And so my Christmas season begins, kinda...

I make no secret of it. I am not a Christmas person. Personally, I have allways hated the commercialism of it. I really don't mind giving gifts, but I will not accept them for myself. Same with birthday gifts, but that's another day. I also don't really like the decorating, so Amy does it all herself. One thing I do look forward to each year, though, is a concert. We've kinda made it a family tradition each year (except for 2006 right after Cameron was born) to attend Peter Breinholt's Christmas concert. I first heard Peter's first Album, Songs About the Great Divide, as a missionary (don't give me that crap that I shouldn't have been listening because it wasn't hymns). He's a wonderful folk musicial from Salt Lake. Last year and this year, they added a couple of acts to the lineup. Peter was joined by Ryan Shupe and the Rubber Band and Sam Payne. You may have heard some of RSATRB, they had a small hit a year or so ago call "Dream Big" that was used by NBC as the theme to some reality-type show that only lasted a couple of episodes. They play a wonderful mix of everything from folk to bluegrass to celtic and even calypso on a couple of songs with Ryan on the fiddle and an incredible group of musicians on acoustic and electric guitars, mandolin and another bigger mandolin looking thingy, bass and double bass, and percussion. Sam Payne is rapidly becoming a favorite of mine. He's a folk singer with an amazing gift for storytelling. He's also an accompished jazz musician. This year, the concert, called "The Gift", was the Christmas in the Canyons concert at Tuacahn Ampitheater in St. George, UT. The scenery was beautiful, the night brisk, but not too cold, and as allways, we had good seats, 3rd row right. Not as good as last year when we had front row center, but good none the less. Once again, all the guys put on an amazing show, from the Celtic inspired opening number done by everyone, I Saw Three Ships, Sam scatting on a number of songs (he's awesome at it), to the allways uplifting Dream Big, Sam's song All the Christmas they need (allways my favorite song of the night, brings me to tears), and they allways finish it off with Silent Night with the audience helping out (I've got a video of it I'll post, though I didnt have my phone ready and missed the first bit of it). I would love to post some pictures, but I couldn't bring the DSLR in because they had no video or photo posted outside the auditorium. We did bring in the little Canon, and I did get a few pics off without the flash, but I don't know how they turned out as I havent looked at them yet, but I'll post some if they turned out ok. Do yourself a favor and pick up their Christmas albums. I know they are avalible at Deseret Book and also from Amazon's MP3 store, or directly from the artits at their websites (If you pick they up, pick them up directly from the artists so they actually see the money from them). I may be reordering Sam Payne's Christmas album as I cant seem to find my copy and I didn't seem to rip it. Each of them also tours quite a bit and look for them to come to your areas. If anything, they are again doing next year's show in St. George again. Its not too bad of a drive (from Phoenix, easiest thing is go to Vegas, hop on I-15, and it's about 100 miles north). The scenery is beautiful (check out Snow Canyon just north of town, I've got some pics on Flickr I took there about a month ago) and hotel rooms are plentiful and usually pretty cheap.




Here's the video of Silent Night. Excuse the lousy quailty as I took it on my phone.

Here's a youtube video of Sam Payne singing All the Christmas They Need.



Peter Breinholt singing an original song, Christmas Eve Song, also from youtube



and Ryan Shupe and the Rubberband video for Dream Big

Shopping

I am proud to say that I am mostly done with Christmas shopping! I HATE waiting until after Thansgiving because it is nearly impossible to find what I want and then I stress over whether it will arrive on time if I ordered it online. I can't stand long lines and crazy crowds trying to buy the same items and being grumpy, so I just avoid it. Heck, if I could avoid food shopping from a week before Thanksgiving to a week after Christmas I would!

So I am pleased with myself this year. I bought all the kids presents & most stocking stuffers. Parents are taken care of as well. I even have everything except one item for our communities Christmas Elves program for needy families. I will buy that tomorrow to get that done too.

