Ryan's 6 mile ride

We went for a little bike ride on Sunday with the kids. Sydney was behind me in the trailer and Ryan was riding his bike. At the end of the bike ride Ryan rode up a very difficult hill. When we pulled into our house, I looked at my odometer and noticed that we had gone 6 miles. Deni and I were both impressed with Ryan's biking skills at 6 yrs old.

Survived Brainshare

Well I made it through my week at Brainshare. I thought I would take a picture of the room I taught in. Although the room wasn't filled with people, we were given one of the biggest rooms to teach in. I taught 3 times (M, W, and F.) It's nice to be done.

As I was leaving Brainshare, I took a few pictures from outside the Salt Palace.

Goo Goo Dolls

Every year during Brainshare, Novell flies in a band for a private evening concert for the Brainshare attendees and Novell employees (and friends). This year it was the Goo Goo Dolls. Although I'm not a huge fan, the concert was great and I recognized more songs than I thought I would.

The concert was in the Energy Solutions Arena. We were on the floor about 15 rows back from the stage. Deni and I had a great time. Before the concert there was a comedian, who was extremely funny. We both laughed and laughed.

Brainshare 2007 and new camera

Well the last few weeks have been quite busy at work. Among other things, I've been preparing for a session (class) that I'm teaching at Brainshare (Novell's yearly technical conference in Salt Lake City, Utah.)

I got a new camera yesterday and decided to try out a few of the new features in it. I can take a picture and focus only on a certain color and the rest of the picture is black and white. Pretty cool.

Don't let the bed buzz bite

I've been meaning to write this down for some time, but for the last week or two, when I put Sydney down for bed I tell her goodnight and go to leave. Right about the time I get the door shut, she yells for me. I open the door to see what she needs and she says: "Dad, don't let the bed buzz bite."

I think it is cute and something worth remembering.

Sydney the Giant

Sydney and her cousin, Mataya, had matching outfits for church today. Of course this was done by their Uncle Ben. They looked cute. Sydney is my little baby girl and I always think of her as such, however when a real baby is around, Sydney becomes a giant.

These are the pictures we took after church today. Sydney and Mataya, then Ryan, Sydney and Mataya.

Ryan's Bone Marrow Turns 6

Today was a busy day. I woke up about 5am and couldn't go back to sleep. I had taken the day off to go fishing with my dad. There is something about waking up early and going fishing. I can't wake up early like this any other day, but the days I go fishing, I'm up and can't go back to sleep.

Deni's sister, Jessica (and her husband Nic and baby Mataya) arrived at our house about 6am from Arizona. They drove all night to get here. They will be staying with us for the next few days to visit.

My dad arrived at 6:30am all ready to go fishing. We decided to go to Scofield again. We usually catch fish when we go to Scofield and we can keep them, unlike going to Strawberry. It started snowing on the way up Spanish Fork Canyon. Driving in snow up to your fishing spot isn't the best of signs. The canyon was very snowy and slick. When we got to Scofield it was cold and windy. Not too long after we got there it started snowing. The drive out to our fishing spot on the snowmobiles was odd. I was following Dad and he got about 50 yards ahead of me and I couldn't see him because of the fog, snow and wind. When we got to the spot, we set up Dad's new Ice fishing hut. Without the ice fishing hut, we would not have stayed out there fishing. At times I thought the ice hut was going to blow away.

Quick story about the wind. The ice hut has an internal frame and the wind was blowing so hard, it knocked off one of the pieces of the internal frame, which hit dad in the head and of all the places it could fall, it fell pole down into one of the 4 ten inch ice holes we had drilled. It all happened so fast, that I didn't have time to catch it. I watched it sink and then saw it on the fish finder for a minute. Then it was gone. For the next minute or so, bubbles were coming up, probably because the pole was filling with water. The pole we lost was one of 2 braces that kept the tent's from folding in.

As you can tell from the picture, the snow wasn't falling down, it was blowing sideways.

I caught one fish, a rainbow, about 14 inches long. I threw it out on the snow outside of the tent. Within about 30 minutes the fish was frozen stiff. Dad got about 3 bites but missed the fish. I didn't feel any other bites the whole day.

