Deer Valley Heaven

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Last week I spent 3 days in Deer Valley skiing with my friends and colleges from St. Louis, and a dear friend from Utah. This video was taken on day two with my old digital camera going down Mt. Baldy. I still apparently don't know that it is actually 2009! In the video you first see Christian Bankhead, then in white, Justin Firth, then Christian tries to cover Brent Bankhead (his dad) with snow, then at the end you see John Firth ahead in brown.

It was absolutely beautiful!

I recently read about a man who planned for years to see the pyramids in Egypt. When finally was standning in front of the pyramids, he was thinking about dinner plans with friends that night, and 'missed' the pyramids. With that in mind, I took a lot of time to make sure I was fully there to experience the incredible beauty of the mountains, and to stay fully present while I was with my friend. It was unusually wonderful, as if someone had added color to a previously black and white monitor. It felt so REAL - I can't tell you how badly I needed both experiences.

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Video Blasts from the past

I'm so glad my camera had video options while my boys were young. I will post a few more when it isn't 4am.


The first one is my sweet little Scotty at nearly age 3 at Hoagle Zoo. He is so excited that we just bought a strawberry snapple from a vending machine.."I just get the strawberry drink out of the square!" and he wants money to buy more, or in his words "The last money ever!"


This one is Parker at age 3 in California. He wanted me to tell him a story on the 'story wall'. His pouty face, coupled with his 3-year-old punch at the camera are priceless.

Here's Scotty and Parker's reactions after riding the tiny rollercoaster in Toontown at Disneyland (2002).



This was a trip to Santa Barbara in October 14th, 2004. I worked 3 days a month (doing orthodontics) for a local Pedodontist. Lisa would bring the boys up every now and then, spending the day in the beautiful city with the boys while I worked. On this day, they took me to see the Whale Bones outside the natural history museum. Since the boys were dancing around before I took the photo, I asked them if they'd do it for the video. SOOOOOO cute! Scotty was at the age where he would just follow Parker around. Parker had just turned 4 years old, and Scotty was turning two in 3 more months.

Merry Christmas!!!!

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It is so fun to see all of your pictures and how all the kids are growing up! Thank you to everyone for posting them. I don't know if we really took pictures when we were at Gramdma D and the Tuckers. I will have to check. Well, Tahsa and Emily had their cameras out a lot. And we did have a great time. We played Harry Potter Clue a bunch of times--it's really fun! We ate, and ate again, opened gifts, chatted, enjoyed having LeeAnn here from Hawaii, and had an all around good time. The kids played lots of Wii games, Rich played on his computer a lot, and read (which he can never get enough of). Leslie also took us to a great place called Kangaroo Gyms. It was fun to climb around with the kids on huge inflatable jumps and slides. Les and I hammed it up for our mom just like when we were kids. I have to say we adults didn't last as long as the young'uns. But it was fun for all ages:) I hope someone got some pictures of that! Merry Christmas everyone!

Love, Lisa

Merry Christmas!!!

For Christmas we traveled down to Joplin, Missouri to stay with the Tuckers (Lisa's Sister's Family). We made it from our home to theirs in record time, thanks to our new friend 'Gabbie' the GARMIN GPS. We named her 'Gabbie' because she sometimes gets a little to talkative. Since 'she' showed us exactly when we would arrive if we didn't stop, we just kept driving until we got there. Wow - took off a half-hour! Thank you Santa!

We found a TON of Legos on craigslist.com, which we gave the boys as their main present this year. We strategically bought very little in the video game department, and at that, nothing that would be permanently interesting, like Star Wars Legos has been for Tommy. Instead we bought some board games, and REAL Legos! Imagine that! You can actually touch these Legos with you real hands!

Actually, Scott doesn't care much for video games relative to the other two, and continues to build things out of anything he can get his hands on. On the drive down to Joplin, while Tommy and Parker played DS games, Scott played with Legos.

Well, I'm going to go eat breakfast.

Merry Christmas!!!

Well, things just got a LITTLE colder around here!!! I had to JUMP into my car while gassing up. Bonus on the gas prices, but keep the frigid air! Keeps St. Louis from getting too large I suppose.

