home with him.  This is only the 3rd week, so there weren't many other pages to look through, but I think it'll be really fun the next time Brooke gets to bring Polaris home and we can see what all the other kids in her class did.  The girl before Brooke took him to the zoo and on a hike in the mountains.  We introduced Polaris to Jelly!

Polaris also joined us for pizza and family movie night.

On Saturday morning we headed down to O'Brien park for the Mayor's day of service kick off.  We got there early so the girls could play on the playgrounds, and I fed Grayson a pancake for breakfast while we were there.

Once Grayson finished eating we all headed to the swings and I found out that Brooke can swing all on her own.  I pushed her a few times and then she asked me to stop because she could do it!  Good job Brooke!  Also, you can't see in this picture, but Polaris is on Brooke's back on the swing in a pink carrier Brooke got for stuffed animals.

After playing for a little, the service kicked off over at the gazebo, so we walked over to listen and I got a picture of the girls.  They were very excited to help out!

The service was garbage pick up.  There were 5 areas to choose from, and I chose the one closest to our house.  It's not on the main trail that I typically run on, but I also think the town takes better care of the main trail, so they probably needed more help on these side trails.  I got a garbage bag and gloves for each of the girls and they were ready to go.  I wore Grayson, just like Brooke is wearing Polaris in this picture, and would pick up some stuff to put in one of their bags as we went.

There were lots of people there, but we were still able to find a bunch of garbage, and the girls did an amazing job!  When we were driving from the kickoff at the park to the cleanup area, Brooke was asking if the mayor would be there.  I told her he'd probably be at a different area, and then as we were leaving we saw him and stopped to say hello!  That was the first picture.  They also had a refreshment table with granola bars and muffins and stuff, but we stopped and got donuts already, so we passed on the provided items, but it was really nice of them to have it for us.  When we got home, we ate our donuts, which everyone loved of course!  I should have taken a picture of them.

After donuts the girls did quiet time and Grayson took a nap.  I took advantage and finished doing the laundry and putting it away, and then went for a run on the treadmill.  I finished just in time to get lunch ready.  After lunch and Grayson waking up, we prepped things to go out to a park for the afternoon.  The girls wanted to go back to O'Brien park, but it turns out it's super crazy there during the day, so we headed to a park in the neighborhood next to us and had a great time.  The most important thing is that the swings were available!  Brooke pushed Grayson for a while, and Grayson loved it.  Grayson almost fell asleep in the swing as he got up late enough from his nap that I was trying to just skip his second nap.  So we had to be done swinging and played on the playground for a bit before heading home for dinner.  After dinner it was bath time.  I put on a show and did Grayson's bath, and then when he was done the girls came up.  I had Grayson in the bathroom with me while I washed the girls hair so I could keep an eye on him.  Brooke wanted to get right out when she was done, and while I was helping her dry off Grayson flipped over the side of the tub and into the water with Winry!  Fortunately he did a good job of keeping his head up, but he did get a little water in his mouth/nose.  I grabbed him right away and got him out.  He coughed and sneezed a few times, but otherwise seemed fine.  I dried him off and changed him into dry diaper and clean pajamas AGAIN!  Honestly, I'm just glad he was fine!  It was a little scary.

Today was the primary program, and Brooke did AMAZING!  She memorized her line, and she sang just loud enough that I could hear her, but not loud enough to be "that kid..." you know, that kid I was when I was young.  Polaris was very impressed.

Today at church I got to help with the sacrament.  I was asked to help bless the sacrament, and I really enjoyed it.  It's been a really long time since I've helped with the sacrament, and while I was up there I reflected back on doing the sacrament while growing up and a lot of great memories came back to me.  I'm grateful to be able to hold the priesthood, and to have been able to participate in the sacrament for so much of my life.  It's a great blessing to get to help administer the sacrament.  I'm grateful for Jesus Christ, and the atonement.  I'm grateful that we can repent and become more like our Savior.  I'm grateful for the sacrament and the chance to start again and try again each week.  In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Labor Day, TAMU and School Pictures

So, I was in Texas on a work trip last week and didn't end up writing a blog post.  At the time I thought "I'm on a work trip all week, so there won't be much to blog about."  Upon reviewing the pictures it turns out it would have been nice to have a split between the weeks, as more happened than I remembered.

Anyway, on Friday Brooke didn't have school, so we went to the zoo.  We decided to give the train ride a try this time, and everyone LOVED it!  Winry even said she loves it more than the carousel.  While we rode it I even found a "hidden" park on the zoo that we went to visit after.  It was pretty great.

Rolling way back to Labor day we hit up the outdoor pool for the final time.  The pool is open from Memorial day to Labor day.  Anyway, we all had a great time.  Grayson climbed along the wall and sat in my lap splashing for a lot of the time.

Brooke saw her friend from church, Emy, there and ran off to play with her all morning.  Monica went swimming with Winry, and they had a great time together.  Winry even wanted to go into the deep end and swim around.

Brooke learned an endearing and engrossing song about nouns at school, and we've been hearing it ever since.  It's been a bathroom staple for a while now.

On Wednesday (8th) I headed down to TAMU (aka Texas A&M) to the cyclotron for radiation testing, which is always a good time.  We had 40 hours of beam, which was split into two 16 hour shifts from 4pm to 8am, and a final 8 hour shift from 8 am to 4 pm.  I was honored to run a full over-night shift, but got lucky and was in the final 8am-4pm shift, which meant I got to leave early the second overnighter to make sure I could wake up in time for an 8 am start.  Anyway, here we all are in the control room running our testing!

On our first night there, after we finished setup, the kids called to talk before bed.  I was in the back of a suburban like car (I don't remember what kind of car) and took the call there.  Brooke was even nice enough to grab a phone to help enhance the realism.  All my co-workers joined the call for a moment as I rotated the camera around and everyone said hi.  Brooke and Winry were especially enamored with Marty, and even said goodnight to him!  They also named the car I was in "donut."  It was fun chatting with everyone, and if I read the car right I believe everyone else enjoyed their part in the conversation as well.

SEAKR has a storage locker in Texas, and our most important item we keep there is our disco light/blue tooth speaker for our all night "parties".  Also, as I reflect on getting to stay up all night, I think about how fun kids think that sounds.  I know Brooke has said she wants to stay up all night, and I vividly remember a family vacation where we joked about staying up after getting back from a show at Tuacahn after midnight, and then when we all headed for bed, Andrew was VERY disappointed.  Well kids, take it from me.  Staying up all night isn't actually fun.

You never know what gems you may find laying around at TAMU.  As I was walking to the bathroom I came across this box.  I hope it's not still being used for it's original purpose, but I got a good laugh from the situation.

Back at home, the garden was booming and Winry continues to LOVE helping Monica pick the tomatoes.  Oh, while I was gone Monica's mom, Gram, came out to help with the kids.  I was gone, so I don't know what zany stories they may have, but Monica can insert them here: <intentionally left blank>.

So the real perk of not having to work that second over night shift?  I got back from the facility just in time to turn on the BYU v Utah game!  I will admit I was in a terrible sleep state, and going back and forth between staying up all night messed with even knowing what day it was, but I made it up until half time.  I think I mentioned this last week, but we got a TV subscription for the football season, so I've got the game DVR'd.  However, Sling doesn't work right on my phone, and their webpage doesn't load right, so I couldn't watch the rest of the game till I got back from Texas, so I did look up the score after I got back from church on Sunday.  That was the other blessing of getting to head out early the night before, I don't know that after staying up till 8am at the beam I could have made it until 10 for church.

Meanwhile, back at home, there was even more to pick in the garden!  In fact, just before I wrote the caption for this picture, Monica asked if anyone wanted to help in the garden and we just went and picked a whole bunch of stuff!  Our garden is killing it this year.  We might actually get more money in produce than we spent on plants!

As we were finishing up our test trip, there was a chance that a hurricane was going to hit land fall in Houston Monday night/Tuesday.  We were inland far enough that we had the potential for lots of rain, but not much more.  However, there are several spots between College Station and Austin where the road ends up as a low point, and the road we take can flood, so on Monday we called back to SEAKR to get a hotel next to the airport, and swapped hotels that night.  In the end, the storm went east and it didn't rain much in the area at all.  That also means my flight didn't have any trouble making it back to Denver.  I got home when Monica was picking up Brooke from school, so the first person I saw was Gram, followed by Grayson once he woke up from his nap.  Eventually everyone got home, and we were all excited to be back together again.

