Five dollars of Fun

The kids were great while watching Deni compete today in the Salem Triathlon. After the race, we ran home to let Deni shower, then headed to Cafe Rio for lunch, which is a tradition we started years ago.

Deni promised Sydney that she'd buy her a Slip-n-slide, so we headed to Wal-mart to make the purchase.

Have you ever wondered how much fun you can have with five dollars? Doesn't seem like there's much you could do with $5.00 these days. However with $5 bucks, Wal-mart and a little water you can have instant fun.

Ryan first.





Just the record, Ryan gets his skin tone from his mother.

Sydney always tries to out do her big brother. Always tries to run a little bit faster, slide a little bit longer.

Salem Triathlon 2009

Today was the Salem Triathlon, in Salem, UT. Due to my hurt shoulder, I wasn't able to participate in the race, other than being a support to Deni and attempting to catch her in HD as she swam, biked and ran past me. It was a beautiful day today, much different than last year. A perfect day for a Triathlon.



Deni got up early and left for Salem. I let the kids sleep in a little bit more and headed out to Salem about 8:15am. By the time I got there, Deni was mostly setup for the race. I like getting candid pictures (like the ones below), especially at races. They're much better than fake poses. I attempted to capture pictures of Deni as she prepared for the race.

Preperations start.



Checking all her gear, before getting into her wetsuit.



Almost ready



Heat 7. Women ages 30-44. Deni is wearing the blue swim cap in the middle. It was much easier to spot her in the swim with the blue cap.



Out of the swim.



Deni on the bike.



They changed the bike course a few days before the race. I went out and rode the race route and was suprised at the huge hill they had at the start of the race. Deni and I have been watching the Giro de Italia, a 3 week bike race in Italy. One thing I think is really cool in these bike races are the spectators lining the road waiting for hours, only to see the racers fly by at 30 mph. Usually the spectators write their favorite racers names on the road, this is especially true on mountain stages. After riding the hill, I thought that Deni could use some encouragement up the hill. I snuck out last night armed with Sydney's chalk to write Deni's name on the hill. I wrote GO DENI. Sometime after I wrote the chalk message, someone came behind me and used yellow spray paint and went over my writing.



Deni heading out on the run.



Salem Pond is a great park. Their is park there and the kids enjoyed playing while mom was out swimming, biking and running.



Ryan and Syd. Two great looking kids.

Read my mind

During lunch the conversation between Ryan and Sydney went like this:

Sydney: Ryan read my mind, what am I thinking about?

Ryan: Chili-cheese dogs.

UPS called...

I bought a new TV online. I've been saving for this for a while, Deni and I had talked about it (as we do with all large purchases), but I didn't tell her I had actually ordered it. She knew it was going to be soon, but I was keeping it a secret. Well I was until UPS called the night before to verify someone was going to be home for the delivery.

I had planned on being home for the shipment, but after she knew, she signed for the package.

This was the box that showed up on our doorstep.



Before anyone jumps to any conclusions, this was just a packing box that and the actual box inside, so I don't have a massive tv. However when Ryan came home from school and saw the box, he thought I had bought a massive tv.

I set up the TV in our room. Not sure I'll ever want to take it out of my room now. We had a 13 inch tv in our room, prior to this purchase.

The TV is great. One of the things I like about the TV are the additional digital TV stations. For example, KSL channel 5.2 plays a "Universal Sports" station. I'm not a sports fan, however they are currently playing the "Giro d'Italia" which is a 3 week bike race (May 9th -31st), much like the Tour de France. They have a 2 hour recap each night, so I've been spending about 1-2 hours watching the race each night. It's a great race so far.

Flower girl

I worked from home today so that I could attend Sydney's Kindergarten year end program. She was the cutest little flower. They sang songs and each had an opportunity to say a line in the program. Sydney's was "plant a seed and watch it grow".

Step on a Crack

Ryan, Sydney and I walked to church today, as Deni went early to set up chairs in Primary.

As we were walking, we had the following conversation:

Sydney: "Step on a crack, break your Dad's back."

Me: "What, I thought it was break your Mom's back?"

Sydney: "Well mom's not with us."

At least she isn't "breaking" our backs, behind our back.

Varsity Triathlon

Today was the Varsity Scout Triathlon.

