Hovering Cloud

I thought winter was over w/ the usual early spring weather we get this time of year. All the bulbs have sprouted up about 4-5 inches, we've had high 40's even some days w/ low 50's for the temperature. We had three snow falls this year w/ enough snow for the kids to play. All the wonderful things about living in the PNW, just enough snow, but lots of mild weather. Well, I found out this morning that spring is not here yet. I woke up to three inches of snow in the yard. As I got in my car and drove away I noticed that no one else had any snow. I saw a news article about a new imaging program on weather.com that shows you the satellite weather in your neighborhood. I knew this would be the perfect situation to check it out. As you can see in the above picture, our house is like Charlie Brown in the cartoon. Just one cloud above us dropping snow w/ no one else getting anything. Our house is at the end of the arrow I added. Pretty crazy stuff!

Snow Camp

I took the Varsity scouts high up in the mountains (3000 ft) and did a winter camp with them. Saturday was almost too nice. I got a sun burn and had to strip down to my thermals up top to keep from sweating too much as I dug our "snow fort" (as Trevor called it). Since I set up the camp and made the lunch for the other scouts I didn't have as much time to build ours. So I compromised and just made walls, put a tarp over the top and called it good. I was a little nervous to take a five and a half year old up, but every time we have been in the snow we have to struggle to get Trey to leave. It turned out to be a good decision. We had a great time and Trevor really like getting some special father/son time together. He never cried about being cold and played the entire time.



Here is the finished product. I put two sticks across the top, below the tarp, to avoid a roof cave in, in case we got dumped on in the night. It did snow for a few hours, but not enough to do more than help with the insulation. Trevor's socks were wet when we went to bed so I took them off. I got up before him and hiked the 300 yards back to the fire pit to get it started. I told him before I left to wait for me to bring some dry clothes down so that he could be warm when he got out of his sleeping bag. A few minutes later as I was putting some logs on the freshly started fire I saw Trey walking up. He had put his sock-less feet into his frozen boots, covered his ears with his hands that he pulled into his sweater (no coat) and walked the 300 yards up to me to tell me that he had to go to the bathroom! I asked him why he didn't wait for me to bring the clothes and he said that he was sleeping and didn't remember me saying anything. Too crazy. Here is our finished product.


Here is an igloo the scouts made and a view of the lake we were next to.

Here is my "igloo" in the morning.

Here is a view from inside.

This is Bex doing his usual monkey jump from the top of the ship at the mall. The first time we saw him start to jump we about died as we ran to him thinking he was going to get hurt doing this jump 5" up and about 4' out. You can see the top of a mother's head on the far left of the picture. Well, he came up rolling and laughing because the floor surrounding the ship is soft. Other kids wanted to do the same thing but they didn't dare. He did it over and over....we were afraid he would take that confidence to the concrete, but has shown he has better judgment. Thank goodness because that was a big fear for a while.

Morning commute

As I drove into work today I heard this story on NPR

the following is a section from that story...

"At this particular village festival, Old Gao is the boss and he explains how he sees the differences between Miao and the dominant Han Chinese.

"Han Chinese don't sing mountain songs," he says. "They look at a partner's talents, their figure, their weight, their family property, etc. But we find a partner through singing. Even if someone is very ugly, the main thing is if they can sing, then they might be able to show love. People who are too good-looking just love themselves."

That struck me that they put more emphasis on one's effort they put into being a good mate than other things that we usually look at. As Marisa and I have learned in our almost 8 years of marriage, no matter how good of a match you are, you have to put a lot of effort into helping the other and not focusing on yourself.

Busy, busy

Two weeks ago was crazy because we went all over Seattle going to three different locations for one store. Cost Plus had a sale where you could get 40% off any single item in the store per person per day. We had been saving some money to buy some things for the home and couldn't believe that this deal cam along right when we were ready to buy. It usually is the exact opposite, so this was nice for a change. Anyway, we went to all three stores Friday and Saturday. That meant a lot of driving with three kids in the car...not fun. As my previous post stated last weekend was crazy due to the running around looking at model homes and stuff for a potential new home near my future office. That meant a lot of driving with three kids in the car...not fun. This past weekend we had my sister Kristin come visit. That was a lot of fun, but again we had a lot of driving in the car with three kids...not fun. It was more than made up with having my favorite sister hang out with us. I was able to spend all Friday afternoon and night with her just hanging out in Seattle the two of us.

Here is Kristin and Beckham eating at the Cheesecake Factory.




Here is Trey at the Lego store...for him the happiest place on earth!


Bex playing around the house.


The boys loving their little brother

New pix of Caeden

Sudoku

Be careful, this can be very addicting. I played and finished my first game of sudoku. You have probably heard of it or done it. If not go here and try it for free. Its quick, easy and fun.

Nature vs. Nuture

Marisa and I were both biology majors at BYU. One of the arguments you come across is nature vs nurture, meaning is something the way it is (especially human characteristics) because of how you were raised or because of your genetic makeup. It is hard to separate the two because you are usually raised by the people that gave you your genes. Last night Trevor gave us a definitive answer to this dilemma.


