Biker Gang

With the change in weather our little gang has taken to the streets in a big way.  For the past couple of years the kids have been a bit reluctant to riding bikes much.  They've loved their trikes, but moving the the two-wheelers has been a barrier.  Everything changed last week.  Kennedy decided she wanted to learn to ride her bike without training wheels.  As a 5-year-old she has learned that all big kids ride their bikes without extra wheels.

So, Tara and I were more than willing to help her transition into a bicycle queen.  On Sunday we spent a couple of hours going up and down the street and she really picked it up.  She could start and stop, even turn the corners.  Things were going great.  Until she fell.  Twice.  After that she declared, "I don't like riding a bike.  Never, never, never."  I carried her bike home and that was that (til the next day).

Alex loves his new hand me down Spiderman bike.  Our friends gave it to him and that's all it took.  He was off - too bad the training wheels aren't off yet.  Alex is a little scared to give up his security and risk falling.  Still, I get the feeling that he'll be ready to go by the end of the summer.

Our biker gang is off and riding - Utah beware!

Bathroom Project: Snapshots into the Action

Rather than providing the blow by blow of where the bathroom has taken us, let's take a look at some pictures from the past two weeks.

Some thoughts on Health Care

I've paid a lot of attention to the Health Care debate over the past several months. It's amazing to me that something that seems to be such a common sense notion - Every American Deserves the Right to Health Care - should be so polarizing. We have millions of uninsured people in our country. People who have jobs. People who have families. People who are trying to make it. Health Care is too expensive in our country if you don't have access to employer based insurance. The fight has been fierce over the proposed Health Care plan recently passed in the House of Representatives. I can understand how both sides feel about this issue.

Fiscal responsibility hasn't always been a trademark of the Democratic party. I know and understand that this bill will cost money. Government programs aren't cheap. The question I ask myself is: Is it worth it? Will this bill bring down Health Care costs? Will it improve the health of Americans, both wealthy and poor? Will we be better off as a country because of this bill? In my heart I believe the answer is yes.

I've always been lucky. I have had great insurance coverage working for the state of Utah for my entire career. My insurance is relatively inexpensive and my coverage is fairly extensive. Several of you aren't that lucky. Members of my family have pre-existing conditions and are self-employed. This is a "double whammy" in the insurance game. The costs are so high that any hiccup in health could mean a financial catastrophe. My family and millions of others need access to affordable health care, without denial for pre-existing conditions. My family needs this bill.

In the end, I believe we're witnessing an historic moment in our country. Health Care coverage isn't a political issue, it's a moral issue and I think we've made the right choice as a Nation.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

The only kid I could catch in green on St. Patrick's Day was Dylan.

I love this new look that Dylan is giving me every time I try to take a picture.


Kennedy and Alex decided to change clothes before I took a picture of them. Kennedy is in the "change clothes four times a day" phase. This makes quite a nightmare for laundry.

Anyway, Happy St. Patrick's Day from Dylan!

Steppin Up

A couple of weeks ago Dylan decided he wanted to go up the stairs. He would climb from the landing to the first stair, look around, and go right back down. Last week, he would take about three stairs before crying for help to get down. This week he finally figured things out. Sure, he needs a little coaching from Dede, but Big D made it to the top of the stairs over the weekend. He's a little scary working his way down the stairs - still, our little climber is making the big step up to toddler.

Family Archeology

As we were tearing down the door frame in the basement I came across this little piece of family archeology. I would imagine these numbers trace back 40+ years to my Aunt Jorgie as a teenager. I can only imagine what someone would think if I actually called one of the phone numbers and shared where I found it. Too funny!

Bathroom Project: Days 3 & 4

Over the past couple of days we've done some pretty major things - plumbing is in, cement is poured, and the door frames have been removed. We really look like we've building a bathroom. I have to say that everyone who's helped on the project has saved us a ton. From Chrys on the plubming, Alan and Lynn on the concrete, and Sam on everything else this has become quite a group project.

This past weekend Alex and I demolished the rest of the entry way as we prepare to frame the new walls. It was a blast! I have only known the basement looking a certain way and tearing down the door frame has totally opened everything up. This week we move into the framing, more plumbing, electrical, and then comes the dry wall. This could actually start looking like a bathroom pretty soon....

Set in Stone

We've had a small problem for the past few years. Along the side of our house was a small sand box. It was a fun area where the kids could dig and play with some of their toys. I know there's nothing wrong with that. The problem was the neighborhood cats also saw the sand box as an area where they could "play" and leave their business. Tara has hated that area for the past few years, but we've never done anything about it. Until we had left over concrete from the bathroom project...

