things and stuff

Here are some recent things and stuff...


Here's a picture of my Father's Day breakfast. SOOOO good! Two different kinds of sausage, bacon, scrambled eggs with cheese- perfect!


Anna made some chocolate frosted brownies. As you can see, Tegan enjoyed hers very much. Tegan has been potty-training the last couple weeks. She's doing pretty well. Staying drier each day, etc. It's going to be REALLY nice to be done with diapers!... Seriously, just as I finished typing those sentences... Tegan pees her pants *sigh*.

I needed to pick up some shirts in Fullerton on Tuesday, so since I would be going all the way down there, we made a small detour to Disneyland. The boys were at school, so Anna and I just had the girls with us. We stayed about two and a half hours. It was pretty busy. We're now officially blocked out till the end of August. Love this picture of the girls on the carousel.

Our last stop at Disneyland was the Tiki Room.

The boys' school had their awards assembly this morning. They have one of these each time they go off track and at the end of the school year. Liam got an award for his skills in math. He was promised an award by his teacher loooong ago. This was her making good on that promise. Still, he was very excited to get an award.

Some of the many things going on at our house these days. As busy as we seem to be, I'm sure that in a few years, we'll look back at these days and think we had it so easy back then.

First Place

Duncan won First Place in a school district art contest in the K-2nd grade category. The theme was Cesar Chavez. The prize for first place was $75! We spent a lot of time prepping Duncan on how to feel if he didn't win anything... and he won 1st. He was very happy about winning.

Yesterday, there was a district breakfast and awards ceremony. Duncan's piece was on display, along with all the other winners.

Duncan made a paper mache mask. It was the only "3-D" art entry.


Here's Duncan with his certificate and entry.

We are very proud of him and his accomplishment.

Presented With An Award

I was presented with an award on Saturday night.


The local BSA District we're in (Grayback), was holding it's annual awards dinner on Saturday. I wasn't planning to go. I looked at it as just another district scout activity that I didn't need to go to.


On Thursday (?), I got a call from the member of the bishopric that's over scouting saying I needed to go to the dinner to represent our unit. I said I wasn't that interested in going, I'm sure someone else could go. He said he would let "them" know. He called me back a short time later saying I needed to go so I could give a short report on scout camp. I'm thinking "scout camp? I didn't even go to our councils camp. Why would they want to know about another camp?" He said they really thought I should go. "Who's the 'they'?" The young Men's president and a member of our ward that's in the Stake young men's presidency. I said I would have to find babysitting, he said "they" would find someone in the ward to do it if we needed it.

At this point, I'm thinking some thing's fishy.


The member of the stake young men's presidency in our ward called for Anna (that never happens), and needed her email address. Anna said it was to create an email list of scoutmasters and scoutmaster's wife's for the stake or district or something, and that the Stake president wanted all the scoutmasters and their wives to go to the dinner to support the district, and be familiar with the awards being presented... blah, blah, blah.


In the mean time, I'm trying to make sense of it all.


I bought into the Stake President wanting the scouting leadership in the stake to go, for the reason's Anna gave. The stake over the past few years has really made an effort to boost our participation in the district and council. She said her mom could come and babysit, so we could go. Ok, fine, we'll go.


Saturday evening comes, and Anna's mom shows up, but Anna's dad came too... and in his scout uniform? "He wants to come and check out how your district does their awards." I'm told. Except I know he doesn't care what other districts do. Hmm... I almost hid the camera to see if Anna would ask where it was, but instead, I chose to put it where I could see her get it if she went for it. And guess what... she grabbed the camera before we headed out. Hmmm... Looks like there's another reason I need to be at this awards dinner.


We get to where the dinner is being held, we pay for our dinner, and sit. Anna excuses herself to go to the restroom. She's gone for quite a while. Hmm... When she does reappear, my parents are with her... now it's pretty much out of the bag. I'm there to receive something, but what? I'm figuring it's some unit (troop) level award of appreciation or something like that. But those came and went... Now I'm back to being a little confused, there's only "big" awards left.


Turns out, I was nominated and chosen as the Grayback District Varsity Scout Leader of the Year Award. Wow, really?! I was surprised. I was actually quite honored too. It was pretty cool.


I was glad that I went, and that my parents could be there as well as Anna's dad. It made up for the over-priced, not that good, dinner we had.

Anna was relieved to be done with having to lie and trick me into going.

Why are there two pictures of me with the award? Well, the first one had the green frog in the background looking like it's on my uniform, so we took the second one. But I think I like the first one better after all, because you can see my Tribe of Tahquitz patch. So I put them both here, so you can decide which one you like better, and look at that one.

Duncan's Award

On Tuesday, Duncan was one of a handful of students in his class to get an award for the work they've done in school thus far. Duncan's award was for outstanding effort in math. I think some of the others were for writing, and being a "peace builder", etc.

We came to watch him get his award in front of the student's on his track. The next day was the last day of their track before having winter break, which for their track lasts until January 5, 2009. That's like 6 weeks!

With his award was a coupon for a free kid's meal at Claim Jumper. The girls were picked up for a sleep over at grandma and grandpa McAlister's house that afternoon, so Anna and I took the boys to Claim Jumper for dinner. CJ is not a good place for a kid on the GFCF diet. The only kid's menu item he could have was the two mini hamburgers meal. We asked for no bun. The fries are cooked in oil that is shared with coated onion rings, so they couldn't have fries. We opted for fruit side items instead since the boys like fruit. One side was frozen grapes; not as good as they sound, and apple sauce. Except the apple sauce is coarse, and seasoned with cinnamon. Neither of which the boys liked. So they basically had hamburger patties with ketchup and apple juice for dinner that night. Once we got home, I think Anna gave them each a GFCF cookie, and they were content for the night.

We are very happy for Duncan to receive some recognition for his hard work with math. We hope he continues to do well with all of his school work.