I was watching tv and Trey will usually go into the toy room and watch cartoons rather than watch tv with us. Last night I was flicking through the channels and he came in to ask me what I was watching. I told him nothing yet as I kept on going. I came to CMT and the "Trick My Truck" show. He said that he wanted to watch this. I have seen this show a couple time and think it is actually filmed North of Seattle, but am not a regular viewer by any means. I thought this would be a good bonding time since he never wants to watch tv together so I watched it with him. He loved it! He said that we should call them and see if they have a truck we can buy and do that to. After this and his monster truck exhaust pipe and tire selections drawing we can see he has a big interest in this and it goes to prove that genes are stronger than parental influence!

Crazy weekend

I had a couple of days off of work this past week because I was going to go to a dental conference that I later found out wasn't going to have what I wanted. So I was planning on spending some extra quality time with the family, but that didn't happen! Last week I was covering the pager for all the dentists in the area that I work. We rotate it so that it is feast/famine rather than random annoying calls just from our patients all year. I like it that way so that I only have to deal w/ being on call every once in a while. Anyway, being on the pager made me think of how I will not have that option when I open my own practice and how it will not be a lot of fun to do the 20 minute drive up to the office on Sunday afternoon to fix someone's tooth that hurts too much to wait until Monday. That usually doesn't happen since I can call in some pain meds or antiobiotics, but I don't look forward to the times I do have to go in. That got me to thinking about looking for houses again up at the ridge where my practice will be...when all of the sudden we found what looked like a great opportunity. Problem was that some other people wanted it, but we had spoken to the developer first so we had first right of refusal, but we had to decide before the weekend. I hate having to make big decisions fast and I hate even more having to make a decision that I don't feel like I have all the needed information on. With those two phobias we went crazy going all over the Seattle area to see a model of the floor plan we want, what options the builders offer, check out the lot a couple of times, see other models w/ the exterior color options that we would have to choose, visit the local ward, talk with friends that live there, etc., etc. It was crazy. I feel bad for the boys because they had to be drug around everywhere with us. We fasted on Sunday and at the end of the fast we both felt like we should let this opportunity pass by. The biggest negative was the yard. As you may know, builders in Seattle build houses on very, very, very small lots. Basically, the majority of homes built in the last few years are the kind where you can touch your neighbor's house from your side windows. We are not fans of that. You have to be patient to get a lot w/ a yard. This one had a good sized lot, but the home placement was at 45 degrees to normal and made the corner of the house cut the long rectangle of the back yard into two triangles. The upside to all the running around is that we know better what is available and what we would like. Also, we are a little more open to moving to that area, but we will have to be patient and wait for the right opportunity to come along.

Blessing, Carson's Shirt and feeding time

The boys love to feed the baby, Trey does a good job. Bex struggles, but is doing much better.


We love to put our babies' hair in mowhawks until it is too long, this is more of a fauxhawk though.



Here are a couple pictures of Caeden in his blessing outfit last Sunday when I blessed him. He wore the same white suit that his two older brothers wore and was made from left over material from Marisa's wedding dress.


Here is my new shirt. I have wanted this for a loooong time. It is my tribute to Chuck Norris shirt.

I got to design it online, but made a mistake. After watching too many snow boarding movies I misspelled shed and wrote shred :( If you want to see more amazing facts about chuck norris visit here

Caeden's blessing

This past Sunday we blessed Caeden in our home ward. Everything went well and we felt the spirit strongly. I will post some pictures of him in his outfit soon. It was the same one we blessed the other two boys in. He was in a blanket his Grandma Calderwood made and the outfit was made by his Grandma Pond with leftover material from Marisa's wedding dress.

He is only a few days away from one month and the two major problems we have had with the other boys still have not occurred...crying and spitting up. We have been cautious and tried not to get our hopes up, but at this point we are letting our fingers uncross and our hopes rise. Both Trevor and Beckham were big spitter-uppers by now and did a lot of crying. Caeden seriously never cries unless he is hungry. Even that cry is only for a second to let us know then he waits a couple minutes before starting up again. When he is awake he just sits there and looks around. We still can't believe it. We have friends who had babies like this, but we just figured out genes wouldn't allow it. Each baby has gotten easier. If this trend keeps up we'll never stop! J/K, each pregnancy has gotten harder, but I think it has been a fair trade (especially for me), 9 months versus 18 years...

Trey's Art

For some reason I can't add pictures to the blog from home anymore. So, now that I am back at work here they are...

This is Trey's picture to Risa for Valentine's day:


Trey saw some commercial for a monster truck rally and he got very excited. He thought he would design some exhaust pipes and tires:

This is an alligator that Trey designed himself. He cut pieces of green construction paper up to make a scaly back:


This is Trey's prehistoric drawing. He has a volcano, some dinosaurs and his favorite, the pterodactyl:
My brother Cody is in dental school so Trey drew him a picture of a mouth with everything from sparkley teeth to a uvula:

This is an outer space picture: