Month: March 2007

I call Gwen’s new hairdo a Lloyd Christmas impersonation. Julie calls it pixie bangs, which is a bit of a stretch if you ask me. The poor girl has been “Lloyded” for the first time, but probably not the last. Each of the girls has suffered a similar fate at one time or another. If you don’t remember Lloyd (consider yourself lucky), he’s Jim Carrey’s character from the classic Dumb and Dumber show.

Yeah. That’s Gwenyth.

The weather has been really great, but apparently that’s all about to change. It’s 60 right now, and that’s probably the highest it will get for 4 or 5 days. We’re supposed to get quite a whopper of a storm tomorrow night and Wednesday. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see more snow out of this one than we’ve seen all season. One last hurrah, I guess.

We had a very exciting FHE tonight. Grace gave us a lesson, each of the girls performed a solo, and we heard Abby and Grace express their testimonies. If was touching. Julie was nearly in tears as she beamed watching her girls. Those scriptures were the greatest gifts ever. Thanks Grandpa. Abby will not sleep until she’s read a chapter each night, and she insists on starting in Genesis, so I think it’s a little slow going. Grace is doing just as well. She has a kids version that she reads along with the real thing, but they’re both very proud as they carry their scriptures around at church.

Things are moving along. It’s ebb and flow with the house hunting. I guess I’m just too stubborn and I read too much about different markets. I see the number of homes here going pretty high and I see that Utah is still #1 in the country for mortgage fraud, despite the “hot” market (or maybe it’s because of it). Anyway, we may be getting closer to something. Maybe that something is another rental. Who knows.

Susi, you’ll be happy to see Gwenyth’s new favorite shirt. Something about Whirled Peas. That girl has had numerous lights go on since her birthday party. She’s nobody’s fool. She also continues to chunk up. Enjoy the Lloyd pictures.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/midder/

And here’s yet another video, taken in Grandpa Jenkins’ treehouse:

[googlevideo]-3249021386260970725[/googlevideo]

Some time in the last few weeks, Grace memorized my cell phone number, and she hasn’t been shy about using it since. I think that I got 5 calls from her today. Sometimes she’ll call just to say hello, sometimes she’ll call from the next room just to do it. Once she called me at work and said, “Um, daddy? Could you please talk to Ellie?” Ellie is her friend. I told her that I needed to work and that she should go play with her friend. She called back about 30 seconds later and said, “Hello, Daddy? Ellie really wants to talk to you.” So I said OK. There was silence for about 5 seconds, then she comes back on and says, “Daddy? I guess she doesn’t want to talk to you.” Classic Grace.

Julie took Lucy and Gwenyth into the doctor today. They were both supposed to get shots, but Julie held off on Lucy because she’s had an infection for a while. The nurses were concerned about Gwenyth’s weight still, until they noticed that she had gained nearly 3 pounds since her last appointment less than a month ago. So she’s still in the 1% category for weight, but she’s starting to chunk out. A few more cheeseburgers and lots of chocolate milk and she should be “normal” soon.

We’re still trying to figure out what we want to do about where to live. I haven’t quite convinced Julie to put her tin foil hat on, pitch a tent, and wait out the next depression that is to come. I’m sure that’s the impression she has of me sometimes, especially because I find myself thinking that, seeing all the foreclosures, fraud, and general nonsense that goes on. I guess I’m just nervous about it all and don’t want to be completely strapped. My how my attitude has changed in 6 months or so.
We’ve had some great weather lately. It’s been a little cooler the past few days — it’s been really nice. It was starting to feel almost too warm there for a while. The girls are outside playing nearly every day and having a good time. Lucy and Gwenyth are starting to play well together, but Gwen is turning a little too spicy for even Lucy, so it’s interesting to watch them interact.

More later.

We just spend a very fun 4 days with Grandma and Grandpa Elcock. We all had a great time and I think that the visit was just long enough for Grandma and Grandpa to not go crazy, so that’s a good thing.

Friday was spent at work as normal, trying to get the poor Hyundai back from the shop. Apparently on my most recent gas fillup (they don’t happen all that often anymore), the gas cap broke somehow. So, to make a long story short, I drove around with a leaky gas cap for a few days, got a new one, the new one didn’t vent correctly, and so my car sounded like it had a few mice hanging out in the back, hammering away when I started up the car and then again when I turned it off. My car apparently has a plastic gas tank, so the noises were the gas tank contracting with the pressure, then expanding again once the pressure was released. Fun.

