Little Bethlehem

This year the youth from the ward went out to Burnett Texas to a recreation of Bethlehem. It was pretty cool. With Roman guards, inn keepers, candle and rope makers, even bread makers. We even got to sample the bread! It was so tasty. The kids kept going back for more, and then back for even more. We saw camels, donkeys, and the nativity. The dots on the pictures aren't snow , they're just stuff on the lense.

Thanksgiving

This year Uncle Andy was here to help the kids celebrate Thanksgiving dinner at the school. He even went to the school in his uniform. It was fun to see the kids salute him as he walked by. We were able to eat with both Berkeley and Brooke. We ate Thanksgiving dinner with the Dhals. They are some of our great friends from our previous ward. They're like family. Nancy made an awesome turkey, and there was so much other tasty food. I made pies and rolls. There was enough left over that we went back the next night for a rerun.

"Shoot me a Waco"

Andy is here visiting again this weekend. Today we decided to meet our cousin Suzanne Flake and her 4 girls (they live in Dallas), in Waco Texas for a tour of the Dr Pepper Museum. Upon arrival, Andy stimulated the tour by offering a dollar to the first kid that could tell him where Dr Pepper went to medical school. The hunt was on.
We toured all three levels and the best we could come up with was that the actual Dr Pepper lived in Virginia.
The story says, that the creator of "Dr Pepper" was sweet on the daughter of Dr Pepper, who wasn't too taken with him. In order to prove his worthiness, he went out to make his way in the world, to Waco Texas (who knew?), and came back with the drink named "Dr Pepper". Not much more was said so I don't know if he got the girl or not. The other story was that he named the drink after his horse Dr Pepper. So Dr Pepper didn't create the drink, someone else did. We also learned that Dr Pepper does NOT contain prune juice as it has been commonly rumored. It was a propaganda ploy by a competitor that backfired. OOPS!

After touring the museum, we were all treated to an actual "jerked soda" of choice. It's called a soda jerk because of the jerking motion used when dispensing the soda water into the syrup. The phrase "Shoot me a Waco" was how you asked for a Dr Pepper from the soda counter. Only appropriate of course because it comes from Waco.
It was fun to see, and now we can say that we've been there. After the museum we went to a local favorite BBQ spot, Uncle Dan's. It was ok BBQ, but I don't think we will be going back any time soon.


Our next quest was for a park for the kids to play at. We found a frisbee golf course along the Brazos river, and stopped there. The kids enjoyed the water and finding sticks, not so much the stickers though. Suzanne managed to get quite a few, she was down in the dirt trying to take a picture of us with the timer feature, unbeknownst to her, there were LOTS of goat head stickers by the camera. She got a good picture though.

While at the park, the many sodas we had ingested earlier on in the day were catching up with us. Berkeley was the first to go, all the while chiming "Don't look!, Don't look! As time passed our friend Emma Bryson needed to go too. Now I only mention what happened next because it comes up again and again. Sorry Emma :) While squatting behind a rock to pee, Emma accidentally got a lot of it on her pants. I turned around to hear what could've been a giggle or a cry, but Emma had her sense of humor with her today. She was giggling about missing, and getting her pants all wet. She sure was a trooper, she didn't cry at all. I would've been a mess. We went to the car and took of the wet clothes and she donned my oversized sweatshirt. We were set!
We parted ways with Suzanne and the girls and proceded onto a gas station, where we filled up the car for around $20.00. YEAH for falling gas prices!!! This feeling of satisfaction was short lived. We were on the frontage road driving toward the freeway entrance in the far left lane when a kid and his homies tried to turn left in front of us from the center lane. Obviously physics kept that from working in his favor. He turned into our car and did a 180 as we continued to push him across the road until he hit a curb. Don't get your worry wart out now, everyone is just fine. The air bags didn't even deploy. All three kids were fine and so were Andy and I. Here comes the part where the wet pants come into play. I quickly turned around and asked Emma to put the pants back on. She wasn't very excited about it. I told her that she couldn't go out on the street without any pants on. I didn't think it would bode well for Andy or myself if there was a partially naked 7 year old in the back seat. Again Emma was a trooper and she put on the wet, cold pants, and did it without complaining.