Monica booked a stay for us at a local bed and breakfast for the night, and Gram watched the kids while we headed out.  It was a really fun place to stay, and I could definitely see us going back again sometime.  We put the kids to bed before we left, so we didn't get there until after dark, and didn't have much time in the morning before we needed to be back, so we didn't end up getting to walk around outside at all, but there was a cool waterfall that we could see out one of our windows.

I had enough hours on the clock when I got home from my trip, so I took the rest of the week off.  It was nice to get to spend a bunch of time with the family, though it might feel weird heading back to work tomorrow...  On Wednesday while Brooke had dance class I took Winry and Grayson to the park.  I was going to take everyone, I just forgot about dance class.  Anyway, Grayson liked the slides, but didn't do much else.  I didn't plop him in the wood chips, but he probably would have had a lot of fun doing that...

While I was gone, Grayson started wanting to walk around everywhere.  When you try to set him down now, he doesn't go sitting, but instead sticks his legs out.  To really set him down you have to lean him back until he curls his legs under him.  He prefers you set him on his feet, hold his hands and let him walk around.  He walks along everything, and has even let go and stood up all by himself!

On Friday we went to the zoo, since Brooke didn't have school.  Friday the high was only around 70, so it was really great weather too!  The kids of course loved seeing the animals.  And we got to see the new animal hospital.  They weren't checking on any animals when we were there, but there was a worker who could pull up x-rays and stuff on the TV screens, so that was really cool to see.

Grayson couldn't quite fall asleep in the stroller, so eventually I carried him around while he took a nap.  Of course, right as he fell asleep is once it started feeling too warm for a jacket...

With the cooler weather, the hippo statues weren't too hot to climb on!  Brooke and Winry both climbed up on the little one.

Brooke climbed on the big one, and I climbed up with Grayson too!  While we were riding the train we found out that the big hippo is a statue of the zoo's very first hippo, and he had 29 babies!

We had lunch at the amphitheater where they do the elephant shows.  They weren't doing a show, but two elephants were out on the platform.  They started having a shoving match, as elephants do, but once one got turned, the other noticed a secret stash of hay on his back and snatched a quick snack!  I thought it was really funny and had a good laugh, hopefully you enjoy it too.  

While we were having lunch there, Winry started dancing around!

We got Brooke's school picture back this past week.  I think we ordered a few prints, but we also ordered the digital file!  She looks so cute and the picture turned out so GREAT!! If you need a copy let Monica know.

Grayson wore a tie for, I believe, the first time today.  Here's the tie club!  Maybe for his birthday I'll have to find a tie with a matching clip on tie so we can match!

That's all my cool news for now.  Have a great week ahead!

Tribute to 2NA!

Well, as I mentioned 2 weeks ago, Tuna has left us, and I though it would be fun to go back and give Tuna a post for all the years it served us.  Tuna is also special to me in the fact that it was my first car.  I drove my parents car in high school, and my sister's old car my freshman year, but after I got home from my mission, I went and bought my own car in 2009, and that was Tuna!  Tuna was a 1999 Corolla, and by the time we gave him away, he was 22 years old!  Here's the first picture I could find of Tuna.  It wasn't particularly close to when I bought it.  I know that's the Miller parking lot, which means I'd had the car at least a year and a half at this point.  I came out to walk to campus one morning and the roof of the car was frosted over, and the water had frozen into a very pretty feathered pattern.

Tuna's been with our family through... well, everything.  It was the car Monica and I drove off from our wedding reception in.  And, while I don't have a picture, it was the car we brought Brooke home from the hospital in.  Tuna was there for all our biggest events.  Also, if you click this picture to make it larger you'll see the license plate ends "2NA", hence Tuna.