We left Spanish Fork about 7:15am headed for the Springville swimming pool. Race starts at 8am. After spending hours (literally) last night to make sure I had all the necessary paperwork and forms, as we checked in, they didn't even ask for them. Oh well, I guess I'm protected from any legal problems, if they were to ever arise.

This is the first year the District has put on this event. Apparently they were expecting about 30 people to sign up, however there were just over 70. So it was a respectable event for being the first year.

There were 4 different groups.

Individual Boys
Team Boys
Individual Leaders
Team Leaders

As we get out of the car, my boys start asking me if I'm going to win and take first place. My response was, well it depends, if there are a bunch of fat Varsity leaders, then sure. Looking around, I was feeling fairly confident in my tri skills. That was until as I was standing in line to check-in and I hear an old friend from my Springville ward that does triathlons. I thought, there goes my chances of being first.

Because there are only 6 lanes, each wave had up to 12 people (2 per lane). Individual boys went first, then teams of boys, followed by Individual leaders. By this time, all my boys had swam and were off on the bike course. Instead of making the leaders share lanes, they broke up the heats, so we each had our own lane and just did 6 leaders at a time. Of course my friend from Springville happened to be same heat as myself. Not having swam in a long time and due to my hurt right shoulder, I was nervous I wouldn't be able to keep up. My first few laps were relatively good, although I could still feel some pain in my shoulder. As I swam, I would look to see where my friend was. For the most part, we stayed neck and neck for the 200 meters, however he got out of the pool just a few seconds before me. I followed him out to the bike where I got dressed in to my tux shirt and bowtie, per my agreement with the boys to wear a tux shirt and bowtie. Little did they know that a bike jersey is made too look like this.



Our transition was about the same. Towards the end of my transition to the bike, Deni was there videoing and told me to "get out of here". At which time I promptly got on my bike and rode off, still trying to put on my gloves. I got out before my friend and never saw him again on the bike.

Since my boys started anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes in front of me in the swim, it was my goal to attempt to catch them on the 8.8 mile bike ride to Spanish Fork. Surprisingly, I was able to catch all 3 of my boys. As I rode past each boy (including those not from my ward), I'd attempt to give them some encouragement to keep it up and that they were doing great. There was one section of the bike course that was down hill and I got going about 24 mph and was catching boys on their mountain bikes quite quickly. As I came up behind one boy, I hollered something like "great job, keep up the good work." The kid about jumped off his bike. He yelled back that I had scared him. Oops.

The bike ride was great. I enjoyed riding down Spanish Fork Center street, where I hit my top speed of 34.7 mph. Guess I broke the speed limit, as it was 30mph.

The transition from bike to run wasn't bad. Deni had just gotten to the transition area. She had my running shoes, so I was grateful she got there in time with all the other things she was doing (video & shooting pictures)

2 minutes into the run, my calves began cramping. We were running on a country road, so I ran/walked until I found the only house with steps, where I attempted to stretch my legs. That helped as I didn't cramp the rest of the time.

I was slow and steady on the run. All of the sudden, one of my boys ran past me. He was on a team so he had fresh legs, but there wasn't anyway I could keep up with him.

I finished the race in 53 minutes and 27 seconds which got me 2nd place for the leader division.



Once all the boys were in, I heard my boys talking about "next year" we'll do this, etc. I was excited to hear their excitement and amazed at their accomplishment.

Despite their lack of training. One of my Varsity Teams also took 2nd place in the boys team division.

Team Brent, Tyler and Tanner - 2nd place




Here's the complete group.

Carbo-load

After months and months of attempting to get my Varsity Scouts signed up for a Scout Varsity Triathlon, 6 of them signed up on the last days for registration and about 2 weeks before the big event. (They all signed up right before we left for California - 2 weeks ago)

My hope was to have them commit months ago and then spend that last 3 months training and getting ready, but it didn't work out that way.

However I'm excited they signed up. The day has finally come and the big day is tomorrow. 6 boys signed up, they will be racing as 1 individual, one team of three and one team of 2, and of course myself as an individual. The race starts in the Springville pool with an 200 meter swim, followed by a 8.8 mile bike ride to Spanish Fork, and finally a 2.2 mile run.

