Bri 'n Em 'n the M&M'z

The 5 yr old asks,  "Mom, are bushmen real?
Since the kids have recently been hooked on The Gods Must Be Crazy II, I figured I knew what he meant, so I said, "You mean Kalahari Bushmen that live in Africa?"
"Yes," he answered.
"Yup, they are real," I said.
Then the three-year old piped, "Mom, are we bushmen?"
"No, we are Americans" I replied.
"Do we live in Africa," she continued.
"No, we live in the United States of America," I responded, sure the reply would end the discussion.
But she had one last question, "Mom, are we real?"

The last few months have seen a lot of changes and new adventures.  We've discovered that Oklahoma is very hot (apparently this year is hotter than normal--but still!).  We safely passed through our first really severe storm.  That one storm generated 12 tornadoes in Oklahoma--1 was rated F5 and 2 were rated F4.  We spent about an hour and a half in our bathroom, only to hear later that if we had been hit, we wouldn't have survived--very comforting for newcomers to tornado alley.  The Piedmont tornado hit less than 9 miles from our house and several families in our stake lost their homes.

The first picture is of a hailstone that fell in our backyard the night before the big storm that hit our area.  The second photo is of B. and the kids having fun in the bathroom. (No, really that is Brian's fun face.)  By the way, the best way to keep kids entertained in a bathtub for an hour and a half is lots and lots of snacks.


Here is a few seconds of what hit us with that storm:


I was able to help with clean-up in two different cities (Blanchard and Piedmont) that had been hit by two different tornadoes.  The damage was incredible.  The hardest one for me was the site in Piedmont.  Two children were killed there. A pregnant mother with her three children had gone to the bathtub (as we are told to do).  The tornado hit and they were all picked up.  Her 15 month old and her 3 year old died.  The tragedy hit me pretty hard.  Her kids were the same ages as mine. I can't imagine very many things worse than feeling like you cannot protect your children.  We worked at the subdivision where their home was and cleaned debris from the lake where the three year old was found.  I found some relief in helping.  Somehow doing hard, physical work makes me feel like I've actually done something useful (however small).

Here are a few pictures from the site in Blanchard.  The black metallic piece in the second photo is the frame of a mobile home after being wrapped around a couple of trees.

A strange phenomenon has been occurring at our house.  Right around nine o'clock I start to feel tired.  For many people, this may not seem strange, but for me it is.  Except during pregnancy, my normal sleep cycle seems to be from about midnight to 7:30 or 8:00am.  Even if I try to go to bed earlier I still fall asleep around 12 am. Fortunately my children sleep about 12 hours a night, so they typically wake up between 7:30 and 8:00, which means I get about 8 hours a night, which seems to be a good amount for me.  Lately, however, I have been getting tired earlier and earlier.  Like right now, I want to go to bed and it's only 9:00 pm.

Here are my theories as to the cause of this phenomena:

It is just a fluke.
Some complex biological process happens to change circadian rhythms when one turns . . . my age.
I have just been busy with new tasks at church, learning new stuff, information and responsibility overload.
Sleep is contagious (everyone in my house is currently asleep).
Boredom, or in other words:  not enough to do that I want to do and too much to do that I don't want to do.
Delayed natural hibernation instinct kicking in after the freezing spell, but not yet syncing to the current bout of 65 degree weather.

Those are my ideas.  Does anyone have any feedback on this one?  I'm mystified, and have decided to go to bed.  Goodnight!

Happy New Year everyone!

2010 was a great year, full of new adventures. We are excited to see what 2011 will bring. Now that we are in a tornado prone state, we might be reporting some crazy storms.

Our Christmas was filled with family and fun. We missed seeing our extended family, but loved having Porter for a long visit. I got organized and got my Christmas shopping done early, although I neglected to mail the Christmas presents as early as I purchased them. I discovered the joy of online shopping for the holidays, and did most of the shopping that way--getting some amazing deals and free shipping for almost everything. I also got crafty and made an advent calendar for the kids. The kids really enjoyed the anticipation of opening a box each day. Although I had fun doing it, thinking of 24 "special somethings" was the biggest challenge of Christmas. I don't think the kids minded when I sometimes took the easy route and just stuck in a hershey's kiss for each child.

(These are origami boxes made with scrapbook paper and attached to the refrigerator with magnets. It turns out that it takes a quite awhile to make 24 origami boxes.)




