FHE, Valerie's, bikes at the lake!

Ahh, it's been a nice relief to be done with the marathon. Time to turn my attention and efforts to other things. Having the stress of long distance runs off my shoulders makes me feel so much lighter! Now I can focus on getting my knee healthy and running for pleasure and to stay in shape rather than to train for a 26 mile run!

Another beautiful week here in the Northwest! On Monday evening, we met up with the Lenzes and Shattucks at the part to do a combined Family Home Evening lesson. We discussed the Jaredites and how the Lord prepared a way for them to travel across the ocean in the barges without windows. For our activity, we painted smooth stones with glow-in-the-dark paint. It was fun, and of course, a little bit messy when letting the littles do the painting.

FHE at the park

Painting the stones!

This weekend saw more soccer action. It was picture day for the boys, so we all went together at the same time and tried to keep the boys from getting their shorts and shirts dirty before getting their pictures. Logan was really cute and did a nice job smiling for the camera. I should post a picture of the actual prints once I have them in hand. For now, though, here's a pic I snapped of them before game time.

A couple of handsome Holdaway soccer players!

After their games, we decided to celebrate a little as a family and go to breakfast. We had heard that Breakfast at Valerie's over by I-205 was supposed to be really good. Well, if the wait time and number of people on the sign-yourself-in waiting list was any indication, it was going to be a good experience! We sat in the waiting area for probably 30-45 minutes (for breakfast!) before getting called back. There were some auto classified magazines along with this cool Concours d'Elegance poster on the wall. It totally reminded me of Dad and made me want to find a good car show to visit with the boys.

Concours d'Elegance (French for Competition of Elegance)

By the time we sat down, ordered, and then finally got our food, the kids had been sufficiently nutso and wild that we had all switched seats at least once, it seemed. Suzanna and I were a little batty, as you can tell from the pictures below.

Starting to get a little silly while waiting for our food!

I eventually moved to the other side of the table to separate the two funny boys.

What a bunch of colorful shirts!

All the soccer playing and food eating wore us out. Both boys passed out in the car while we drove across the bridge to Jantzen Beach in Portland to pay a quick trip to Children's Place.

Logan with his blanket over his face to block the sun.

Luke catching a cat nap as well.

Later on that day, I told Luke to get his shoes on and get his bike ready so we could go on a little bike ride. He's done so well at riding a bike that I figured he'd do pretty well on the very tame trail by Lacamas Lake. We loaded up and headed down. I told him that we'd ride a mile or two up the trail but to keep in mind that however far we rode up the trail, we'd have to ride back down to the car. I was pleasantly surprised at how enthusiastic and excited he was as he kept on riding til we had gone over three miles up the trail, turning into a total ride of over six miles! That's a long way for a little dude.

Map of Lacamas Lake. We rode along the south west side of the long, skinny lake

Luke on the trail by Lacamas Lake

Part way through the ride Luke yelled to me, "Hey Dad! This is actually really fun! We should do this every morning!" Haha, I had a good laugh out of that and hoped in my heart that he would have a good attitude about it in the future and maybe want to do this often (though probably not every morning!).

Taking a short break for a drink from the water bottle

Here are a few more pictures from the ride.

He wanted to be sure I got a good photo of the scorpion on the side of his helmet

A beautiful day for a ride!

An action shot!

I captured a few videos along the way as well. Some of them came out sideways (probably because I was holding my phone portrait rather than landscape), but at least one of them came out pretty nicely. Here's a link to that video, which is hosted on Vimeo.

msh

Back home and Logan's lost tooth!

I started this week out at Laurie and Chris's in Holladay! It's been years since I last slept overnight at their place, so it was fun to do it again. I worked from their place on Monday and was treated to an all-you-can eat buffet of potato salad and Chick-fil-A chicken nuggets! Actually, as I was preparing to leave Monday night after saying goodbye to Jordan, Laurie remembered that there might have been more nuggets from the evening before, still in the oven where they were staying warm after we turned it off but while waiting for the guests to eat the chicken that had already been served. So... we opened the oven and sure enough! There were two more trays of chicken nuggets in there! Good thing she remembered right then because Tuesday morning was garbage day, and those two trays were already starting to smell not-so-good.

Potato salad and chicken nuggets, anyone?