I don't remember the exact mileage I got Tuna at, I think around 110,000, but here's a picture when we crossed 150,000 miles!  We were driving through Wyoming on our way to Utah at the time.  When I gave Tuna away it was at 187,000.  The whole time we drove Tuna we never had any serious problems, it was always a great and reliable car.

Oh, and here's Monica, driving at 150,000 miles!  We drove Tuna back and forth to Utah many times.  It's how we got to Colorado to search for an apartment when we first moved out.  Tuna was a bit more bumpy and shaky of a drive.  In fact, the drive to Utah could easily give me 15,000+ steps on my watch while I held the steering wheel!  Here's another fun road trip story.  Tuna has a tape player, and my parents still had some of the Harry Potter books on tape, so we'd borrow them and listen to them on our drives.  Well, it was winter and cold outside, so we had the heater running, which also caused the tape deck area to get really hot.  After a few hours of driving, the audio started squealing really bad and it was hard to hear.  For the rest of the drive we'd have to take breaks from listening to our book to let the tape deck cool down so we could hear the audio again!

For several years, Tuna was our conduit to get our Christmas tree home.  Here's a picture of us getting our tree out here in Colorado.  Monica's and my first Christmas being married, we went to Smiths to get a tree after school one day on our way home.  When we stopped and I opened my car door, the latch had apparently frozen a little and the door wouldn't stay closed, so we just had to head home.  I had to hold the door shut the whole drive home.  By the time we got home the car had warmed up enough to properly close again, so we headed back to the store!  The flexibility of not having kids astounds me while I tell this story.  Anyway, we got our tree and went to tie it to the roof.  When I went to throw the rope to Monica on the other side of the car my wedding ring came flying off!  It was dark, and it had snowed recently, and my ring flew over the car and landed somewhere in the parking lot!  Fortunately we found it, and got the tree home safely too!

Here's Tuna handing out candy at our ward trunk or treat.  This is the best we've ever decorated our trunk as well.  You may also note an entire pack of bottled water behind the cobwebs in there.  Tuna was reliable, but we still knew it was an old car.

Did we love Tuna?  We sure did.  Here is some mustard art of Tuna as we prepared sandwiches for a trek out to Utah.  This particular drive was when Brooke was just 6 weeks old, and it was quite the experience.  We were heading out for my Grandma's (mom's mom) funeral.  The drive out was pretty uneventful, other then the fact that Brooke had a rough time nursing at first, so Monica had to pump (we had a battery pack, and she'd even pump while we were driving sometimes), we had to stop a bunch for Brooke, and the technically 8 hour drive took us around 12 hours!  We (or at least I) were exhausted when we got to Monica's parents house!

The drive home though?  Oof. (Monica is still traumatized from this experience...but seriously) On the morning of my grandma's funeral the day started with freezing rain.  The funeral home was about an hour north, so we had to make sure we were careful on the drive up.  At one point we were on a stretch of freeway that was about 5 lanes wide.  A car passed us in the fast lane to our left, and shortly after it got in front of our car hit an ice patch and spun out all the way across the freeway.  I had to swerve around it to not hit the car, and fortunately they spun across at a moment where all the lanes were clear.  I don't know if they got hit or anything, but I don't think we saw anything.  It was a close call, and we were a bit (or in Monica's case EXTREMELY) rattled the rest of the drive to the funeral home.  I think we made it last, but I didn't have much incentive to drive fast at that point with a 6 week old baby in the back!

The funeral was good, but when we came out, it was snowing pretty heavily.  We decided we couldn't go to the grave side (it was 30 minutes away) and that we needed to try to beat the storm and head straight home to Colorado.  We were in Logan, and headed through the canyon and up over the pass toward Bear Lake.  Maps said this was the fastest way to get home, and it seemed better than spending 60 to 90 minutes driving south before starting to head east, so we took it.  The road got pretty snowy by the time we got to the top, and we had to descend slowly down to bear lake.  Fortunately at bear lake the storm wasn't really in force yet, so we stopped to get gas and Subway, and continued on our way.  We've never driven that road since, but I remember we were listening to the part in Harry Potter where Hagrid talks about his journey to the giants, and I still think of that as giant territory.  It was a long day, and we got back long after dark.  Another fun fact about Tuna, the headlights were REALLY bad, so it was no fun driving in the dark for hours to get home.  We did finally make it, and Tuna was just a little salty when we rolled into our garage.