We were hoping the wind would die down, but it never did. When we left to come home, our snowmobile tracks we covered over and you couldn't see too far ahead of you, maybe 25 yards, at most.



We got everything on the trailer and headed home about 1:15pm. As we pulled on to Highway 6, I looked back, only to see the lid to Dad's trailer blow off. I told Dad and he quickly stopped, I jumped out and started running back down the road waving at people to go around it. About 4 cars went around it. The final 4th truck was a semi and he drove right over it and smashed the lid. I picked the pieces up and ran back to the truck. We secured it back on and headed home.

Today is also Ryan's Bone Marrow Birthday. It has been 6 years since the amazing transplant day in Los Angeles, CA. I'm amazed each day that Ryan is healthy without any side effects. We are on a email list with others that have similar problems as Ryan. I would say that at least 90% of the kids don't have anywhere the quality of life or health that Ryan has. We are very blessed to have Ryan alive and healthy with a fully functioning immune system.

For Ryan's Bone Marrow birthday he got a Wii points card with 2000 points. He can use the points card to download older nintendo games. We downloaded Mario Kart 64 (it cost 1000 points, or $10.00).

We had my parents over for dinner to celebrate Ryan's 6th bone marrow birthday. After dinner, Ryan talked my parents into going down stairs to play the Wii.

My mom even played a game against Ryan on the Wii. They played Tennis and Ryan got beat by his grandma.

Fishing for Sydney's toe

Deni called me at work this morning to tell me that Sydney had a fishhook in her foot. Having had a fishhook in my leg as a kid, I knew that if the barb wasn't showing then it would probably be a Emergency Room visit.

Deni explained where the hook was. I decided I would drive home from work to attempt to get it out myself before trying to get into the Dr. When I got home I had to cut off Sydney's tights, so I could get a good look at the hook. Cutting the tights was a traumatic event for my little 3 year old girl. Once I got a look at it, it didn't look too bad, as the fish hook had already gone in and was starting to come out on the other side. I grabbed my wire cutters, found a hook that was similar in my fishing gear and attempted to cut it, so I knew how hard it would be. It cut easily, which gave me some hope. Next was the fun part, explaining to a 3yr old that she needed to stay still so Daddy could get the hook out of her toe without hurting her. She was saying "no, no, no," and "cut it off". Both comments were referring to the hook.

Deni held Sydney and attempted to hold her foot still. I cut the eyelit off, pushed it a little more through until I was able to cut the barb. At that point, it came right out. Sydney was glad it was out. She wanted a band-aid even though it wasn't bleeding, so we got one for her.

After getting the hook out, I went back to work.

Wii played it

We sat down as a family last night and talked to the kids about doing their chores, etc. After doing that we asked them if they could have anything they wanted, what would it be. (hoping to hear that they wanted a Nintendo Wii).

Ryan said he wanted a play weedeater.

Deni and I looked at each other, surprised that he didn't ask for an Xbox 360 or Nintendo Wii. Deni's reply was, "Dad didn't get that, but he got you something else that sounds like "wii"deater. She had to say it a few times before he caught on that we had bought a Nintendo Wii. He was excited and we all ran into the tv room to play with it.

The first game we played was from the Wii Sports disk, Boxing. Ryan was first and had a good time. Deni videoed him playing. It was funny. We even had to put something in his way so that he didn't get to close to the tv. I can just see him hitting the tv while he is boxing.

We all played games. Baseball, Tennis, Golf. They are all pretty fun. The Wii is not your average a game console.

Wii have it

I finally broke down and bought a game console for our family. After taking a look at the Nintendo Wii, I became obsessed with getting it. The Nintendo Wii is pretty cool.

Deni has been trying to find one for the last week, since I (we) made the decision to purchase one. She found that Toys R Us had one this morning, so she quickly made the drive to Orem to purchase it.

I'm sure I'll have more to share about it later, once we actually get it set up and play with it, but for now, we are excited we were able to find one.