I started putting Maggie's hair in pigtails. It looked darling, and she started requesting it nearly every day. However, I decided to cut her hair again while we wait for the top to catch up with the back. As much as I love that her hair was getting longer, her hair was pretty uneven in front, and with the crazy, dry weather, she was constantly brushing her hair off of her face, it was just way too scraggly for my taste. I am including a picture to commemorate Maggie's first pigtails, but her hair is now neatly stacked up the back in a very cute angled bob.




Other exciting events in December include the lunar eclipse. Brian and I both saw it. He was at work, and I was at home, but we felt united by the beauty of the cosmos, well, not really, but when we talked about it the next day, we both thought it was amazing. I took a few pictures, but between my lack of ability, my lack of a tripod and a lack of a telescope lense, the pictures are not nearly as impressive as the real thing. The best part was when the moon was completely shadowed. I could still see it, but it looked much more three dimensional than it normally does and it seemed really close. Like a marble suspended in the sky. It almost looked fake, it was so different from the normal moon. Here are a couple of my extremely amateur photos. I wish I could have captured it better, but if you ever have an opportunity to see an eclipse this clearly, it's completely worth the loss of sleep (and the frozen body parts).







P.S. I actually do have a New Year resolution, but it's a secret.

So when we did pumpkins for Halloween, we painted them, rather than carve them. The result was that several weeks later we were able to carve them in half and harvest the seeds. Yes, Big M is wearing surgical gloves. Apparently it was a sterile procedure, but I forgot to read the memo. Subsequently, we also failed to confirm with the patient in which direction we were to bisect the gourd, and are waiting for a malpractice lawsuit from the family of the decedent. But the seeds were yummy after Em roasted them with butter, salt and pepper.

As much as Z likes to go outside and eat dirt, he doesn't like to get caught eating dirt. Yeah, I don't know what to say.
During Big M's Birthday party (involving more than a dozen under 6 year olds and a 7 year old) Em came up with the brilliant idea of playing a Scooby-Doo twist on regular Freeze-Tag dubbed "Zombie Tag" In a recent survey of several 4-6 year olds, there's a 95% chance that I am a "very realistic" or "very scary" zombie. I don't know what the remaining 5% is, but that's statistics for you.We also had a Scooby Doo piñata for the violent amusement of all involved. I let all the kids take a swing, but studiously avoided anyone making a kill shot until it was Big Ms turn again. The only problem with that was that by the time he had removed the blindfold, all the sugary loot had been claimed by the other meddling kids. So, in good parenting fashion, we (Em and the other moms that were there) imperialistically seized all of the ill gotten gains and socialistically divvied them up amongst the kids equally. Fortunately, no one brought up our current Commander-in-Chief and his governmental tendencies. I didn't want to have to explain the pros and cons of universal healthcare to a bunch of 5 year olds.


So, one of the presents Big M got was a snake. A few days ago, I looked out the back window and this is what I saw. When I asked him what he was up to, he very politely responded: "Here's some snake blood, it tastes really good." A little while later, Em asked him what he was doing: "Mom, I'm eating snake blood and skin. It has a lot of protein and fat. It tastes really good. Well, actually it doesn't taste very good, but it has lots of protein and fat." Of all the idols he could have, I don't suppose that Bear Grylls is all that bad. At the very least, maybe he'll be more open to trying new foods at dinner?
Big and Little M had some fun raking leaves in the yard. Big M raked himself a spaceship. Little M is requesting permission to come aboard.









Little M wearing the "Red Haired Monster Wig" from Big M's B-day Party. I'm not sure what I think about this look, I'm used to seeing her with short blond hair. She wasn't too keen on it anyway, so I guess I don't have to worry about her coloring her hair anytime soon. I hope.
Big M on the other hand looks absolutely fab! rocking a Red Hair Monster Wig and could easily fit in with any early 80's-early 90's glam metal band.

We had a family portrait commissioned recently, the artist delivered it this afternoon. It's going to be matted and framed and will shortly hang on the wall in our living room.

In other news, little M is learning how to use indoor plumbing and went the vast majority of yesterday succeeding in her endeavors. Today there were some speed bumps, but we couldn't expect perfection on the first go-round, could we?

Z is quite the little terror-tease: little M had some candy which Z of course wanted. So he took it in a swift display of brute force and superior tactics and promptly ran away to enjoy his spoils. Little M attempted to call in the Marines, but they're still recovering from their 235th Birthday celebration and were unable for assistance. President Obama did call with his condolences and offered to bring the two of them to the White House for some reconciliatory beers and brats, but we had to politely decline the offer, since I had to go to work, and frankly working on an ambulance is bound to be more entertaining than anything going on at the White House.

I digress. Em intervened and made everything all better.

Big M has taken advantage of some recent rain (and softer dirt) and begun excavating the back yard, hoping to find some fossils. He hasn't found anything yet, but did come across a small tunnel, likely made by a mole. I warned him not to go poking around in it with his bare hands, lest it bite his head off. That led to an interesting conversation about carnivorous rodents, pestilence and disease vectors.

The weather has recently become mostly cold and somewhat wet, leading Brian to hope that people don't go anywhere and don't do anything stupid while at home. Sleeping at work is one of the few perks of being a paramedic. He's been moderately busy at work and has earned the nickname "Powder" in recognition of his pale pastiness, and has the reputation of being a great partner, since nothing interesting ever happens while he's around. Of course, by saying this, he'll have three cardiac arrests, two shootings and a partridge in a pear tree, all before 4am....

Since we now live in a house with a yard, we subsequently get to do yard work. It's not as much fun as I remember it being. Likely because my dad won't pay me to mow my own lawn. And if he did, the $5.00 that he paid me in my early teens wouldn't buy me much of anything these days. Anyway... Not wanting to keep cans of fuel, oil or other combustibles around I was hoping to find some kind of manual push mower to cut the grass with. It's almost cheaper to buy a little electric job than it is to buy a moderate quality reel mower. So I bought a cheep reel mower and a cheep electric weed eater/ edger.

No sooner had I brought it home that big M and little M were as anxious as can be to help with the yard work. I was only too willing to oblige

Little M couldn't move the thing, but big M had quite a bit of fun mowing the lawn. I told him if he finished and he did a good job, I'd pay him money for his time. I asked him what he thought a worthwhile sum of money would be and he unflinchingly said "$64, Dad." I talked him down to $2. Either I'm really good, or he just doesn't grasp money yet.

Z is now 13 months old. Well, 12 months, 3 weeks and 6 days, but whatever. Em made sweet potato pound cake for his birthday cake. Z really didn't understand the concept of candles, let alone why anyone would intentionally put them in cake. His siblings helped out with that one.
Don't believe the expression on his face, he did really like the cake.

He had lots of help opening presents
Bed time for the children always involves stories. Occasionally lots of stories. At least two, often close to a bazillion. Stories for each child can get tedious, but it does make for good pictures
When asked what he wanted to be for halloween this year, big M wanted to be one of the 3 Little Pigs, Em was to be Red Riding Hood and I was to be the Big Bad Wolf. Here we are after a party, too much candy and being up too late.

I'll post a few photos of our brood.

Sheesh.


OK, no offspring here, but my lovely wife. She ran a 5k in September, and placed 1st in her age group. I'd say I'm proud of her, but since I was dragged along against my own free will, I'm only moderately pleased.
This is Matthew sitting in the engineers seat of Ladder I-Don't-Know-the-Number from Piedmont FD. He was really excited. So were the firefighters when I told them I was a paramedic. They tried to recruit me. I told them 'no.'
And here we see Maggie playing in the streets after a rainstorm that dropped a few inches of rain in less than an hour. There were flash-flood warnings, but fortunately for us Maggie is an excellent swimmer and managed to hold on for dear life when the Great Deluge came careening down the street. I think it came up to her ankles.
Zachary enjoys a varied diet of cardboard, credit cards and anything foam (balls, darts and in this case the birdie from a childrens badminton set). Yes, it's a little blurry, but have you ever tried to capture the magnificence of a creature that rarely stops moving faster than approximately 450mph?

And there you have it. I hope you're happy. We're going to the Zoo now.

Well, here we are in sunny central Oklahoma, where the temperatures range from the comfortably warm to the insanely hot (and that's all between midnight and sunrise, folks). I suppose I should bore you with the details of our new abode, but I just don't have it in me. Emilie chose it from among literally hundreds and despite her initial fears that Brian wouldn't like certain details, it's been a hit with all five of us.

