Christmas Eve

This Christmas Eve we had lunch with my parents and then left about 2:30 pm to spend the rest of the afternoon as a family. We had planned to go see a Nativity in Salem, but I was hoping it would snow before we left.  It had been raining for most of the day and the weather forecast was predicting it was going to start snowing about 8 or 9 pm.  It never did started snowing, so we went out snowless to see the Nativity.  After the Nativity, we drove home and did our normal opening our new pajamas and reading of the Christmas Story from the Bible.

I usually take pictures of the kids Christmas Eve, but noticed these two ornaments from 2005 with the kids school pictures from that year.  Times have sure changed. My kids aren't little anymore.

 

Sydney is now taller than Deni and if she grows any more will outgrown Ryan and myself.  I was lucky to grab this picture of her Christmas Eve 2016. She is beautiful. 

As the kids were getting ready to head to bed Ryan says,  "I'm a teenager but Christmas morning brings out the inner 8 year older in me."

Merry Christmas from my cat to yours

First of all, I'm not a cat person. But if I was, I'd probably wear a sweater like this and get pictures of me and my cat each holiday. (I actually wouldn't).  Either way, this picture is pretty funny. 

An unnamed friend thought it would be funny to take my head off of a picture from Facebook and then Photoshop it onto this picture.  Good job unnamed friend.  You even fooled my mom. 

"you're Texan, by marriage"

Ryan, Deni and I were hanging out re-watching an RSL game this evening. There was a player that had a huge Texas tattoo on his arm.  Deni looked up to see why the tattooed player had a Texas tattoo, and it turns out he was born in Texas.

I then said "... it's too bad I can't claim I was born in Texas"

Deni said ".. I was born in Texas"

then Ryan said "...Dad, that means you're Texan, by marriage."

The Impact of a Disease

Very rarely does Sydney like people knowing she is Type 1 Diabetic (T1D).  She quietly takes care of the disease.  Quietly doing finger pokes, counting carbs and riding the sugar highs and lows of this crazy disease without most noticing she's even doing it.  As a precaution, she wears a bracelet identifying she has this nasty disease, in case she ever goes low and passes out. Other than wearing the bracelet, you'd never know she is T1D.

As her parent,  I can't imagine the amount of stress and weight she carries knowing this disease will never go away. I wish I could take it away from her.  Unfortunately she has worry about this nasty disease 24 hours a day, 365 days a year for the rest of her life.  I wish she could just be a kid and not worry about it.

Today Sydney and I went to the first RSL home game in Sandy, UT.  RSL was playing the Seattle Sounders.   The Seattle Sounders recently acquired a new player, Jordan Morris.  Jordan Morris is a name we've known for a while in our home.  Jordan Morris played soccer for Stanford University, as well as played on the US Men's International team as a college student. The US Men's International team is made up of the best of the best players from all of the Major League Soccer teams in the United States, and then there is this Jordan Morris, a 20 year old college student that is added to the team.  Pretty impressive.  Jordan Morris is also a Type 1 Diabetic. It's great to see athletes that are able to perform at the highest professional level, despite being Type 1 Diabetic. While Sydney hasn't personally told me this, watching and knowing someone like Jordan Morris also has T1D, has given her hope.

Jordan was diagnosed with T1D at age 9, the day after Christmas.  He's 21 now.  Jordan recently got a tattoo stating he was Type 1 Diabetic, kinda like Sydney's bracelet, but a little more permanent.

Back to the RSL game today.  Sydney was excited to see Jordan Morris play.  Even though he was on the opposite team, I think she was quietly cheering for him.  Luckily RSL won, but it was fun to watch a someone with the same disease as my daughter play professional soccer.

As soon as the RSL game was done, Sydney and I quickly left the stadium and headed to her Futsal game.  We had about 40 minutes until she played and without traffic it would take us about 35 minutes to get there.  We weren't sure we'd make it, but ran to our car in an attempt to make it before kick off.  As luck would have it, we were able to make it to the game a few minutes before it started and Sydney was able to make the first goal and help her team win.

Initials please

A few weeks ago, the Novell signs came off of the building, replaced with the Micro Focus name and logo. One of the N's was saved and painted Red to be hung up within the building as reminder to our Novell past.  