Since there was plenty of extra cement, we poured a new little pad of concrete along the side of the house. The kids and the cats probably won't be too happy with our decision, but Tara and I are ecstatic about the new area. With newly poured cement we couldn't help ourselves and took advantage of the space by creating a fun little homage to the kids, complete with handprints, footprints, and names. It's something that really puts a family touch on the project.

One Eyed Alex

For the past year and a half we've known that Alex had a problem with one of eyes. Each time he turned his focus in a different direction you could see that his right eye was slightly behind. Finally, a few months ago, we took him to a specialist to examine Alex's "lazy eye". He told us there was a good chance Alex would need to have surgery to correct the eye, but we should try patching it to see if we could strengthen the muscles. Several hundred patches later the inevitable finally happened. Last week during his visit with the eye specialist surgery became the best option. So, the date was scheduled and we headed up to Primary's this morning.

Alex did great! As we prepared to go into surgery he was pretty calm - I wish I could say the same thing for his parents! As he went in for surgery he didn't cry and was actually pretty excited to get this over with. Perhaps it was the sedative he was given, but Alex typically deals with things pretty well. We sat in the waiting room for about an hour until the nurse called Tara back into Post Op.

Everything went as well as we could have hoped. We spent about an hour in Post Op with Alex. He was pretty groggy from the anesthetic and slept for much of the time. When he did open his eye I couldn't believe how good it looked. A little swollen and red, but I expected things to look a lot worse. He really looked like someone had simply poked him in the eye.

We took our little guy home and he spent much of the afternoon sleeping. We kept trying to force liquids in him to keep him hydrated, but he quickly threw up whatever we gave him. The best medicine was rest. Around 5 o'clock Alex bounced out of bed and declared he was ready to eat. And he did. Two entire waffles. Ten minutes later, the waffles came back. Still Alex was back to himself. The rest of the evening he was energetic and playful.

He still has a bit of pain in his eye, but things are going great! Alex's eye is healing and he is our fun loving little boy once again.

Bathroom Project: Day 2

Tonight we engaged in some more grunt work. There's nothing glamorous about making a trench in a concrete floor. It involves and lot of pounding with a sledge hammer, breaking up concrete with a chipping hammer (thanks Hilarie), digging with shovel, and hauling in a bucket. Sam, Jason, Evan, and I spent two hours tonight using that routine but we make a hole, a really deep hole. I didn't realize that to get down to the waste pipe we would need to dig about 18 inches deep. Wow! You should have seen all the dirt we took out of the floor (and the worst part is I'm just going to put it back in again in a couple of days).

Our house really looks like a construction zone right now. Dust is everywhere throughout the house. We have big mounds of dirt in the basement. And now, there's an trench in the basement floor - 32 feet long, 2 feet wide, and 18 inches deep. My favorite part of this project so far is watching the kids play around in the trench. Can you imagine having access to something like that as a kid? This is heaven for them!

half truths and mild tales: the novel

Each year I write this blog and hope that what I say will mean something down the road. I know that Tara and I are probably the only ones these for which little stories matter, but I like writing down our adventures and a few of my thoughts. One of my favorite aspects of blog writing is blog publishing. It seems like each spring I finishing compiling the previous year's blog into a book. Well, I finished 2009 a couple days ago and it arrived from Blurb today.

It looks really good. After four previous books I'm starting to get down a format I like and I can knock it out pretty quickly. This year I did something kinda fun. Since we had some extra pages at the end of the book I created a photo montage to the last decade of our lives. It was cool to look through photos of our little family, starting with the two of us from 2000 to 2004, and the family years from 2005 to the present. I know it's just for us, but the blog books are a big reason you keep seeing my thoughts in type.

Bathroom Project: Day 1

About a month ago Tara and I got serious - about a bathroom. Having grown up in this house, one of my biggest frustrations was not having a bathroom in the basement. Now you need to remember, I slept downstairs. No one likes running upstairs in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. In the morning, no one liked running downstairs to get dressed after taking a shower. It is too inconvenient and I didn't want to repeat the same pattern for my kids. Tara and I knew we wanted a bathroom in the basement. The biggest trick was the fact that the basement wasn't plumbed for a bathroom.

Well, we started addressing that issue today. Over the weekend I reserved a concrete cutter from Diamond Rental. Not a little hand held job. No, this was the walk behind. A 300 lb. behemoth, sure to inflict some damage on the floor, and on my back! Two weeks ago my cousin Chrys came out and marked the trench he needed cut to lay the pipes for the toilet, sink, and tub and tonight we made the trench. My friend Sam didn't realize the task he signed on to last week when he volunteered to help, but I'm sure glad he was there. Between hauling, cutting, and pounding Sam and I are off to a pretty good start. Let's see how I feel in the morning. Where's the ibuprofen?!

Check out this video of the cutter in action!