As soon as we stopped a girl got out of the other car and starts yelling at Andy saying "Why did you turn into us?" Being all sassy and tough she thought we had hit them and it was our fault. I informed her that we had been going straight and the driver of her car had tried to make a left hand turn in front of us, which the kid confessed to doing when questioned. He said that he didn't make it because Andy sped up and so it was his fault. Again a scenario that was physically impossible. The kid was sited for the accident.

After getting everything all sorted out Andy took a cab to the airport to pick up another rental car. "Thank goodness it was a rental." was said more than once today. While waiting for Andy to return with a car I took the kids across the street to a Burger King. Hooray for hand dryers! Emma went into a stall, gave me her pants, and I dried them out with the hand dryer. She was soooo much happier. Now to fill our tummies. We got some fries and a shake. Everyone is happy with a shake! Shortly after Andy showed up with the new rental and we were off for home. When all is said we had quite an adventure.

Uncle Andy's playing Army in Texas

Andy is here in Texas, stationed at Fort Hood, about an hour north of us. We love it when he schedules his rotations here in Texas because that means we get to see him on the weekends. YEAH!! On Tuesday he drove down to vote, since he's registered here in Cedar Park it worked out to his advantage. The kids love it when Andy visits. Brooke loves it when he takes her on bike rides to the park in the neighborhood, and Berkeley likes to play Legos and wrestle. Tim has someone to go on long bike rides and runs with, and I get to visit and regroup in the wee hours. It is such a blessing to have him here in our home. He brings such a fresh dynamic with him. It is also great for the kids to see him serve our country, and those in need in the medical field. Tune in for more adventures with Uncle Andy.

Halloween's for the kids

This year Berkeley wanted to go as a Star Wars Clone Trooper. He went as "Captain Rex". Brooke wanted to be "Naughty & Nice". She saw a costume at the store and it was a little bit more naughty than nice so I opted to make one of our own. It was so much cuter than the oneat the store. On Thursday the 30th, we test drove the kids costumes at the Vista Ridge High School's trunk-or-treat. I love seeing the older kids having fun with the little ones. One of the highlights was running into our friend Stefany Charpentier. The kids just love her. They left with so much candy I wondered if we would really need to trick-or-treat the next night. But of course they just dumped out their candy from the night before and headed around the neighborhood on Halloween. Jeremy and Tim took the kids trick-or-treating, while Kellie and I held down the fort from their driveway. The kids had carved their pumpkins earlier that day and we lined the driveway with the spooky and cooky jack-o'-lanterns. And Jeremy lit a fire in their portable firepit and we handed out candy while enjoying the pleasant, almost cool, night. What a perfect Halloween!

Europe, Summer 2007

Everything's Bigger in Texas

Kellie and I were shopping the other day and we passed by this kiosk. Belt buckles of this magnitude are common among our fellow Texans. I know some of you are watering at the mouth because you want one of these bodacious buckles, but you'll just have to come and visit us in Texas to get one.

Halloween Party!!!

Our friends, Sonya and Georgio Nallira, hosted a Halloween Party. Not as many people showed up as were expected, but it was tons of fun with the small group of 10 of us that were there. Everyone had a great time playing Pictionary, a Newleywed type game, and eating lots of great food. It was fun to see our friends out of character, all dressed up. Of course, this post is more for the pictures than anything. Enjoy...
Kellie and Jeremy Bryson
Sonya Nallira
Jay & Shakindra Vansickle
Me and Tim
Kit and Creshel Allowitz

Sweet Berry Farm Corn Maze

Fall is in the air, even in Texas. Today it was a cool 70 degrees. Perfect for taking a trip to Marble Falls and the the Sweet Berry Farm, about an hour west of Cedar Park. Kellie and I picked the kids up from school and surprised them by saying we were going to Marble Falls. They didn't know we were going to the maze until we arrived. It's cool when these kind of surprises work out (which is rarely). When we got there we took a tractor pulled hay ride to the Texas shaped maze. The kids got a kick out of all the hay on our bums and Dani made sure we all knew it was a bumpy ride.
Once we got to the maze, we checked out the map of Texas and noted where all 10 of the cities that we were supposed to find were located. Then we set off. We started in pairs, each with a mom, but after about 15 minutes we found it to be more fun going around in a big group. After about an hours worth of searching, we found all 10 cities. Surprisingly, we didn't happen across the same city more than twice, unless we were trying to because someone missed it.