Deni recommended that we invite the boys that are racing over the night before, for a carbo-load dinner. So I did. And Deni cooked an amazing meal. (as usual)

All six of the boys showed up and were treated to a pasta and Parmesan chicken dinner. We cooked the chicken in a dutch oven. As always, the meal was great. After the meal, we all hopped in the van and drove the bike and run route, so the boys would be familiar with it tomorrow.

Over the last few months, in an attempt to get the boys interested to sign up for the triathlon, I threw out a number of "incentives" for them. The first one was if they could beat my time during the race, I'd let them shave my head. They actually rejected it. They said it wasn't worth it. However secretly, I think they knew old Bro Berger could beat them. Since they rejected it, I took it off the table completely. Ultimately, non of my "incentives" did much, so I went to the source - you guessed it- Moms. I told Moms and Dads about the race and that we were doing it as a team and surprisingly enough, boys magically got signed up. Lesson learned.

However to help with the morale, I told them I'd bike and run in a tuxedo shirt and bow tie. Each time I brought it up, they thought this was funny and looked forward to seeing me bike and run in it. Little did they know it was my bike "tux" shirt I got for Christmas this year. They'll see it tomorrow.

Glass Half-Full Mothers Day

Mothers day is always special, but this year we took it to the next level.

Glass Half-Full version (Brett)
At the last minute we traveled to beautiful St George and stayed in a 3 Star Hotel Saturday night. We took it easy Sunday morning and slept in until 9:30am - 10:00am. For breakfast I made waffles. While we ate breakfast we were serenaded by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. It was a great morning. We weren't in a rush, so we took our time and checked out right at 11am.


Glass Half-empty version
After a week in California, we were still undecided on where to stay on the way home. At the last minute, we booked a hotel in St. George through Hotwire. We left California later than expected, plus hit horrible LA traffic as well as lost an hour because of timezone changes. Because of these factors we pulled into St George at around 1am Sunday morning. Because of the late night, we all, including the kids, slept in until 9:30am- 10:00am. The free continental breakfast had a waffle maker and batter for waffles, which we all ate. In the lobby, there was a huge flat panel TV with the Mo-tab playing in the background.

I'm sure you can tell that my version of the story is the Glass Half-Full version above. I'm sure others would probably want to focus on the Glass Half-empty version. It's all about how you look at glass. Half full or Half empty. I'm a Half-full type.

BMT 25th Reunion

The whole reason we went to California was to attend Ryan's Bone Marrow Transplant (BMT) reunion. Disneyland just happened to be an added bonus. This year happens to be Children Hospital of Los Angeles (CHLA) 25th BMT reunion. The reunion is a little party for past and current BMT patients of CHLA. Most of the patients are local, so we officially traveled the furthest to come to the reunion, but it was worth it.

We got to see most of Ryan's old nurses and all of Ryan's old Dr's. It's amazing how fast you forget names after 8 years.

We were grateful to see all the Dr's, however there was one doctor in particular, that we really wanted to see - Dr Weinberg. Dr Weinberg has since moved on from CHLA to become the Director of the BMT unit at Stanford, but we are extremely grateful that he made the five and a half hour drive down for the reunion. He's a great Doctor and are extremely grateful for his expertise.



They had 750 people RSVP for the reunion but only had 250 show up. Because the planned for 3 times the amount of people, the kids won bags and bags of toys. (mostly dollar store type toys, but the kids were so excited.) We told them they had one enough, but they had so much left over, the nurses were begging the kids to come and win more toys.

Our favorite gift was a "build a bear" type teddy bear that we got from Max of a Million Dreams Foundation for Cancer Research. The founders of this foundation, are some dear friends that were in the hospital with their daughter at the same time we were in the hospital with Ryan, 8 years ago. They started this foundation after having 2 children with cancer and unfortunately losing a son to cancer.

It was great to see our main nurse, Donna too.



We were able to talk to a few parents of kids that are still looking for the light at the end of the tunnel after their childs transplant. Although, Ryan's recovery isn't quite like most, it was nice to share our story and give some hope.

Disneyland - Day 5

Last and final day at Disneyland/California Adventure. We had a great week this. Today was the wrap up day, to get all the things we wanted to do.

You can definitely tell the difference between a Monday and Friday. Disneyland was packed, however we wanted to catch a few more things, once of which was the fireworks (Apparently they only do it on the weekends right now.)

