A nice visit with Shantell

Jake continues to be in California for training for his new job. Last night, Shantell came to our house for dinner. Of course she was the favorite person of the evening as all the kids wanted to sit by her. We had a good time talking and playing.

Amber made some delicious casserole and Shantell brought some fresh peaches. The kids wrapped Shan into a lengthy game of "ticket to ride". It lasted until after their bedtime. I must be losing my touch because Amber beat me again. That is a second time in a row.

Before leaving, Amber and Shantell planned a double date evening for us to go see a parody play in Salt Lake in September.

Fun with a 1 Year Old!

Well, it's been a while since we've written and I figured I need to share a few fun things Chloe has been doing today. I love reading the blogs about the cute things all her cousins are doing and saying.

This morning Chloe was in her high chair eating her breakfast and I was sitting at the table counting out Clair's money. Chloe has been working on counting to 10 so I thought I would count out loud so she could hear. I counted the money to 10 and then put it in the envelope. As I was doing so, she said "Good job!" and started to clap for me. It sure boosted my confidence :)

After breakfast, we went to Sam's Club. They were giving out cookies so Chloe and I took one, but of course, it ended up all over her face and hands. We took a quick trip to the bathroom to clean up and then I let her down thinking she would run to our cart. However, as she left the women's bathroom, she continued on and ran into the men's bathroom! I was petrified and shook up a bit not knowing quite what to do. I yelled for her and she yelled back but didn't come. So I closed one eye and ran around the corner and luckily no one was in there (or at least at the urinals). I snatched up the runaway and was out in no time. After I've thought about it a bit, I guess I should have yelled in to see if anyone was in there before I made my quick dash in. Oh well, next time.

We got home from Sam's just in time for Sesame Street! What a wonderful program and a chance for me to get a few things done. Chloe has really been working to put her socks on by herself the past few days, and Sesame Street was all about socks and shoes. Needless to say, she loved it! After it was over, she worked on putting her socks on and finally accomplished the task. Then for the next 1 1/2 hours, she put her socks on and took them off over and over. She was pretty proud of herself.

OK, one more exciting thing to share! Kind of a funny thing to share I guess but I'm ecstatic! Chloe pooped in the potty today! She's been wanting to sit on the potty here and there but nothing has ever happened until today! She seemed kind of nervous about the whole thing but I tried to excite her and let her know it was a good thing. I don't know that she will do it again for a while but I am pretty excited! I've been day dreaming about her being potty trained for the last couple of hours and how much we would save with her out of diapers. How awesome would that be!?

Potty mouth gets potty consequence

While at church on Sunday I was walking down the hall after all the classes had ended. Aliece had not left her class yet. So, I thought that it would be fun for me to pick her up from class. I went in and said hello to her and told her that I was ready to pick her up. Her teachers are friends of mine. So I started up a conversation with them quickly. While we were talking Aliece got a little bored. She wanted to entertain someone, so in the middle of my conversation she yells from behind me, "Dad! Quit tooting in my face!"

As she said that, a woman that we know was walking behind me. As she walked by, she laughed and stated, "they sure call them as they see it!" I am sure that my face turned red. Especially because in this instance I was innocent!

I quickly ended my conversation and we headed off.

After lunch at home, Aliece had gone into the bathroom and so I took the opportunity to tell Amber what she did. I laughed as I told it and so did Amber, but Amber decided that she wanted to protect my honor a bit. Because just as I finished telling the story, Aliece called out from the bathroom saying that there was no toilet paper left.

Amber walked into the bathroom and told Aliece that what she did in the hallway of the Church was rude and that she would get no toilet paper until after she would apologize to me. I just about died laughing when I heard Amber's exchange with Aliece. So, while Amber went to get the toilet paper, I went over to the bathroom door and let Aliece apologize.

She did apologize but she made sure to add that her classmates still thought it was very funny! For that comment, I should have handed her some newspaper instead of toilet paper!

Honesty at its Best

Yesterday Novell was having a 25 year anniversary party on the grounds around our office building. The party included a band, free ice cream, cookies, and chips. You could purchase a hamburger or hotdog meal for a $1.25. I invited Amber to come over to Novell for lunch. The kids were in school, so Amber brought Alayna and Jace.

The lines to the hamburger stands were fairly long. We stood in the line for about five minutes. Then I noticed that people were coming out of the cafeteria with the ice cream bars and cookies. I suggested that it Alayna and I go and get some snacks for us to eat while we waited in line. We left Amber and Jace and went to the cafeteria. I really didn't want to add the extra calories of a cookie or an ice cream bar to my day, so I let Alayna have both of those items in my place.

As we were eating our food, Alayna analyzes the whole situation and tells me, "dad, I know why you didn't get a cookie."

"And why is that?" I replied.

"It is because you did not want to get fat..." she correctly stated

Then there was a very brief pause while she looked at me and then thoughtfully added, "...er".

I could have lived with the thought that my child believed that if I ate that cookie I would get fat. But truth be told, I am already fat and thus that cookie would only make me fatter. You have to appreciate the honest assessment of an innocent child -- but it doesn't mean you have to refrain from spanking them afterward!

Aylee's first wreck

While it has happened. Aylee got into her first wreck with her new bike. It was a pretty big one too. She was riding home from school and tried to jump her bike up onto the sidewalk from the road. Her tires slipped, and she came tumbling down. When she got up, her handlebars were turned at the wrong angle and she had to push them back so that they were in line with her front tire. She had scrapes and bruises all up down her legs and arms. Good thing the girl was wearing her helmet!

The kids have been enjoying riding their bikes to and from school. It is kind of fun to have them be able to do that. Amber enjoys going with them, and going up there to pick them up nearly every day. She has the bicycle stroller attached to her bike all day long so that she can throw Alayna and Jace into it at a moment's notice and take off.

Should I be comforted?

It was bedtime. Amber called Johnathan downstairs and told him that he could have a candy. She then went back to work and was interrupted by Johnathan who looked very happy, and relieved. He had a piece of candy in his hand. He had retrieved it from his bedroom. He looked up at Amber and said "I am so happy! I was going to sneak this piece of candy that I put in my room. But now I don't have to!"

I appreciate his honesty, and I guess there is some comfort in knowing that he felt relieved that he didn't "have" to sneak a candy after all.

Labor Day

I got a couple of days off of work over the weekend. I am planning on coming up to Idaho this weekend. I found a ride so I won't have to drive. I should get there on Saturday and will leave probably monday evening. Would be fun to see anybody that is planning on going to Arbon for the weekend.

Spoken Too Soon?

This is a true conversation I overhead in the kitchen today as I was putting dishes away in the dishwasher...


Amber: "Aliece, You have been doing such a good job listening today."

~~pause

Amber: "Aliece?"

~~pause

Amber: "Aliece, did you hear me?"

That is when I started laughing!

Go India!

The Howard family (some friends of ours) held their annual ethnic dinner on Sunday. As I had just returned from India, Amber chose to cook some delicious, spicy curry with some other Indian dishes. I had also purchased some traditional Indian clothing for Amber and I. She and I both wore the authentic clothing. The kids also wanted to play the part. So Amber got out a red marker and drew dots on each of our fore-heads.

On the way over to the dinner, the kids were hooting and hollering like American-Indians in the movies. We had to explain to them that we were not dressed up like those kinds of Indians, rather the real Indians - from India. That wasn't as fun for them because they wanted to grab bows and arrows and start hooting the war-path hoot. :-)

There was a good number of people there. It was exciting everyone since many of them have moved from our neighborhood lately. It was a great time for visiting and eating.

India Photos: Mysore Palace

On the Saturday of our India trip, we visited a palace in a nearby town. It was called Mysore Palace. That place was huge and the insides of it were very ornate. They then wouldn't let us take cameras inside so I couldn't get pictures of what it looked like. The grounds were incredible and the palace was magnificent. There was a great wall around the entire palace and grounds. There were also several large and elaborate gates that looked like mansions themselves.



We also had a lot of fun taking pictures of us posing near the various statues there on the grounds. :-)

India Photos: Transportation

The mode of transportation in India is so different than here in the Western US that I had to post some pictures of the various transportation modes that I saw.



With India being a developing country and the amount of money there is so small, many people cannot afford to buy automobiles let alone drive them with gas prices. In fact, even though the standard of living and average salary is only a small fraction of what we typically make here in the US, the price of gasoline is still higher than it is here. Therefore, very few people can actually afford to drive around town.

For Pizza Hut, this means that their delivery mechanism for pizzas must be as efficient as possible. Therefore all of their delivery vehicles are scooters with a large pizza box mounted to the back of them.



Taxicabs are a very common mode of transportation for people. While they were cheap for US standards I am sure they were still pretty expensive for the working class. These cabs are called "Auto Rickshaws". I am not sure that I spelled that name right, but that is how it is spelled phonetically anyway. They are a very small vehicle. They remind me of a scooter in that there are no gears and the driver both steers and accelerates with a handlebar. It reminds me of a scooter that has a shell built around it. Many of these cabs will have large speakers mounted in the back for your listening enjoyment. Or they might serve to drown out the loud and dying growl of the taxicab's engine.

