All I want for Christmas are my four front teeth?

Sydney recently lost her front two teeth, just a week or so before Christmas.

This is my Sydney, without her front teeth.  Very Cute.

This is my Sydney playing with Grandma and Grandpa's Mac.  Warning: what you are about to watch doesn't look like the Sydney we know.  However it is the Sydney that makes us laugh all the time.

Stop Copy catting me

I was driving home from Mom and Dads with Ryan and Sydney in the back seat.   Sydney was copy catting Ryan.  

It went something like this:

Ryan: Stop copy catting me.

Sydney: Stop copy catting me.

Ryan: Sydney, I'm serious.

Sydney: Sydney, I'm serious.

Ryan:  I'm an idiot.

Sydney:  You're an idiot.

Sydney is no dummy and Ryan knew he had lost the battle. He stopped while he was ahead.

I'm older than color

We were at my parents house today watching the BYU game.  During half time, I went upstairs and got the binders that have pictures of my childhood.

Ryan came and sat by me and was looking at the pictures with me.  The first few pages were black and white photos.  A few pages into the binder, the pictures turned from black and white to color and Ryan said "...and that's when color was invented"

Apparently, I'm older than color.

The A-Team

Last month we turned off the cable and re-enabled Netflix. The kids were disappointed that they couldn't watch the their favorite channels like Disney Channel, etc.  That is until I introduced them to streaming old TV shows, like the A-Team. 

Over the last few weeks, they have watched all of Season One and part of Season Two of the A-Team.

It's fun to hear the old theme song for the A-Team coming from my bedroom and even more fun to hear the kids giggling while watching a show that I grew up on. I've watched a few episodes with them and it's fun to remember back.

Speaking of the A-Team.  Yesterday, Ryan told me I needed to grow a beard like Mr T on the A-Team.  Uh, yeah, not  too likely. 

Lots of Apples

Deni and I picked many (many) 5 gallon buckets of Apples this last week.

Today was the day take care of the apples.

I worked half a day in the morning (6am to 10am) and then we spent the rest of the day making and bottling apple products.

We ended up with:

15 quarts of Apple Juice
13 quarts of Apple Pie Filling
30 quarts of Apple Sauce

Family Pictures

My siblings.

Deni's Bday

This year for Deni's birthday we took a break from life and went up to Snowbird Resort for two days, 1 night of fun without the kids. A few quick video clips of some fun events.

Alpine Slide

Zip line

Bucket list - Tube Provo River - check

About a month ago, Deni purchased some tickets to float the Provo river on tubes.  I've always wanted to tube down the Provo river and since Summer is almost over, today was the day.  I had taken the day off and the kids are in school, so we made it a day date.

We took this self portrait before jumping in the white van in the background, which ran us up Provo Canyon.

It's amazing how cold the water can be in August, my feet and arms were pretty much numb by the time we finished our 1.5 hr float down the river.

We had a great time.  Deni especially liked it after I hooked my feet on her tube and kept her from the trees and branches on the side of the river.

Back to School

This morning I had a 5am meeting. (with working with people in the UK, India, and East Coast someone has to be up late/early. It was my turn today, I guess.)

Since it was the kids first day of school, I worked from home in the morning until they were off to school. Then went into work.

Camping with Grandpa

My dad invited us to go "camping" with some of the other cousins.

We went up Fairview Canyon and camped by Beaver Dam. The fishing wasn't that great at Beaver Dam, but a little lake up the road was great.

Sydney fishing.

It's amazing how cool the mountains are in August. Ryan trying to keep warm.

The kids packed their backpacks and I thought this was cute.

I said "camping" as Dad took his 28 foot trailer.  I drove it. I feel much more comfortable driving it now. With 3 cousins, Dad and our two kids, Deni and I decided to take our tent and cots instead of trying to find room in the trailer. I didn't sleep very well in the tent. Deni got cold the first night and I kept hearing noises and could have sworn bears were in our camp.  All in all, we caught a lot of fish and had a great time.

Growing

June 20, 2010

June 27, 2010

July 6, 2010

Thursday Vs Friday

Each time I do some back breaking work in the yard, I remind myself that I went to college and I should be paying people to do this type of work. Some how that never happens.

On Thursday, I ordered 15 yards of Bark/wood chips for our flowerbeds. I had previously measured and while dad was here on Wednesday setting up our new grapevines, he helped me re-measure. 15 yards was what I needed.

Luckily, Deni help me and we worked hand in hand for 2 days on the yard.

Before

After

Backyard Before

Backyard After

The comforts of home

Every once in a while, I go looking for deals at Garage Sales. This has to be my best find. Cabelas shower, in original shrink wrap - for $10 bucks.

Going to take this on every camp out I go on now.

Set it up in the backyard and added the towels for the picture. Can't wait for a warm summer day camping and I can take a shower.

On Track

Who said the Pinewood Derby is about the Boys?

New Diet

Ryan and I started a new diet today, while in Park City.

We love the results already.

Pinewood Derby 2010

Waiting patiently for his turn on the track.

The first race.

The car.  Ryan won a few races, and lost a few races.  Regardless of the outcome, he was always happy and high fiveing his opponent. (get's that from his mother).

Ryan's cousins came to see him race.