Back to California Adventure to ride the Toy Story ride and since we were close, we jumped on the Ferris Wheel. Although Ryan was deathly afraid to ride the Ferris Wheel, we went anyway. Sydney was teasing him, as she wasn't afraid. She was having a great time teasing her brother as we rode the Ferris Wheel, until we said "Since your teasing your brother, I guess that means we'll have to take you to the Haunted Mansion." Wow I've never seen Sydney stop teasing so quickly.


Brother Bear is a great area for kids. Our kids could have spent hours there, had we let them.


Ryan at the Disneyland entrance. I probably should have taken these "entrance" pictures the first day, but didn't. There's a reason that only Ryan is in it. It was at the end of the day and Sydney didn't want to walk the 100 ft to have her picture taken. Ryan was a good sport.


We ate dinner in Disneyland tonight after that parade. Then waited around until the fireworks. Ryan and I went geo-caching for a few "virtual" geocaches.

The fireworks were amazing. Well worth the wait and crowds.

Got back to our hotel around 10:30pm. It's been a long fun week. One I hope the kids remember for years and years to come. I still remember going to Disneyworld whne I was in third grade. We made some great memories at the "happiest" place on earth.

Disneyland - Day 4

Today was our "early in" day. We got to go in 1 hour early, with about 2,000 other people, so it wasn't really a early in day, if you ask me. We headed to ride the Submarine Nemo ride first, then headed to Fantasyland for the all the activities there.

Of course, we had to stop and try to get the "Sword in the Stone" out. Both kids tried and tried to get it out, but we weren't the lucky ones today.

The kids wanted to ride the Tea cups, Deni and I watched. I'm not a Tea cup fan.

We walked by the Princess line and it was "short" only a 30 minute wait now. Sydney got to see Belle, Cinderella and Ariel. I love this picture I caught with Sydney and Ariel. It's a very cute picture.




At the end of the day, we headed towards the coast to see the ocean. We drove to Newport Beach but drove up the coast until we got to Huntington Beach.

I made sure everyone had jackets, except for myself. We got there at sun down and with the wind, it was chili.

As we got there, Sydney was fearless and ran to the edge of the water, not understanding the tides. It wasn't more than 45 seconds that a large wave came and caught Ryan and Sydney and got them wet almost waist deep. I was videoing at the time and about 5 feet away. I quickly stepped in front of Ryan and grabbed Sydney's arm. I wish the video would have been still running, as it would have been fun to watch, but I somehow turned it off, right as the wave hit.

Running with Sydney on the beach.



The sunset was beautiful as was the beach. Growing up in Texas, we didn't have "real" beaches like this. The ocean smell and the waves made me want to move to the coast.

Standing on the west coast- Ryan, Brett and Sydney.

Disneyland Day 3 - Day of the puke

Back to California Adventure today. We got there about 10:30 and waited for the High School Musical parade at 11:30am. Our whole reason for going to Califonia Adventure today was to see th HSM parade.

Another attempt to put me in the picture (from the reflection.)



While waiting for the Parade, Ryan found a keychain Stitch, which he bought with his hard earned money. $5.95 + tax for the little keychain. Both kids brought their own money to spend on things they really (REALLY) wanted. Ryan has really struggled with spending his own money. He would always want to know how much he'd have left after a purchase. Deni and I concluded that unless the amount he was subtracting was $0.00, then he really didn't want to spend "his" money. Having the kids bring their own money to spend was probably the smartest thing I've ever done in my life. However after finding this Stitch, he found a way to part with his beloved money.

On queue, the HSM 3 parade came through at 11:30am. Sydney was shy (not sure why) but Ryan got to go out and dance in the parade. I got a lot of good video for Sydney to watch over and over. She was disappointed to see it wasn't the REAL HSM3 actors.



After HSM parade, we went back to Soarin' over California. On Day 1 we were on the first row. Today we were on the 3rd row. By far, the 1st row is 100% better, as there is no one above you. Today we saw peoples feet dangling down. It's almost like watching a movie where you see the microphone at the top of the screen occasionally. It's irritating. Next we headed to to South Side of California Adventure.

