People These Days

What has gotten into people these days? What happened to common courtesy? Has the Golden Rule just flown right out the window?

Setting: 7pm, 30 degrees outside, busy gas station. All three children present.

Yesterday evening we were getting gas when all of a sudden our car wouldn't start. The battery died. We have a very big car so we didn't want to ask people who had these tiny cars to give us a jump so we waited for a few minutes. Finally a man pulls up in an SUV so we think that this is the perfect candidate to help us. He's alone, doesn't appear to be in a huge hurry, so we patiently wait for him to fill his car up with gas and when he is finishing Greg walks over and asks if he would help us jump start our car, we have the cables. What does he say? "No." I'm not kidding. Not a, "Oh I wish I could but I'm in a hurry", or "Sorry, I can't". Just plain "No".
What is that? It takes all of two minutes to jump start a car. Yet he can't even muster a "Sorry"? Seriously, people these days.

Tis the Season

Basketball season that is. My boys love nothing more than to go to a game with their daddy. Carson actually knows the players names and understands what penalties the ref is calling. Its crazy.

I don't mind that they go to these games a couple times every week, it gives Maile and I some girl time. We went out to dinner the other night, just her and I. It was great. This is a great season, and I love this picture of my favorite boys getting ready to go to a game.

How To Talk To Girls

This is so cute, and funny. Watch it.

Nine year old Alec Greven, who attends school in Castle Rock, Colorado, wrote "Girls" as a handwritten, $3 pamphlet sold at his school book fair; he wrote it after he noticed his peers were having some trouble talking to the ladies, though the book is geared for all ages. Among this advice: Comb your hair and don't wear sweats; control your hyperness and cut down on sugar if necessary; a crush is like a love disease that can drive you mad; it is easy to spot pretty girls because they have big earrings, fancy dresses and all the jewelry but are like cars that need a lot of oil.

How To Talk To Girls

Christmas Photos

My friend has been taking some photography classes and I asked her if she would take some pics of my kids. I love them and couldn't be happier. I know that every mom thinks her kids are the cutest, but mine really are. These pictures are beautiful, thanks Lesli.

Hawaii 2008

Ok, so I have been told that I have to post some Hawaii pictures so I will. This is a little late (we went to Kauai on Oct. 23) but better late than never. We went to Kauai with another couple and NO kids. I had never been to this island before so I was very excited. All in all though, I have to say it is not much different than Maui. Same stuff to do for the most part, just a little less commercialized. Anyway, we had a great time. We ate way too much (like always), watched way too much "The Office" (every second we were in the room "The Office" was on, even if we were just going to be in there for a few minutes), and got a little too little sun. It rained everyday we were there. It didn't rain all day, so we did get some sun, but it rained a lot.

Here are some pictures of all of the fun things we did. Thanks to Jamie and Shawn for watching our crazy kids, we love you guys.

Still My Latest Obsession

A couple of months ago I posted about my latest obsession, Red Mango. Well, it is still an obsession of mine and even more so after tonight. I was totally craving it so I went to get some and there was such a surprise there. They have a new, seasonal flavor: Pomegranate. NO artificial flavoring, NO artificial coloring, just straight pomegranate juice mixed into something that was already pure heaven. Now, I know a lot of you don't enjoy Red Mango (weirdos) but for those who do, you have to try this flavor. It is so yummy. But hurry it is only seasonal so you only have a couple of months to eat as much as humanly possible.

Silverman 2008

Greg decided to tackle the Silverman this year. He has done many triathlons and ran a marathon so I guess this was the natural next step. This race consisted of a 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike ride, and a 13 mile run. (Sounds horrible to me but I'm impressed that he wanted to do it). Well, we woke up the day of the race with it blowing wind and raining. It rains 4 times a year here and it happens to be on his race day, go figure. Anyway, the race was supposed to start at 8am and the weather made it postponed until 9am. I don't have pictures of the swim because I forgot my camera but here are some pictures of the rest. He did awesome and we are so proud of him.

We followed him around the city every step of the way, it was a long, fun day.

My Favorite People

I love these guys.