This weekend was WARD PARTY weekend - it seemed. Heather Brimhall did a great job coordinating the Christmas in Nauvoo theme. Lisa (the RSP) put together a nice Red Brick Store room. I helped with whatever I was told, but got totally derailed when I ran into someone from Missy's class at Timpview: Jim Calwell. His wife is Heather's Sister. We swapped stories for hours while we slowly put chairs up. There was WAY too much to catch up on. He knew so much about WHAT happened in the Theater circle at Timpview, and was empathetic to my trial of leaving Timpview drama, then coming back to see the musicals and bawling my eyes out; especially at the Man of La Mancha. I've NEVER seen a show put together like that at a high school level! The last time I saw Jim, we were all in Mr Brower's Volvo headed up to Utah State to watch his older brother perform. (Mr. Brower was the drama coach - I mean THE drama coach. He also directed Fiddler on the Roof, which was THE best experience of my teenage years). Ah, memories. I woke up the next morning at 4:30 am from a dream that I was a Freshman in college again, only I was confused, because I was talking to the girl I USED to be after, but she was talking to me with Lisa's voice. I didn't notice how strange it was until I woke up.

This week was short since I had Monday off. Sweet like that.

Scotty has been into trying to build things again. He worked really hard to make my harmonica case extra fancy. He duct taped part, put shiney tape over the top and bottom, painted the inside purple, added gold thread on both sides, and asked me to write my name in the top. Very cute. He wanted to use a circular blade for cutting paper SOOOOO badly, but we couldn't find the old paper cutter. He was excited about finding a gallon of water, until he found out it was just water. He was hoping it was 'the stuff that Elder Bratt used to burn his tie up with'. Scott wants gasoline. He doesn't know what to call it, and the longer we keep it that way, the better! He was entertained for over an hour by two pieces of polarized plastic from some 3D glasses, looking through one at the other, turning them to make the opacity change.

I told Thomas at least 3 mittens stories this week. He is in a new habit of taking my hand, pulling me into the bathroom with him, then after closing the door and sitting down on the potty, he puts his face in his hands and asks "So what did Mittens do today?" They've all had Christmas themes lately. In most regards, Thomas has been like the little girl who had a little curl in the middle of her forehead. He can be sooooo sweet for so much of the time, but get the kid upset about a perceived injustice, and he turns into a red-faced, wide-eyed monster! It would be funny if it wasn't so scary looking. Wait, I might have reversed that last statement - although it can be said either way. I don't know what I'll do when I can't pull out a new Mittens story to calm things down.

Parker wants more time with Dad. He came along with me after our BBQ on Sat...I think I wrote about that already. I may not have told you that he was hilarious at Lowes. He had me laughing like crazy. Well, I'm out of battery gas. Signing off. Better sleep anyway. Goodnight!

Christmas Memories (By Lisa)

So, for me, I always love to think about Christmas morning in the Petaluma house. As odd as it may seem, waiting at the top of the stairs until Dad said we could go downstairs on Christmas morning is one of my favorite memories. That house was magical at Christmas, thanks to Mom's decorating. It was so fun to anticipate going down and see Dad's eyes twinkle as he went down to light the trees and keep us at bay as long as he dared.

I also loved to play Christmas music really loud and dance around with only the tree lights on, or sit by the blazing fireplace and stare and squint at the Christmas tree lights in Petaluma.

I have to say one of my favorite Christmas memories from years later, in Ukiah, was the year we had puppets for the nativity--Rebecca, Tracey, Jenni weren't you all puppetiers? Also, the video recording of the Sisters song with stand-ins for the missing sisters. And of course, the remake of the song to the general as "We'll follow Grandma wherever she wants to go..." I loved the Stocking Stuffer story by the Terribles too. I guess Mom was right, "you make your own fun." I think we're pretty good at that. I loved singing the Christmas carols together and playing the chimes. And laughing too. Remember when Andrea sat on her present? Well, Angela, Giovana and Robin were there for that at least. How old were you then An? Maybe 9? I think most of us laughed and cried our way through the special Christmas videos that were made and shared by the Halters and the Morrisons in different years.

