Here comes Santa Claus

We had just finished dinner when we heard a knock on the door and before we could get up to get it, the door opened and we heard "Ho, Ho, Ho" and the some bells. We turned around and there's Santa coming in our house with a large red sack (just like in the story books).

Santa was tired, but on a mission to come and visit with Ryan and Sydney.


Sydney got 2 bears (a girl and a boy).




Ryan got a supersized Rudolf Stitch. In this picture he has his old stitch and the new Rudolf the Red Nose Stitch.

Santa must have been working overtime or his Elves are working at the Disney Store. We went to the Disney store a few days ago and Ryan found this Rudolf the Red Nose Stitch, however he was too expensive to purchase. As we left the store, Ryan was thinking of ways to save money to come back at a later time to purchase the Stitch. How did Santa know that Ryan wanted that Stitch.

As Santa left, Deni asked if she could go with him. He agreed and they left together to make a few special visits.

Ryan and I played Monopoly while we were waiting for Deni to come home. I lost to Ryan after continued to land on the only property Ryan had put buildings on. I think I landed on it 3 times in a row around the board. I mortgaged all my properties, but finally ran out of money.

I put the kids to bed about 8pm.

Deni got home about 8:25pm and shortly after that Deni's parents showed up. They will be in town for the next few days visiting us.

Black Friday, Berger Style

I woke up at 4:18am this morning to an empty bed with a kid on each side in a sleeping bag. I got up showered and headed downstairs for some breakfast. Deni had gotten up sometime before my alarm went off and was just so excited to go shopping, she went down to go through the ads again.

We left about 4:45am and headed to our first (and only stop), the Disney Store in Orem. It opened at 5am and had an additional 20% off everything in the store. When we got there, there were more employees than customers, which is quite unusual for Black Friday, but we didn't complain as it gave us time to look around the store and get what we had gone there for.

From the Disney Store, we headed to Macy's to get some new silverware. At this point, we were done with our shopping. It was about 6am.

With the kids silently sleeping (we hoped) at Grandma and Grandpa's we thought we meet up with Teresa and help her out. So we called Teresa and decided to meet up with her at Target.

After Target, we parted ways with Teresa and we headed north to American Fork. We got some jeans for the kids at Old Navy, can't beat 50% off (kids jeans $9.95).

Ryan is currently wearing size 8 and Deni always makes sure that she buys him Slim, as he is very slim. Matter of fact, if they had an XX Slim, we'd buy them. When we got home and had him try them on, the length was perfect, the waist was another story. I think we could have fit 2 Ryan's in here. Thank goodness for adjustable waists. After a little adjustment, they almost stayed up without a belt.

We spent the rest of the day at my parents eating turkey and pie leftovers. We played a few card games but mainly visited.

We left about 5:30pm and on the way home, picked up a Pizza, so Deni didn't have to cook dinner.

Thanksgiving at the Bergers

Today was Thanksgiving. We spent the majority of day at my parents house. The whole family was in attendance except for Shane, although we called him and passed the phone around so everyone got to talk to him.

We had Thanksgiving Lunch instead of dinner. As usual, the meal was great.

After lunch, we played games, put together puzzles and visited.

I finally learned the card game "Hand and Foot". Hand and Foot was one of my Grandma Berger's favorite games, although I always refused to learn it. Ryan learned it about a year ago and after some arm twisting today, I sat down and learned the game. It was surprisingly fun.

Teresa made some gingerbread houses out of graham crackers that the kids decorated. I didn't take any pictures, so I had to steal these pictures from Stefanie's blog.

Cousin Jaycee, Sydney, Aunt Teresa and Cousin Kennedy



Deni helping Ryan with his roof.



Ryan's finished product, complete with pretzel gate.



Sydney's finished product.



We decided to sleep at my parents house, so that we could get up early tomorrow and go shopping on Black Friday, while the kids slept in. We tried to talk Teresa into sleeping at Mom and Dad's house and go with us, however she decided not to.

Headed to bed. 4:30am comes quick.

Visit from the Young Men General Presidency

After returning from the Boy Scouts of America weeklong training called Woodbadge, Deni started working on some of her Woodbadge tickets (goals.) One of her goals was to have a fireside for families about Scouting.