I actually rode in one one day just for fun. My trip ended up being two hours of driving around the city (I used that to find my first geo-cache in India). For those two hours, it only cost me about five dollars. They are definitely not comfortable and really only seat about two people. You often come away smelling a little bit like gasoline. Also, the way people drive there, you feel very vulnerable.



One of the most popular methods of transportation there in Bangalore was via bicycle. However, if you have a family you find that it is hard to carry things on a bicycle. It was not uncommon to see bicycles loaded up in a similar fashion as this bicycle in this picture. Many times a bicycle will serve as a wheelbarrow -- -- loaded down with items and just pushed carefully by the driver.



Okay, this picture would not necessarily fall under the typical transportation method. It was the only camel that I saw there in Bangalore. But, indeed, it served as a mode of transportation and I could not help myself -- I had to take a picture. It was a rather small camel, not the type that you would see in movies in the desert. Nonetheless, it's the closest I've ever been to a camel and it was a pretty cool animal.



My favorite mode of transportation was these scooters. Most of the scooters there were about the same size as the blue E-Ton scooter that we bought at an auction a couple of years ago. The maximum speed of that scooter was about 35 miles an hour. And, it was a small scooter. In Bangalore, however, upper-middle-class families were happy to use them as their minivan. The government only supports families of two children or less. Therefore, many families contain four members. This just happened to be the maximum number of people, obviously, that you could fit on a small scooter. Many times you would see an entire family loaded up on one small scooter. The family in this picture had a little girl about three years old sitting on the lap of her father. Her head was on the handlebars of the scooter and she was asleep. She was even drooling on the handlebars. It is amazing that children can sleep in the oddest of places.

Of course there were other modes of transportation of which I did not get pictures. Buses, were still buses. Only they were more heavily loaded. As we passed us as we would see that they were stuffed full of people. Not only was it the standing room only inside the bus, but people were hanging outside the doors because they could not fit inside.

Also, several people used the backs of service vehicles and cargo vans. It was interesting though, however, in a city of several million people you wonder how they could transport that much food to support the population. We never saw large semi trucks or even large cargo trucks.

I wish I could capture the sensation of traveling on the streets of Bangalore, however, but I have determined that is something that you can only understand by experiencing it personally.

India Photo: Silk Worm

On Saturday we travel to a nearby city that had a palace that we wanted to visit. On our way over there one of our drivers, Ashok, pulled over to the side of the road to a spot that he knew had silkworms. He grabbed a silkworm for each one of us. He took one for himself.

He let us examine the silk cocoon and then he took a razor blade and cut the cocoon that he had in his hand. He then extracted the silkworm that was inside to show us what it looked like.

It was the first silkworm I have ever seen. It was pretty cool! I thought about bringing a home with me in my luggage, but then I didn't know if customs would really allow it. So, I settled for these pictures instead.

India Photo: Gracious Hosts

I cannot fully explain how gracious everyone was to us while we were in India. Several managers took us to their homes for dinner or snacks. Employees also wanted to show their hospitality in a similar fashion.

On the Friday of my visit one of the employees that I work with the most over the phone and via e-mail invited me to his home for a small lunch. Of course, the lunch did not turn out small as was a similar theme throughout any of our meals or snacks with these friends. Needless to say, we were well fed.

Manjul Verma's home was not far from the Novell office. In fact you could step out on his balcony and see the office a few blocks away. His sister lives with him currently while she is attending college. His parents were visiting for the month. It was fun to meet them all.

Manjul also explained to us that their custom and culture included eating their food with their hands rather than with utensils. Up until this point, everyone had served as utensils tea with. I did not know that this was their custom. I wanted to do it just as they did it so I also use my fingers. It was actually pretty fun. However, I needed several napkins when I was through. The native's didn't seem to need the napkins like I did. That is still something I need to figure out. It was great to be with Manjul and to meet his family. I worked with him so much in the past that it was good to know him face-to-face.



Later that evening, Manjul's manager (Satya) invited me and another manager to his home for dinner that night. It was a really fun evening because they spent a lot of time explaining their traditions and cultures to us. We sat on the floor and ate dinner with our hands just as that family typically does. They have two children that are about the same age as Aylee and Johnathan. So I had a good time visiting with them and telling them about my children. As a parting gift, they gave me some stamps, coins, and a decorative rock that I could give to my family from them.



