Journeyman (Nerd?)

Our friend Jill had an unfortunate post on her blog about a boggle-esque game that you can play online. Two bad things...1) I love boggle, 2) I love competition. This game combines both and I have to resist playing it.

Join the fun...oh, and thanks Jill. Think you can do better???

I also took the nerd test on that site and had the following results.

Just how I would have wanted it.

Late edit: below is Risa's...

House update

Here are some updates of our house. The top picture is the view off of the upstairs deck as it looks to the human eye.


The one below is the camera view that shows part of the view we have up on the hill where we live.This is the back showing part of the back yard and the second level patio.


A view of the Olympics from the right side of the second level patio.

The front of the house.

Things are really moving along quickly. Because of some of the add ons that we chose the closing date has been pushed back to March 26th. That is good for us so that we can sale (SELL) in the spring rather than later winter. I just wish the practice could have gone this quickly!

Halloween

Here are the long awaited pictures from last Friday's crazy Halloween/dinner party.

I can not be held responsible for any of the actions taken in these pictures.

If you were there and want to download any of the originals in the slide show you can get them here. I have others that I will email later. Click on the slide show to view a slower, color, no flowers version that I couldn't figure out how to post here.

I'm just a little boy!

Lately, Beckham has been nearly impossible. That he's a "handful" or in the "terrible twos" doesn't even begin to describe it. He has been making messes literally faster than I can clean them up, yelling at us, and not responding to any punishments. He has gotten into a lot of trouble the past couple of weeks pulling the books off his bookshelf and also making "barricades" to doorways with pillows, chairs, and whatever else is close at hand. I took all his books away and have given him some "long time outs" in his room but it hasn't seemed to help.

So this morning in a total time of about 30 seconds he barricaded the entrance to his room with a huge pile consisting of all his pillows from his bed, the toy bins that were left on his bookshelf AND the shelves and ALL of the clothes out of his dresser. I said that was a very big no-no and we were going to clean it up right away. First he laid down on the pillows and said he was "too tired." I got him to start handing me clothes to put away in his dresser but then he ran downstairs. I ran after him and he yelled at me in his meanest voice "No Mommy! No clean up!" So I decided it was time to pull out the hot sauce. Having seen his older brother receive this punishment a few times, he thought it would be fun and promptly stuck out his tongue. After I put the drop on it, he fake-cried for a few seconds to mimick Trevor and then his eyes got wide and he started crying, "It's too spicy!" After calming down, we were headed up the stairs and he turned to me and said "No more hot sauce, Mommy. I'm just a little boy!"

Where does he get it?

Explanation

So posts have been admittedly weak lately (EDIT: I didn't know this, but while I was typing this post Marisa posted the one above). The last post is like a good book w/ a lousy cover though. If you click on the link you can make a quick free personalized phone call that will be sent to a person of your choice that is pretty cool, no strings attached. You'll have to try it out.

So, I have a lot of cool pictures to post that we have taken lately, but I haven't had the time to upload them to my computer. I have not been home much at all lately and here are the reasons:

1. Three crazy boys, need I say more? Marisa has her hands full and I can't offload much to her. Although, she does a great job of tackling other things when time allows for it.
2. Moving to a new house. This has two aspects. The first is making all the decisions of how to have the new home built (exterior/interior/yard). It is a custom home builder so the choices are many. We tend to analyze EVERYTHING before coming to our final decision so that has sucked up a lot of time. The second is trying to get our house ready to sale. That includes patching holes in walls, finishing projects that were started before we planned on moving, etc.
3. Starting a new practice. My landlord just got his permit a few days ago so we all of the sudden have a ton of decisions to make, meetings to go to, etc.
4. Starting a partnership for the new practice. I haven't told too many people about this because it was in the planning stages to see if it would work out and it looks like it will. This has many benefits and b/c my future partner is such a great guy (integrity, similar practice philosophy, etc) there will be few compromises.
5. Calling as the 14/15 y.o. scout master (AKA varsity coach)
6. Many other things that I can't ever remember at one time that add up (like making a slide show video for someone who passed away in our ward to making a web page for our ward's Christmas community outreach presentation).
   

This is not a complaint list b/c almost all of these are things that we chose and will be for the best later. They just are a lot to do at this time now and thus the reason for weak posts. I promise though the pictures in my camera will make up for it...

Phone Phun

I got this from my favorite sister Kristin...
To have some phone fun...do the following...http://optimus.transformersmovie.com/. It is pretty cool.

Dental Nerds

Too increase the viewing of this post by non-dental nerds I put this picture of bad teeth on a good face - Jewel.

Want to see where your state falls on the lost teeth chart? See this.

Thoughts:

1. Go Utah
2. Maryland and the negative effect of Baltimore is unduly misrepresented by some of its cities like Chevy Chase (CC median income is over 500k/year)
   

You won't believe it

Last night I got an email from my landlord. He said make sure you are sitting down and don't fall out of your chair before reading on. After over a year of waiting he finally got a permit from the city to start construction on my office! The delays and promises from the city that it wouldn't be too much longer got so frequent and caused us to cry wolf so much that people probably stopped believing me that I was actually going to open an office. Reasons why have been submitted by me, landlord, city, and people in construction/the city around Snoqualmie Ridge where my office will go:

• building is so nice that it had many things to approve
• the city planning department tries to slow down all the yuppie growth going in
• the city planning department and one of the landlords have a power struggle going on
• the city is so overwhelmed with new construction as the fastest growing city in King County that it can't handle the permits in a timely manner.

I don't know the exact reason why, but am glad to be done with the wait. This is the picture of the back of my building that will face the main street of the city. I will be on the second floor.

Spiritual Experience

A couple of days ago Trevor came home and said the ever too common phrase - OMG. Marisa asked him what he said to make sure and he said it again. She told him that we don't say that because it is taking the Lord's name in vain and makes him feel bad. You could tell that he was embarrassed and felt bad. That night during family prayer it was his turn and he said that he was sorry for doing that. We were pretty happy about that. After the prayer we were sitting around for a minute because Caeden was being funny on the bed. Trevor all the sudden looked at us and said that he had a funny tingling feeling in his chest! Quite surprised, and honestly a little incredulous, but not wanting to pass up such an amazing moment I asked him what he thought that feeling was. He said that he didn't know and I could tell he had no idea so I told him that it was the spirit. Heavenly Father was letting him know that he loved him and forgave him for doing that. You could see the light go off in his head and he knew. How amazing! I guess kids are never too young to develop a testimony of their own.