We rode the new Toy Story ride, where you shoot targets. It's a great ride and game. Fun for all ages. Next we went to California Screaming. It's the largest Roller coaster ride at California Adventure. We had fast passes, but found out that Sydney was about an inch too short to ride. So I sent Ryan and Deni on it first, I was going to get some video of them, but my battery died. They both came of the ride smiling, so I asked Ryan if he wanted to go back on it with me. He did, we were back on the ride within about 5 minutes. After the first loop-de-doo, I looked over and he was dry heaving. This isn't good. By the time we stopped, he had thrown up multiple times, and me with my overactive gag reflex, I almost lost it too, but didn't. As we pulled in, I left the attendant know, and we exited as quickly as possible. They took the cart off to get it cleaned. It took a while to get Ryan back to feeling better. I took him into the bathroom and cleaned up the puke on his shirt and shorts. (a great benefit of being a dad). After about 30 minutes of sitting in the shade, he was able to eat his lunch and was back to his normal self. Poor kid. It was a hot day, and his clothes had just about dried by that time too.

We headed toward "A Bug's Life" and Ryan forgot all about having puked. He wanted to play in the water and ride all the rides. Ryan about to catch some water.






Sydney surprised at the water fountain at A bugs life.




We kept him off the rides that we thought might make him puke, but let him ride the bumper cars. He got on to the bumper car, set his little keychain Stitch next to him and forgot all about it as he exited the bumper car. He remembered about 2 minutes later and we ran back to recover him, but found no stitch. This was a tragic experience for him. Not only did he lose his most favorite possession, it was a possession he had paid for. The attendant had us look and then had us wait for a few minutes while someone came to talk to us. The lady, Kristy, came and wrote Ryan a "no strings attached" replacement ticket for the lost Stitch, which could be used at any store in the park. She also asked Ryan his favorite ride - we ended up with Nemo, although we haven't ridden it yet. Kristy then gave us a "Attraction Readmission Pass" which puts us at the front of the line on the one ride. It was written out for the new Nemo ride, which has the longest line we've seen to date. It's a one time use pass, but it was very kind of her to give that to us. She said she was giving it to us because we had to wait for her to come talk to Ryan and give him the replacement ticket. Wow, now that's a great company. Not only do you replace a lost toy free of charge, but you go the extra mile. Way to go Disney. Ryan went from tears to extreme satisfaction.

We left the park early and headed back to our Hotel. We grabbed a bite to eat at Papa Johns and then went looking for some Disney stores outside of Disneyland. We figured we could find some of the things the kids wanted for cheaper, but the stores we visited, didn't have the items.

We called it a night and headed to the hotel. I went and exercised for 30 minutes, while Ryan worked on some homework and Deni did some laundry. Then we went swimming for 30 minutes.

Ryan and I topped off the night by reading another chapter in the new Fablehaven book. Deni finished it last night and is dying to talk to me about it.

Disneyland - Day 2

First real day at Disneyland today.

We started out the day by splitting up, in an attempt to cover more ground. I took Syd to go see the Princesses. We got to the place were 3 of the Princesses were, but even at 10am, the line was already too long, we waited for a few minutes but Sydney got too impatient standing in line. So we headed to Toontown. We got there about 15 minutes before it opened and were the first ones in. We ran and ended up at Mickey's house first in line to see Mickey.



Ryan and Deni caught up to us in Toontown after seeing a Jedi training show.

The kids really enjoyed the toontown rollercoaster and were able to see a number of the Disney characters.



I tried to get creative in getting myself in pictures. Shown here in the reflection of Sydney's sunglasses.



After toontown we rode the train around to New Orleans Square and walked right into the haunted mansion with no line. Sydney didn't like the beginning of the ride and refused to get into the ride, so Sydney and Deni left, with Sydney crying. Ryan and I went ahead and rode it and had a fun time.

We stopped to watch a band play (New Orleans big band style) and the kids got Marti Gra necklaces.

Trying on hats and attempting to make a Grumpy face at Disneyland.



We walked through Tarzan tree house, rode Indiana Jones Adventure, and rode the Jungle Cruise.

We topped off the night with a visit to the Enchanted Tiki Room.

We left Disneyland get some dinner and ended up getting some authentic Chinese food that wasn't too bad. After dinner, I dropped Deni, Ryan and Sydney off at Disneyland so they could get a seat for the Parade. I drove back to the Hotel and then caught the shuttle back. The parade was new. Ryan was excited as Stitch was in the parade. The kids went out during the parade to dance twice. First the twist, and then a second time they did the conga.