When we were all done, because we found all the cities, we were each rewarded with a soda. The maze is on about 4 acres and seems to go on forever. The kids all had a great time. It's was a super alternative to going to the haunted house, especially for the "little" faint of heart. I can now pat myself on the back for doing something "cool" for Halloween with the kids, especially since this is a first.

Next we were off to the pumpkin patch. Each of the kids picked out their own pumpkin. For a minute we weren't sure if Berkeley was going to pick one out. A bee flew onto his can of Sprite and he flipped out! He has a strong aversion to the sweet little pests. After being stung twice this summer, at Nana's bee hives, he doesn't like them at all. After calming him down a little, he picked out a perfectly sized (small) pumpkin, while Brooke kept lugging around this huge one. She was determined to have a big pumpkin. The one she got turned out to be around 15 lbs as it was.

"Red"neck Date!

I have to give credit to Kellie for writing most of this. I just edited it a bit.

Last Friday night we went on a double date with our friends Kellie and Jeremy Bryson. The date ended up being guys' choice and I have to give Tim props for originality. He wanted to take us to the SHOOTING RANGE! Yeah, I know, Jeremy with a gun - I was scared too (J/K)!

So anyway, we headed over to Pflugerville to the first part of our "red"neck evening: at RED's Indoor Shooting Range. I've only fired a gun once and it wasn't at a range. I was attempting to shoot a jackrabbit in the foothills of Provo. This was all a new experience for me - from the incredibly LOUD sound a fired gun makes in an indoor range to the real rednecks yuckin' it up behind Red's counter.

Tim and Jeremy did a great job showing Kellie and me how to safely load, handle and fire Tim's three different handguns. I tried all three: a 9mm, a 40 caliber and a 380. I first fired the 40 caliber. It took me a while to carefully go through all the steps in my head that the guys showed us: how to pick up the gun, how to correctly hold it, where to look when firing and how to position my body and arms for the kick from the actual gun discharging. Kellie said "I think the kick had me scared the most. From all the stories I heard in general about the "kick" in a gun, I guess I expected it to be a lot harder and more painful than it actually was. But it wasn't so bad, Thank Goodness!" The actual sound vibrations of the other guns firing in the range bothered me the most. I have to admit that I was nervous about handling a firearm. I didn't want to make any mistakes.

I next tried the 9mm. I liked shooting it and the 380 better. I had better aim with both of them. I made the mistake while shooting the 9mm of putting my thumb on the top of my right hand instead of on my left hand. This brought my thumb just under the barrel so when it shot the barrel scraped the knuckle. I felt like such a beginner!!! The whole event made me nervous. I am grateful that Tim taught me how to use the guns, so that I will be prepared to use it if I need to.

So I guess my weapon of choice for the evening was the 40 caliber, but I don't think the shooting range will be my next hobby. I'm glad for the experience, but it was one of those moments for me when I realized how we take life so easily for granted. A gun is a powerful instrument that we see so much of in the movies and on TV that I'd lost that perspective of what it can do. Holding and firing one gave me a lot more respect for its capabilities.

Okay, I got a little deep there for what was supposed to be a funny blog of a redneck date. So after we "blew away" a wad of moola on range fees and ammo, and tossed around a few more one-liners with the "Red's"neck employees, we climbed back into our car and drove around looking for some dinner.

Now if you were looking to continue on the "red"neck theme where would you suggest for dinner? RED Robin, of course!!! We all four got cozy in a booth, gawked over a girl's wicked-outrageous eyeglasses a couples tables away (wish I'd gotten a pic of those - they were indescribable!), and pounded down some dee-lish burgers and fries. I also introduced Jer and Kellie to Red Robin's Campfire Sauce. I highly recommend it - Utah fry sauce pales in comparison.

Overall, it was an original evening! But then again we don't get out much, so I guess the fact that we actually went out was original. I know - LAME! Enjoy the pics, though!