Monday Music 08.31.09

I've been hearing the new Alice In Chains song a lot on the radio lately, and I have to say... I really like it.

The new singer sounds enough like the original singer that you know what band it is right away, and different enough to know it's a new singer. The harmonies, which to me, is what really makes AIC special, are still there, and the heavy guitars... it fits right in with all the older songs just fine.

Alice in Chains, "A Looking In View"




Good stuff.

Friday Flashback 08.28.09

It has come to my attention that choosing things randomly kind of makes them less personal...

So I chose today's flashback picture.


Yes, I really chose this picture from the handful I pulled out...

I believe we are at an airport to greet Keith as he walks off the plane, having successfully completed his mission in Colorado.

Looks as though I'm giving Kevin some advice on proper video camera handling.

Anna appears to be very impressed with my camera-advice-giving skills. Might I add that this is quite a good picture of Anna with her dreads.

I'm not sure what year it is. Is it 2000?... or early 2001? Help me out if you can.

The Greenery

We are still enjoying our gardening efforts...

Here's what's left of our sunflowers. In the baggy are the sunflower seeds I got from the two smaller blooms, and the larger bloom has been hanging up in the garage to dry out. I'll be taking the seeds off of that one very soon. I might try roasting some, but I think I'll be saving most of them for planting next spring.


Most of the largest pumpkin plant we have is spilled over the edges of the planter box via long vines. The one coming toward you is a nice healthy vine (at least it looks like it is), but so far it hasn't produced any pumpkins yet. They'll start, but when they're about the size of a marble, they dry up and fall off (still). We're still hopeful.

"Nice Melons!" Why, thank you... Two of the three that got to edible size. The third one is still on the vine. I plucked these two because the one on the left developed a small crack in it's skin and ants were getting to it. I picked the other one because it's a little bigger, and I didn't want it to get ruined by bugs, so it will ripen inside. The one on the vine is still pretty green. After that last one is ready to pull off, I'll probably remove that plant from the box.

Here's one of the red-headed ears I pulled recently. It's hard to tell in the picture, but the kernels are still not quite ready yet. I pulled a small ear off of the other corn, and only half of the kernels had developed fully, but I tried the ones that were, and they were goooood! So sweet. Those might be ready any day.

Here's a not-very-good picture of the other side of the 2nd planter box with the pumpkin vines growing over the edge. I say it's not that good because you can't tell how long the one going backwards really is. It's loooong. That's the vine that has the 2 growing pumpkins on it.

Speaking of pumpkins, here's the larger of the two. Last week it was about the size of a softball. I'd say it almost doubled it's volume. The picture doesn't do it justice. The second pumpkin is still pretty small. It's only a little bigger than it was last week. It's further down the vine, so it probably doesn't get the same amount of water and nutrients as the first one.

It's hard to tell in this picture, but the tomato plant has grown to the point that it's pulled up it's support cage and is now pretty much laying on top of half the yellow squash and cantaloupe plants. I just found out (from Anna's mom) that when you water a tomato plant a lot, the plant grows very large, but has fewer tomatoes. Now I know for next time, not to put it next to plants that need plenty of water.

I've picked a handful of zucchinis and crook-necks in the last week. I used a few of the crook-necks to make GFCF zucchini bread with. It came out all right, but the boys weren't too interested. I think I'll try again with regular zucchini next time. I wished I would have kept track of how many zucchinis and crook-necks I picked. That would have been a fun statistic to know. I could guess, but that's all it would be.

So there you have it... the weekly garden update.

Monday Music 08.24.09

Heard this song many times, and liked it every time, but never really learned who did it. I was just happy to be hearing it.

Last week, during one of our trips to Disneyland, I was also picking up some tshirts and this song was on. I pulled up to the warehouse and had to get out of the van, but the song wasn't over yet. I asked Anna to listen for the name of the artist and song when it ended. When I got back in the van, Anna said they didn't say who it was or anything. Bummer.

I couldn't get it out of my head, so I set out to find that info myself. It took me about 30 minutes or so, but I finally got it off of KROQs website... what a relief to finally know who sings this song.

The song is "Help I'm Alive", by the group Metric.

Here's a mini documentary about the song and subsequent album (less than 5 minutes long)



Here's the song (fan slideshow)



Here's the official un-official video by a visual artist, with a slight remix on the song (visually interesting, but I don't' care for the remix too much)...



