Jr. Jazz

Tyson played his first season of Jr. Jazz.  The lucky kid had his dad for his coach and his best friends on his team.  Dan is a great coach.  All the kids loved him.  They had a great time and all improved their basketball skills.  Tyson can't wait for next season!

Old Man

January was a busy month thanks to basketball season.  We almost didn't have time to celebrate Dan's birthday.  Luckily his assistant bought him a cake and balloons.  The least I could do was light it on fire and let the boys sing.  

A Giant Snow-person

We've had no shortage of snow this winter.  One snowy day Dan, acompanied by the three boys and several neighbor kids, built a giant 7 foot snowman.  (or snow woman.  Dan tried to convince me it was a girl.)

He, or she, had a fire bowl for a hat, sunglasses for eyes, a carrot for a nose, and pumpkins for a mouth.

Caleb, Tyson, Eli, and Nolan

Dan and his new girl friend.  She gave him the cold shoulder. 

Daddy Daughter Time

Lila really loves her daddy.  They are great friends.  

I try not to be too jealous of his new girlfriend.

Daddy's Girl

The silver lining to pumping and bottle feeding Lila was that Dan got a chance to spend a little more time with her.  They seem to get along great!

A Typical Lazy Sunday Afternoon

Father's Day 2012

We had fun spoiling Dan for Father's Day this year.

Original Paintings by Tyson, a goofy T-shirt, and a bin of his favorite junk food.

We love our Daddy.  He takes such good care of us.  It's a pleasure to spoil him once in a while.

Mission Reunion

Thanks to Facebook Dan has kept in touch with many people from his mission.  Last month we invited people from his MTC group over for dinner.  They had a great night reminiscing about the MTC and France.

We were also able to get to meet their families.  Here's the group (minus Nolan and Preston, who were otherwise occupied at picture time)

It was a great night with good food, good friends, and French Cheese.

Dan's Birthday

Dan's not really big on birthdays.  But every year I try to do something to make it fun for him.  It would be a lot easier if he was actually home to enjoy it.  But as usual Dan was working all day.  The boys and I had dinner and pie waiting for him when he got home late that night.  

  

 We can't forget this candle.  Someone sent it to him as a gift.  When  lit the flower opened up, started spinning and singing happy birthday.  The music only stopped when you cut the wire.  Dan was determined NOT to cut the wire.  But the music was so irritating that the candle spent a couple days in the garage.  When Dan still refused to cut the wire we moved the candle to the garbage can outside.  It went singing to it's death in the garbage truck.

We even decorated the house in a football theme for him.  The boys talked about Daddy's Football Birthday for weeks.

Stage 4 Corneal Ulcer

(Another over-due post that's just for the blog book)

I have had so much drama with eyes this year.  But none of it was as insane as Dan's.  

He woke up one morning with a pain in his eye.  By afternoon he was in so much pain that he was begging me to take him to the eye doctor. He was diagnosed with a Stage 4 Corneal Ulcer and referred to a specialist.  

It was very severe.  And in order to avoid a corneal transplant we put drops in his eyes every 60 minutes around the clock.  That meant neither one of us enjoyed a full REM cycle for many days.  It was rough.   He was extremely sensitive to light and was unable to work for several days.  He couldn't drive, he couldn't look at a computer screen.  He couldn't text.  The only thing he could do was talk on the phone in a dark room.  This was so hard on him.  He's a workaholic, and always keeps himself busy.  He's not one to sit still for long.

At one point he said to me, "I'd rather have a hole in my face, at least then I'd be able to watch TV."



The white stuff is just some of his eye drops.  He was on two different prescription eye drops.  One was painful. Both were expensive.



Holding his eye open for this picture nearly killed him. 



A month, lots of eye drops, and many, many doctor appointments later he is recovered.  His eye still has a scar.  Only time will tell how much this has effected his vision.  We hope that this won't rule out LASIK for him either.

The Smolder

Have you seen Tangled?

My kids love it. They have most of the movie memorized.

One of their favorite parts is "the smolder."

