I could have been a SUPER STAR!

When I was in college, I noticed several ads every weekend for anyone interested in being an extra on a movie or a tv series or an educational video or whatever. I knew that I could act as cheesy or wear as dopey of sunglasses as the guy in the ad on the left. So, I decided to investigate and I found a perfect opportunity to make a name for myself.



The ad was looking for extras for an upcoming movie starring Nicolas Cage (how can you not love his near Oscar worthy work on Face/Off with John Travolta?) and John Cusack (who is actually one of our favorites). I knew that the only reason that I was not yet a star was that I had yet to try out for any kind of role.

I found out the time for tryouts and I headed downtown. I was not yet a real metrosexual so I was a little confused on what I should wear. I could wear one of my polos (they had just recently gone out of style) or one of my plaid shirts (they had just gone out of style about 5 years earlier). To be honest, I have no idea what I chose but I definately know that I did not pick any pegged pants.

I headed downtown to an office building and entered in thru the doors to find two big flyers on the door that I had something like this as a warning:
This movie will be rated 'R' so if you are offended or uncomfortable with any of the following, then please do not apply for a position as an extra:

• Excessive swearing
• Use of guns
• Violence

How awesome is that? I could already picture me running through a building with guns blaring, dropping dirty words on the bad guys as I mowed them down with rapid gunfire. I quickly signed in my name, filled out a form (I found out that if I was chosen, I would earn $42 before taxes, for every day that I worked...whether it was 4 hours or 16 hours, the pay would be the same) and had a polaroid photo taken of me. They told me that if I was chosen, I would get a call within 2 days.



2 days passed and I never received that phone call. Strange...I mean, I can't imagine there being many 22-year old brown-haired white boys in Salt Lake City. Oh well. My career was finished before I could fire off one shot, utter one f-bomb or get in a bar room brawl.

Spring: Funky temp changes and a walk down cherry blossom lane

This is some funky weather. Pretty amazing that we can go from 78 degrees on Monday to low 30s on Tuesday with snow/rain showers. Now it is getting nice again and then next week, back down to cool temperatures. I am just itching to put on my short shorts and go around the neighborhood shirtless.

When we lived back in DC, we loved the Spring. You generally had nice 70s degree type weather. Humidity was obviously higher than in Utah, but it was bearable (Summer was often not bearable...nothing more fun than taking the Metro standing next to smelly sweaty men...and then showing up at work already dripping sweat and its only 8:30am). I have seen more than my share of 55 year old men wearing sweat stained business shirts to last me a lifetime.

One of the best things of Spring back in DC is the cherry blossoms. We made sure that every year, we spent time wandering around. It is beautiful. Looking back at these pictures just reminded me again of what a cute kid Carter is...a nice round head with no hair. Back then, people couldn't get enough of rubbing his head (now they can't get enough of petting his curls).

Brodi would come downtown to pick me up and we would leave my work and walk over to the Mall and go jogging (pushing Carter in the stroller). It was pretty cool to be able to see the Capital, Washington Monument, etc. Those were Good times, good times.

Flashback Sunday and Beckham's Birthday: COMBINED!

Beckham had his birthday this past Thursday and he turned 2 years old. Crazy. It seems like just a few weeks ago, this little crazy kid joined our world. Brodi and I were not sure if we were going to have another kid and we finally decided to have one more and it was the best move we have made...little Beckham has changed our lives and will continue to do so.


His first birthday party was basically Beckham sitting down and stuffing his face with frosting and cake and as you can see, he made the most of it. It has been a blast watching him over the past year as he learned to walk, babble and learn to play with his parents, his brother and his friends.









We celebrated his second birthday with some parties at our house with Brodi's family and our friends, the Jefferies. The next day we took the Beckham party machine over to Sam's parent's house. Donuts, brownies and all of the necessary food items were there in full force. Beckham managed to eat half of his Banbury Cross donut by just eating around the edges. He didn't quite understand what he was celebrating but he enjoyed good food, new toys and everyone hanging out and partying like it was 1969.






Now for a little background on this little boy: Beckham was born on January 3, 2006. Everything seemed to be fine for a couple of weeks and then he picked up a cold. Some good friends of ours, Brad and Raina, had a little boy that struggled to breathe after developing a cold as a newborn. He was rushed to the hospital, where they determined he had RSV. RSV is basically a very bad cold in kids, but in new babies, it can be deadly. Their little lung passages are so easily blocked. So when Becks got a bad cold at three weeks old, we watched him carefully. We had him attached to a little machine that monitored his oxygen levels. Anything above 90 percent is normal. He hung on for a little while, and then his levels dipped to below seventy. We rushed him up to Primary Children's, where he stayed for two weeks, hooked up to machines, looking very small and very uncomfortable. There is very little that the doctors can do except to make sure that he is hooked up to oxygen, and occasionally clear his passages with an NP tube and suction. We were able to finally bring him home but we still had to keep him hooked up with oxygen at home. Not a lot of fun, but we got him thru it.

Beckham is our little, as Brodi likes to call him, our mischievous little gnome. His little mind is always working and trying to figure out how to cause trouble. He knows what buttons to push to get his brother all bothered, but he always seems to do it in a cute way.

