down with ticketmaster!

so last night we bought our tickets to pearl jam in salt lake. the tickets themselves weren't cheap, but then on top of that there is a $3.00 facility charge per ticket, and an $11.60 convienience charge per ticket! ok ok so i go to check out and if i want to print the tickets at home it's an extra couple of dollars so i went with the free mail option, then there was the order processing fee of 5 bucks. holy cow. just tell me up front how much the tickets are going to be. don't tell me one price then add on an extra $15. ok so that's how i really feel. however, i am really excited to see pearl jam.

American Dork

I hate that the D is right next to the F on the keyboard because I always seem to type "american dork" for my address (you know, instead of american fork...which is way cooler than american dork). I am already a little self-conscious about living in utah county, and this key placement doesn't seem to help.

doing our part in the kingdom

so the other day (actually the other week), dan and i went snowboarding up at park city. we had stopped by the cabin to say hi to my mom, and apparently someone who had stayed at the cabin had left a whole bunch of beer. my mom kept a few for herself (you know for marinating meat...) and gave the rest to us to put in the garbage on our way out. well, we thought we would go make some friends at the ski resort, so we wrote on the box "have one on us", and "free to a loving home" and the obligatory "don't drink and drive" and decided to set out the box in the parking lot so people could feel the love after a day of skiing. well we left the box out while getting ready, but there were just people with little kids and stuff around. i decided that we shouldn't leave it by our car in case there was some sort of law against handing out alcohol to anyone and everyone who wanted to happen by. anyway...i chickened out, so we just put the box in the back of the car. after we got home, we put the box in the carport, but dan decided we better get rid of it before the weeblos come over, so he took it over to the neighbors house and gave it to them. they were appreciative. well, i guess i just want to know if we can count this as "missionary work", you know, contacting the less active/nonmembers even if it was to give them beer. maybe i'll mention it at the next ward council meeting. what do you think?

i am failing as a parent

I obviously need to get my kids into gaming more, you know, to prepare them for the future.


Are Violent Video Games Adequately Preparing Children For The Apocalypse?

fire

dan's little brother is on a mission in the detroit area. a couple of weeks ago, their apartment complex burned down. here is his letter describing what happened. i hope he doesn't care that i posted it, but i thought it was pretty good.

Elder Simpson woke me up at 3:30 am and our window glowed with orange light. As I gazed through the blinds I find drips of burning vinyl siding flying past the window. we get up and run outside, the only thing grabbed is the cell phone to call 911 and the mission president. Upon exiting we see a raging inferno high on the third floor. The fire was growing fast in the cold breeze. Molten vinyl dripped onto my shirt and a spot on my foot. we watched as soon we found our own apartment blocked by flames. We stood and prayed. and then started screaming to wake everyone up. everything was left inside. car keys, wallets, shoes. I was in pajamas and Elder Simpson only was wearing shorts and a tee-shirt. As we stood, Elder Simpson only could repeat, "Our door is on Fire! Our door is on Fire, Elder!" were called over to the side of the building by a man, where we found a woman and a man holding a baby. the woman apparently had taken her shirt off to cover the baby. Thick heavy smoke billowed out the apartment. the man calls for us to jump on his shoulders. I tell Elder Simpson "You're lighter, You go." He fearlessly climbs up the man and reaches halfway up the railing. The woman in histeria, is hesitant to hand the baby down. off to the right a window explodes and glass shoots everywhere. The smoke is only getting worse and Elder Simpson can hardly even keep his eyes open to help the baby. We are hollering to send the baby down first. The woman hands the baby to the man and he leans way over and hands the baby to Elder Simpson who soon loses his balance atop this guy. he reaches out and catches himself on the railing with his left hand, and with his right he wraps around the baby and pulls her in close. I run over to him and he lowers the baby to me. I looked as I was holding a little 7 week old crying baby named Kennedy with burns on her face. Next the mother climbs over the railing and climbs onto Elder Simpson he lowers her down and she grabs onto a little fence nearby. by the time she is down, a detroit edison truck(electric company) pulls up and grabs a ladder and helps lower the man down. the woman jumps into a police car as the officer calls for an ambulance. she was heavily burned. and taken to the burn unit in Flint. We take a stand back and watch the fire growing. the two fire truck spray the fire with everything they have and soon an enormous truck drives up. it extends hydrolic arms for stability and after a few minutes of hooking up as many fire hoses as it can it raises a large ladder with two huge soaking hoses. there is someone trapped right above our apartment and the two smaller trucks spray and block the fire around the window and the large truck extends and breaks through a window and the lady jumps onto the platform with the fire fighters. she climbs down and the ladder takes its place above the fire and begins unleashing its wrath. at a rate of 1000 gallons of water per Minute the fire now has a worthy opponent. bit by bit the fire is calmed as the staircases become waterfalls and our apartment becomes a wadding pool. at about 4:00 I call President Rawson and then Bishop Juarez. We ask for some clothes and something to eat. At this time, we are freezing and finally somebody from a neighboring complex gives us blankets of which I wrap myself up and stand upon to give my poor raw freezing feet a rest. We decide to go to the Apartment Clubhouse which has been opened to shelter the now homeless. I am hungry, malclothed, and pretty much have nothing anymore. somebody brings in some bread and cereal. the Bishop arrives as donates us his shoes and coats that appeared nearly new. another man donates some pants that were 4 sizes too big. A whole community begins awaking and pouring out their support. The American Red Cross arrives and extends some relief and gives us a voucher for some clothes and food. In time we are given a new apartment in the opposite end of the complex. The Relief Society President Sister Hagan comes and brings us some clothes and groceries. The Mission comes up and brings Desks and matresses. The fire has been out for a little while and we go the the apartment which only sustained smoke and water damage and we can ask the firemen to grab anything we need we get keys cameras clothes books; all covered with the horrible aroma of burning plastic. A few hours later as they are boarding up the apartments we run in there and have about 7 minutes to get everything else we want. I find my headlamp and begin sloshing through the dark apartment looking for everything i think salvagable. I grabb the Area Book which holds the precious records of hundreds of missionaries efforts in the Area and my journal soaked through and through. and now we return with our treasure in our brand new Chevy Malibu with a melted bumper and headlights. And that the Way it is. Love Elder Bolke

