Ah, Spring. A time of birth, renewal, sunshine and warmth…if you don’t count the snow we had during Spring Break… Easter was really nice. For the several days preceding Easter, Abe was constantly talking about getting his Easter basket, hunting for eggs, and eating candy. We let him play with the Easter Baskets, and he’d walk around with them the whole day. Needless to say, when the day came, he was going nuts. We had our “Easter Basket” Easter on Saturday instead of Sunday. We hid their baskets the night before, as well as a whole bunch of candy-filled plastic eggs (22 for each child, I think). When the kids woke up they quickly found all the eggs, and Abe was so excited he was shaking and acting hyper.
We overdid it on the candy and I gained like 3 pounds over the next few days. Oh well, it was delicious! The week after Easter was Spring Break. Amanda had to work a lot the first half of the week, but on Thursday we went to the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point. The kids had a lot of fun, and we went ahead and bought the Family Annual Pass, so we will definitely be going back a couple more times. After the museum, we went to Chuck-a-Rama for lunch, which was the perfect choice. They’re so much cleaner and fresher there than Golden Corral. Then Amanda went to JoAnn Fabric to get some supplies and I went to F.Y.E. to take advantage of their sale on used DVD’s and Blu-Rays. Friday we were going to go to the zoo (and probably could have) but we were worried about the weather being too cold and rainy. Instead, we had a picnic in the front room and watched “The Princess Bride” (one of the DVD’s I’d bought at FYE). Friday night, we started to watch “The Mummy” (yet another purchase) but the kids got too scared…probably shoulda watched “Mummy” at lunch and “Princess Bride” at night. Oh well, live and learn. So, you might be wondering what supplies Amanda had to get at the fabric store…well, stuff to make her own Muppet, of course!
We’d seen the Muppet Whatnot Workshop website online and thought spending $90 on a custom Muppet was a little much, so now Amanda’s making Muppets for each of us. Yeah, she’s awesome.
Hmm, what else…
Work’s going well. The initial animation project I did has gotten a lot of positive response. I’m currently working on the music video portion, which has required me to look at more pictures of El Camino cars than I ever expected to see in my life.
Oh, and in other news, Amanda—as far as we can tell—is pregnant, due the end of December.
Have a great Spring! Now, because I could be a part-time model, here’s a funny song from “Flight of the Conchords”:
Last week we had a Family Fun Day. We pulled our own April Fool’s prank on the kids’ elementary school and let them ditch class for the day (or “sluff school” in Utah language). It was a lot of fun. We woke up to a pretty big snowstorm, which of course I enjoyed, but it made Amanda and Maddy REALLY mad. They’re tired of winter and want warm, sunny weather. Amanda kept saying “It’s April! Why is there snow!?!?!?!” I tried to explain to her that the weather doesn’t instantly change, just because the calendar says it’s a different season. I mean, this earth life isn’t a cartoon! Is it? Anyway, we went to breakfast at the local Kneader’s Bakery, which we heard had $4.99 all-you-can-eat pancakes and French toast. Turns out that’s true, but the initial portion is so large, none of us were hungry enough for a 2nd helping. In fact, the kids hardly made a dent in their pancakes. The French toast came with caramel syrup, as well as a cup of whipped cream and strawberries. We came home and the snow let up quite a bit, which was good, because it was soon time to drive up to Sandy to go see “Monsters vs. Aliens” up at the Jordan Commons movie theater. “Why drive all the way up there?” You ask in a strangely upper-class, British voice. “Surely there are closer theatres…” Well, we wanted to go see it in IMAX 3-D, which was awesome. In fact, it made up for the fact that the movie itself was fairly mediocre. The kids loved it though. Abe even kept the 3-D glasses on for the whole movie (usually they’re off after about 10-15 minutes). Maddy’s favorite character was BOB, the blue blob-like character. Joel liked when the President of the United States played funky music on the keyboard and danced. After the movie, we were hungry and decided to go to Chili’s (though for a moment we considered going back to Sam-Pan, a great Chinese restaurant in Sandy). Amanda and I got the Chicken Crispers—our favorite dish there (although Amanda got the Honey Chipotle Crispers, which weren’t as tender as the regular ones). Abe got Macaroni—gotta love paying $4 for a bowl of Easy Mac... Maddy and Joel both got hamburgers, which brings up a pet peeve of mine. Whenever we go to a sit-down restaurant, the kids hamburger has NOTHING on it. It’s a bun with meat. No lettuce, no mayo or mustard, no ketchup, no pickles—just