Halloween!

Theres no holiday quite like Halloween for kids - all year long there are strict prohibitions on exceeses of candy, mischief and roudiness but for one day they're permitted to dress as ridiculously as they please, run around the neighborhood like lunatics and gorge themselves 'til they're sick on sugar...

...and of course none of us would have it any different! Our girls are still too young to be too crazy - we still had a lot of fun though - take a look...



Pumpkins were fun but Heather and I did most of the work since we still don't trust Grace and Jane with sharp objects...



Grace LOVED bobbing for apples - she likes me to tell her stories before bed at night so for the days and weeks before a holiday I'll use a holiday theme so I told her stories about Peep, Chirp and Quack going to a Halloween party. The only thing I could think of that people do at Haloween parties was bobbing for apples... I don't think Gracie really knew what that was but she really wanted to try it so we let her and she had a BLAST!



Little cheater... :)

This was at the trunk or treat that we went to at the church.



Janie was a pooped pumpkin by the end of the day...

Photo Mosaic

OK, So I gave in to peer pressure... here's my photo mosaic, though I don't think the Flickr picture options give you much to work with in a lot of cases... sometimes though, that makes it funner. Here we go -

1. What is your first name? Joe

2. What is your favorite food? Shawarmas

3. What school did you go to? BYU

4. What is your favorite color? Orange

5. What is your favorite animal? Kestrel

6. Favorite Drink? Malta Polar

7. Dream Vacation? New Zealand

8. Favorite Dessert? Flan

9. What do you want to be when you grow up? Architect

10. What do you love most in life? My Girls

11. One word to describe you? Laid-back (hey, hyphenated, it's one word, OK?)

12. Your nickname? Joey Bag o' Donuts

Chicken Feet!

We just got back from a trip to Reno where we visited Dennis and Tawny. I gave a presentation at UNR to students in the mining engineering dept, which only took a couple hours, but we took advantage of the occasion and made a weekend of it. Dennis and Tawny have a beautiful new house and we were glad for their hospitality and good cooking. Dennis made Gentry tacos, which tasted nearly exactly like Heather's, even though they have no common recipe - at least not written. Those are some SERIOUSLY good tacos - always what I ask for on my birthday :)

Among the things we did was introduce them to Chicken Bones - Andrea and Ryck's version (much improved I might add) of the dominoes game Chicken Feet - where every time you play you come up with a new rule or "nugget." We came up with a good one that we'll send to Andrea and Ryck to see if they'll add it to their official rulebook :)

Speaking of Chicken Feet - Lisa posted some pics of Grace on her blog today that I just had to steal :) Lisa brought her some latex gloves from the hospital and she seemed to think the best place for them was on her feet - so she put them on and called them her chicken feet. She then proceeded to walk around the house saying "cock-a-doodle-doo" (she doesn't know the difference between chickens and roosters... though I guess roosters are chickens... anyway, we thought it was pretty funny! She's quite the ham...

Good to be Home!

OK, so its been a little while since I've updated my blog - many of you know I recently moved into a new role with my company, which will put me on the road a little more than I've been used to. This month I've already been to Montreal and Boston, each for about a week, but now I'm home for about 3 weeks before I have to go away again so thats good!

I had an extra half day in Boston before coming home so I took a little time to walk around and see the sites - I walked the entire Freedom Trail, a marked path that takes you by a bunch of the historic sites around town - I took about 100 pictures and then, inevitably, lost my camera on the last day... :(

Luckliy for you, however, most of the pictures of the historic stuff can be found pretty easily on the internet! So no, I didn't take these pictures myself, but you wouldn't be able to tell the difference if I had... (not only have the buildings not really changed much, but since almost everyone takes pictures from the marked trail, the angles are probably about the same too).

Of course I won't be able to show you the incognito (I think this nut may have come after ME if he'd seen me taking his picture) pics I took of a crazy guy in a suit throwing rocks at the birds at the harbor :) That guy was bonko!

This was an old and somewhat macabre tombstone in the Granary Burial Ground, which is where Paul Revere is buried (see next pic). I think this was the oldest or one of the oldest stones in the cemetery...


Paul Revere's Tomb...

This is the Old State House and Boston's oldest public building, built in 1713. The Declaration of Independence was first read to the public from the balcony on the front on July 18th, 1776.

