Meet Joe and Billy

Ryan has officially named his ears.

The other night, I asked him why he had named his ears. His reply was:

So I can tell them apart!

Of course, why didn't I think of that. For the record, Joe is his right ear and Billy is his left ear.

Dropping off cats

When we lived in Springville, we had a neighbor that had some cats. They began feeding a few strays and then one night during dinner, Deni looked out the window and counted 8 to 10 cats outside their door. She had had enough and confronted the neighbor. Shortly there after, the cats began to disappear. We later found out that the neighbor had been trapping the cats and then taking them on a long drive out to some fields miles and miles away from our house and then letting them go. Only one of those cats actually found it's way home after a few weeks.

Although I've never had the experience of trapping cats and then driving miles and miles away from my house to drop them off, I thought of this experience as Deni asked me to drive her 10 miles up Hobblecreek Canyon and drop her off for an afternoon run. Had I wanted the "cat" experience, I could have blind folded her, driven in circles to confuse her sense of direction then dropped her off up the canyon. However we wanted her to make it home (plus she has a GPS on her phone, so she would have eventually made it home anyways -grin).

As we drove up the canyon, we decided that we would drop Deni off 6 miles up the canyon (instead of 10) and if she felt like running more, she could run towards my parents house, else she could call me and I'd come and pick her up.

After dropping Deni off, the kids and I went to the bike store to get some bike tubes for my Mountain bike and then headed to Grandma and Grandpa Bergers house for a quick visit. Of course, I went straight to my dad's garden to see how it compares to mine. His garden is ahead of mine, especially his tomatoes. Although my peas are looking better. Dad has turned into a part time gardener. Planting seeds in his basement, taking starts from his grapes and many other gardening things. I always have good intentions to plant more from seeds. Next year I'll have to get my garden planted a little earlier.

And finally, it was a friend of ours birthday today, so Deni and I offered to watch their twins and 2 other children while they had a night out. So from about 4pm to 6:30pm we had 6 kids (including our two) under 8 at the house. Lots of work, but fun to allow them a night out without kids.

Business as Usual

Ryan and Sydney started a business last week selling drinks, icee's and candy around the neighborhood. We had an old bike trailer that perfectly fits an ice chest. Ryan attaches the trailer to his bike and rides around looking for business with Sydney not far behind.

To start the business, they took out an interest free loan from good old M&D bank.

The first night they brought in just over $10.00. The next night they doubled that. Not bad for two kids. They are both excited to make money. It's been a great experience for Ryan to better understand the concept of money and he has learned that it takes alot of money to buy supplies, etc.

Measure twice, cut once

The saying goes, "Measure twice, cut once."

About 2 weeks ago, I ordered a few things online. I did some research, talked to friends and then placed the orders. I ordered an HDMI cable and some new bike tires and tubes. Two completely different items from two different websites. For whatever reason, both shipments got put on the slow boat and took forever to get here. Slowboat = USPS.

I was excited to get the HDMI cable so that I could hook up my camera to the TV and watch our videos. Each day I would come home to an empty mailbox. No packages. I had completely useless USPS tracking numbers (I'm not even sure why they have tracking numbers if you can't tell where the dang package is.)

Finally 2 weeks later, I get both of them on the same day. But..... there are a few problems.

First purchase, HDMI cables. They're HDMI cables alright, however I forgot that I needed a mini connector on one end, so I can connect it to my camera. I should have "measured twice". Now I'm going to have to have to order yet another cable and good HDMI cables aren't cheap.

Second purchase, bike tires and tubes for my mountain bike in preparation for Summer Camp. The tires are great. The tubes however have the wrong value stem. So I'm the proud owner of 4 bike tubes that won't fit any of my bikes. Because the bikes are so old (11 yrs) I assumed they were Schraeder values (the old ones similar to a car value), however the aren't, they are the newer presta values. $20 bucks down the drain.

So what did I learn from all this. Measure twice, cut once, or in my case, Check twice and buy once.

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.