byufan.net

I home teach a couple in our ward that has a bunch of chickens. Occasionally they bring us a dozen eggs. Several weeks ago we took the youngest three kids over their house to give them a present for their new baby and say thanks. I’m finally getting around to posting some of the pictures I took.

The kids had fun feeding the hens bits of bread and trying not to get pecked by the rooster. At first they were too “chicken” (get it? chicken? I crack myself up) to feed the chickens from their hands and would instead flick bread on the ground for the chickens to peck at. After a minute or two they were holding the bread in their palms and letting the chickens eat right out of their hands.

Domesticated chickens have got to be the among the stupidest animals on the earth. They just look so silly as they run around clucking and pecking at bits of earth that you can’t help but laugh.

Don’t these pictures just capture the essence of a lazy summer evening?

Texas and Anne started school this past Monday. Samuel’s first full day was this past Tuesday. Emily doesn’t start until this coming Monday but today she had a practice day at the school. The practice day gives the new wide-eyed seventh graders a chance to find their lockers, find where all their classes are, meet their teachers, etc. without the crush of 8th and 9th graders (we have “Middle School” instead of Jr. High here in South Jordan) that will converge on the school on Monday morning. Nancy walked Emily to school this morning and Emily walked home on her own. The middle school is 1.6 miles from home and lots of parents think we’re crazy for making Emily walk to school. I walked to Skyline Elementary school every day in 4th grade which, by Google Maps calculations, was 1.1 miles from home but had to cross a freeway on and off ramp. I think Emily needs the exercise and it’s good for kids to not get coddled so for now we’re sticking to our guns that she walk or ride a bike to school. Nancy will probably cave a bit in winter and join a car pool but if the weather’s good Emily is hoofing it.

This evening was Back to School night at both the elementary and middle school. Anne didn’t think it was cool to go to Back to School night as a 6th grader and Luppin is still in preschool so they stayed home while Nancy and I took the other kids. We stopped off at the Jr. High and met Emily’s math teacher, her reading teacher, and her science teacher. I asked Emily to pose for a picture by her locker and she begrudgingly agreed (“Hurry up daddy, this is embarrassing!”)

Emily the 7th grader

Next it was off to the elementary school to meet Texas’ teacher and then Sam’s teacher. The kids had fun showing us where they sit, talking to their teacher, and showing us the little papers and projects they had already worked on in their first few days of class.

Texas the 3rd grader

Samuel the 1st grader

I actually enjoyed the middle school Back to School night the most. Not because I have fond memories of Jr. High (Jr. High was a miserable experience for me) but because it is fun to see Emily growing up a bit and seeing her adjust to the 7th grade experience.

Tonight I don’t have Bishopric duties so I have a little extra time to get caught up on posts. I also have extra time to get sidetracked on interesting stuff (interesting to me, at least). I’ve been collecting statistics on where traffic originates from when it comes to my blog. The number one generator of traffic to this blog? (Drumroll please…) A website called KeywordSpy.com. The next biggest referrer of traffic? A whois site. Whois is a tool used on the Internet to determine who owns and maintains a particular website. The third biggest? A Google image link to a picture for a Harry Potter film which I removed a few months ago because I didn’t want people to think this is really a Harry Potter website.

What does this all mean? Well, it means that the only people being referred to my site are people trying to find out information about the domain name byufan.net. In other words, it means that not many people actually read this blog. That’s OK by me. The blog is more of a “virtual scrapbook” than anything else and is generally meant for family. After all, why would total strangers be interested in my boring musings and pictures of my kids? Truth be told, my family is probably only slightly more interested than your average total stranger.

Another interesting thing to look at are the search terms that lead people to my site. The terms “byufan” and “BYU fan” are numbers one and two respectively. The third most common search term is “dry pack cannery” and takes people to this post. Because so many people find my blog by searching for “dry pack cannery” I wonder if I should edit that post and add some links to helpful information about the dry pack cannery? Other interesting terms that led people to my blog:

glasses
“her braces”
camry hybrid worth
qwest
“Broken arm”
why is las vegas so trashy
teeth gracious children
dinosaur inflatables

There were actually many variations on the themes of broken arms, braces, and the Sandy dry pack cannery. I’m not sure if those are the things I would have chosen to be well known for but I guess it’s better than nothing. I’m not sure how the term “dinosaur inflatables” actually led someone here. I hope that person found what they were looking for. I’ve posted about my kids’ teeth but I don’t think I ever called them gracious so I’m not sure how that particular search ended up here. And as for why Las Vegas is so trashy? Well, I guess that depends upon your definition of trashy. Trashy in the sense of sex? That’s easy. As my brother in advertising business always says, “sex sells”. Trashy in the sense of litter all over the freeway and the streets? I’ve never quite figured that one out. If a city wanted to be a tourist mecca you’d think they would devote significant time to cleaning up the litter. If you thought that about Las Vegas you’d be wrong.