Friday night the girls and Grandma and Grandpa went to Thanksgiving Point. There were baby sheep and goats that had literally been born a few hours earlier. Abby, Grace, and even Gwenyth rode the ponies as well. Friday night we got some take out grub from a local burrito joint, Costa Vida. It was good. Lucy still wasn’t feeling too well (we found out she had a horrible urinary tract infection) so we laid low the rest of the day.

Saturday was the big party. Being St Patrick’s Day and all, we had the whole place decked out in green (even the food). We had the Elcock contingency (us, Susi, Chris Werner) and the Jenkins contingency (Eliece, Jackson, Douglas, Amanda, Karen Beth, Doug & Bev, Amy, Stephanie — I think that’s all). The groups were “segregated” by seating arrangement. I think that the cause was the Jenkins are even faster to the food than the Elcocks are, if you can believe that. We all had a great time. Gwenyth finally got some toys of her own. Julie and mom later went out on one of their many housing hunts. Later on, we went to Tepanyaki Steak House in Lehi. It was great. We got there around 5pm, so there was no wait at all. The girls ate all of their shrimp and then some. I can’t resist scallops when I see them on a menu, and they didn’t disappoint. We were all still decked out in our green, so we looked pretty awesome.

Sunday was church. Julie and I did our thing in nursery (and did it quite well, I might add) while Grandma and Grandpa brought Lucy and Gwenyth home for some fun. I think the real reason was that Grandpa wanted to play some more Yahtzee . . . Sunday afternoon we had some great roast and potatoes.

Today was fun as well. The girls went to school and I worked until about 2:30. We had a quick lunch at Kneader’s. Then Grandpa took Grace to the distribution center where he bought she and Abigail some new scriptures. They were so excited. They’ve both been reading them literally all night. Later in the afternoon we took Abby, Grace, and Lucy to Cabella’s while Julie, Mom, and Gwenyth went and looked at more houses. We saw fish, deer, elk, moose (meese?), mountain lions, etc. Grace asked how all of the animals got there. We explained how people hunt them, so they are shot and then stuffed. There was a little display there of a mechanical guy talking about different things. He was rubber or some other synthetic material, but looked pretty real. Abby looked at him for a while, and said, “Daddy, was he shot and then stuffed, too?” Hmmm.

All in all it was a great time and we really appreciate all the great things we were able to do. We know it’s not easy to come up here, but we had a wonderful time — and the weather was more than cooperative as well. Thanks mom and dad, we love you!

Who’s coming next?

There are more videos coming, but Google video is still “processing” them. I’ll update it in the AM.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/midder/

[googlevideo]-6252189265955889708[/googlevideo]

[googlevideo]2206507615379175717[/googlevideo]

[googlevideo]-8563188965290732797[/googlevideo]

[googlevideo]-3586503564922845263[/googlevideo]

[googlevideo]-5823814179912939582[/googlevideo]

Today was another installment of gymnastics down at the PG center. Julie decided to take the camera so that she could record some of the action for posterity. Most of what ended up being recorded was Gwenyth cheesing at the camera. Apparently she does auto-cheese now when you point a camera at her. That’s why there are so many pictures of her.

You can see that the girls need some new gear for gymnastics. Abby’s is at least 2 sizes too small, but she doesn’t seem to mind. In fact, once she got home, she laced her roller skates up and went around the neighborhood like a purple flamingo, long legs and all. I’m not too sure that the neighbors were impressed, but I enjoyed watching her try to navigate the not so flat streets here. Luckily there is grass to break her many falls.

Grandma and Grandpa Elcock are coming tomorrow night for what promises to be loads of fun. We’ll try and entertain the best we can, though we all know why they’re coming. Hopefully they’ll be as excited about seeing the girls on Monday as they seem to be now. The girls are all excited wondering what sorts of fun things we’ll do.

Gwen turns one tomorrow (today I guess, it’s after midnight). Hard to believe. Maybe that’s why she’s extra cheesy.

Oh, by the way, Suns rule.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/midder/

[googlevideo]5396705534296856215[/googlevideo]

[googlevideo]-1477816481983491827[/googlevideo]

[googlevideo]8310767702228059382[/googlevideo]