I was really glad to hear from Mom that she was doing much better today and that she had been eating and feeling okay. She texted me this picture of another Share a Coke bottle that she was enjoying with her dinner at UVRMC (the hospital) where she volunteers on Monday nights in the gift shop. It made me smile to see that she had found another special bottle!

Mom sharing a picture of a Share a Coke with Luke

Before I left Holladay, I helped Chris get their hot tub back in place on the patio. They had been going back and forth about whether to bring it back to the house after moving it away for the farewell receptions. The heat pump has had perennial issues, so they were considered selling it, but when Chris found some affordable replacement parts for the whole system, he decided to bring it back and give it another go.

He backed the trailer right up to the patio, and the two of us pushed and shimmied the thing back into place on the patio, a feat that Jordan would have been proud of.

Mimi and Jack would have loved having a hot tub, I'm sure!

Laurie, Jemma, and I went out for an In-n-Out burger (another one for the burger blog!) cause we were all chicken'ed out! We decided to sit outside because the weather was so nice. Chris was back at home, "detailing" the hot tub, so we took him a burger when we were done.

Laurie and little Laurie (Jemma)

When it was time to go, Laurie drove me to the SLC airport and dropped me at the curb. Traveling solo almost feels like a pleasure after having done most of my recent traveling with kids.

Big sister, little brother.

It was great to be home after a few days away, and it was especially great to see the kids! There were a number of other fun events that happened this week, including Luke's Kindergarten Open House evening on Thursday! We stopped by Harmony Elementary and got to see his classroom. We got a letter last week with the teacher/classroom assignments. He had told us from the Kindergarten round up a few months ago that there was a Kindergarten teacher called Mrs. "Broccoli." We thought that was funny and weren't sure if he was being serious. So we were pleased and surprised to see that Luke's teacher would indeed be Mrs. "Broccoli" this year, though she spells it "Brockley." He seemed pretty excited about getting to go into his classroom and see where he'd spend his first full year of public education.

Luke in his Kindergarten classroom

It was only a few months ago that Luke lost his first tooth. Well, this week Logan lost HIS first tooth! Though it wasn't in the same or usual way for loosing a tooth. He and Luke were sort of rough-housing upstairs, playing in the play room on the guest bed we had put in there for visitors. Well, we're not sure totally how it all went down, but Logan and Luke had been jumping on the mattress that was partially on the bed, partially on the floor. They may have been sliding or jumping down. But we heard some commotion, followed by Luke yelling, "Logan lost a tooth! Logan lost a tooth!"

I came out of my office to find a teary-eyed Logan coming down the stairs, holding both hands up to his bloody mouth. Suzanna was very concerned and a little scared, but I quickly took Logan into the bathroom to clean the blood out of his mouth and assess the damage. Sure enough, there was a gaping hole on the bottom where a tooth had come out. At that point I was more concerned that maybe he had swallowed the tooth or it had broken into pieces.

A quick search of the playroom turned up the tooth, situated somehow underneath the part of the mattress that was resting on the floor. I was shocked to see the size of the tooth, as it including the roots and all! Turns out (and I just learned this from this experience), baby teeth roots dissolve and get absorbed by the permanent teeth as they grow in. No wonder baby teeth usually fall out so easy when the time is right! No more root to hold it in place!

Logan's first lost tooth, root and all!

Logan wasn't much worse for the wear. He got nervous about having to go to the dentist, but it was an easy visit, and the dentist was surprised/shocked that the tooth came out so cleanly and that no other teeth were injured in any way. What a fortunate kid! So he'll have a gap now for a couple years til the adult tooth grows in! We'll always be able to tell now from the pictures of Logan as a kid whether the picture was "before" or "after" the tooth getting knocked out shortly after he turned four!

Logan proudly displaying his 19-tooth grin

While in Utah, I picked up some new BYU t-shirts from Macey's. They were on sale for a decent price, and just last week, Luke had been asking me if I had a solid white shirt with a white Y and a blue oval on it. I said, "no" because I hadn't seen a shirt like that before. At the time, I was wearing my solid blue shirt with a white oval and blue Y. I was excited when, at Macey's, I found two little versions of the shirt I already had and one big version of the shirt Luke had described! So I bought them and brought them home to share with the kids. They were very excited to get the BYU shirts and to be matching!

The BYU football season started this week!

Logan being cheesy

We had a family night lesson about Noah's ark. It was after this lesson that we gave Luke and Logan the new animals I had purchased from Blickenstaff's last week in Utah. They were super excited, but not wanting to lose the animals, Suzanna and I told the boys they needed to find their own "arks" for the animals to stay in. They found these little green soap boxes that they've used for a variety of things. They worked perfectly for the animals, so now we've got a couple of arks full of animals floating around the house.

Logan's animals and his "ark."

Now that we've got our family portraits in hand, I copied the files to my work computer and set up my desktop to be a continual slideshow, randomly changing the picture every 10 minutes. I love it because at any point in the workday, I can look at my second monitor which often doesn't have many windows open, and I can see one of our great, recent family photos.

My second monitor

Oh, I also found out this week that Logan seems to know where nearly every kitchen item belongs! He helped me unload the dishwasher and did a great job! He did it all with a great attitude as well! That gives me an idea for the future, seeing as I seem to be on permanent dish duty!

Logan helping put the dishes away

msh

Tithing

Tonight we had our annual tithing settlement meeting with the bishop of our ward. We for to declare to him whether or not we are full tithe payers. This is the first year that we've 'paid' the boys an allowance, and they've been putting their money away into a little three-section savings tin with a section for tithing, another for their mission fund, and a third for fun. Tonight we emptied the tithing section for each boy, counted up the coins, and filled out a tithing slip. The boys then handed their tithing envelopes to the bishop, who thanked them and asked them if they knew what the money was used for ('beautiful buildings and temples' in his words). Luke was especially talkative and engaged when conversing with the bishop, both of which really pleased us since he is generally really shy around people he doesn't know well. When we got in the car to come home, he said to us, "I want to keep paying my tithing. I want to pay it every week. And I want to get more yellow slips" (the carbon copy you keep). We arrived home and he set about gathering pens and paper. He wrote each of our names on separate pieces of paper and said we could glue all our yellow slips there. I thought it was really cool to see him get so enthusiastic about something, and I'm glad to see his testimony of tithing developing.

In other news, Logan got his stitches out today at a clinic on Mill Plain called ZoomCare. He was really good and even got a flu shot before leaving. So he ended up with two band aids now! I took him for a frosty waffle cone at Wendys because he was a good and brave boy.

Logan, post stitches. Brave kid.

Logan and his frosty waffle cone.

I love these boys. 

msh

Daylight Saving?

More like 'Daylight Losing'! I think Daylight Saving time should be kept in place year-round. Kids don't care that we get an 'extra' hour to sleep one Saturday night in the fall, and after changing our clocks back an hour, this is what it looked like at 5:05 and 5:20 tonight.

And it's still going to get darker earlier for another month and a half!

Anyway, in other news, Emmie is growing up a and changing so quickly! Lately she's been 'lounging' in her high chair, pulling her foot up and sticking it over the edge. She cracks me up. See pictures below.

Whenever I ask Luke who he thinks he looks like more (Suzanna or me), he responds that he looks more like Emmie. They really do look a lot alike, and it's super cute to see how much he loves her and enjoys playing with her and talking to her. Tonight he picked her up and set her on the couch next to him. The lighting was terrible, but I still got a halfway decent picture of the two of them. The resemblance is striking. 

msh

Innocence of Childhood

So Suzanna brought home a really neat surprise for Luke from Utah. Mormor made a couple of capes for the boys in red and blue with big "L"s on the back. Logan had already seen his in Utah, but Luke didn't know about it until Suzanna surprised him this afternoon after church. He was really excited when he saw it, and for the rest of the evening, it seems, the boys were playing "super hero" and zooming around the house.

Here are a few pictures (posed and not) of them playing. There was one point when they were both sitting on the same chair across the room from me, and unfortunately I didn't have my phone because it would have been a perfect picture! I realized at that moment, as I watched them playing together so nicely, pretending to be super heroes without a thought or other care in the world, that this season of life will probably be really brief, and I'm glad that I'm around to see it and be a part of the boys' childhood. I sometimes wish I could push a big PAUSE button and be able to come back at any point in the future to this moment to re-live what I'm experiencing now because sometime down the road, I will want to go back and remember exactly what it was like when the boys were young.