We had a quick meeting today and we were asked to stop by and sign the N.  

We were told the N was going to be out for the next few days for us to sign and because there was such a long line, I decided to wait.  Bad idea, when I came back a few hours later, there wasn't really much of a place for me to sign.  I think I found the only open spot and there was only enough room to get my initials signed, right in the middle of the N (and to the right of Carl Wells 1987.)  

The Internship

Ryan has been waiting on pins and needles for the last few weeks.  He applied for an internship through Advanced Learning Center, where Ryan takes college classes while he's in High School.  The deadline for the internship had come and past, however he hadn't heard anything.  It was driving him crazy.  And then he got the email. He had been accepted into the internship and he is 'working' in a Novell building that I worked in years ago.

His internship is twice a week for two hours each day for 10 weeks and instead of working on the company's products, he and his fellow teammates will be mentored by a few employees and allowed to work on a project of their choosing.  Ryan and his teammate chose to make a Role Playing Game (RPG).  They will be using and learning Python, AngularJS, and CSS to complete their project.

The nice thing about Ryan's internship being located on the Novell campus is that on the days he's at his internship, I stay an hour or so after work to bring him home. It was a little weird staying at work until 6pm today, as most people head out around 5pm, but it was nice and quiet while I waited for Ryan to be done.

Ryan was super excited when he came out this evening.  You would have thought he had won the lottery. I'm not sure I got a word in the whole way home. Ryan had a list of things he needed to brush up on by Thursday.

I lost a stone

On Dec 28, 2015, I began watching what I ate.  I also set out to exercise at least every weekday.  Now six weeks later, I weigh one stone less. (one stone = 14 pounds). Current weight: 163.7 lbs.  My pants are loose, I've had to go a notch in on my belt.  I can see a difference and  I can feel a difference.

I'm not sure why my weight is coming off  'easily' for me, but it has.  It hasn't been that easy, but it has been successful. I've been hungry, I've wanted to skip workouts, I've wanted to not drink Diet Soda, I've wanted to eat candy, I've wanted to have 2nd helpings of my favorite meals.  But I haven't done any of that. I've logged every meal (minus one meal this previous weekend at Chuck O Rama) that I've eaten for the last 52 days.  Everything. Including my 4 hershey kisses each night, assuming  I still have calories left.  6 weeks later, that 3lb bag of Hershey Kisses is almost gone.

When I work out  and I "earn" extra calories that I could eat, I don't.   I decided I wouldn't eat those calories.  Maybe after I hit my target and level off.

My goal is to lose about another nine to ten pounds by June 2016. That would put me at 11 stone or 154 lbs as my target weight.  We'll see how the last ten pounds goes.

Rage Invitational - Finalist

The championship game started at 11am. We had played and lost to this team on Saturday, 2-0. We shouldn't have lost that game and the girls were ready to win.  Before the game, as the coaches, we talk about how we had played the first game and what changes could be made. We made a few adjustments.

The game was a close one, better evenly matched this time around. We were tied 0-0 and then got a penalty called on us in our box. It was a Penalty kick. They scored 1-0.  It wasn't too much longer than another penalty was called in their box. Our turn to even the score with a penalty kick, which we did. 1-1.

The girls fought hard back and forth, but at the end of the game, we were still tied 1-1.  The girls were exhausted. This was there 4th game in as many days, with only Sunday as a rest day.  Since it was the final and there had to be a winner,  we went into two additional time 5 minute halfs. We were still tied after the two additional time 5 minute halfs. Which took us to 5 PK's.  Five for each team, alternating teams until there was a winner. They shot first, our keeper blocked it.  The sideline erupted. I was screaming at the top of my lungs. It was our turn to pull ahead with our shot, but our shot was also blocked as well. The game ended after the other team got 2 shots in.

Syd was one that had taken a PK and missed.   The goals were tiny and she kicked it high and wide. She was sad for a few minutes after the game, but ultimately was happy with how hard they had played. I was proud of how they played.

Immediately after the game, we drove into St George to be awarded 2nd place for our division, or as they called it "Finalist'. Waiting for our turn to receive our medals.

  Each girl (and coach) received a medal, which is around our necks. This was a great accomplishment for these girls and a great start to our Spring season.