Tuesday was the first full day of school for Samuel. On Monday night I went to his room to check on him (he has a habit of sneaking out of his room and sleeping in Texas’ bed) but there was no Samuel in the bed:

Someone gave Samuel a little Spiderman tent for his birthday. It’s always sitting around his room among the usual mess so I didn’t really think anything about it being in the middle of his floor. I was just about to go extract him from Texas’ room when I notice something poking out from underneath the blanket on the floor:

Notice anything unusual in this scene?

I opened up the flaps of his little Spiderman tent and, viola! There was Samuel, sound asleep on the floor with his head under the tent and his legs sticking out the bottom.

I guess when the excitement over the upcoming first day of school is too much to take, the floor is the only place a guy can get a good nights sleep.

We take a “big” vacation every other year. Last year we went to Disneyland. Next year we’re going to Washington D.C. This year was a “small” vacation so we decided to stay closer to home. Nancy had never been to Yellowstone before and it’s only a 6 hour drive from Salt Lake City so we figured that would count as a “small” vacation. The first order of business was figuring out a place to stay. I am not a camper. I understand the desire to be in the Great Outdoors but I just don’t understand the attraction of smelling like a campfire and not being able to shower and not sleeping in clean sheets. I also didn’t want to pay for a hotel (this was a “small” vacation after all) so we had to find a place to stay that was 1) close to Yellowstone and 2) had a Marriott with a 2 room suite that we could use Marriott points on. Bozeman, Montana best fit the bill.

Monday morning we watered the garden, did some last minute packing, and set off for Bozeman. On our way out of town we stopped off at a tire store to get the tire pressure checked. The tire man said our two front tires were worn down and would need to be replaced but that it would take two hours. I wasn’t about to sit there with the whole family for two hours at the tire store so I told the guy we would get new tires in Idaho Falls. He said he didn’t even think we would make it that far but I decided to risk it and off we went. When we got to Idaho falls we had lunch at the park next to the Snake River and the Idaho Falls temple. We then went to the temple, saw the visitors center, and chatted with the sister missionaries for a minute.

Idaho Falls Temple

After the temple we headed over to the tire store (same chain) and had the tire man inspect our tires again. He said that our tires were getting worn but were fine and he didn’t think we needed to worry about getting new tires for a few more months. That was good news as I thought sitting in a tire store in Idaho Falls was no better than sitting in one in South Jordan. I guess this is one case where procrastination paid off.

Our trip to Bozeman was uneventful except for one place where there was a traffic jam just north of West Yellowstone. When we got farther up the road we found out the cause of the traffic jam: a big brown bear sitting in a meadow off the side of the road. We slowed down a bit and checked him out but he wasn’t doing much – just being a bear. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the presence of mind to whip out our camera and get a picture.

In retrospect we really regret not getting a picture because so far the number one question we’ve been asked by people about our trip is “Did you see a bear?”

We got back last Friday from a trip to Yellowstone. On Saturday I got the camera to upload the pictures from our trip and the camera was empty! Nothing, nada, zip. The memory card had been erased. I knew for sure there had been pictures on the camera so my first suspicion was that the kids had been playing with the camera and somehow managed to erase all the pictures.

We rounded up the kids and after much finger pointing, yelling, weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth we confirmed our suspicion. The kids admitted to playing with the camera and erasing “only the pictures that they took” yet somehow they had managed to wipe the memory card.

I then set about seeing if there was a way to recover the files off the memory card. I extracted the card, mounted it in our HP printer (so it would show up as a drive letter), and then used a disk recovery utility to scan the card for recoverable image files. Fortunately we were able to recover over 90% of the photos from the trip. There were a few photos missing but the bulk of the vacation was there. There are certain times I’m glad the good Lord decided to bless me with some technical skills. This was one of those times.

Stay tuned for the next few days as we post the stories, photos, and videos from our vacation.

It has now been about a week since Anne got her braces and she is now pretty used to them. The day we went in to get them she was very nervous because Emily told her that they would hurt once she got them on. When she got in to see the orthodontic assistant who would be putting the braces on, she was not at all happy. The first thing the assistant did was to adjust her MARA appliance, this was not too comfortable because it meant that Anne’s jaw would be moving a little more forward and she would have to get used to this as well as braces. Luckily for me the assistant and the orthodontist were great at calming Anne down and reassuring her that everything would be fine. So for the rest of the procedure Anne was great. The first thing they did was to put this big plastic lip mover over, tongue holder inner, and mouth widening gadget in. Then the assistant put this blue stuff on her teeth to make sure they were good and clean.

Then the assistant had to wash it all off and then dry it really good. Then she placed the braces on and then had to wait for the orthodontist to do the final positioning of the braces. They did the top first and then the bottom.

After everything was done Anne got to take a good look in the mirror, and I think she thought they were looking very good.

The Assistant then showed Anne how to clean and take care of her teeth now she had braces. This went pretty quickly because Anne pretty much knew what to do because Emily went through it before she did. Anne has learne that she needs to take good care of them because Emily didn’t so now Emily has swollen gums that we are trying to remedy and she doesn’t want to go through that.

I think Anne looks great in her braces and when she is all done in a couple of years she will look even greater.