Beckham has many loves and some of them are:

• He loves to flush the toilet (he has yet to break it, BONUS for us)
  
• He loves to turn the lights on and off. (his nursery leaders love this quality in him)
  
• He loves eat dino nuggets.
• He loves YoGabbaGabba on Nickelodeon (that show is not safe for adults)
• He loves to draw and paint. (thankfully he usually does it on the paper, but if he is feeling extra creative, doors are a good alternative option for him)
  
• He loves slides, especially the one in the front yard.
• He loves to watch his older brother play with the DS Lite system. (watch and annoy his bro at the same time)
  
• He loves his preschool, especially his teacher Miss Vaunda.
• He loves his booty (blanket) and he can't imagine life without it. (fwiw, we can't imagine what would happen if he lost it either)
  
• He loves his milk. (Winder Dairy is like gold to him)
  
• He loves baths and loves to pour water on himself.

He is a good little boy and we can't imagine life without him. Happy Birthday Becks.

Flashback Sunday: Christmas of yore

Christmas is coming! Christmas is coming! Here are some pictures of the past few years:

2003

2004

2005

2006 (awesome Carter hair)
2006 (Beckham very happy with his new Spongebob chair)


I got my Christmas shopping done early this year. I love Amazon...I was able to order on Saturday and get overnight shipping ($3.99 per item) and I will get it all on Monday, Christmas Eve. Good thing that I planned ahead. And I can accomplish all of my work sitting in my underwear, watching ESPN all while eating some cereal (sorry about the visual).

Flashback Sunday: Carter and Beckham at 6 months old

So, time to do a little comparison. Here are a couple of pictures of both boys at about 6 months old. We were surprised by how much they look like each other...definitely not twins, but you can tell they are brothers. The top picture of is of Carter, the middle is Beckham and the third picture is Carter again.



This final picture is of Carter and Beckham from last Winter. So Carter had just turned 4 years old and Beckham was just over a year old.

Flashback Sunday: our London studio apartment

Ok, I have a feeling over the next year, we will have a bunch of flashback Sundays dealing with our days living in London. London was a perfect time for us. But, I just came across some of these pictures and decided to put them up today.

We lived in the Bankside House which was located in a fabulous part of London...Southbank. We lived on the south side of the Thames River, in the artsy area of London. Now, it was not action packed like where our friends Brad and Raina lived--Leicester Square (they had a fabulous less than one bedroom place there), but it was a great location. We lived right behind Tate Modern and kittycorner from the Globe, across the Thames from St. Paul's Cathedral.


Out of our windows, we had this view. These are pictures that we took out our windows. Out of our side window, we could check out Blackfriars Bridge as well as the London Eye. Out of our other window was Tate Modern, the Thames River and St. Pauls. Each window had great views...Brodi would often sit on the window sill and do her homework and just look out over the city. This could not have been comfortable...about a 6" window sill and Brodi would sit there all evening studying and just looking out at the city.


Our room consisted of two desks, two single beds (extremely romantic!) and a very comfy little bathroom. We had a nice little 13 inch television (which according to London law, you have to pay a $50-70 tax to use it...we just imagined that if we didn't pay the tax, some London police would bust down our door and give us a citation, so being the good citizens/foreigners we were, we payed it) and a mini fridge which would hold, for the most part, Diet Coke and yogurt. No kitchen. We had a fun community kitchen though which was shared with half of the 7th floor residents, all cultures--let me tell you, an aroma of indian food, chinese food, italian food and alcohol is not a good combo but that was the smell for 90% of our evenings.

This little apartment was a short 15 minute walk to the London School of Economics. Though a bus did service our apartment complex, we walked almost every single day (usuall 2-3 times a day). And you know London, we walked in rain and cold for many of those days. But that was back in our tough days. Now, we would probably just get a taxi every day. As a sidenote, our apartment was subsidized by the school and this 100 square foot apartment still cost us well over $800 a month.

Flashback Sunday: Halloween 2006

Since we are getting close to Halloween, I thought that this Sunday would be a good flashback to last year's Halloween. Carter was Winnie the Pooh and Beckham was Tigger. Carter's outfit was the best because he had the big belly pouch which made him look about 30 pounds heavier than he really was.



Carter was a big boy for his first real 'I know what I am doing' Halloween. He wanted to go to the houses alone and do the whole Trick or Treat introduction. He came home with quite a stash. Beckham was not as adept at it all siimply because he could not walk, but he did enjoy the dress up part of it all.






The other fun part of it was we had a little kitty cat come to our house and sleep on our front porch. We gave her milk and took care of her that night. Shockingly enough, she did not go anywhere. Carter became so attached that he grabbed his blanket one night, brought it outside and tried to sleep next to him on our front porch. I doubt that my neighbors would have been too impressed if they saw Carter sleep outside our porch in 30 degree weather, so I finally convinced Carter to leave kitty outside and come sleep on his bed.

So, Brodi hit the streets with flyers all around the neighborhoods trying to find the owner. She made phone calls to half of the city as well...but nobody would claim her. She even took out ads on the internet trying to find her owner. No luck...so, 2 weeks later (all spent living on our doorstep and inside our house at times), Brodi found her a great home with one of her best friends. The cat was saved and is still very happy. All in all it was a good Halloween season.