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I’ve been remiss in updating this blog. In fact, I’m two years behind on accumulated posts. In the past I used the fact I was in school as an excuse to let the blog lapse. Then I got a new job right after graduation so that was a distraction. But it’s finally time to stop the excuses and get started updating the blog regularly. We’ve been taking pictures and videos for the past two years but I just haven’t taken the step of writing up posts and putting the pictures on the blog.

The following are some catch-up posts:

March 2010 – Road Trip
April 2010 – It’s Great to Be Six
April 2010 – A New Cub Scout
May 2010 – Sam’s Baptism
May 2010 – Memorial Day Fun
June 2010 – Pinewood Derby
July 2010 – New Shelves
October 2010 – My Startup Adventure
October 2010 We’ll Miss You Barrel Man – But Not Much
November 2010 – Halloween

Also, I’m not very big on social networks and such but I decided to experiment with linking the blog posts in Facebook. We’ll see how it goes.

I like to go around my yard in the spring taking pictures of the pretty flowers in my yard.  Here are a few for you to look at:

Daffodils

My kids have been asking me since before Thanksgiving when we were going to put up Christmas lights. The problem with Christmas lights is that I’m completely afraid of heights and can’t bear to get up on our roof again after the first time I put lights up several years ago. Last year I bought new lights but couldn’t bring myself to put them up. This year I found a great neighbor who isn’t afraid of heights and volunteered to climb up to the highest part of the roof (thanks Aaron!). While he was on the peak of the roof, I used the ladder to put the lights up around the lower portion of the roofs. In about a half hour we had the job done.

Thank goodness for good neighbors

We also decided to take a Christmas picture today. After about 10 different takes this was the best one we could come up with. Not sure what Diana is grumping about but everyone else is smiling…

Christmas 2010

Since it is supposed to get to the freezing point tonight I decided it was time to get rid of all of the tomato plants. It was hard work especially because we had at least ten plants. Most of the tomatoes were still green, but I heard that they will ripen okay inside so I decided to pick them all and get rid of all the vines. As you can tell by the picture I could not fit all of them into our garbage can. Instead I have to leave them in the middle of the garden until little by little they will get to the landfill. Here are the pictures of my labors……….

It doesn’t look like much, but it took me all morning to get it done!

Now I just have to wait for them to turn red!

We also had a very good crop of raspberries this year. I tried to tie the raspberry bush up using twine, but I didn’t buy very strong stuff so here is the result.

We did get lots of yummy raspberries which we turned into yummy raspberry muffins!

This year our ward did a Fathers and Sons campout in the mountains outside Fairview, Utah. Given that camping isn’t my favorite thing, and given the fact that we had recently been camping, I wasn’t really thrilled about going; however, Sam was looking forward to it and I certainly have fond memories of going to Fathers and Sons campout with my dad when I was a boy so I wanted him to have those same memories. It’s odd how something that seemed so much fun when I was a kid doesn’t seem all that much fun anymore when I’m an adult. In our family we call those type of things “corner window” experiences – in honor of Grandpa Kent.

The plan was for each family to cook their own dinner while the ward would supply breakfast. I kind of enjoyed cooking with the dutch oven when we were camping so I thought I would give it another try. This time I planned to cook up some hot dogs and baked beans. When we got to the campground, I noticed all the other dads had brought KFC, Chick-Fil-A, Subway sandwiches and potato chips. I felt like a dork as I spent an hour cooking dinner while everyone else ate their pre-made dinners and ran off to play on the zip-line. In the end, my dutch oven pork and beans were a total flop. They took forever to cook so we ended up eating in the dark, they had no taste – very bland, and Sam ate his fill of everyone’s left over potato chips before dinner was even ready. Oh well, lesson learned. Next time it’s Chick-Fil-A and potato chips for us.

Sam’s favorite thing on the campout was riding the zip-line. All the boys lined up and took turns. They zipped over and over again until it was too dark to see and the missionary couple that runs the campground shut down the zipline for the night.

Sam on the zip line

My favorite thing about the campout was teasing Sam about the bears. There were signs all over warning that it was bear country and to be careful about leaving food out. Sam took this to heart and was very concerned about bears in the night. I had brought a tent in case Sam wanted to sleep in it but he was too concerned about bears ripping up the tent so we slept in the back of the minivan (which I prefer anyway). He was also concerned that bears would break into the car to eat us. He thought that maybe after dark we should just head home instead of risking the possibility of encountering a bear at the campground. I told him a bear wouldn’t attack us in the car when there were so many other guys in tents that were easier pickings. That seemed to satisfy him.

In the end we didn’t see a bear but we did see a deer walk right through the middle of our camp:

Not a bear

I noticed that I haven’t posted these pictures yet. When the kids were still out of school we decided to go to downtown Salt Lake City. We wanted to go to the DUP(Daughters of the Utah Pioneers) museum, but it was closed for construction. I did not want to pay for parking so we decided to go to Sugarhouse park, have a picnic and play. It was a pretty windy day, so as soon as we were done with lunch the bigger girls decided it was more fun to read a book in the car than to go play. So I took the other three kids and we had fun on the playground and at the stream.

As part of the project to finish our basement, we had the contract provide us a bid on building shelving in the basement storage room and in the garage. The pricing was reasonable and the contractor started on it right away while waiting for the building permits for the basement.

Overhead shelves in the garage

Nancy and I were both pleased with the results. Especially with the garage shelves where we can now get stuff off the garage floor and out of the way. The only problem is that Nancy is on the shorter side so she tends to load everything on the bottom shelves and leave the top shelves sparsely populated. It’s that way in our kitchen and in various closets throughout the house.

Storage room

Thanks to Aaron the contractor for the good work he did on the shelves. We look forward to getting the rest of the basement finished.

The girls did a good job on their Spring Recital this year. Our only wish is that they would memorize their pieces.

Caroline played Sky Blue and New Orleans Celebration by Faber

Caroline

Emily played the first movement (allegro) of Concerto No. 3 in F major (Autumn) from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and Cherished Moments by Jon Schmidt

Emily

Anne played the second movement of Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven and Fantasia in D Minor by Mozart

Anne

Snow on May 24? You gotta be kidding me

All I can say is, I’m glad I haven’t put out my tomato plants yet.

For mother’s day this year all the kindergarten classes got together to do a program for their mothers. We were off track at the time so I had to drive Diana to school instead of sending her on the bus. Diana has been excited the past month or so because they have been practicing the songs they were going to sing. Some of the songs she would sing at home while she watched TV or played with her barbies. She did a very good job singing although one of the songs she didn’t sing. I asked her when we go home why she didn’t sing the one song and she told me, “I didn’t like that song mom!” Boy was I not smart to know that!