Did I mention I really like this song?

Music makes Mondays better.

Pure Awesomeness

I stumbled across these Japanese commercials that feature Brad Pitt. I believe they were pulled up due to the success of Mr. Pitt's newest film role in Inglorious Bastards which killed at the box office this weekend (pun intended).

I clicked on them out of simple curiosity since the Japanese tend to have some pretty interesting commercials most of the time.

To my surprise... these commercials also feature Musashimaru! Musashimaru is one of the most successful American born Sumo champions in Sumo history. He is Samoan, and from Hawaii.

I REALLY like these commercials for some reason. I think it's the subtleties in the music, the expressions instead of words to tell the story, and so on...

See for your self...

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What do you think?

Friday Flashback 08.21.09

Today's flashback photo was not randomly chosen... Today is Sara and Josh's 10th wedding anniversary! Ten years is quite a milestone.

I didn't have a lot of time to search for what photos we have from this day, but I knew I had this picture of Anna and Sara already on my computer, so it's today's flashback photo.
Sara and Josh were married and sealed in the San Diego temple. Anna was a bride's maid.

I'd say Josh and I are a couple of lucky guys.

Happy Anniversary Sara and Josh, may the next 10 be even better than the past 10.

No Longer Blocked

We were finally able to return back to Disneyland on Monday, after being blocked our the bulk of summer! It was also cool because we'd be able to spend most of the day there instead of having to rush there after work or school.

One of the main objectives during this trip was to get Duncan on the California Screamin' ride for the first time. Somehow, Anna had planted that seed in Duncan's head, that he should do on that ride. A day or two before we went, Duncan came to me about the ride, and I asked him shy he was scared, and he said he didn't want to fall out. I explained, in detail, the safety harness, and that there was no way for him to fall out... the only thing he can do on that ride is have fun. That seemed to help quite a bit, and I think he was actually looking forward to it.

Anna took him on first. She said he was nervous, but he didn't drag him feet or chicken out. Though he did keep his eyes closed most of the time, and his head down too.

In the mean time, I took the rest of the kids on the King Triton Carousel. While we waited for the ride to start, Liam was asked if he wanted a crown to wear. He accepted, and was announced as one of the royalty joining us on our ride. Very Fun. I adjusted it to fit his head better, and he wore it all day!

After Duncan and Anna's ride, and then ours was done- Anna and I switched. I went with Duncan on Ca. Screamin' and Anna took the kids on the carousel. Duncan had a great time on that ride.

Since we had more time, we stopped by the Brother Bear outdoor area place and let the kids slide and climb for a while.

Liam and Duncan were tall enough to do the zip line swing, and had a great time dong that.

We made our way to Disneyland, took fewer pictures (I don't know why that always seems to be the case). Here's Tegan playing on the slide in Goofy's house play area. Duncan and I had a fun game of hide-and-seek going. Anna tried taking a picture of that, but it didn't turn out.

Duncan really wanted to go into the Innoventions building in Tomorrow Land, so we did. One of the cool things we did was play chess on this table top touch screen computer. There are tons of video games on the second floor, so the boys could easily spend hours in there if we let them.

One of the last things we did was go on Pirates. Liam was holding on to his hat and glasses for the "waterfalls".

It was pretty crowded, but not unmanageable. We knew we'd probably be coming back Wednesday so we could spend the bulk of the day there too, so we didn't stress about not doing rides or what ever.

It's nice to have Disneyland as a family activity option again.

The Good, The Bad, And The Worse

This was our second visit to Disneyland this week- Wednesday. We decided to go again, because these were the only days we could come all day long.

Monday's visit was crowded, but really not too bad.

Wednesday's visit was FULL of disappointment, but there were some good things too.

We decided that our Wednesday visit would be to do some things we don't normally do. One of those things was to attend the "Jedi Training Academy" where selected children get to do some Jedi "training" and then fight Darth Vader at the end. People wait nearly an hour to be at the center of the training floor because it gets VERY full. We wanted to be in a good position, so we began waiting about 45 minutes prior to the next training time. With about 5 minutes left, we were told that the next session was cancelled, but that we could try the next session. We didn't want to sit and wait for another hour+, so we went to the Nemo observation outpost, and then on Autopia, for which I had gotten us all fastpasses just as we began waiting for the training thing.