I’ve lived in Utah most of my life and had always wanted to check out the Kennecott Copper Mine but had never managed to make the trip. Last week I had some vendors in town from Boston so we took the opportunity to finally go and see the mine.

The visitor’s center had a number of displays and educational info about mining in Bingham Canyon and also had a movie with propaganda information on the mine and how amazing the various Kennecott reclamation projects are.

The mine itself is truly amazing in its scope and scale but I left there having very mixed feelings. On the one hand, the mine has produced massive amounts of copper and other materials and has provided jobs and the vital raw materials of industry for many years. On the other hand, I couldn’t quite shake the feeling of how brutal on the earth the mining process was and how the analogy of “raping the land” is actually quite apt.

Trying to undo the effects of the mine and reclaim it would be like trying to put a chicken back into a hatched egg – it isn’t going to happen. In that respect, I say “keep on mining”. However, humans ought not to take lightly our stewardship over the earth and in that respect I think one mine of this type is probably enough and man ought to find a better way to extract the needed resources in the future.

Nancy worked with Caroline and Sam for a couple of weeks each morning to help them learn how to ride their bikes. After much whining and complaining, a few wrecks, and some threats/bribery/cajoling, they finally learned how to do it within a few days of each other. Their reward was a lunch date with Mom or Dad. Yesterday I took the day off work and paid off my lunch debt to Sam. He rejected all the places that I suggested (Training Table, Chilis, Thai food, etc.) and selected McDonalds. Off to McDonalds we went.

Caroline learns to ride a bike

Now that they’ve learned how to ride their bikes we can’t get them to stop. It’s funny how one day they’re whining and moping along with one foot on the curb and one on the pedal and the next day they’re zooming around the neighborhood and doing “jumps” off the curb.

Lori and Bryan invited us to go water skiing on the 4th of July. We left early in the morning for Echo Reservoir and got there before the sun had a chance to get really hot. We were expecting 100 degree weather but it was semi-cloudy and rather pleasant all day. In fact, in the early morning it was downright chilly in the water. Lori and Bryan were already there in order to be the first boat on the water and get the best runs of the day in. They met us at the dock and we all piled into their boat.

They have a bright red boat with all kinds of fancy technology gadgets such as inflatable bladders (for giving the boat different kinds of wakes I presume) and cruise control and high tech ski rope holders. The littlest kids (Diana, Natasha, and Texas) were content to just sit in the front of the boat and let the wind blow through their hair. The rest of us tried various forms of water sports.

When I first went water-skiing at a ward youth activity 20 years ago there were only two options: one ski or two. Now there are all kinds of things to do like raft riding, wakeboarding, and “surfing”. Bryan made wakeboarding look easy as he jumped over the wake. I tried my hand at wakeboarding but after about three or four attempts the best I could manage was a wobbly one second of barely getting my rump out of the water before crashing. Bryan and Lori cut beautiful rooster tails as they slalom skied around the lake. I had been able to ski on one ski back in high school but I knew that 20 years of weight gain and weak upper-body strength would prevent me from doing that again so I simply went to two skis and was fortunately able to get up a time or two.

Giving up after several unsuccessful wakeboard attempts

Anne was adventurous and decided to try skiing on two skis but wasn’t able to get out of the water after a few attempts. Next we inflated a huge raft with multiple handles on it and had fun pulling the older kids around. Even Nancy gave the raft a try. Eli and Sam were fun to watch as they bounced up and down on the raft. I got on the raft a few times and my ample waistline finally showed some value in sending the raft careening back and forth as I leaned into the turns of the boat. Between Bryan carving big turns with the boat and me leaning back and forth on the raft we were able to really give the kids a fun ride and managed to dump them off the raft several times.

Bouncing along on the raft

After riding the raft we pulled up to a beach and had a picnic lunch on the beach while the kids spent time playing on the raft. At the end of the day we configured the boat for “surfing” by filling the bladders and positioning people in the boat such that we created a huge wake. Bryan then got a very short rope and a mini-surfboard and started skiing on the massive wake. Eventually the wake is so big that you can “surf” down it’s face continually and thus let go of the rope while still able to stay behind the boat. I gave it a try once or twice but there was no chance of me being able to get up on a surfboard if I couldn’t even get up on a wakeboard. I managed to snap a picture of Bryan surfing with my cell phone camera but unfortunately I cut off his head.

Bryan “surfing” behind the boat

After a fun day on the water Lori expertly backed up her truck and Bryan loaded the boat on the trailer while Nancy and I watched the kids and had snacks at the car. We then met up at Grandma Wilma’s for a short visit before heading home for an evening barbeque and fireworks. The only problem was that a day of waterskiing and bouncing around on the raft left both Nancy and I exhausted so that we were ready to do fireworks and put the kids to bed before it was even dark. We held out until dusk and then lit fireworks in the South Jordan wind.

Fireworks in the wind

I would have to rank this 4th of July as one of the most fun days we’ve ever had. Thanks to Lori and Bryan and their family for inviting us and for being gracious and patient with us novices as we swarmed around their fancy boat. We really had a great time. As Nancy put it, “It sure beat the heck out of sitting around in the hot sun waiting for the parade!”