This is the Old South Meeting House. This is the place, in the years leading up to the Revolution, that Bostonians gathered to gripe about taxes and representative government and not wanting to have to drive on the wrong side of the road and what not, and it's where Samuel Adams gave the signal that started the Boston Tea Party. Obviously he felt beer a much better alternative...

Also, Ben Frankin was baptised here...


This is the USS Constitution, memorably nicknamed "Old Ironsides." I got a really good shot of a cross-section of the hull construction that was pretty cool but I couldn't find that one on the webb... basically it has about 6 inches of oak on the outside, a core of oak frames about 12x24" wide beneath that, and another internal layer of 6" oak after that... actually I'm not sure iron would have weighed much less. They had samples of the oak used for construction as well as the fir used for the decking - equal sample sizes but the oak weighed at least 2-3 times as much... that they ever even got that thing to float is incredible...

Times Gone Past...

One of my good friends from my old middle school days in Saudi Arabia recently posted some pics on Facebook from a post-HS graduation trip we took to Hawaii. You may not believe a human could have taken quite so much additional flesh in only... lets see, what has it been?... twelve years but alas, it is possible. Skin shade seems to have changed slightly as well...

Moving on

I didn't really have it in me to post anything the last few days. Anyone reading this probably knows what happened to little Gracie but she's doing a lot better, healing up very nicely and she's going to be just fine. She was back to her old self within a day and a half. Its absolutely amazing how quickly she's bounced back and I can't express how grateful we are.

Thank you to everyone for your concern and support.

Playin' the Janie

Check out my new axe!... :)

Gotta love new toys

Heather and I have been wanting to get a new camera for some time but weren't ever able to justify it. Our old one broke a couple weeks ago, though, and as we have little kids, it was one of those rare times when the want crept, ever so slightly, into the "NEED" category - we can't have our offspring's childhoods go unrecorded, we need proof for the therapists down the road...

We got Heather an SLR (film) camera right after we got married and I have to say I was never all that impressed with the pictures it took - we never ended up really using it much anyway since that was right when digital was becoming mainstream and once we joined the crowd, the old fashioned way just didn't cut the mustard. This time we got a digital SLR, mostly because of the additional speed (you just can't capture childhood moments when you're up against a 5 and a half second delay) but I must say I'm very impressed with the picture quality! Much better that Heather's old Minolta (anyone know a starving photography student who needs a decent film camera BTW?...)

So without further ado, here are a couple of the first ones... (you can click on them to see a full-size image)







Heather and Grace in the backyard. It was a lot hotter out than it looks and the fence is about all the shade we get in the backyard since we haven't gotten around to putting trees in yet...








I don't know if I've posted any pics of Reagan since he's graced our family so here ya' go. He's pretty mellow and if we can just get him to stop barking at everthing that moves, we might just keep him... :)










Grace and Jane are lucky I married well because I know they didn't get their looks from me!!







Yeah, thats a pretty accurate depiction of her usual mood...







Heather went out with April and her mom to be the first ones to get their hands on the new Vampire book so I had the girls all day and had to find something to do to keep them busy. We ended up going to the zoo. Grace was afraid of the elephants so Brandon (trust me, you should be glad I didn't include his head in the shot :) ) gave Gracie his glasses and said if she wore them the elephants wouldn't be able to see her :)







Janie had a good time too and she REALLY wanted to get out of her stroller seat...





SEMI-DISTURBING IMAGE WARNING - - -
(just needed to throw that in there so no one gets mad at me...)






Seriously though, this was one of the coolest things I've ever seen! This Kestrel had "removed" this mouse's head and was just sitting there holding it in its claw with this look like: "wassup?! - yeah, thats right - and you're next if you don't watch it!"

Siblings and Cousins

My sister Andrea and her family were in town this week and we all(Julie and her offspring as well) got together yesterday for a little barbeque at our place. It was pretty amazing that just a few short years ago I could get together with my sisters' families and we could enjoy a nice, congenial, quiet dinner out at a nice restaurant. Now when we get the whole brood together, no fewer than EIGHT tiny little people, none over the age of five by the way, add significantly to the size and also the noise level of the group. Eight is a pretty intimidating sum when you're talking about little kids but, in fact, when you get them all together the effect is more like having about 20 - one of those things where the total is greater than the sum of its parts - because they're running all over the place, goading each other on, trying to see who can hit the highest decibel levels, etc.