Halloween 2008

October 2003 - Me and Carson

October 2008 - Greg with Maile, Carson and Cole (in same costume as Carson in 2003)

Our Version of Camping

so, greg and i realized that we have never taken the kids camping. are we awful parents or what? we were talking with some friends whose kids are grown and they were talking about all of the family memories they have from camping over the years. now, if you know my husband you would know that camping isn't really his thing. he was totally jaded by a childhood full of camping trips (that's all they would do) and now he wants nothing to do with it. besides, who wants to pee in the squatting position? not my idea of a vacation. however, we thought that maybe we were depriving our children of something, so we actually really considered going on a camping trip. we thought that we could go up to mt. charleston and stay a night (that's right, only one) and then we realized that we have never even opened up the tent we got as a wedding gift (8 years ago) or the sleeping bags and besides, it's getting cold outside now. so what did we do? we wanted to break ourselves into the whole camping thing, so we thought that we would take baby steps.

that's right. the tent's in our backyard. greg lined the tent up so close to the house so he could still see the tv and watch the Cubs game once the kids fell asleep. greg called a buddy and invited him to come to our "camping trip" with his kids. honestly, i am not one bit ashamed that we are totally cheating on the whole camping thing. this was the best of both worlds; sleeping outside, not as cold as the mountains, bathroom close by, and i could sleep inside in my own bed with the baby. and the kids thought it was the coolest thing they had ever seen. we roasted marshmallows on our fire pit in the backyard (so did at least have a campfire for the kids), then my friend and i went to our own homes and beds and let the men and the kids enjoy the good old outdoors.

Bedtime

I just overheard the sweetest thing in the world. Greg was putting Maile to bed and as he was turning out her light he said, "Goodnight Rapunzel." She responds, "Goodnight Handsome Prince."

Summertime is Leaving

Some pics of the kids swimming this summer. They love the swimming pool and they actually swim really well. Cole thinks that he is just as big as the other kids and tries to do everything that they do, so he is actually very daring and crazy in the pool. I love these pictures.

Sleep Walking

so, my little carson is a sleep walker. once he is asleep he isn't easy to wake up, so when he has to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night it is quite a fun time for us. who knows what he is going to do because he doesn't fully wake up. so last night, it was about 10pm and Greg and I were watching TV downstairs when we hear him whining. we know he has to go potty because that's the only reason he gets out of bed. so greg jumps up to help him. he sees carson coming down the hall and greg asks if he has to go potty. he says yes and then starts sprinting towards greg down the hall. then he stops, turns around and walks back to his room. greg follows him and tells him to go potty so carson then turns back out of his room, sprints back down the hallway towards our room and goes into our bathroom. greg continues to follow. carson then opens up the shower door and climbs into the shower and proceeds to pull his pants down. luckily greg was there to stop him and direct him to the toilet, but it definitely makes me wonder where he could have peed that we don't know about??

Tina Fey = Sarah Palin

I had to put this on here. The first time I saw Sarah Palin I thought that she looked exactly like Tina Fey. I just knew that there would be a skit on it on SNL. I have waiting for SNL to start just so I could see this. Watch this, it is HILARIOUS!!

Our Favorite Family Pasttime

BOATING!! of course. greg and i first bonded over our love for boating. neither of us grew up with a boat, but we always had friends who had boats. one thing that both of us loved about boating was the atmosphere of it. it is such a great way for families to spend time together. even when our kids are teenagers boating will still be "cool". they can invite friends to come along and what a great way to get to know your kids friends.

anyway, we feel that the boat is a great way to spend our family time. so whenever we were home this summer, we were boating. carson has learned how to wakeboard and unfortunately i don't have any pictures of him doing it, but it is the cutest thing you have ever seen. i never take my camera to the lake because we go so often it doesn't seem like a neccesity every time we go out. however, on labor day i decided to take it out with us. here are some good pictures of us tubing, wakeboarding and hanging out with some friends on the boat.

Carson and Kristy tubing

Matt and Angie Roylance out for a joy ride

Greg catching some sick air

Not too shabby

San Francisco

So, one of our favorite babysitters was coming home from college for a couple of weeks this summer and mentioned that if Greg and I wanted to go somewhere she would love to watch the kids for us. Well, I'm not one to disappoint anybody so we (of course) took her up on that. We decided to go to San Francisco. Why? We're not really sure, one of us mentioned it and we thought it sounded good so off we went. We were only there for a weekend but had a ton of fun. Did I mention it was freezing cold!!?