I've been thinking I might have my kids help make a Christmas chain this year. I enjoyed the ones we made and sent to each other, but I think that is more challenging now that the number of households in the family has grown much higher. Anyhow, I think we will make one that has link with each person's name on it and the kids can be thinking about how many relations they have--people who we love and who love them.

Last year a friend gave us a book with stories and poems for 25 days leading up to Christmas. We started reading it on December 1st. The book began with The Gift of the Magi. I always love that story and it was new to my kids. So I look forward to reading more with them as Christmas approaches.

It's really our interactions and the love we show to one another that makes life fulfilling and joyful. Thank you to all of you for being you and for loving me. I have had a very blessed life because of you, my family. I love you.

Pie Night? What a great concept!

We were asked the Sunday before Thanksgiving if we could have a ward activity at our home. Lisa and I agreed, especially when we learned that it would involve eating freshly baked pies, and playing board games into the late Thanksgiving Eve. It was a riot! I loved it! In preparation, Lisa turned on her turbo charged engines, and had two Christmas trees up and decorated beautifully in less than 30 hours. The larger one in our family room is lit in front of me as I type. I love it. It's the only light on in this room, other than my laptop. Good job Lisa. We had many families over, I didn't count, but maybe a total of 50 people came over. However many, I got to play the expanded version of Settlers of Catan as I sampled Pecan, Lemon-marange, Pumkin, Apple, Rubarb, and so forth, not to mention the fudge and egg nog. Oh dear, that was a lot of calories! Good thing I run in my sleep. Whatever.

Thomas split his little noggin, again, while playing with the kids in the basement. Lisa ran over to Walgreens and came back with some butterfly bandaids. Wow, you would have thought he had stiches by how well it healed. I gave him two swipes of Hydrogen peroxide, and then put that cool bandaid on. He looks great, other than his black eye. Today I was off as well, and got to spend some time with him. When I dropped him off at his cute preschool class, his teacher said "Now Thomas, did you get that black eye at Pie Night?" She is a darling little lady, which is half of why he loves, loves, loves to be at preschool. Thomas has been asking me to accompany him to as many activities as possible lately. So has Scott. I went along to their Suzuki Lessons with Lisa this weekend at their beggin request. It was good to be there. It kept me from being a stick in the mud work-aholic dad, for a few hours anyway. In fact, we didn't go straigh home afterwards either! We headed out to Super Smoker's BBQ in Eureka for some pulled pork and other fixins, and then spent time at an antique shop.

At the antique shop, Parker fell in love with a little brass pig, which we let him get. Don't ask me why, but Thomas decided that HE needed to hold the little pig as soon as it was Parker's. you know, the typical 4 year old vs. 9 year old relationship. Thomas wants to be like Parker - and Scott.

A week ago Friday I had to take Scott for his Dental work under general anesthesia. I was glad it was me and not Lisa. She would have died toward the end. It was hard on me, and I'm used to dentistry, and even blood. Sure, I pop teeth out every day and hand the kids cotton rolls to bite on, but when a very disoriented, recovering Scotty pulled his I.V. pick-line out of his hand, screaming, and bleeding all over the couch, continuting on and on for no less than 30 minutes, I was very glad it was me and not Lisa. Dr. Autry did such an excellent job, as did the Anesthesiologist. I was impressed with how litte trauma there was to his gums and mouth, considering he had to be intubated. Scott has needle phobia, so there was no other choice. He also apparently has our bad teeth genes, as he had a cavity in a permanent tooth as it was just erupting, and on the cusp tip! It was a defect - what a bummer. At least it's taken care of, and the sealants are on the other teeth. Anyway, I wanted to tell you that I felt so close to my little buddie that day. I just held him and talked to him as he screamed his way back into reality. Once he was all the way back, and we were moving outside, he was fine - very quiet, but fine. I let him choose a small toy and popsicle across the street at Toys R Us.

Lately he's been beggin for more pushes on the swing in the backyard. The moment I come home he'll say "Dad! Can we go swing?" What a sweet kid.

I got Parker reading Ender's game by Orson Scott Card. I'm reading along, but Parker keeps gettin ahead of me. I've read it before, but not the whole series. It's fun to watch him devour a good book.

I have to go back to work tomorrow, so I am logging off. Good talking to you! Whoever you are! :) I'll post pics later - when i get them uploaded. :)