Superhero Luke, with a red cape

Superhero Logan, with a blue cape

On a totally different topic, I got to enjoy some Dominos tonight. A Domino is a little chocolate and vanilla sandwich cookie, not unlike an Oreo, from Finland. These became a weekly P-day-eve treat on my mission. It seems that on most Tuesday nights I would buy a little sleeve of these guys and enjoy 10 quiet minutes, dunking my Dominos in milk just before going to bed. So it was fun tonight to enjoy them with a little milk and ice cream. Shhh, don't tell anyone, but I think I may just prefer them to Oreos. Well, sometimes.

Thanks to Suzanna's parents for bringing these back from their recent trip to Finland!

msh

Conclusion of Our California Adventure

Wow! Is it really over already? That was a fast week-long adventure with Luke and an even faster three-day trip to California! But we made so many memories and had a great time together!

Suzanna posted this photo to Facebook before leaving Provo to head to the airport. It got me a little more excited about our trip being over. Cute kids!

Emmelise and Logan before their flight home from Utah

Luke and I took a Super Shuttle to the Long Beach airport from our hotel and were early enough to have an hour or two to kick around and play before boarding. It was a very low-stress couple of hours, as we had all our stuff in hand and there wasn't anywhere to go. We sat out on the boardwalk underneath some palm trees between the north and south terminals, watching planes take off and land through the big glass window panes. I snapped a few photos for fun.

Luke with his spiky ball and me

Palm tree

Cool contrast of wood, rock, and shrubs

I bought Luke one last souvenir for the trip: a little metal jetBlue airplane replica. That little guy could keep himself pretty well entertained for a long time with the right toys. Our flight was delayed about a half hour, but no sweat off our backs, as Luke continued flying his miniature airplane around our seats.

"Blue Skies Ahead"

We made it back safely to Oregon and quickly reunited with Suzanna, Logan, and Emmelise (their flight had landed just minutes before ours at a nearby gate in the same terminal). It's great to be back together, but it's hard to believe the week is over already!

msh

Back to the Best! Day 3 in SoCal

Day Three of Disneyland/California Adventure:

After a pretty good night of sleep (though admittedly, not enough!), we started the morning out going straight to California Adventure where we got as close to the front of the crowd waiting for the park to open as possible. They actually let you in the park before it opens, but only up to a certain point where they have employees manning a rope barrier.

Took this picture over the top of my own head. Folks waiting patiently to 'rush' to Radiator Springs Racers

Once the park officially opened, they removed the rope from its stationary position but didn't let anybody past the employees who acted like a pace car, walking in the direction of Radiator Springs Racers, by far the most popular attraction. I imagine they do this to stop people from stampeding to the ride. Because of this, and not being able to nimbly dodge through traffic with Luke on my back, we walked "in line" to Radiator Springs Racers along with hundreds of others and finally boarded the ride at 9:45. A great way to start the day for sure! I decided this time to take a few more pics of the cool scenery in Radiator Springs.

Welcome to Radiator Springs Racers!

Luke waiting patiently again

Finally on the ride, ready to start our last day the right way! In a RED car!

New tires from Luigi, again. Ramone must have been on vacation.

"Pit stop!"

After disembarking, we headed to check out Mater's Junkyard Jamboree, a surprisingly fun ride which is perfect if you like playing the "corners!" game in the backseat of a car. These little tractors drive around with you in the back and make these wildly sharp turns left and then right and then left again, all the while being serenaded by Mater in the background.

Giving Luke a better look over the fence.

Getting ready to spin our brains out!

After Mater's Junkyard Jamboree, we went over to Luigi's Flying Tires, but it was closed temporarily, so we did Tuck 'n' Roll's Drive 'em Buggies for a third time (three times in three days!). When we finished that, we headed back over to Luigi's and found that they had reopened, so we got in line and were soon floating across the big air-hockey type table on a giant tire. The ride was a little slower and less thrilling than I was expecting, but not a bad ride if you don't have a long wait. Plus, the atmosphere while waiting in line is really cool, making up for the slightly underwhelming ride.

In Luigi's Casa Della Tires. This place made me hungry for pasta for some reason.

Squinting cause of the bright sun!

We got a park employee to take one of the few photos we have of the two of us where I'm not the one holding the camera. The scenery to the west of Cars Land (on the east side of Grizzly River Run) is pretty cool where they've got this big waterfall and lookout area.