We returned about 30 minutes prior to the next training and no one was waiting. We asked if the next training was taking place, and were told there would be no more trainings the rest of the day... but that characters would be available for photos in the area during the training times. Um, no thanks...

Fail.

Here I am (with Duncan and Jennan) spraying Anna with Liam and Tegan while on Autopia. Yes, I believe they bumped us.

One of the things on our list to do this day was visit Tom Sawyer's island. Actually, before that, we went on the Sailing Ship Columbia that goes around Tom Sawyer's Island. It was good we happened to do that first because the kids got to see some of the things on the island to do, so it was natural for us to say, "Lets go there next.", and we did.

Here we are "pumping" water out of a little crashed sail boat to reveal some treasure and a pirate skeleton.

There was a cool tree house for them to go through. They must have climbed through that thing 4 times each.

Here are the kids looking over the side of the Sailing Ship Columbia.

We found the treasure!

The kids liked the island, but it wasn't all happy happy joy joy. Liam was having a rough time on the island. He wanted to be first to do a lot of things, for which he wasn't first. He wanted to do a lot of the things we did over again when we're trying to go check out something new. Once we got to some place new, he wanted to leave right away to go somewhere else, but then once upset, he didn't want to leave the spot he sat to be upset. After the first 10 minutes of being on the island, Liam was upset for the remaining time- about 45 minutes or so.

It was after being on the island that we decided to find a spot to "camp out" to wait for watching Fantasmic. The other main goal for this day's visit to Disneyland. It was shortly after 5pm, which was a bit earlier than we wanted, but Anna and I were both pretty drained from dealing with Liam on the island, so we just wanted to sit, feed the kids and chill for a while. Once the kids were fed, they fed some ducks, etc.- over an hour had already passed. Other people began to camp out around us too. Places near the center were already 3 rows deep. We were off to the right and had a row behind us already.

I took the three older kids on Pirates. The wait was almost 20 minutes, plus the length of the ride, so we killed a good amount of time. Once I got back, Anna took a turn taking the kids on Pirates again, and then they went to the Tarzan Treehouse before they came back to our spot.

I almost forgot, earlier in the evening, our section was told to either collapse our strollers or park them in the stroller area right next to us. Our stroller had a bunch of stuff in it, so we chose to park it because it would be very close anyway, and still accessible. Well, at some point later, they're moving all the strollers out of that area so people can sit there for the show. What? I was told that my stroller would remain in that area... nope. I had no idea where they put it, so now we couldn't get to our other snacks, etc., we had planned to use. Soooo, lame.

Finally, there's less than an hour to go. The kids are actually doing quite well waiting. Then finally, only 10 more minutes- Anna and I both stand up to get some circulation back into our rears, and are promptly told by staff that we are in a sitting only area, and need to sit down. We're only standing for a moment, we'll sit down in a couple minutes, is the message we relay. Another workers voice is asking us to please sit down... Anna and I look at each other and chuckle. Then the first worker comes again over to us to ask us to sit down, there's still 5 minutes left... "I know sir, I still need you to sit down right away... you're in a sitting zone." Like I don't already know that? I've been sitting here off and on for about 4 hours. Laughable.

The time has arrived! They announce that the show is about to begin, and that people sitting at the edge might get wet. That's the first time I remember that we might get a little mist from the spray, but it's just mist... no big deal... wrong! We practically get sprayed down. It was so thick at times that you had to turn your head and close your eyes. Our kids were not ready to be wet, and I mean WET. But, we do our best to help them cover up. We have them pull their legs into their shirts, or put a bag over their legs, and was right in the middle of pulling up the large beach towel we were all sitting on, to cover up when the lights come on and an announcement is made that the show cannot continue due to unforeseen difficulties. What the...! Seriously?!

The fireworks show is set to begin in about 10 minutes, so we sit there dumb-founded at what has just happened... we remain sitting through the firework show, and have the pirate ship from the show pass in front of our view as it gets reset, blocking the show for a moment. Jennan as fallen asleep in my lap, Liam is on the verge of falling asleep.