a bun and meat. Now, I understand that not all kids want all toppings—that’s fine with me—but seriously, shouldn’t the waiter ask if the kids want something ON the burger? I mean, when we saw the burger they brought, we asked for mayo, which they brought out in a little bowl for us, and we had ketchup at the table, but Maddy was really annoyed that her burger wasn’t a real hamburger. Fast food places give you toppings—“restaurants”? Nope, sorry… We ended the night with a trip to Cold Stone for some ice cream…so, yeah…not surprised I gained several pounds this week…While we were there, there was a little girl dressed as Snow White—Abe couldn’t take his eyes off her—I think he thought she was the REAL Snow White. Of course this weekend was also General Conference weekend. We enjoy conference more and more as the years go by. Saturday, we hurried and got groceries first thing in the morning to avoid the between-sessions crowds. After the afternoon session, we ran some errands—while Amanda, Abe and Maddy were at the fabric store, Joel and I went to F.Y.E. to look at movies and video games. I was surprised to see that the Disney “Dance Dance Revolution” had come out for the Wii. We’d been wanting to get it, but I thought it wasn’t out til later in the year. We decided to get it, and we’ve really been enjoying it. You can get a pretty decent workout, and it’s challenging without being impossible. I can’t say I’m thrilled with the pop renditions of the classic Disney songs, but I guess to make them work to a dance beat, they had to do SOMETHING. Here’s the ad for the game:
But back to Conference: It seemed to me that this Conference was a lot more “practical” than other years’ conferences. Obviously, there was a lot of talk about the current economic situation, but with it, a lot of optimism and things we can do in our lives to counteract the fear, despair, and struggle many of us are going through. Conference this time got me more excited and motivated to improve myself spiritually than ever before. Kinda like the episode of “The Office” when Michael eats a sweet pretzel with ALL the toppings and gets a sugar rush which turns him into hyperactive mode. OK, maybe not QUITE that excited, but we did make some important changes in our family’s spiritual development, focusing more heavily on daily scripture study, singing hymns and having morning AND evening prayer, as well as getting the kids started on nightly personal prayers. I hope you all were inspired and uplifted by Conference as well. Sunday morning , instead of the traditional coffee cake—I mean CONFERENCE CAKE—we made homemade Cinnabons, eggs, bacon, and hash browns. Delicious, of course, but I miss my coffee cake—maybe for Father’s Day… In other news, Amanda’s been working TONS of hours at the Disney Store lately, and last week was the worst since the Store Manager was on vacation at Disneyland (while there, the manager sliced her foot on a stroller and had to get stitches—serves her right for over-working Amanda!) Amanda thought this week would turn out better, and was only scheduled 20 hours—HOWEVER, because the District Manager comes on Thursday, Amanda now has to work Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday (Tues. and Wed. WERE her days off…) She will get Thursday off, thankfully. Here’s what the D.M. said to Amanda last time she came for a visit, “We don’t all have to be Tiggers… We can have an Eeyore, but Eeyore needs to change…” As I mentioned in my previous post, I’ve been working on some animation for a music video project. It’s going pretty well. I just finished a logo/end tag animation for the videos. I’m also applying to Disney Animation’s Talent Development Program. It’s an 8-10 week paid internship with a Disney Mentor at their Burbank Studio. It’s for people who’ve graduated college within the past 3 years, so I’m JUST BARELY within the cutoff. This is also the first time in those 3 years that they’re looking for traditional animators rather than just 3-D animators. I’ve been overhauling my demo reel and will be sending it off next week, before the April 20th deadline. Well, that about wraps it up. One final anecdote: Last night, when we were picking a hymn, Abe suggested the hymn, “Jesus is a God.” Never heard of that one, but at least it’s doctrinally sound…
Not much to talk about this week. Just living, but nothing really interesting happened. Winter turned to Spring, which has made Amanda VERY happy. We got the kids' pictures taken at Target: [Click on pictures for a larger image.]
I love Maddy's eyes in the first one and Abe's smirk in the 2nd one.
We also got some pictures of Abe by himself, since he doesn't get school pictures:
Very cute, at least compared to the cheesy picture of me when I was Abe's age:
Have a great Springtime! I also created a list over on the right column with a list of our recent Netflix rentals, just in case you folks need suggestions/warnings.