I even have gifts for Collin's birthday so we are doing great. Of course, I spent way too much in one month to get everything but that is to be expected. I always overspend! Thankfully Devin works a ton of overtime in the winter to cover it all. I sure love that man.

So how are you doing with preparing for the holiday?

I'm getting old

Devin and I were enjoying a relaxing afternoon together yesterday with Cameron taking a nap and Contessa and Collin at school. All of a sudden Devin tells me not to move and pulls out a piece of my hair. WHAT was he thinking?! Anyway, so it turns out that particular piece of hair was not any shade of brown or red like most of the others. No this one was white. Then he proceeds to pull out 7 more! I am officially getting old. I'm not even 30! Heck, I'm not even 29 so why am I going gray already?

I guess that's just the way things are. At least I'm not alone, Devin had much more gray than I do! HAHA!

For the love of shoes!

Cameron needed a new pair of shoes. Seriously, when don't kids need new shoes! So we took him to took for some. We eventually found a pair of Yo Gabba Gabba shoes in his size. He loved them. He loved them so much that he took them with him to bed last night! He set them on the edge of the bed and pulled the blanket over them. I'm assuming he wanted to keep them warm! It was really cute. He was so excited to have his new shoes. He's been wearing them since he woke up. Oh, for the love...of shoes.

(Of course, I "needed" new shoes too and ended up with 2 pairs of boots! I have never spent so much on shoes for me before. But I love them.)

It's a BOY!

So we didn't mean to find out what we were having, but we know now that we are having another boy. His due date is March 24 and so far everything looks great. He moves around alot and is constantly enjoying the bouncy-ness (is that a word?!) of my bladder. We will have to do some rearranging of rooms in the future, but we are excited to welcome him into the world in less than 19 weeks. YEA! Over 1/2 way through.

He's 2!!!

Cameron is 2 today! I can't believe how fast time goes. He is such a fun kid to be around and even though he definately has an attitude as well. I'm just hoping we don't have another day where I spend time cleaning his crib wishing it was chocolate I was cleaning up. I'm not sure if I can handle that anymore!

Pregnancy Update

I thought I would just give a quick update. I am now 16 weeks (5 months if you prefer). I saw the doctor yesterday and the heartbeat is steady and strong. I have an ultrasound scheduled in 4 weeks on Nov. 3rd so that should be fun. Devin doesn't want to find out what it is, and I am in agreement so we probably won't know what we are having until the birth.

It is quite inconvenient to have to travel so far to see the doctor for 5 minutes! We left our house at 3:50am and got home at 6:15pm. We were so exhausted we put the kids to bed about 6:50pm and didn't hear a peep from any of them! We tried to stay up, but at 7:15pm we were ready to crash, so we did. Pretty pathetic! It was a long day, but we were able to get some needed groceries and we even got a few birthday presents for Contessa & Cameron plus a new carseat for Cameron. So all in all it went well. Of course, I was sick most of the day, so poor Devin had to deal with everything plus the kids pretty much on his own. He didn't complain though. He encouraged me to sit as often as possible which really helped.

So that is were we are at with this pregnancy. Everything seems to be going well so far.

Goals...

They say the key to goals is to write them down so that you can look at them and have something to work towards.  I think this has really been my problem with goals through out my life.  I dont write them down, and I dont let other people know them.  So I guess I'll try that here.

1.  Lose weight-I don't have any specific number in mind, but I know its alot.  My biggest problem has been a lack of motivation.  I went to my doctor a few months ago for a check up, hoping that would scare me into it.  Unfortunatly (or fortunatly), to use his words, I was "shockingly healther than I should be".  I was a little worried about by TSH as it was borderline low, and thyroid inactivity I learned runs on my mother's side, but I also don't want to commit to daily medication the rest of my life.

