Wrinkled Thoughts

… But you are going to have to wait a little longer before I do another major update. In the meantime, go visit Sage's new blog! - www.sagesmind.com

You know… it must be love. She only does this when I'm working. She loves me.

So last December we had "the flood" when my sprinkler line broke (see December 2006)… and THIS December is almost JUST AS COOL as last December!

We had a fairly large snow storm early in the month followed by a week of "warmer" weather that ended up melting the snow. During the melt, we kept finding puddles of water in Avery's room… and each day kept getting worse! I thought I had a leaky pipe or something. After a few days of sleuthing to find the source of the water, the thought occurred to me: "My foundation doesn't have a crack in it, does it?". Turns out foundation cracks that leak water are fairly common this time of year in Utah. So common in fact, that I had to wait 10 days for the foundation gurus to come out and fix it! Well, actually, as of this post they haven't come yet - they are scheduled for tomorrow morning.

Anyway… All they have to do is inject some nifty epoxy of sorts into the crack that reacts to moisture and "fixes" the leak. We'll see what happens. Either way, I have another BIG MESS on my hands… as you can see from the photos.

Okay, so this post is just a couple of photos of our weird and cute children. During a snow storm, Avery decided it would be fun to go outside and run around the backyard in his skivvies. Then he came in and posed for us. Oh, he'll rue the day when I use this photo to blackmail him when he's a teen-ager. Love it!

Then there is Isaac and Owen. Since they are at the age where they lose teeth every other week, their smile changes regularly. Isaac is the adventurer… he usually loses them two at a time because he's not afraid to yank. Owen on the other hand, likes to wait until his teeth fall out in his soup. I caught this classic toothless grin of Isaac at their Kindergarten Christmas show. Too bad they didn't sing "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth". 

And THEN there is the cutest baby on the planet… Miss Maya. While we here building our annual graham cracker candy houses, Sage caught a few shots of her laughing like it was going out of style. The photos speak for themselves:

I figured out how to take really neat pictures at night with my camera and a tripod. When it snows in Utah, it lights up the night like it is daytime and gives everything a peaceful glow. It is especially cool with Christmas lights! Here's some shots I took over the last few weeks… just for the heck of it. Enjoy!

Salt Lake has the craziest weather… We've been hovering around 70 degrees for most of October and it has been SWEET watching the leaves turn colors. However, as I mentioned in an earlier post, our weekends have been MISERABLE. Well, finally… we had some "after proof" of the bad weekend. Yup, this time the snow stuck around for a half a day… just long enough for Avery and Isaac to build a snowman and have a snowball fight. Notice, how warm they are dressed for the occasion. It's supposed to hit 70 again this week.

Because we are taking a long trip to Branson Missouri to see SIX over Halloween, we decided to carve our pumpkins early this year (while the weather was holding). Sage roasted the seeds and made an awesome snack that I chowed on all the next day. Did I mention I LOVE my new camera? 

So I did a little reading about how to take good pictures with my new spiffy camera… I then grabbed my tripod, shoved some Christmas lights in the pumpkins butts and took these stellar photos!

So I finally broke down and bought a REAL camera. I didn't know what I was missing until my friend Myke kept bugging me about it… and I relented. I'm glad I did! It has opened up a WHOLE new world of possibilities… and I don't even know how to use it entirely yet! The first day I got it, we went as a family to see Real Salt Lake play against the LA Galaxy. Beckham was supposed to be there, but alas, he was injured. So I threw on the 300mm lens and went nutz shooting pictures of Landon Donovan instead. Without a freakin' clue, I was able to grab a few gems from the cheap seats…

What a CRAZY soccer season that was!

We had BEAUTIFUL weather the whole fall season (September - October) EXCEPT on Saturdays. 5 Saturdays in a row, we had to deal with wind, rain, freezing cold and even SNOW. Every other day of the week had GREAT weather. We started to wonder if we were being punished. Anyway, the crap weather made it hard to take photos, but I did get a few gems as you can see below.

This year is going to be special because I have been chosen to coach our league's under12 boys "summer select" team in HAWAII next July! I've never been to Hawaii… but now that I can live vicariously through my children, I'll get to go EVERYWHERE!

I was able to take these with my new spiffy Canon Rebel XT DSLR camera. Taking pictures will never be the same… Love the Michael Jordan tongues.

… All of my sister-in-law's friends and sisters have all posted a glamorous shot of her…

here's another.