Pidge Scout Johnson

I have always wanted to buy a parrot.  I had a parrot when I was a kid.  It was a mean cuss.  It loved my brother, but hated everyone else.  Amazon parrots can be very cool, but they are one-person birds - meaning that they really only want to be with one person.

For years, I have dropped hints to Brodi about getting a bird - not an Amazon parrot, but a nicer parrot.  She always says No.  She had no interest.  But then a little trip to San Diego where she got to see some cool birds at the San Diego Zoo Safari, and she became interested.  To make a long story short, we got ourselves a parrot.  We wanted a bird that could eventually talk some, but was a nice friendly family bird.  We found her.  A female Eclectus Parrot.  She is beautiful and the kids have loved her.  She eats all kinds of fruits and vegetables and beans.  She makes some awesome noises and is happy to be around us.  Brodi named her Pidgeon Scout.  Don't ask.  But Pidge is now a family member.  We just need to teach her to lift up the seat on the toilet.

Entertainment Weekly and Brodi

Among our magazines at home, we get the Economist, Sports Illustrated and Consumer Reports.  We also get Entertainment Weekly and we love it.  TV, Movies, Books, etc...it fills our pop culture needs.  So, today has been pretty cool, because Entertainment Weekly is featuring Brodi's book.  They get the exclusive of revealing Brodi's book trailer.  If you go here: http://shelf-life.ew.com/2012/11/08/watch-the-exclusive-trailer-for-brodi-ashtons-everbound-video/#disqus_thread

I captured the web page and it was the main page of their book section.  So, check out the book trailer video.    

I am not cut out for 4th grade homework.  One of Carter's assignments was to make a cake of the state of Utah.  Anytime that a 4th grader gets an assignment to make a cake and start labeling it with candy pieces to represent mountains and rivers...well, I end up having to do a bunch of that work.  I am not good with cooking things.  We did not burn it even though I unnecessarily doubled the recipe.   But, we somehow pulled it off and I am pleased...and Carter ended up learning the geography of Utah as well as being full after eating the cake.  He got his 'A.'










We also got his spelling list for the week and I looked at 'homophone' and I had NO idea what that word was...I knew it looked familiar but I couldn't think of the definition.  I looked up homophone: is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning."  Yeah, I was a Communication major in college and I could not remember that word.  Oh well.  4th Graders are really smarter than adults.

You are sick...but not sick sick

I am going to try to post more regularly again.  Or, I can just post every month or two and apologize and then say 'I am going to try to post more regularly again.'

Not sick, a few days earlier

I got the phone call the other day that every parent dreads.  Your kid is sick at school and needs to come home.  Yeah, that phone call.  So I talked with Carter and asked how he was feeling because he was just fine when he went to school.  He said that he felt sick to his stomach and his head hurt.  He then explained that he was playing a game with his friends at recess on who could run the most number of circles.  He did 50.  50 circles.  In a row.  I explained to him that he was motion sick/car sick/dumb game sick and I told him to sit on the couch in the office and I would call back in 10 minutes to check on him.

Now, this is a fine line.  You don't want to be THAT parent that doesn't pick up his poor sick kid.  But I am not going to be THAT parent that runs to get my kid when he is not sick sick...just dumb sick.  15 minutes later, he was still sick.  I left work to pick him up.  I took him home and miraculously, about 10 minutes later, he was feeling great.  Carter 1  Sam  0.

Carter playing Pro Soccer

A couple of weeks ago, my lovely sister in law Erin hosted a street soccer event.  It was a party with a taco truck as well as a bunch of 9-15 year old kids playing street soccer on the street in front of her house.  Each team had 6 or 7 players and Carter got to play on a team with professional soccer player, Real Salt Laker, Luis Gil.  It was crazy to see his footwork, his passing, etc.  The ball was a yo-yo to him and Carter had a great time.  Here is the not so good pic (it was getting dark) of the two of them after their games.  Go Luis and Go Real Salt Lake.

Is that a brick in your pocket?

We were cleaning out old boxes and I came across an old cell phone of ours.  Yeah, technology has improved for the better, hasn't it?

Taco truck catering rocks the party

Once again, sorry for the long delay in posting again.  I will try and do better.  Every 24th of July in our neighborhood, we have a party.  It is fun to get everyone together, have some food and shoot off some lame fireworks (usually a collection of pops, sparklers and smoke bombs).  In the past, we have done pot luck, grilling up meats, just doing snacks...but this year, we went all out.  We hired out a Taco truck and the fun began.  Our guy showed up an hour and a half before we were to start so that he could get cooking.  We had a tasty selection of spicy pork, chicken and steak.

We had a good turnout and had a lot of fun.  We even had a friend, Friend M, bring awesome fireworks so everyone could enjoy instead of just 2 year olds.  We ended up going through 350 tacos among us all.  I won't admit to how many I ate.

Now, we are trying to figure out what to do next year to beat that.  Anyone know how I can contact the circus?

Everbound

Hi everyone...it has been a while.  But I know that I have been missed by ALL of you even though only 1 person has asked why its been so long since I updated our blog.  I am back.  And I am bringing the awesome back.