2.  Be a better father.  I know I'm not a bad father, I just don't feel like a good father.  I guess I'm spoiled in this regard.  My father was an incredible father, and my father in law is just as good.  Also, I had alot of good examples growing up in young mens.  I really am trying harder to become more involed in Tessa's and Collin's lives in paticular, as I don't feel I had the same type of relationship with them at the stage in life Cam is at when they were that age, and sometimes I feel like I might portray to them I like him more that I like them, which is not the case at all.  

3.  Become a happy person.  I know, this is not me at all.  I'm eternaly pessimistic, glass half empty, sarcastic, and sometimes just a plain a-hole.  I have a touch of manic depression.  Lately, my manic periods are getting shorter and my depressed periods are getting longer.  I tried SSRIs (antidepressents)  a couple of years back and felt worse being on them than being off of them, so I quit them.  For someone who works in the medical field, I am extremly distrustful of western medicine.  Pharmacuticles in this country are nothing but marketing hype instead of solutions most of the time.  But I think my biggest obstacle in this is I've been fighting it alone.  I think this is the closest to opening up I have ever been.  I like to keep my private things private, but sometimes, I think I have to give in and let others help every once and a while.

4.  I want to see every national park, at least in the Western US.  I not only want to do this for me, but for my kids.  I want them to see the wonders God has created.  I am ashamed to say, I grew up in Arizona and lived there for 25 years and I never saw the Grand Canyon untill a year ago.  And I only scratched the surface there.  I am within a day's drive of so many places, less than a few hours to a lot of them, and Great Basin NP is in my backyard.  I hope I will realize how miserable theme parks are and visit a NP or two instead.

5. Visit England again.  Most people don't know this, but when I got my mission call to England all those years ago, I hated it.  I thought there had to be a mistake.  I was supposed to go to South America.  I kinda kept my disappointment hid, because it seems like in LDS culture, to serve in Brittan is consitered a great achevement.  I even had people ask me how I managed to get to go there.  They thought I must have slipped a few Benjamins' in with my papers.  In fact, I almost consitered comming home twice.  Once when I was out after about two and a half months, and again at about 18 months.  But I thank God for understanding and inspired mission presidents who help me realized the importance of my work.  I learned to love the people and the country.  I still have a few quirky habits like occasionally saying distinctly British things and a love of Marmite, which I have almost every morning at work.  Ive even been told on occasion that I have a bit of a accent, which is funny, since its been almost 10 years, and I never really had a accent to begin with.  I also hope to once again find the level of spirituality I had then.

6.  Become a better husband.  I've got to give it to Amy.  She puts up with a lot of sh!t from me.  I sometimes wonder why she's stuck around.  I'm glad she has, as I couldn't afford a divorce at this point.  (Clarification-I know Ive been pretty serious this whole post, but this is the sarcastic side of me peeking out)  I'm a good provider of all things physical (at least I like to think I'm a good provider if you know what I mean!), but I have a lot to work on as far as emotional.  I think working on my own self esteem and self image will really help me out as far as this one goes.  When I can truly love myself, loving others will come naturally.

What I've realized in the last few paragraphs are 1.  I shouldn't blog after being up all night at work and working all the next day, and 2., well, I cant think of that right now, but I will at some point.  So anyways, post up a goal of two of yours and that way we can guilt each other into acheving our goals.