I really wanted to get a Radiator Springs Racers fast pass with a return time after dark because I had heard that the ride is really cool at dark. It's really cool in the daytime, so I could only imagine how much more fun it would be at night when they have the neon lights in the city and you're racing through the canyon in the dark. So we hung around for a bit until the return time was after 6:30 or so.

We then decided to go back to another favorite ride: Goofy's Sky School. Because the line wasn't too long at all, we did it FIVE times in a row! It was AWESOME! It's a short ride, but it's really thrilling, and for a nearly-five-year old, it was glorious. We laughed our heads off over and over and even requested to wait around for red cars (airplanes?) a few times.

After making ourselves a little ill by doing the coaster FIVE times in 30 minutes, we wandered over to the World of Color fast pass line and picked up passes for the 9:00 show. The weather was warming right up and it was nearly noon, so we took another TWO trips on Grizzly River Run (our fourth and fifth overall). Another EXCELLENT ride in my book!

Preparing to get soaked! Notice I brought a plastic bag along for the ride to keep my phone dry. Excellent tip to remember!

We sat next to some pretty funny people a couple different times.The foreigners were the best. They would chatter away in Italian or French and the mom would squeal when the raft would rotate and she'd end up under a stream of water squirting from overhead or the dad would start shouting something in the foreign language with a couple of English curse words interspersed as we'd bounce and roll through the rapids, water bounding over the sides of the raft, soaking our legs and feet. Haha, good times!

Nothing like a couple of river runs to make you hungry for another tasty lunch at Taste Pilots' Grill, our second visit there in three days. Who can argue with onion rings? Seriously.

We wandered back over to Disneyland after lunch and jumped on the double-decker Omnibus on Main Street which took us from the entrance back to the castle. It was way slower than walking, but nice to sit in some shade and people watch for a few minutes.

Since the goal of today was to revisit the best rides of the previous two days and forget trying to experience "all the rides," we meandered over to Autopia to try our luck at getting a red car. The wait time, again, was surprisingly short, especially because the crowds seemed much bigger today than on the other two days (it was Friday, anyway).

Birdbath car wash. Not sure what it is about this sign that reminds me of Dad, but I love it!

So on attempts one and two, we had no luck with getting a red car, but we did get some cool shots of other parts of the park, like Matterhorn Mountain.

So the third time in line, we asked one of the employees if we could wait til a red car came up. They were really nice and obliged. We had to wait an extra 5 minutes or so, but it was worth it to see the huge smile on Luke's face as he got to finally drive a RED car! This trip was for him (mostly), so I didn't mind giving it to this type of request. Frankly, I was a little surprised that luck and the law of large numbers hadn't delivered us a red car yet (okay, okay, it was only our FIFTH time in line; not exactly enough to appeal to the long-run averages of statistics). Anyway, check him out below, on our fifth, and final, time on Autopia.

Happy kid, happy dad.

The lack of sleep from the previous three nights was catching up to us again, so we sat down in the shade again and had ice cream sandwiches again. Then we did the teacups again at Luke's request before walking back to Toontown for another round on Donald's Ship and a spin on Gadget's Go Coaster.

Gadget's Go Coaster

We were going to do another couple rounds on Gadget's Go Coaster, but Brian said they had a family fast pass to Space Mountain, so we should meet them over there. We headed that direction, but unfortunately, they were still across the park waiting in line for Splash Mountain and wouldn't be getting to Space Mountain for a while. Luke wasn't willing to do Space Mountain, so it would have required meeting Brian and co. so somebody could hang with Luke and the other little ones while the rest of us rode. At that point, though, when we knew it would be quite a while longer, we just opted to head back to the hotel for a little break. I figured we'd enjoy some time out of the crowds to rest and swim before coming back for our final night at the park.

A view looking toward the castle along Main Street, with a Halloween pumpkin in the foreground.