For years Tuna was also our hauling vehicle.  I already showed the Christmas tree, but Tuna was our way to get anything home.  Someone is giving away lawn chairs?  Good thing I had an emergency fleece blanket in the trunk to tie it shut.  Need lumber for a project? Tuna can hold about 16 2x4s.  You just gotta know these things!

Tuna was the treasure at the end of the rainbow!

I think Tuna's last big excursion was for Monica's and my anniversary in 2019.  Monica's mom came out and watched the kids for a weekend, and we drove to Glenwood Springs.  We had a great time out there.  We stopped at this awesome little bakery on the way out that was so good we stopped again on the way home.  We hiked to Hanging Lake, and I'm so glad we had that opportunity as there was a fire there and then rain washed out the trail, so it's closed now.  We really enjoyed the charm of the town, and swam in the hot springs too.  Here we are outside the bakery on our way home after picking up some treats to share with the girls when we got home.  Also, note from the video.  Tuna's only failing was that in old age the driver side door handle stopped working on the inside.  Always worked great on the outside though.  That means I had the great opportunity to get Monica's door, and I also got to climb out the passenger side whenever I drove Tuna to work (every day).  I also got to explain about the handle to several people so they didn't think it was weird when I crawled out the passenger side behind them.

Here's Tuna and Luna, best of friends.  Luna is an '09 Corolla, so expect a similar post in 2031.

We haven't really driven Tuna since we got our van in May of 2020.  Since then Tuna sat in front of our house, watching over us... or something.  Tuna was a wonderful car, and was part of many great memories.  Tuna helped to build our family, and we ALL (or probably just me) will miss Tuna!  Swim on forever little buddy!  Hope to see you around town.

This turned out to be a pretty good week for that tribute post, as work was insane and I took a total of 1 video with some pictures during it on Monday...  Monica was a little better than me, but still, not too much happened around here this week.  The biggest news is probably that Grayson started climbing the stairs!  So now we have a baby gate at the bottom of the stairs to make sure he stays safe.

The big reason I didn't get many picture this week is because I was working all day every day.  I put in about 60 hours Monday-Friday.  I worked all day until around 4-4:30, took a break to talk/play with the kids, have dinner and help get everyone to bed, and then worked again the rest of the night.  It was crunch time before my beam trip next week.  It was a pretty crazy week, and I was more than a little tired.

Grayson has loved to chase Jelly around the house.  He just really want's to pet her.  One day Jelly ran behind the couch to get away from Grayson, and he followed her back there!  Monica didn't think he could get behind the couch from where he was, but Brooke noticed him back there a minute later.  He crawled out on his own with a little encouragement, so that was good.  The better news was that Monica just moved and cleaned under the couch a few days before!

During Winry's dance class on Thursday everyone was chilling in the car and Grayson started trying to drive!  Fortunately he can't reach the pedals, but this was probably a near disaster!

This morning Winry really wanted to help give Grayson his bottle.  She did a superb job and gave him the whole thing!  She loves to play with Grayson, and gets in his face a lot.  He typically hits/pushes her face away, but Winry always seems to think that's funny and encouraging.

Grayson has discovered and loves to shake this molding.  It's been a long time since I redid the fireplace, and after I was done I tried to order the exact molding color from Lowes that I needed to match the floor.  That order sat in purgatory for at least 6 months before I gave up, cancelled it, and went and grabbed the closest color I could find.  Since then I've been sawless as I let a buddy borrow mine, but they're back now and... well... I don't have an excuse other than I just forgot.  Fortunately Grayson reminds me frequently by picking up and shaking it.

In church today someone made a comment and it made me think about how I always used to end my blog post with my testimony, and I thought that was something I should probably try to get back to.  I don't know that I'll do it every week, but I definitely want to get that going again, and it's been a really long time.  Today we talked about the temple at church.  I love the temple!  It is such a great blessing to get to go, put the craziness of life aside and feel the spirit!  I'm so glad things are starting to open again.  I know that families are eternal, and that we can live together forever!  I say this in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.