For those that don't follow Brodi, she just revealed on her blog: www.brodiashton.com the new cover for her second book, Everbound.  This is the 2nd of 3 books in the Everneath series.  I think the cover turned out fabulous.  If you want a chance to win an ARC (basically a copy of the 2nd book months before it is actually released), you can enter on her blog as well.

Carter rocks the 5K

Carter is our runner. He itches to always be out running. Wherever we go, he asks to stop the car so that he can run the rest of the way. He runs at school, He runs in our neighborhood. For the past 6 months, he has begged us to sign him up for a 5K. Well, we finally found one. Thanks to my sister and her family for pointing out the local High School 5K run. Carter got to run with his cousins during the race as well. (on the right)





We signed up Carter and showed up. 80+ kids were there and all were high school and junior high school kids. He is 9 years old and he was the youngest by 4 years, but he was 6 years younger than most of them. My cute niece E announced the race and paid special recognition to Carter (see by the pic on the right with Carter waving to everyone when he was announced). He thought he was some kind of rockstar when he heard his name, like he was thinking 'Thank you everyone for coming to watch me run this race.'



The race started and Carter blasted out of the race...running fast. After the first lap, I told him to slow down and be steady, he didn't listen to me and didn't need to. After a few laps, they ran around the school and neighborhood and I ran with him and I will be honest, I couldn't really keep up with him. He was amazing and fast.

He finished in 13th place and ran the race in 25 minutes and 43 seconds. Are you kidding me? He was running it in just over 8 minutes a mile. He told us after the race, 'Not bad for a 9 year old, huh?' That evening, he ran another half mile to his grandma's house.

sweet porta potties

I walked by this house the other day where a porta-potty was being installed. Seriously, is this the strangest name for a porta-potty company, 'Honey Bucket.' Egads. That is a bad visual all around.

I can just picture someone explaining who they work for:

Employee: Yeah, I work for Honey Bucket.

Friend: Cool, you guys sell honey?

Employee: Uh, no.

Friend: You sell something sweet, like candy?

Employee: Uh, no.

Friend: You sell cute little containers or buckets?

Employee: Uh, no.

Friend: Oh, what do you sell?

Employee: We sell and maintain porta potties.

Friend: Oh, uhm, why is your company called 'Honey Bucket?'

Employee: I have absolutely no idea.

I guess the founder was a smart guy. It gets people talking about porta potties.

Becks gets his first car

Becks is our rascal. He still is not our most talkative kid, but he has a HUGE personality. A few weeks ago, Becks' kindergarten class at school was tasked with making a car out of a cardboard box and having that car represent a state. Becks' car got Florida. So, lets just say - he did not do a thing to build that car. That was all Brodi. My job was to make sure that Becks did not ruin it (by taking it outside and 'driving' it) before he took it to school. It made it. He was very proud of it.

It was also crazy hair day at the school. Carter with the fauxhawk and you can tell he is loving it. You can't really see Becks' hair, but he has a ponytail coming out of the top of it, kind of like a palm tree. He loved it. If we would let him, he would do his hair that way every day.

Year 2011 for books

2011 Books (Fiction)

• Everneath (Young Adult)
• One Step Behind (Adult Thriller)
• In the Woods (Adult Mystery)
• The Man who Smiled (Adult Mystery)
• The Secret Soldier (Adult Thriller)
• Lockdown (YA Thriller)
• Nemesis (Adult Thriller)
• Sidetracked (Adult Mystery)
• Solitary (YA Thriller)
• The Redbreast (Adult Thriller)
• Everything is Fine (YA Drama)
• Mr. Monster (YA Thriller)
• Supreme Courtship (Adult Drama)
• Harbinger (Young Adult)
• 37th Hour (Adult Thriller)
• Ford County Stories (Adult Drama)
• A Single Shot (Adult Thriller)
• Deliver us from Evil (Adult Thriller)

2011 Books (NonFiction)

• The Big Short (Financial Housing Crisis)
• ESPN: Those Guys have all the Fun (about ESPN tv)
• The One Minute Manager (Business Management)

It was a bit of a slower year last year with books, but here is the list for 2011. Really got into Jo Nesbo books, as well as Henning Mankell. I have something for these Scandinavian authors. I also realized that I am not reading enough nonfiction books. I need to get on that.

I have added my new reads for 2012 on the left. If you have any good suggestions on books to read, let me know.

I am all about Style

I had to go to an auto store this past weekend to pick things up for the car. I found a couple of 'hot' accessories for my car. How awesome would this be to put on my car. Cool sticker emblems of a heavenly/devilish girl...as well as 'Bling Dice' to hang from my rear view mirror. Everyone knows that dice hanging is pretty much awesome, but these dice also light up. Yep, State street here I come! I know Brodi, as well as all of the ladies in my neighborhood, will be very impressed.

Repairs? Yeah, I can fix that (by calling someone)

We had a couple of things going on around our house this past week or two. Our washing machine decided to stop spinning. I feared the worst, but the appliance guy came out and fixed it. For about $100. The cool thing was watching him take it apart. Yes, I am no mastermind when it comes to being super handy, but I love watching things get done. He just pulled off the cover of our washing machine and went to work on it. Here is our washing machine, shell less.