After the parade, we were tired and headed back to the hotel for a little swimming. The pool was heated, almost to the extent of being a hot tub, it was nice, but you couldn't stay in too long.

Great day 2.

Disneyland Day 1 - California Adventure

It's official, Circus Circus was a horrible hotel. I didn't sleep well last night. We could hear people next door, above us, and in the hallway as clearly as those in the room. Needless to say, I didn't sleep well at all last night. We left Las Vegas round 8am (PST).

We pulled into Anahiem, CA about 11:45am and attempted to check-in at our Hotel. They told us we could check-in in about 30 minutes, so we went to the grocery store for a few things. We came back and checked-in. Talk about night and day. We are in an extremely nice hotel. We got settled in and headed to Disneyland.

Actually we went to California Adventure first, as it looked less busy. Ryan said he wanted to ride the Tower of Terror first. Deni said she would stand outside with Sydney, but for whatever reason, Sydney said she wanted to do it too. Looking back on now it was probably sibling rivalry or possibly just the pure fact that we were finally out of the car and at Disneyland and she didn't want to miss out on anything. The Tower of Terror isn't probably that appropriate for 6 and 8 year olds and especially not the first ride of the day. The ride was fun, but not a good way to start out the day with little ones.

It took all of us a little while for our stomachs to be back to normal.

From there we split for a while. I took Ryan into a really cool interactive show with Crush, the computer animated turtle from Finding Nemo. Ryan got to ask Crush a question. Ryan's question was "Have you ever surfed with Stitch" Crush said "Uhhhh What's a stitch?" Ryan explained it was Stitch from Lilo and Stitch and got a really good answer to his question. At the end of his answer, Crush talked about how Mom turtles lay their eggs and how if the Mom turtle lays her eggs in a hot place, all the eggs that hatch will be girls and if a Mom turtle lays her eggs in a cool place, all the eggs that will hatch will be boys and finally ended with "that's why girls are HOT and boys are COOL.".

Deni and Sydney went to playhouse Disney while Ryan I were in seeing Crush, so while they were in watching Crush, we went to "How to" animation workshop, were we were taught to draw Tigger. I won't quite my day job, but for a first time trying to draw Tigger, it wasn't so bad.

On to California Soarin. We got fast passes, so zoomed up to the front of the line. I was reminiscing about how I had gotten to the front of the line with Ryan 5 years ago, when he informed me that he had to go pee. We were laughing, until Sydney said the exact same thing at almost the exact same spot, however she held it for 10 minutes while we went on the ride. We now ask the kids if they have to go pee before getting in line. The joys of parenting.

Next we went to Grizzly River Rafting, were we got soaked, but had a great time.

Brother Bear park was next... they ran across rope bridges, slid down "log" slides, and swang on rope swings. This is a very cool part of the park. There were hardly any people in this attraction and the kids loved it.

By this time it was 6pm and California Adventure was closing. We didn't realize it closed so early, but just about everyone went over to Disneyland to either spend the next 2 hours until Disneyland closed, or to go to see the Parade. You can imagine the influx of people at 6pm everynight.

We followed everyone out of California Adventure and headed into Disneyland. We headed to Autotopia. Where Ryan and Sydney drove their cars, with a little assistance from mom and dad with the gas peddle. I have some funny video footage of Ryan driving. There's a part that feels like it's going "offroad". I told Ryan he had gone off road and he was quite concerned, he said "you're supposed to..." I'm glad I had the camera rolling as his facial expression was priceless.

Day one was great.

Sin City

Within 10 seconds of pulling on to the Las Vegas Strip, I had to yell at my kids to look away and close their eyes. I'm not sure how I had forgotten that Las Vegas was sin city and that porn was free on the side of the road.

We got into Las Vegas around 7pm and went straight to our hotel, Circus Circus. As we pulled into the hotel, Ryan told us that he didn't feel safe, which was the same feeling we were all having. I thought once we got into our Hotel, we'd feel different. However, that wasn't the case. We took everything we wanted to still have in the morning into the room with us and parked next to the most expensive car we could.

The only good thing about tonight, was we caught The Amazing Race an hour later than usual.