Oh, all right: 3 bed, 2.75 bath, roughly 1600sqft, 2 car garage, two cats in the yard, life used to be so hard.... The previous tenants were apparently unkempt cave-dwellers: according to two of my new neighbors the landlord brought in an industrial sized dumpster and filled it with the detritus of unclean living. The upside to that is that we don't see any of their cockroaches, and we have a brand-spanking new kitchen.

In all, a very very fine house.

The drive out here was thankfully uneventful, and Matt and I have not had any interesting nor entertaining conversations in the bathroom. I thought we might have one at a Conoco in Salina, KS, but alas, nothing more than chit-chat about how smelly it was materialized. Much thanks goes to my fabulous (and single) sister (who is stunningly gorgeous, witty and intelligent) for all of her help with her niece and nephew on the drive out here. Much thanks also to my dad who helped me pack all of our worldly possessions into a remarkably small space:

And to think this is AFTER I'd already unloaded some of it. The guy who dropped off our trailer (ABF did a great job in getting our stuff here, and much cheaper than it would have been to do it ourselves...) was flabbergasted that we had packed it so tightly.

From our no longer recent trip to the beach in Oregon. The weather was about as ideal as you could expect it to be in the Pacific Northwest: Sunny, warm, moderately breezy. And so was the water: barely above freezing...

Z getting his daily allowance of vitamins, minerals and dirt.










Matt running away from waves. Very effective strategy, I might add.


Porter after having buried himself in the sand with some help from Em. He said it was fun while he was in the sand, but didn't like the after effects of having sand EVERYWHERE. Emilie had assured us that there were public showers at/ near this section of the beach. There weren't. I felt a little bad for the kids (all of whom who had buried themselves in the sand) during the hour-ish drive back to the in-laws house.










On our second day here, Mags apparently didn't want to sleep in her bed, but couldn't make up her mind where she did want to sleep. So, she slept in the doorway. I picked her up and moved her. Come on, give me some credit. I'm only mean to my kids while they're awake...


While we haven't seen much in the way of mosquitoes here in Oklahoma (yet), there are abundant flies. Everywhere. I think there are several dozen in the house, all queued up to be swatted dead. I briefly considered bringing in this spider of unknown species (anyone able to identify this one? I'm curious) to help me, but Emilie and Mags weren't too keen on the idea, so he calmly sits outside the door in our garage waiting for me to invite him in. The pedipalps on this thing are quite large, it's a pity they aren't captured in the picture. The tape measure was carefully applied for reference. And in case you get any wild ideas about visiting us, I've slain several critters larger than this one in the garage. Just FYI.


Matthew has been getting rather shaggy looking lately, and historically isn't very great at just sitting still for getting his hair cut. Brian has also been looking a little fuzzier than usual, and so offered to let Matt cut his hair, and in return Brian would cut Matts hair.Mags and Z provided moral support, and got in the way.
When it came time for Brian to cut Matts hair, there wasn't any problem whatsoever. Until I was done. I trimmed it nicely and it looked great. And then Matt remarked that he wanted a haircut just like dads. I asked Em for permission before this happened:
Yes, he's crying. Not because he's no longer the shaggy boy he was, but because he's super-duper itchy. I'm such a mean dad to my children while they're awake.

So we've been in Oregon for the past little while visiting Emilie's family and are in Utah for a few days (attempting) to visit Brian's family. While on the way to Oregon, we stopped in the lovely metropolis of Burley, ID to get gas and make sure our kidneys were working. Brian had the fantastic priveledge of accompanying our 4 year old to the mens room for a potty break. The following conversation ensued:

Matt: Dad, I love you.
Dad: I love you too, Matt.
Matt: I'm going to miss you when you die, Dad.
Dad: I'll miss me too, Matt.
Matt: Dad, you're going to die in 100 weeks, when you're old.
Dad: That's only two years away, Matt. And I'm already old.
Random dude at urinal outside of stall: (snicker)
Matt: Well then you'll die in 100 million years and I'll miss you and you'll die when you're old.
Random dude at urinal outside of stall: (barely controlled laughter)
Dad: Matt, you'll be dead too in 100 million years. That's as old as the dinosaurs.
Matt: Well then we'll all be dead and we can be dead with the dinosaurs. This bathroom is painted pretty.
(There are scenic murals painted in the mens room at this particular Maverick of manly men doing adventurous things in a very Southern Utah/ Northern Arizona looking environment)
Random dude at urinal outside of stall: (laughing out loud)
Matt: (completely oblivious to random dude at urinal) Look Dad! There are vultures painted on the walls!
Dad: Yep. Are you done pooping yet?