I almost wondered if Luke would have been sufficiently happy to have just gone to a hotel with a pool for three days. He was so excited every time go to swimming and wanted to hang there for long periods of time. I eventually convinced him to get back out of the pool and go inside to get washed up before heading back to the park. We walked over to IHOP, directly across the street from the park entrance and were about to go inside when we saw Brian and his family drive past us in their minivan. He called and asked if we wanted to join them for dinner at Mimi's, a tempting offer for sure. But, knowing that he was in a BIG party of people and knowing that big parties typically take a ridiculous amount of time to serve, we opted to stick to our plan and eat at IHOP. Good news, kids eat free at IHOP with an adult entree purchase, which was a good thing cause the food was overpriced and not all that fantastic anyway. But the service was quick and the food was edible and filled our bellies.

At IHOP, sans hats.

We cruised back into California Adventure as the afternoon sun cast shadows all around.

Another picture of the two of us, this time outside the entrance to Cars Land.

We took one more ride on Mater's Junkyard Jamboree. I was sure to snap a few more photos of the really interesting things the park planners put in place for you to look at while waiting in lines all day.

The time was nearing to use our fast pass at Radiator Springs Racers, but we continued to explore the shops. I bought Luke a replica of the car we ride in on RSR as a souvenir. I almost considered buying the following Piston Cup trophy for myself for planning and carrying out a three-day Dad-and-Luke trip to Disneyland, but I didn't. I was really hoping to find a "Best Dad" one instead of just "Best Husband." I guess I could have bought the "Best Parents" one for Suzanna and me since it wasn't without her help and support that this was able to happen. Love you Suzanna!

As the sun finally set, the neon turned on around Radiator Springs. It was so cool! Definitely worth the wait!

A

Radiator Springs Racers at night lived up to the hype! It was great!

One more spin on Luigi's Flying Tires (again, cooler at night with the special lighting effects) and then we bid farewell to Cars Land.

Paradise Pier was pretty well lit up as well, and with a limited amount of time remaining before World of Color was to begin, we opted to do the Toy Story ride (Midway Mania) just one more time.

Sporting our slick 3D glasses.

We then headed over and watched the first 10 minutes or so of World of Color before we kind of lost interest. I was tired of holding Luke up in the air to get a good view, and he was getting tired of watching. So we did the logical thing; we headed over to Goofy's Sky School while the lines were short and took another three rides before closing time! I had asked him if we should just go back to the hotel (we were both wiped out) or if he wanted to any more rides one more time cause we were running out of time. So he said, "Goofy's Sky School," and that was it. Also an excellent ride at night!

I took a few more shots of some of the pictures and other fun decorations/theme things as we waited in line. In our three days, we did this ride 11 times and loved it every time!

Oh Goofy...

On our way out of the park we stopped by the Wilderness Explorer Camp, where we had just enough time before 10:00 for Luke to do a tire swing zip line once. It was a pretty fun ride, and I would have liked to spend a bit more time there where he could have explored and wandered freely.

We left the park and got another picture in front of California Adventure, similar to the picture we took when we got here just a short two and a half days before. I can't believe how fast the time went, but it was an excellent trip and one that I (and hopefully Luke) will remember forever!

 

Recap of Day Three:
9:45 Radiator Springs Racers, round 3
10:00 Mater's Junkyard Jamboree
10:20 Tuck 'n' Roll Drive 'em Buggies, round 3
10:40 Luigi's Flying Tires
10:55 Radiator Springs Racers fast pass line
11:05 Goofy's Sky School, round 4
11:15 Goofy's Sky School, round 5
11:25 Goofy's Sky School, round 6
11:30 Goofy's Sky School, round 7
11:35 Goofy's Sky School, round 8
11:45 World of Color fast pass line
11:55 Grizzly River Run, round 4
12:05 Grizzly River Run, round 5
12:25 Lunch at Taste Pilots' Grill

1:15 Double-decker Omnibus
1:35 Autopia, round 3
1:50 Autopia, round 4
2:05 Autopia, round 5
2:15 Ice cream sandwiches
2:40 Mad Tea Party (teacups), round 2
2:45 Donald's ship, round 2
3:05 Gadget's Go Coaster, round 6

Break for swimming
Dinner at IHOP

6:50 Mater's Junkyard Jamboree, round 2
7:25 Radiator Springs Racers, round 4 (fast pass)
7:50 Luigi's Flying Tires, round 2
8:45 Midway Mania, round 3
9:00 World of Color
9:30 Goofy's Sky School, round 9
9:40 Goofy's Sky School, round 10
9:45 Goofy's Sky School, round 11
9:55 Wilderness Explorer Camp