Its amazing though that in just a few short years, all these additional people could be added to our family who weren't ever there before but who we now can't even imagine not being part of the family! And any excuse for us to all get together is well worth it! Gracie LOVES playing with her cousins!

I'd have lots of really cool pictures to post here but our camera broke so we don't. Ryck was taking a lot of pictures though so hopefully we'll see lots of them on their blog within the next few days (click on "Tanner Party of Five" on the left) :)

Heather and I ordered a brand spankin' new camera though and we're very excited to break it in when it gets here on Tueday or Thursday! Check back soon!!

ENGRISH TOP TEN!

My group at work has started working with and recruiting for a lot more of our international sites lately, which has exposed me to some pretty funny "resume bloopers" from those folks who have the need to submit an application in English but who don't necessarily have a masterful command of its usage :)

So in that spirit, here are the ENGRISH TOP TEN! If you're not familiar with what Engrish is, you should get the idea by the time you get to the end of the list. Enjoy!!...


1o. What about "Wockstood?"


.
9. No thank you, Yoda.


.
8. Got some extra ducks?


.
7. It's SO OK!


.
6. It's a bit worrisome when even the Chinese won't own up to what's in it...


.
5. The proper English translation should be "Bullshit." :)


.
4. Where can I get a sign like that??


.
3. Feel free, however, to bedevil.


.
2. This is much better than the stuff made using the surley hamsters!

.
AND NUMBER ONE... (drumroll please Mr. Shaffer)


1. We should've shopped around a little more eh?
(just kidding :) )

Our Weekend

So I sat down to write my blog today since I decided that it didn't make much sense to have a blog but only update it every two or three weeks, but I started thinking - "Hey is this background really the best one for my blog?" - Then I froze and thought, "wait a minute... am I scrapbooking? Has this whole blog thing been crafty attempt by Heather to get me into scrapbooking??" After that I wasn't nearly as concerned with my background. And as long as I don't have to use funny scissors or, more importantly, spend millions of dollars on every conceivable type of paper, sticker, cutout, fastener, soldering iron, etc, I'll probably be able to manage. On to our weekend!!....

So late last summer, Heather and I bought bikes and a pull-behind trailer for towing the girls and, confident that by this part of the summer of '08, we'd be practially silly with bike-related family memories. So it was with a heavy conscience that we finally got around to dusting off the cobwebs and lowering them from their lofty resting place on our garage ceiling nearly midway through July. And I genuinely felt bad about it......... for about 20 minutes......... then the reality set in that since the last time I'd mounted my steed, not only had I passed nearly an entire year to fall even further out of shape, but the mass of my progeney had increased by nearly 150 percent!! (Jane having been too young to ride in the trailer last summer and Grace having increased - surprisingly a lot - in size).

We finished off our weekend with dinner at my Mom's house (sorry Dad, Mom said its her house unless you're here) and an excellent lasagna that hit the spot and finished off the weekend on a definite positive note. Now I'm procrastinating doing the dishes before going to bed and thinking that this is definitely one of those weekends that could have benefitted from an extra day.

And... since I don't believe in posting without including a picture... here's one of some chickens playing soccer, or futbol to our south-of-the-border chicken friends.

So this is blogging eh?

So this is my first foray into the world of blogging...

I've really enjoyed checking out Heather's blog, and I'm a regular on Andrea's and a couple others I've discovered or been turned on to, and I've gotta say its really pretty cool! However, there is something that's been holding me back from embracing blogging completely - simply that the word "blogging" sounds like it should be a synonym for puking - you can't tell me they couldn't come up with a better word than that!

That reminds me of one of my favorite Calvin and Hobbes cartoons...

So what would a better word be? I dunno, I wasn't volunteering anything specifically, but we've gotta come up with something better than "blogging." It should be descriptive of the activity and call out to the core audience at the same time - like Dogbert's name for Dilbert's new invention using spent Pringles cans as luggage pods - CLASSIC! (Okay, so I like comic strips...)

Even though the name leaves a little to be desired, however, I like the concept so I think I'll keep it up - how often? - who knows, maybe weekly, maybe bi-weekly, maybe three or four times an hour. You'll just have to add this site to your favorites and check back regularly :)

-"See ya in the funny papers..."