They've been doing their best to perfect their own smolders.

Even Dan wanted in on the action.

Oh, be still my heart.

30 Days of Thankful: Day 12

(Our first date night 14 years ago)
Tonight I am thankful for Date Night. Dan and I don't go out very often. Between his work schedule and the kids, we have little time for 'us.' And more often than not, date night begins with a Redbox. But tonight we were able to get away for a few hours, thanks to my little brother and his wife who volunteered to babysit. For three hours Dan listened to me talk. He held my hand, and my door. We shared our thoughts and ice cream. It was so good to relax and laugh, to reconnect, and remember why we are married. Date night is a good thing.

30 Days of Thankful: Day 11

Today I am overwhelmingly thankful for my husband's job. I am thankful that he has the ability and the opportunity to support our family. Too many families are out of work in this wretched economy. Too many families are going hungry. Too many families are worried about where their next meal is going to come from, or how they are going to pay their bills. Dan works very hard to support us. He works long hours nearly everyday, but I never hear him complain. I am so thankful that he enjoys his job because he spends nearly every waking hour working. I have never known a harder working man.

Shameless plug: If you need an amazing Realtor who loves what he does, Please give him a call! Tell him his wife sent you :)

Uncle Dan's Pumpkin Party

Dan loves to grow pumpkins!

It's a gift, actually. According to our neighbors our soil has too much clay in it (or something like that). Dan proved them wrong.

He planted 70% of our garden with pumpkins of many different varieties. We had everything from Jack-Be-Littles to Atlantic Giants. Dan harvested somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 pumpkins.

We've been giving them away all month.
Dan's favorite thing to do with his pumpkins is have a Pumpkin Party with all his nieces and nephews. So this last week, he hauled 50+ pumpkins down the street to the park, where 40+ of our nieces and nephews were able to choose their own pumpkin. They also colored pictures, frosted cookies, guessed the weight of the biggest pumpkin, and played pumpkin soccer (the pumpkins were the goals, not the ball.)

Most of our pumpkins are gone now, but we still have a couple dozen medium -small pumpkins. You are welcome to come pick one out if you haven't already!

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Wordless Wednesday

Run Forest, Run!

Random Fact: When Preston was born we discovered that his heart rate is naturally slower than average. I remember one of the nurses at the hospital telling me that he would be a good marathon runner one day because of it.

Dan entered both boys in their first race this summer. They had lots of fun and were very excited to win a first place ribbon (just like all the other kids)

10 Years and Counting

This week Dan and I are celebrating our 10th Anniversary.

I have a hard time believing that it's really been 10 years.

In an effort to figure out where those ten years went I created this photo timeline.

2000 2001
2002
2003
2004
2005

2006

2007

2008

2009
2010

So there you have it.

In 10 years we've lived in two apartments, owned two homes, owned 7 cars, had 3 children, graduated with 2 Bachelors Degrees, had 8 jobs, and made countless memories.

And we're just getting started!

Dan's Home

As I mentioned in my previous post, Dan quit his job at the car dealership.

It has been such a blessing.

He is now home for special occasions like dinner and bedtime.

There is also a bit more of this going on:

Life is good.

A Sign of the Times

Dan's phone started acting wonky the other day.

Like Dan, it's obviously been working too hard.

Do you see anything wrong with this picture?

Let me give you a hint:

Yeah, it's 1970.
I told Dan that the reason his phone wasn't working properly was that it hadn't been invented yet.
Dan wasn't even invented yet!

Dan can't survive one day without his phone so T-Mobile overnighted him a new one.

The next day my phone stopped working.
Here is the key difference between my life and Dan's life:

It took me three day to notice it was broken. Then I spent a week without a phone. During that week I only missed two calls (one of them was from Dan).
Now I am borrowing an old one till next month when I can upgrade for free.

One of Their Favorite Things

This is one of Nolan's favorite places to be.

Unfortunately, due to Dan's work schedule, he doesn't get to snuggle here very often.

This time they were "watching" sports.

This is also how these two spent much of yesterday "watching" General Conference.