The Indian culture and religions are so very different than ours. They explained to me that Hinduism has many gods and the idols. A family will typically choose one idol for their family to worship. They will often have a mini chapel built inside of their home which is about the same size as the closet. In their chapel they have a statue of their idol to which they give gifts and burn incense and candles each day. Each idol or God has their own day of the week. Of course there are so many of them that many gods share the same day of the week. When that day arrives during the week that is the day of your family's idol, then that is the day that you attend the Hindu temple. When you go to the temple to worship a priest paints a red dot on your fore head.

Each of the idols have a lot of symbolism and iconography designed in them. Satya told us that you could study for years about all of the symbols that exist in Hinduism. It was a very interesting lesson.

India Photo: Typical Sidewalk in Bangalore

Sidewalks in Bangalore were sometimes made of stone or even slabs of cement. However, in the heart of the city many sidewalks were made of large concrete "tiles". These tiles would cover up access to pipes, cables, and probably even sewer systems. However, as in this case, it is best if you keep your eye on the sidewalk when you're walking or you might find yourself several feet below ground!

India Photo: Tree House

During one of our evenings in India the management team went to one of the Indian managers homes for dinner. (Arif Sharif). After dinner one of his neighbors stopped by who used to work at Novell. Her name was Vani Sharma. My boss, Darin, told us that we needed to go over to Vani's house. We made a quick trip over there and found it on the ground floor there was this giant tree trunk.



When they had built the house there was a palm tree in the middle of the plot of ground. Bangalore is known as the Garden City. But with several million people in the city, trees remain a very important part of the landscape. This family did not want to chop down a tree in order to build their house. So, they built access through all two stories and the roof of their house for their tree.



The husband let us onto the roof and I snapped this picture of me standing by the top of the palm trees protruding forth out of their roof.

Take Me Out to the Ball Game!

Our Friday evening activity as a family was centered around baseball! If you weeks ago we had invited a family in our neighborhood to come to the "Orem Owlz" game. They had never been to a game before, and we had not been to one this year. It also helped that we had received a large number of free tickets. We figured to our kids could play with their kids if the game got dull and we could watch the game.

The game was very enjoyable. It was not a close game by any means. Our team won by eight points. About halfway through the game the littler kids started going to the playground area and playing. Aylee and Johnathan had brought their mitts to try to catch any foul balls that came into our area. They hung out at the edge of the field for quite some time waiting for balls. After a while, Johnathan went and played with the kids. For most of the evening, Aylee both hung out with her friend and kept her mitt at the ready so she could catch any foul balls.

Aylee had gotten close to a least one ball, but the competition was too fierce. Near the end of the game we started to pack up. Aliece came running from the playground to show us what she had found. She had in her hand a shiny slick "Orem Owlz" baseball. Aylee was very jealous. Here Aylee had spent most of the game near the edge of the field to catch a ball. Aliece got a ball just by going and playing in the playground. Aliece said she found that stuck in the fence.

We all had a great time and it was fun to get to a baseball game before the summer was over.

An Intriguing Host

The other day Alayna wanted to have a friend come over and play with her while the kids were at school. Amber called one of our neighbors who has a child Alayna's age. The neighbor dropped off their child and Alayna and her friend went off into the play room and started to play with Legos and other toys. When it was time for the little girl to go, her father stopped by to pick her up. Amber went into the playroom to go get his daughter and found Alayna fast asleep in the Lego bucket with her friend dutifully playing by her side.



I think we need to give Alayna some lessons in hosting company!

Hi everyone,

JoAnn and I were talking about having a girls night out soon. We can't let the boys have all the fun. :)

I have a cute and easy craft, if anyone is interested. See below. (The craft is the cute letters). You can spell anything you want.





I thought it would be fun to go to WITCHES' NIGHT OUT at Gardner Village in West Jordan on October 24th or 25th. I have never been (has anyone else been?) but I have heard it is a lot of fun. Everyone dresses up as a witch and they have different fun things going on (see below). They also have a play called WITCHAPALOOZA going on at the same time. The play includes dinner and costs $31.00.

So what does everyone think? We would still have loads of fun without going to the play, I just wanted everyone to know the play was an option.

Or we could do something else. We could go to Idaho. The options are endless! I will not be offended if no one wants to go to WITCHES' NIGHT OUT or do the craft. I'm just busting out some ideas.


We are going to have sooooooooooooo much fun! I'm getting excited just writing this.

Let me know what you think.

