Tools that work

"Daddy, breakfast?" "Daddy, jam?" "Daddy, toast?" Being the caring father that I am, I naturally fixed Scottie some healthy whole-wheat toast, lightly buttered, with a spoonfool of jam, cut it in half, then went back to my pressing email needs.

Apparently, Scottie is used to having Mommie serve his toast with a napkin to keep his hands clean....because I looked up a few moments later, I caught him doing this.

Evidentally, Scottie had seen that Daddie was too busy, or too foolish, to get him a napkin. No bother, he thinks, I'll just reach up into the drawer and get myself a spoon.

What's left when breakfast is over? Everything but the jam.

Media Fast

Our bishop has challenged our congregation to have a media fast for the month of February.  So, no movies, tv, nothing.  Does blogging count as entertainment media or journeling?  Hmmm...  I don't mind doing the media fast but am not looking forward to enforcing it at all times with my 2 year old.  Scottie hardly ever watches tv or movies, but occasionally he really really really wants to watch the movie Cars to get his Lightning McQueen fix.  Is that so bad?  :)  

I left my heart in San Jose.

This past week we went to San Jose, California for one of Hyrum's conference. He presented a paper that he and his professor had worked on. At the last minute we bought a ticket for me and I got to go too. Thanks to my sister Shannon, it was just the two of us. Scottie had an awesome time playing with his cousins Eli and Cade, and we had a relaxing little vacation. Here we are at the Japanese friendship garden.

One of the coolest things we did was go to the Tech museum.
Here I am walking the line with drunk goggles. These are supposed to estimate what it feels like when you have a blood alcohol level of like 1.1 or something.
I would be a terrible drunk. I could not walk straight to save my life.

They had the coolest robots and computers. We programmed our own Mr. Potato Head, had a computer take a picture of us then draw the outline with a robot, and this cool robot would spell out anything you asked it to in blocks.

The tech museum also had a special exhibit spotlighting Leonardo DaVinci and all of his invention/engineering projects. They had tons of models showing his inventions. This one was a spring that basically told time. Springs were basically the only storage form of kinetic energy back then, they were like today's batteries.

His flying machine. The wings were supposed to flap. I doubt this one ever really worked but cool idea Leonardo.

We went to the Winchester Mystery House. This was a crazy house built by the widow of the man who made Winchester guns. She was haunted by the fact that they killed so many people and felt that she could only appease the spirits by constantly building. So this house has all sorts of odd architectural things inside. Legend has it she used to hold seances and sleep in a different bedroom everynight to avoid the ghosts.

Ooh, the Winchester Mystery house all in gingerbread.

Overall we had a great time. I loved getting some sunshine, I don't get enough vitamin D in Washington in the winter. I even went swimming in the hotel's outdoor pool though it was only maybe 70 degrees. It felt great to me.

Seattle Winter, some fun to be had.

Sometimes I feel like Seattle winters are the worst. You don't get much sun, and this year it has been extra cold and had lots o' snow. Lots of snow for us is 2 weeks straight (that never happens) over Christmas and some random snow days where we get snow for 2 days and then in another couple of days it melts. But still. Anyway, we have actually had a lot of fun this winter. Here are some of the things we have been doing.

The day after Christmas we braved the snow and went to the zoo with the Farmers!
It was a lot of fun and we never checked out the inside exhibits so well.

Scottie and Hyrum feeding the birds.

Jimmy and Eli feeding the birds.

Cade hatching out of a dinosaur egg.

Scottie and Cade enjoying the zoomasium.
Notice how wet Scottie's pants are. He didn't care that it was snowing out, he still wanted to splash in any puddles and to fall down in snowdrifts. He had a blast.

New Years eve with the Travis Magelsen family and some ward friends.
We had some live accordion entertainment from Hyrum.

Scottie enjoying the sparkling cider. We rang in the New Year with the kids at 9:30pm.
They even set the clocks forward...devious Melissa.

Karissa gave Hyrum and I a day of babysitting for Christmas.
We decided to use it with a day of snow-shoeing. We had a blast!

My sister Shannon and I took our kids to the Children's Museum.
Here is Scottie and Cade being firemen.

Scottie driving the tractor.


Downstairs in the museum they had a "workshop" where you could build stuff.
We had a blast building towers and here is our igloo that we built around the kids.
Their favorite part was busting out of it when we would build it around them.

Anyway, we have had a pretty decent winter so far. 2 more months to go.