We went to a Giants game (we can't go anywhere without sports being involved somehow) and sat front row. I usually just go to games to people watch, but being on the front row was actually real fun and I really watched the game. Mostly because if a foul ball was hit it could have very possibly taken my head right off. I'm not kidding either.

The best part of the trip was after dinner the first night. We went to a restaurant (on someones referral) that was not right in town. After dinner we had to get to the game so we started walking, just waiting to spot an open taxi. The stadium was way too far to walk to and it was freezing cold outside so we walked to the busiest street around and tried and tried to get a taxi. All of the taxis that passed us were occupied so we kept walking in the direction we were supposed to be going just waiting for one to be open. Long story short, we ended up walking more than halfway there before we scored a taxi. This ended up being real fun because we were in a part of town that we would have never seen had we found a taxi easily. We walked by the design district, government buildings, the Opera House, an Asian History Museum, about 1,000 homeless people talking to themselves (why do they do that?), and a ton of cool shops. It was a great night.

The next day we went to Union Square for some shopping and ate lunch at a little outdoor cafe. A protest broke out right in the middle of the square where we were eating. I'm not entirely sure what it was all about but lets just say that I am a little miffed about the way the Tibetans are being treated by China. "Don't believe China's Olympic lies". Who knew there were so many people from Tibet in San Fran?

I love going on vacations, especially with just me and my husband. I recommend it to everybody. It is such a great way to keep falling in love with each other.

What's Your #1 Song?

i just found the coolest website! (http://www.joshhosler.biz/NumberOneInHistory/SelectMonth.htm) you can look up what the #1 song was in the nation the day you were born. it's pretty funny. i included a few birthdates and songs so you could see. so what's your #1 song? leave a comment and tell me; the older, the better.

Kristy (Feb. 23, 1979) : "Do Ya Thing I'm Sexy" by Rod Stewart
Greg (July 19, 1978) : "Shadow Dancing" by Andy Gibb (go! BeeGees)
Carson (July 25, 2002) : "Hot in Here" by Nelly
Maile (April 18, 2004): "Yeah!" by Usher featuring Ludacris
Cole (Jan. 21, 2007) : "Irreplaceable" by Beyonce

My mom (November 21, 1956) : "Love Me Tender" by Elvis Presley
My dad (October 16, 1954) : "Hey There" by Rosemary Clooney

The big 3-0!

this post is a little late but greg turned 30 on july 19th. we were in utah on his birthday so we didn't do anything too crazy. we took a raft down the provo river with the kids and had a blast. the water was freezing cold so we didn't swim but we paddled and floated down. we started at the top of provo river by the dam and floated down for an hour and got out at vivian park. the "rapids" aren't too exciting but just enough for an 18 month old. we went down the river with my parents and jamie and shawn muaina.

when we got back into town i threw a party for greg. we had a dinner at the rio secco golf club and invited his closest friends and family. it was a great night. after dinner and mingling we all went to a friends house and played games and cards until the wee hours of the night. i think greg had a nice time, i did. i love getting together with friends any chance i get.

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My Baby is 6!!

I can't believe that I already have a first grader. The weirdest part about this is that I remember my own first grade, I remember lots of things about it, and now my son is going into 1st grade. These could possibly be memories that stay with him for life. Crazy. Anyway, we have a birthday party rule in our house: you can invite as many friends as you are old. I don't want to throw this massive party for every birthday so this rule helps to keep it simple. Now for the big birthdays (5, 8, 12,16) they can have a bigger party. So last Friday we had Carson's party and he just wanted to have a swim party, which works for me. Pizza: easy, pool: easy, cupcakes: easy, 6 boys: easy. He had a great time.

I got a slip 'n slide for them to play on too, and Greg came home in the middle of the party to say hi to Carson, and the first thing he said was, "We have this huge pool with a slide, cliff jumping and rope swing, you seriously thought they needed a slip'n slide too? Those ruin the grass." I just laughed at him, but of course at the end of the party we moved the slip'n slide and the grass was totally burned underneath. In a perfectly straight strip right across the main part of the lawn. Ok, Greg, you were right (for once) but the kids loved it.

Summer Hiking

Beautiful isn't it? Here are some pics of our adventures in Sundance. We enjoyed spending time with our friends the Derricks. This is the hike to Stewart Falls. Beautiful.

Here are some pics of our adventures in Sundance. We enjoyed spending time with our friends the Derricks. This is the hike to Stewart Falls. Beautiful.