Another cash offering made to the Mother Church of the Cult of Mouse

I hate theme parks.  I hate the parking, I hate the prices of tickets.  I hate the crowds.  I hate the lines.  But year after year, I somehow decide that this year will be diffrent and make a pilgramage to some theme park located usually somewhere in Southern California.  First off, the location.  Southern California really has to be one of the most beautiful places on earth.  Too bad its full of Californians.  For you Californians out there, why do you feel entitled to allways drive in the left lane when faster traffic comes up behind you, even if the right lane(s) are empty?  And do you know what the cruise control in your car is for?  Anyways, I digress.  Californians aside, it looked like this would be a decent trip.  We arived in excellent time, even after my GPS put me on two toll roads, one for 2.5 miles, and another for 1 mile, costing me $4 for less than 4 miles of driving, and not to mention, it took us around the back side of Garden Grove/Anaheim, and we had to drive back into town.  The hotel, the Hyatt Orange County/Garden Grove, was a very nice hotel with nice hotel amenities like $15 a day parking, $10/day internet (thank goodness for ICS in Windows Mobile and a unlimited data plan), and $5 for two tylenol.  But luckily we were across the street from a Target and lots of resturants.  So Friday comes and we load up on the shuttle bus (was very nice not to have to pay parking at Disneyland) and off to the park with the other perfect yuppie couples.  Things for the most part went pretty well this day.  We took a mid day break and Amy and Cameron took a nap while the other kids and me went to lunch and to browse around Fry's electronics for a while.  We went back to California Adventure later that evening and it was decent (it sucked the only other time I went there).  Saturday was a diffrent story.  It was packed.  It was hot.  It was humid.  We were miserable.  We did go to Blue Bayou since it was Tessa's birthday and had lunch there.  The only other time I had gone to Blue Bayou was 9 years ago when I went with Amy's family when we were dating.  It seems since then, they have upgraded the resturant from casual dining to fine dining, and by adding the occasional white aspargus and other fancy ingredient, have found a way to double the prices.  We droped a C-note on lunch, and that was not including the birthday bucket we had ordered the week before when we made the reservation that they didnt bring, but then again they didn't charge us for.  I guess I'm just not geneticly inclined to go to theme parks for more than one day.  As a kid, the trips we took to places like this were wake up early, drive there, do it, and come home that night.  I just cant go on the same rides over and over (except Pirates of the Carribean, my all time favorite).  I did go on quite a few rides I had never gone on before since I am a huge wuss and was afraid of them.  I quite enjoyed Splash Mountain and Indiana Jones.  I also went on Autopia for the first time ever, and it sucked.  The only ride I didnt like was Soaring over California.  Collin and Tessa loved it.  They went on it twice, once with Amy and once with me.  I hated it, I was freaked out the whole time.  I'm not much of a flyer to begin with, and between the simulated close encounters with the mountains, ocean, and land, the thing that freaked me out the most was seeing the feet dangeling from the row in front of us.  Saturday night, we headed out to Ontario to meet up with Scott, Miss, and her kids Sam and Ethan.  We went to the Ontario Mills Mall and had dinner at a resturant there.  Those Mills mall people have the same archetectural vision as the LDS church.  It was exactly the same as AZ Mills.  I guess they want you to know where you are going whether you are in Ontario, Tempe, or wherever else they build their malls.  And I would once again like to thank my GPS for not only sending me about 20 miles out of my way, but also putting me into the middle of a huge traffic jam.  Whoever said technology was making our lives easier was full of it.

Just an Update

I guess I should get back to actually updating this thing! Man, I have been lazy.

I am now 12 weeks and everything seems to be going well. I had a check-up Monday and no problems so far. YEAH! I am mostly over the morning sickness, but it does hit me on occassion still. I am also forced into maternity clothes as my other "fat" clothes don't fit anymore. I am going to get sick of them fast!

Contessa is enjoying 2nd grade and just started girl scouts and soccer which she loves both. I am the "cookie mom" so I may be contacting everyone to buy a dozen boxes of cookies each in February & March! So start saving up now! (just kidding, I will only make you buy 6!)

Collin loves kindergarten and riding the bus. He is also starts soccer today.

I have Cameron's schedule perfect now! After I drop off Collin for afternoon kindergarten, Cameron takes a nap so I get 2 1/2 hours to myself! YEAH for me! I love this schedule.

We are hoping to visit family the end of October since it will be the last opportunity before I can't travel anymore (plus Devin's work is crazy in the winter). We will see if we can pull it off.

So that is the little update on our family. Maybe I will update more often. I'll see if I feel like being less lazy!