The fireworks show ends and within a couple minutes, there's another Disney worker there asking us to clear out so they can get the clean up crew in to clean for the next show. Really?! That worker at least sees we have sleeping kids and passes us by, but asks us to do it as quickly as possible. The clean up crew is at work all around us. That worker said we could come back to that spot (and wait a little over an hour for the next show) once the area was clean, but there was NO WAY we were going to sit there any longer. Anna locates our stroller, we make our way over to it, and head to the exit.

While on our way to the exit, Anna says she's going to complain, and asks "what do we want?". I say that I think we should get the cost of admission for our day put on a gift card to use on future visits. Anna thinks that's a good idea, and we make our way to the Town Hall. Liam's about to fall over asleep, as we wait at the curb in front of Town Hall while Anna's in a long line to get in. I pull out that towel and form it into a pillow and Liam lays down on the curb and falls asleep. Three kids out, Duncan looking quite tired. They won't give us cash or an equivalent (gift card), but they offer fast passes (5?) for a future visit, or six "any day" tickets, good for two years. We go with the any-day tickets.

As we walked back to our car, we could not believe our misfortune during our trip to Disneyland this day. While in line to complain, there was a lady there with a list of 8 different rides her group was either in line for or on, that broke down that day. Looks like going on rides wasn't much better than camping out for shows either. A rough day.

We'll be going back next Wednesday for Luis' birthday, but as of right now, we're not exactly looking forward to it.




FAIL!

Garden Update

The Garden continues to grow and progress.

Here are some of the zucchini and squash I've recently picked. There are a a couple more I could probably pick today- Haven't decided yet.

The corn has a bunch of ears growing! The corn in box 1 didn't get very tall, but that's not keeping it from producing a lot of corn. Now the trick will be getting them to fully ripen, and deciding the optimal time to pick them.

Some of the corn we planted in box 2 has got to be close to 7 feet tall! And the other very cool thing is that the corn silks are burgundy in color! I refer to them as the "red-heads".

We have one huge pumpkin plant with crazy long vines. Along one of those vines there are a few pumpkins growing. Even though they're on the same vine, I hope they get nice and big. Here's the largest one so far. It's a little bit bigger than my fist. The next one is about half that size, and the third is about the size of an average meatball. Other vines have tried growing pumpkins, but they get to about marble size and then wither away. Hopefully some other vines will produce a couple pumpkins before long.

Here's Duncan standing between the garden boxes.

The tomato plant has hit a growth spurt the last few weeks, but I haven't noticed any more tomatoes growing. But the plant it's self is huge! The cantaloupe plant has 3 almost-ready-to-pick fruits on it, and a bunch of little ones that don't seem to be getting any bigger; But I'm still hopeful.

The sunflowers aren't anything to look at anymore. I chopped the top off of the big one and hung it in the garage to dry. It was way too heavy for it's stalk. The other littler one is still intact for the time being, though they are just about ready to be chopped up too. The seeds are drying in the heads, and once they are, I'll harvest them.

So yeah, looking forward to having some home grown corn soon, as well as pumpkin.

Monday Music 08.17.09

Clicked the forward button on my iPod and this is what was next...

My Bloody Valentine, "Blow Me A Wish"





Bonus music:

Heard this song the other day, and liked it quite a bit...

Owl City, "Fireflys"



It's all good.

Kyle's Birthday

Today is Kyle's birthday. I've gathered up a handful of pictures to share...



Young Kyle's hair was usually quite long. I think mom and dad had a thing for his curls. (1981)


Kyle has always been very facially expressive. (1987)

Freshman Kyle wearing the EMHS marching band colors. (1992?)

"I want to eat that." is how I interpret Kyle's gesture here. On the back it says it's Thanksgiving 1995. That means the hot chick in the back round is Anna McAlister.

Kyle had a thing for these green pants and loved to wear them to young adult dances. He's also a master air-clarinet player!

So yeah, those are some of the many pictures that have Kyle in them. Kyle's always been a character. He has siren strength laughter and laughs often. He has a tremendous sense of humor.

Kyle taught me a lot while he was an instructor when I was an Elder's Quorum president. He had an insightful way of teaching that I enjoyed quite a bit.

Kyle is a very knowledgeable person, and when I have a question I think he might know the answer to, he never hesitates to share what he knows.

Hope you enjoyed your birthday weekend. Happy birthday Kyle, from us to you.