If you know anything about my wife, when she's made up her mind or committed to something, you know it will be done and done well. When she's committed to something you better get onboard to help her or get out of her way, as there's no stopping her. This is one of the many great attributes she possesses.

Deni's first goal was to have the some or all of the BYU football players come and speak at a fireside. She had a contact that said he could make that happen, however it didn't pan out, so she next decided that she was going to get someone from the General Young Men's Presidency from SLC to come and speak. (Notice where Deni aims. BYU Footbal team and General Young Men Presidency from SLC.) She made a few calls and a few minutes later she was cold calling Bro Nieder, second counselor in the General Young Men's Presidency, on his cell phone. After a quick introduction, she stated the reason for calling and requested him to come speak at the fireside. He generously accepted and the plan was set in motion.




Fast forward to today. Not only did Bro Nieder accept her invitation to come speak at a fireside, he expanded the invitation to visit Primary, teach a combined Young Men Class (3rd hour of church), and provide a Question/Answer with Adult Scout leaders an hour before the Fireside.

"His car left late" so he didn't make it into Primary but did make it in time for the 3rd hour of church and attended the joint Young Men's meeting. He was an excellent teacher and kept the boys very interested during the 40 minutes that he spoke. We had all the Deacons, Teachers and Priests, along with our Old Bishopric, the newly called Bishopric (as of today), Full Stake Young Men's Presidency and then all the normal adult leaders (including myself).

A few things from his lesson.

In talking about Priesthood quorums, he said "when we are working together, working as one, our power to do good is increased." He also talked about how we learn in our quorums and then practice at home and that the home is the best place to magnify our Aaronic Priesthood.

During opening exercises, we always quote the Purposes of the Aaronic Priesthood. Bro Nieder was impressed with all of the Young Men knowing and being able to quote the Purposes of the Aaronic Priesthood. While he was teaching had asked if any of the boys could quote anything else. (church or otherwise) There was one boy who quoted his favorite poem (which was impressive as it was really long.) We also had a boy get up and quote Doctrine and Covenants 4 . After the boys had finished their quotes, he had all of the Young Men stand up and learn a new quote. The quote was this "Mom, I love you. Take the night off, I'll do the dishes." Amazingly enough all the boys learned it the first time.

Bro Nieder also taught us the Features of a Quorum.

A Quorum is:

• where the Gospel of Jesus Christ is taught
• a service organization
• a Brotherhood (where we have friends and belong)

Finally he taught the Quorum Presidencies what they were responsible for, by asking a few questions such as "Who's responsible for Missionary work? or Who's responsible for verifying that truth is being taught in the quorum? or Who's responsible for making sure the boys are fulfilling their Duty to God certificate?" Each of the answers to these questions were "I am".

After church, we brought Bro Nieder to home for a quick dinner. We invited our old Bishop and his family over as well. We ate about 5:15pm and hurried out the door for the 6pm meeting with leaders. Although not well attended, the Leader question and answer session was a success.

Finally at 7pm was the Family Fireside. Deni spoke, the Young Women from our ward sang and Bro Nieder spoke. As Bro Nieder got up, he had Deni, our new Bishop, and a member of our Stake Presidency stand up to receive a gift from him. They each got a neckerchief that said "LDS Leadership Conference - Every boy deserves a trained leader." (you can see it below) There were about 100 in attendance and it was a great event.

Here's a picture of Hal Henderson (our Woodbadge Course Director) Bro Nieder (2nd Counselor in the General Young Men's Presidency) and Deni (my hot wife :)-



Bro Nieder was nice enough to pose for some pictures for our family.

Oh, so we're Puerto Rican

I put Ryan to bed tonight and this is how our conversation went.

Ryan: "Dad, how old were you when you lived in Spain?"

Me: Being a little confused, I said "Ryan, I never lived in Spain."

Ryan: "But didn't Grandma and Grandpa live somewhere....."

Me: Realizing what he meant, I interrupted him and said "Well Grandma and Grandpa lived in Puerto Rico before I was born."