On the return trip, we again stopped at the Maverick off of I-84 in Burley, ID. A very similar conversation about death and grief ensued, complete with artistic critiques of the bathroom decor. There must be something special about this Maverick. I can't seem to get away with not having a conversation about the divine over the delicate smells of overly perfumed toilets and urinals.

Regarding the (attempt) to visit Brian's family. We very recently spent approximately a boat load of cash replacing the struts in our new-ish minivan prior to leaving to visit the family in Oregon. On the way, Brian and Emilie noticed some odd noises coming from under the right front side, about where the strut on that side would be. To make a long story short, Brian has spent a lot of time at his parents house just getting crap done, rather than having fun with his kids (They do well playing with each other and with Grandmas bounteous coffers of toys). Emilie flew to OK earlier to find a house for us to live in, since she didn't think Brian's idea of cardboard boxes under the I35/ I40 interchange would be adequate living arrangements. (In my behalf, it would be a fantastic commute for me to school). I think she wants something a little more protective against the elements (specifically those pesky tornadoes...)

Next step: the 18+ hour drive from SLC to OKC. Thank you to my lovely and talented sister for offering to come along on the drive and administer IV sedatives to me while the kids manage to destroy most of the known universe from the confines of their car seats.

It's Brian again. Emilie fell asleep a little while ago, not that I blame her. I had the easy job of just driving. She had to manage a car full of demanding offspring.

We are officially homeless. Or at least temporarily displaced. We finished moving out of our home of the past three years on Wednesday and put the vast majority of our belongings into a storage unit in downtown Salt Lake. On Thursday, we piled into our car and drove to Salem, Oregon to visit my in-laws and spent the night in Ontario, OR.

We decided to take US 20 from Ontario to Salem for a change of scenery and had lunch in Bend, OR. While there, we went spelunking for a bit at the Newberry National Volcanic Monument. Porter and Matt had a really fun time meandering through the lava tubes in total darkness held at bay by their meager flashlights. Emilie and I had fun lugging Maggie and Zach over the rocks while trying not to fall on our faces. We took some pictures and I'll get around to posting them later, once we dejunk and clean out the car.

I always find it moderately amazing how much garbage two little people manage to accumulate in the back of a car with so little to make the garbage out of. How do they do it? And they somehow are able to spread their trash over every possible surface and into every possible crevice. It's really nothing short of amazing.

Hey all, it's Brian.

So, if you haven't heard through other means (meaning Em or I, or our respective Facebook pages) we're moving to Oklahoma City, OK in July so I can go to graduate school. I'll be attending Oklahoma University School of Public Health.

This is what I think of when I think about moving to Oklahoma



I'll be focusing in Public Health Preparedness and Terrorism Response. It should keep me busy enough, I think. While I'm in school, Emilie and the kids will be dodging tornadoes and adapting to life with no mountains nearby.

Emilie is also looking at renewing her teaching license. With most of my classes in the evenings, we're considering the option of Emilie slogging it out in the classroom with 30-40 hyper-hormonal teenagers. And people think I'm brave? Whatever. You couldn't pay me enough money to deal with teenagers. As it is, I have a hard enough time dealing with junior Soldiers, and I get to yell and scream at them if they screw it up. Anyway...

In other, completely unrelated, news: I've taken up barefoot running. After several years of recurrent lower leg injuries (plantar fasciitis, meniscal tears, patelar tendonitis, etc) I've come to the conclusion that shoes suck. I've read up on the benefits of barefoot running, I've tried it out, and I'm officially a fan.
Watch this video on some of the research and background of barefoot running. Or you can look at the silly shoes I bought, since I needed new running shoes anyway...
I've been running in them for a few weeks now, I started slow and low (about one mile at an 8-ish minute pace) and have slowly increased. I ran 4 miles on Monday, at about an 8 minute pace, and felt great afterwards. I could have gone faster, but I ran up a canyon. And having only been back in Salt Lake (elevation 4500ft above sea level) a week and a half since coming back from San Antonio (elevation 600 ft above sea level) I think I was doing pretty good at even that fast.