Glasses Boy

Liam got glasses last Friday. He has a slight astigmatism in one of his eyes.



It's taking some time for him to get used to them, but he's already doing much better today than he was the first day, by far.

That's our glasses boy!

Beach Campout (many many pictures)

We went on a family campout this week for 2 nights in Carpinteria. The week before, some friends of ours in our ward asked us if we wanted to go camping the next week. They said we could have 5 days if we wanted. (Turns out friends of theirs reserved an extra site for someone who pulled out at the last minute. Our friends took 5 days, and then offered the rest to us.) We were only able to use 3 of those days. We left Tuesday morning and planned to be back Thursday afternoon.



Carpinteria is off the 101 fwy. about 12 miles before Santa Barbara. The site we had was meant for an RV/trailer, so the area for a tent is quite small. Our family sized tent took up 3/4 of the available space.



That blue and yellow tent is in the site next to us. There's little to nothing between sites.



The kids enjoyed climbing what trees there were. They're in a Eucalyptus tree.

Duncan was a big help in setting the tent up.

Once we got the tent and everything set up, Anna lathered up the kids and we played on the beach. They didn't get too wet (by request), but had a great time playing in the sand.

We roasted hotdogs over the fire for dinner. The boys had GFCF buns. We also had chips and juice and fruit for dinner.

Then the best part, as Duncan would say, making s'mores. As you can see here, Duncan has already enjoyed one s'more, and is ready for a double marshmallow one next. The boys used GFCF cookies and chocolate for their s'mores.

Sitting around the campfire eating s'mores... Mmm Mmm good.

Anna trying to show some superior roasting technique.

After eating, we all went to bed. We made sure to put all of our loose food items and trash bag in the van so the raccoons wouldn't get into them. The ice chests were tucked under the edge of the picnic table. I was having a rough night due to some gastric-intestinal difficulties, so I was up about every 2-3 hours using the restroom. At about 3:30am, as I returned to the tent, Anna was standing at the door waiting for me. She pointed her flashlight in the direction of the ice chests and turned it on... there were about 4 or 5 adolescent raccoons eating everything in the ice chest! They just looked at us. Anna said there was a mom raccoon that was HUGE in the area too, but I didn't see it. I chased the raccoons out of our campsite and put the ice chests in the van to deal with in the morning, and went back to bed.

At 6am, we all got up to go check out some tide pools that were a short walk down the beach from us. The kids were all excited. The morning was quite a bit over cast, but our jackets were warm enough. There were lots of sea anemones but nothing else.

After the tide pools, I headed out to find a grocery store to replenish the supplies that the raccoons had destroyed. They ate our other hotdogs, the grapes, the boys' buns, the chocolate, and dirtied up everything else in there. We dumped everything in the trash, so off to the store I went. Luckily I found a Vons not far away and was able to get everything we needed, including dish soap and sponges to clean up the ice chests. I also found a store to buy some kites and a Jenga game. Those were in case the sun stayed hidden for most of the day.

The kites were a big hit! We flew kites for the rest of the morning until lunch time. There wasn't a lot of wind but it was enough to keep the kids happy.

While the other kids were flying kites, Tegan found a couple rocks and had a great time banging them together. The original "rock" music.

We don't think Tegan slept very well the night before, and by the early afternoon she was out! We laid her on one towel, she used a towel as a pillow, one as a blanked and we put one to shade her face. That left one towel for everyone else to use till she woke up.

Duncan and Liam had a great time playing in the waves. Anna even took each of them out a little further to experience the water a little deeper than their knees.

Here's a s'more from the second (and last) night. The best thing about it being the last night, is not having to save any for later. We just ate them till they were gone.

After an early dinner, we went back to fly kites. The fog rolled in pretty early, but the wind was just right for our little dollar kites. The kids loved it.

We had a great time. We got used to our crowded surroundings quickly, and made the best of it all. The kids weren't too whiny or upset at any time (got lucky with that), and accepted the schedule rather easily. Luckily our spot was very close to the bathrooms. I had a rough time but made it through without embarrassing myself. There's a good chance we'll go back next year with some other families in our ward that we're good friends with.

The whole experience reminded Anna and I that we need to try and plan a big family campout out some time in the next year. Does anyone want to take the lead on that?

We had a good time, and hope to have other opportunities like this in the future.