~Shantell

For more info check out Gardner Village


WITCHAPALOOZA at The Gathering Place
Oct 08, 2008 Thru Oct 30, 2008
Enjoy an evening of dinner, music and witchy fun as the Witchapalooza Dinner Theater once again returns to The Gathering Place. Take a journey down memory lane with Weston the Warlock as he searches for his one true love. Witches from his past are revisited, complete with live music and colorful costumes from the decades. The sights and sounds will have you dancing in the aisles, the comedy will leave you laughing, and the dinner will satisfy your soul. Tickets go on sale August 1st. For more information, please call 801.566.0917 or email here.




WITCHES' NIGHT OUT!
Oct 24, 2008 Thru Oct 25, 2008

Witches love any excuse to have fun and throw a party. Ladies...join your fellow sister witches for this evening out. An event just for ladies 18 years and older! Plan now to wear your most elaborate hat or costume, Gardner Village will be filled with enchanting witches from 6 pm to 10 pm both nights. Enter the drawing for one of five, $100 Gardner Village shopping sprees and other fun prizes at 10 pm nightly. Also enjoy an emcee, dancing, music, food booths and more. Stop to have your fortune told, enjoy spellbinding activities in our shops, and join the Witches Parade at 8 pm nightly. Leave the children with the sitter and grab your witchy friends for this spellbinding ladies night out.

Swimming Gains

This evening we took the kids to the swimming pool. It was a great evening for there was hardly anyone there. Tonight's swimming pool adventure was a very productive one.

While we were there, Aylee did her first real dive off of a diving board. In the past she has been jumping off of diving boards. However, I challenged her and she did some dives.

Aliece also stretched herself. She started to jump off the side of the pool into the water. Although she was wearing water wings on her arms, this is still something very new to her. She was jumping into the pool even though that meant that her head would be submerged in the water.

Johnathan also excelled in the pool today. When I went over to the side of the pool where he was at I found him jumping off the side into the water. He was very cautious and would only jump into the 4 foot level area. I convinced him to go to the 4'10" area of the pool. With a little coaxing he went over and jumped in. I asked him if he would go over to the 13 foot area and jump in. He was defiant and said there was no way he would be doing that. I tried to explain to him that if he wasn't touching the bottom while jumping in now, a deeper part of the pool wouldn't be any worse. It didn't register with them what I was saying.

Finally, I took him over to the 9 foot area of the pool. I kind of started to trick him here. I told him that it was the 6 foot area of the pool. Since he was looking at the nine from behind, it looked like a six. Since 6 feet is only one higher than 5 feet it was not a big deal to him. So he jumped in. I let him jump in from that point several times. Then, one time when he swam back to the side I noticed that he had swam sideways a bit. So when he was getting out the pool, he was actually getting out the pool at the 13 foot level. I made sure to show him that he was at the 13 foot mark. I then fibbed again. I exclaimed, "Wow! Johnathan You jumped in at the 13 foot part of the pool!" He looked down at the 13 painted on the pool. That boosted his confidence and he jumped in from that point again.

He was having so much fun, that he kept jumping into the 13 foot level with the rest of the evening. Watching Aylee, he also did some headfirst dives off the side of the pool in the 13 foot area. It sure was funny to watch him. He was crazy! He would give a huge run and he would jump right into the 13 foot pool. He was unafraid of anything. It was such a contrast from when we started swimming earlier.

We are at a quandary now, however. He now has so much confidence that he swims out into the middle of the pool without thinking. He often gets to the middle and realizes that he is out of gas. He then starts to sputter and sink. Now I have to watch them extra carefully.

Next time we go to the pool, I'll have to make sure he knows how to float on his back.

What a Reader

Amber attended parent teacher conference at the elementary school today. All of the kids teachers were impressed by the behavior that they have shown so far this week. We were glad to hear that. They did some preliminary testing also. The kids did just fine and excelled in many areas.

Amber said that Aliece's teacher had prepared some reading flashcards for Aliece. She had Aliece read the words on the flashcards. Aliece speedily ran through all the words. Her teacher said that she was originally going to give those cards to Aliece to cut out and practice at home. However, she did so well that she put the flashcards back. She then grabbed another book and asked Aliece to read that. Again, Aliece sped right through the book. By the time they were done the teacher was amazed. She said none of the other students have gotten as far as Aliece had in her reading test. She said that Aliece is already reading at the end of the grade level.

Aliece is definitely a reader. When I came home today I found her reading a chapter book. However, we are hoping that she doesn't let it go to her head. While we've been doing family scripture study, Aliece has started to correct Johnathan while he is reading. Let me tell you, that does not go off well!