Ryan: "Oh, so we're Puerto Rican?"

Proud of my anti-socialness

Through some series of unfortunate events this last week, I think Deni is finally starting to see some merit in my anti-socialness. Maybe I should write a book with some best practices.

Amazing Christmas tree

I was browsing a Sam's club website the other day and came across this unique Christmas tree. It it wasn't so pricey ($200.00), I think I might go for it. Maybe I'll watch for it on clearance.

Explicit Language - Beware

A few months back, my mom was watching my oldest sisters kids (Teresa). While babysitting, my mom asked Austin (my nephew) to clean up something. A little while later, my mom and 3 year old niece, Kennedy, found that Austin hadn't put away all of this things. Kennedy said "Austin's a butthole of doing that." This obviously caught my mom off guard coming from Kennedy and tried to keep a straight face while telling her she shouldn't talk like that.

Since hearing that story, Deni and I have joked around by saying substituting "butthole" with BH. So we say "You're a BH for doing that!" We used BH because we didn't think the kids would catch on. Not too long after we started saying it, Ryan caught on and figured out what BH stood for.

Fast forward to last night. We were trying to go out to Wal-Mart as a family and I was teasing Deni (as I normally do) because she was taking too long to get ready. Out of the blue, Sydney said "Dad, you're a BH." Deni and I both started laughing.

Time to start drinking and smoking

During church today, our Bishop announced that next week a new Bishop would be sustained in our ward.

No time like the current to start breaking the word of wisdom, right?

Deni's new haircut

I finally found the battery charger and charged the camera battery. As promised her is my beautiful brides new haircut.

No power - only fuzz

The other night, after helping put the kids to bed, I went through my normal routine.

Go to my bedroom -check
Turn on the TV - check.... uh wait a second, no power.
Try again to turn on the TV - still no power. Being a troubleshooter by trade, I checked the obvious things first. Yep, just as I thought, it had been unplugged. I plugged it back in. Now the power button. Nothing but fuzz. Hmmm that's odd. Maybe the kids had accidentally turned it to some random channel, so I changed the channel and I still got fuzz. Hmm. Next I looked around the back of the TV surprisingly enough the cable had been undone.

Just about this time, Deni came walking into the bedroom with a grin on her face.

I guess my nights of watching TV in my bed are over. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

Wrong kind of change

Last week in my post Make All you Can... I said life was good.

I even thanked President-Elect Obama for the meager 4.3% "change"/increase in my 401k in the Month of October.

Well - I take it all back.

Personal Rate of Return from 01/01/2008 to 11/11/2008 is -41.7%

Maybe Obama's slogan of "Change we can believe in" was really his economic plan and all I'll have left in my 401k will be a three quarters, 2 nickels and a dime. Ha.

Don't take me too seriously on the Obama joke. I'm just having fun. Personally, I don't think that any President has the power to effect the economy. But they sure take credit when it's going well and sure are quick to blame others when it tanks.

I have to keep telling myself, I'm in this for the long term, I'm in this for the long term, I'm in this for the long term. I'm still trying to convince myself of this.

Why would I be mad?

5 minutes before I leave work for the day, I get this txt to my phone from Deni.

Don't be mad. I cut my hair :-|

First of all. I'm not sure why I would be mad. Especially about something Deni wanted to do.

I immediately tried calling Deni's cell but she didn't answer. Next I tried calling the house - and Sydney answered the phone and finally persuaded Sydney to let me talk to Deni.

For the record. Deni has a very cute haircut. My guess is that she cut at least 8 inches off. I'll have to get a picture of the new cut.

Picasa 3.0 for Linux - way cool.

I gave up on Windows along time ago. For the most part, there are comparable applications on Linux. One that I've been missing is Picasa. But just recently found a beta for Picasa 3.0 for Linux - way cool.

From Our Kids

Make all you can......

Life is good. I'm up 4.3% in my 401k in the last month.

01/01/2008 to 10/09/2008 is -39.2%.

01/01/2008 to 11/04/2008 is -34.9%

I'm sure President Obama will take credit for it, so I better give credit where credit is due. Thank you President Obama.(grin)