Once we received our medals, we all parted ways.  We had already checked out of our condo. We were packed and ready to head home. But before we did, we went to Chuck O Rama for a celebratory lunch (by request from Syd). 

The drive home was hard. The traffic was horrible for most of the 250 miles home. But this was one of the best weekends we've had in a long time.

Petroglyphs in Santa Clara

After we had hiked the arrow, we checked in with the kids. They were doing fine, relaxing at the Condo.

It was Valentine's day and we had a great time hiking to the arrow so we thought we'd try to find some petroglyphs that I had had read about near Santa Clara, UT.  The trail we were looking for was called the Tempi'po'op trail.  Tempi'po'op is pronounced 'tumpee poo oop', which means 'rock writing' in Southern Paiute. We plugged the coordinates into our phones and began driving.

We found the trail, although it's not marked with a name, as I would have thought. However there were about 10 cars at the trailhead.

The hike into the petroglyphs was about 15 minutes and very easy hike.  The trail ends at these boulders. It didn't look too special from the top.  People were climbing in an out of the boulders.  So we went down and then there we were. I would have never known there were petroglyphs there.  These are some of the most amazing things I've seen.

You could walk right up to them and touch them. They were amazing.

Deni demonstrating the size of this 'bear claw'

All throughout this area were boulder size rocks that had ancient drawings on them.  Ryan says the guy on the right has a tail. I'm not sure that's a tail. 

We spent about 15 minutes walking around and looking at these amazing drawings.  This is something that everyone that goes through St George should see. As we were leaving, we talked about wanting to bring the kids back tomorrow after Syd's last game. 

The Arrow

A few years back, a friend posted a picture of gigantic cement arrows created across the United States during the 1920's and 1930's.  The arrows, along with their corresponding small buildings and beacon towers, were called Airway Beacons and were used as a transcontinental airway system.

There was one remaining outside of St George, UT.  We had tried to find it once before, however I hadn't used Google Maps to my advantage and  we were unable to located it.  But this time, I knew where it was located and found the trail that led to the cement arrow. The kids wanted to stay at 'home' and rest, so Deni and I headed out to find the arrow.

A little bit of history on the arrows.  They were funded by the United States Congress in 1923.  The first segment of arrows and beacons were built between Chicago and Wyoming.  The giant arrows (and corresponding beacons) enabled aircraft to depart from either coast in the daytime and follow the lighted airway by nightfall.   The lighted airfields were set up every 15 - 20 miles.  The first nighttime airmail flights began in July 1924.  By eliminating the transfer of mail to rail cars at night, the coast to coast delivery time for airmail was reduced by two business days.

By 1927, the lighted airway was completed between New York and Salt Lake City, Los Angeles to Las Vegas and Los Angeles to San Francisco, New York to Atlanta and Chicago to Dallas.  A total of 4121 miles in total. By 1933, the Transcontinental Airway System totaled about 1500 beacons.

These Airway Beacons were a substantial navigation aid in an era prior to the development of radio navigation.   Along with the gigantic cement arrows, were twenty four inch diameter rotating beacons, mounted on a 53-foot high tower.  The beacons were five million candlepower and rotated at six times a minute.

During WWII, many of the arrow markings were removed to prevent from aiding any potential enemy bombers in navigation.  However one exists outside St George, UT and I wanted to go to it.

Little did I know that up on top of a bluff, right next to where we played our first tournament game, was one of these arrows.  As we drove to the trail, the roads and surroundings seemed awfully familiar and then I realized that we had played our first game just around the corner. (see the Bluff in background of this picture from our first game - look in the top left of the pic below).

When I looked at the trail on Google Maps, I didn't realize it was on top of a bluff.  I looked at the satellite view and saw a few switchbacks, but didn't think it was on top of a bluff.  The good news was a woman that was most likely 8 months pregnant was coming down from the trail.  The trail was only about 1 mile up, so we headed up the trail.  It took us a little less than 20 minutes to get up on top.  It was fun to finally find it.  There was a log book, but the pen was dead, so we didn't get to login and note we had been there.

Deni standing on the arrow, pointing toward Salt Lake City.

We had an amazing view from up top. We spent a few minutes looking around, taking a few pictures  and then headed back down.