Visit to Great Grandma Bowers

On the way home from Phoenix, we took a less direct route home and detoured through Heber, AZ for a day and got to visit with Grandma Bowers.

Grandma Bowers is 87 and we're not sure how much longer she'll be around, so we thought it appropriate to stop and visit her for a little bit.

Ryan, Grandma Bowers, Deni and Sydney.

Phoenix Zoo

Grandma and Grandpa Bigler took the whole family to the Phoenix zoo.

Although today was the warmest day (high 80's) of our trip, we had a great time with Kati, Boston and Katelyn, Jessica, Mataya, and Camden, and Grandma and Grandpa Bigler.

This isn't a great picture of Syd, but it a very funny picture of her cousin Mataya (notice she's drinking straight from the teat.)   This is a fake cow, that you could "milk" and water would come out.

Long lost sibling. Ryan, the baboon, and Sydney.

Deni and me

There was a little water park on the inside and because it was high 80's the kids took the opportunity to plan in the water and cool off.

Thanks Grandma and Grandpa Bigler for taking us to the Zoo.

Bibs for Babies

You can never find the "I love Uncle Brett" bibs for babies. They have plenty of "I love Mommy" or "I love Daddy", but no "I love Uncle Brett".

So I decided to make my own. It needs a little polishing, but for now, it serves its purpose.  This is Katelyn Bryce (Kati and Boston Bryce - Kati is Deni's youngest sister.)

Drive in Movie theater

While we were in Arizona, we wanted to do a few things as a family the kids would remember as part of their vacation.  One of those things was going to a Drive-in Movie theater.

The last Drive-in in UT was torn down probably 10 years ago, so we thought the kids would enjoy watching a movie from the comfort of our van.

We choose to go see "How to Train your Dragon".  We got there just as the sun went down, opened the back of the van, threw down a few blankets and with a few treats, we were ready for the movie.

It was a double feature, but the 2nd feature didn't start until 9:30pm, so we headed out after the first movie.  he movie was fun and the kids enjoyed the change of venue for the movie.

Easter Egg hunt

We went to Jessica's house on Easter Sunday. We watched the last session of General Conference on TV and then the kids had an Easter egg hunt in Jessica's back yard.

I forget that our kids are big, until we visit Deni's side of the family.   A little blurry, but an action photo of Ryan and Sydney and their little cousin Mataya looking for eggs.

Ryan on the run.

Sydney  with all her loot.

We were told that back home, everyone woke up to 6 inches of new snow. Easter in Phoenix is awesome.

Easter Pageant at the Mesa Temple

Every Easter at the Mesa Temple, an Easter Pageant is put on. It was a tradition of Deni's family to attend, however I had never been.  So we planned this trip so that we could attend.

Deni and the kids went early to save us a spot on the lawn, while Boston and I went to the Priesthood Session of General Conference.

Once the Priesthood session was over, we quickly changed and then met up with our families.

Ryan, Katelyn, Deni and Sydney.

I really like this picture of Deni and Katelyn. They are both pretty cute.

Right before the pageant, some of the actors walked around and talked to the audience. Ryan and Sydney with one of the "Roman guards".

Phoenix - here we come

We needed a break from the cold and wet Utah weather and we'd never seen our new niece, Katelyn Bryce, (4 months old now) so we decided to head to Phoenix, AZ for the week.

Kati and Boston were nice enough to let us stay at their house all week.

Jury says Novell Owns Unix Copyrights, Not SCO Group

For about 80% of the time I've worked for Novell, the SCO vs Novell lawsuit has been going on. It's hard to remember a time before the lawsuit.

However after 8 years, SCO vs Novell finally had its day in court, and SCO lost. A federal jury decided today that Novell owns the Unix copyrights.

SCO's stock didn't do so well today.

BrainShare 2010

BrainShare is back.

Last year, due to the economy, BrainShare (Novell's yearly technical conference in SLC, UT) was cancelled. BrainShare's been going for 20+ years, so it was a downer that it was cancelled. It's always fun to get away from the office for a week and work at BrainShare in SLC.

Over the last few years at BrainShare, I've helped teach a number of technical sessions, however I've always been the 2nd presenter. (Where the 1st presenter created the presentation, then asked me to help teach.) Although I had helped revise presentation, I had never actually submitted the idea, it been accepted and then create the presentations myself.

However this year I decided to submit a few ideas for a technical session I wanted to teach on Privileged User Manager (the new product I took over about 9 months ago). I submitted two ideas, but they were combined into one session.

In addition to the technical session, I also helped man a booth for the product and showed demos to customers.

This is the only picture I captured.   It's the back of Rich, a co-worker of mine from the UK, and the booth that I spent most of my time at.

BrainShare was fun, but very tiring.  I drove back and forth each day.  Not sure I could ever commute an hour each way.  A typical day was leaving the house by 6:30am-7:00am and getting home around 7pm or 8pm.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre

We have a flowering pear tree in our front yard. Years ago (before we bought the house) the original owners allowed a shoot to come off of the roots (with the roots being a  real pear tree). So we have a flowering pear with the main trunk of the tree being a real pear. The problem is, the pear tree would drop it's fruit and make a mess.  So I decided to finally take the pear trunk down and leave the flowering pear (even though there is a huge whole in the middle of the tree now.

Deni came out to watch and took this action picture of me cleaning up afterwards.