We also had a clogged main drain line. We have some large trees in our front yard so we thought it was a root problem. Nope, just a clog down the line. We cut out a hole in our wall to get to the clean out pipe and we snaked it clean. Yay for us.

The point of this post? Really no point...except I got to see handy men in action.

I promise, he is not sick - he just pukes

So, Saturday was a crazy day. We started it off by going to Costco to pick up things (such as 40 rolls of toilet paper, 20 rolls of paper towels, 4 ginormous containers of mayonnaise...I love Costco, and I am thankful to live in a house to find places to store all that stuff), then to the grocery store, then off to Brodi's book signing at Barnes and Noble, then up to the University of Utah to watch the basketball team lose again.

The problem with all of this driving is that we have a kid that gets car sick. Pretty much any big trip to California, Jackson Hole, Oregon, etc. usually involves one or two pukings from Beckham. Well, this Saturday, we had lots of stops and gos and Becks finally gave up. On our way to the Ute game, he tells me 'I'm pukey daddy, I'm pukey.' I pulled over on the freeway and he let it all out. Now, usually after he pukes, he is fine and back at it and Saturday, he seemed fine. We drove to the game and took our regular seats. Halfway thru the game though, he curled up in my arms and just laid down on me. He then got up and puked. Yes, at the game. I finally got him to the car where he was still sick and we got him home. After a few hours, he was fine...but I don't think I will win any father of the year awards or fan of the year awards after all of that.

Give me your coins...and I will give you some coins back

I went the bank the other day to cash a check. Carter came with me. He had 15 cents in his pocket and he was just walking around the bank. Well, he found one of those coin deposit machines. So, he deposited the two coins he had into the machine and it gave him a receipt for 15 cents. He looks at me and asks 'What do I do with that?' I told him that we could take it to the teller and give it to her and she would give us 2 coins back. He looked confused and said 'Well, thats kind of dumb.' Yeah, not much I could say to that except that next time he uses the coin deposit machine, we should use more coins.

Everneath comes out Tuesday

Brodi's book comes out on Tuesday.

I still remember years ago when Brodi talked about writing a book. I thought it was a great idea. She has always been a great writer (journalism side). I had no idea about the whole process, but I was excited for her to go for it. It has been a long and interesting road. You can read all about the journey HERE

I could go on for pages about it all, but I will keep it short and simple. I am so proud of her. It was difficult. She kept going. She got rejections. She kept going. She felt like giving up at times. She kept going. And now it is out. Now, she has her book coming out. The first of three. And it is being published in many different languages and countries (U.S., Canada, England, Australia, Germany, France, Russia, Poland, Turkey, Brazil, etc.)

Her book has gotten great buzz and I have included a few links to some of the reviews, if you want to read about it.

• Fiktshun (A Popular fiction book review site): Everneath review
• The Salt Lake Desert News (local newspaper): Everneath is an enthralling trip to the Underworld

You can purchase it from Amazon, Barnes and Noble and pretty much any other book store. She will have her book launch from The Kings English on Tuesday at 7pm. Yay Brodi, you totally rock and I am excited to join you on this journey.

All by ourselves

Brodi and I went to a later afternoon movie the other day. This is how you enjoy a movie. Nobody there. This was right at the start of the previews. Totally empty. During the movie, I could yell. We could talk to each other. I could look at my phone. I could get up and dance a little jig. A whole movie theater to ourselves.

Tab me Up!

Ok, I will admit it...I love Tab. Yes, I talk about it quite a bit on my blog. But I could drink this drink just about at anytime and anywhere. The other day, I was looking around on Ebay and you won't guess what I found (actually, you could probably guess based on the picture to the right) but I found Tab glasses. Not just any Tab glasses, but original hourglass figure Tab glasses. From 30+ years ago. In its original boxing and never used. So, at night, I can sit on my couch in style with Tab cola and Tab glasses. You are welcome to come over anytime and help yourself.

Becks turns 6

Beckham is now 6 years old. Crazy. It is nuts that Carter is now 9 and Becks is following right after him. He graduated from pre-school last year (his graduation photo still makes me laugh) and this year he is enjoying Kindergarten this year. He goes to morning kindergarten and an afternoon class...and his friends and classmates sung to him at both places. He was thrilled. He even got a stylish hat that he wore all day long.






He is a great kid. If you have met Becks, you probably love him. He is our happy little boy. He is our quiet little boy. He is a boy of few words. He loves going to school. He loves coming home and sitting at his own desk so that he can do math equations and puzzles. If he had scissors, tape, glue, paper and markers...he could be entertained for hours. If he is not doing art and crafts, he loves to ride his scooter, play with the hose, play video games, kick the soccer ball around, watch Spongebob or jumping on the trampoline. He also loves to climb in our bed in the morning to hang out and wake us up.

I can't believe how fast time goes. I love it and I hate it. But I am enjoying the time to see this little kid turn in to a big boy. Happy Birthday Becks!