my sister-in-law posted some pictures and media links here.

new slang

Click to Play

in this episode, michele attempts to play the guitar and sing the song "new slang" by the shins.  disclaimer: this is a first time recording, editing, and first thing in the morning as well.  but anyway, enjoy.

three little birds

annie loves the song "three little birds" by bob marley. here is her rendition.

enjoy.

can you feel the temperature drop?

i play the flute in the wasatch winds symphony, a community band here in utah county. as i was walking out of rehearsal to my car tonight one of the other flute players was just leaving and rolled down her window and enthusiastically tells me "you're awesome", she then continued with "your presence exudes coolness." i was taken back a little bit with this compliment, but then recovered and stuttered something real cool like "hey thanks" or something like that. i mean, i like to think i'm cool, but it's always nice to have some reassurance from the outside. i won't let it go to my head though because i do realize that is was a compliment from a fellow band geek.

if anyone wants to get in the holiday spirit in early december come to the christmas concert.

wasatch winds symphonic band

"a holiday spectacular"

monday, december 8, 2008

7:30 p.m.

american fork high school

catalina island

last thursday we went drove down to california to go to catalina island. we went with a couple of friends, and NO KIDS! i don't even remember the last time we had a weekend without the kids. thanks to mom and dad, and dan's parents for watching them. anywho here is a recap of our trip....

we drove all day thursday down to huntington beach where we stayed at the hilton across the street from the beach. it was pretty nice, except for the beds were double beds which made for a cozy night for our friends that went down with us since they weren't married. they weren't even dating or anything. they are both married but to other people. anywho, mike brought down his blender so he could make smoothies. i thought it was kinda weird that he wanted to pack his blender, but i sure enjoyed the smoothies for breakfast.

mike with his famous blender

well, it took us a little bit longer than we thought to get to the ferry in long beach, so we missed our 10:00 ferry to catalina island, and were put on the 12:15. alicia decided she needed to roll out some muscles in the middle of the terminal, until some guy made her move out of the main walkway. we had our bikes with us, so we went for a bike ride and found some lunch before returning to get on the ferry.

alica

dan and i in front of the catalina express ferry (dan is being extra safe by wearing his helmet).

avalon bay

when we got there, we rode our bikes to the hotel, checked in, then walked around the town. most of the transportation around town is done by golf cart, so we rented one and went for a tour of the town. we drove the course for the triathlon we would be doing the next day.

overlooking the harbor

that afternoon, we rode one lap of the bike course to get a feel for it. it was up a canyon, it wasn't real steep, but steep enough that it made me wish i had a granny gear on my bike to make it easier to pedal. then we rode the run course. all of this prep work made me nervous for the race because i am not too good with hills, and this was a pretty hilly course. anywho, the next morning we got over to where the race was going to start, set up our transition areas, and shimmied into our wetsuits. a little bit before the race was going to begin, mike realized that he had his wetsuit on backwards, and had to take it off, and put it on correctly. dan was in the second wave to start and i was in the last, so i sent dan off and hoped that he wouldn't drown. he did awesome though. so we swam in the ocean up one side of the dock, out to some bouys, then back to shore. then hopped on our bikes for a 3 lap course up the canyon and back down. while riding up the canyon i was wondering why i always think it is a good idea to sign up for these triathlons...i still haven't figured it out (it's kind of addicting), coming down the canyon was fun though. dan lapped me on the bike, and actually finished the whole thing before i even began the run. the run had a couple of long steep hills, so i ended up walking part of it. i still need to work on running a lot. anywho, i ended up with 8th place in my division, and dan with 13th in his (his was a lot tougher division than mine). our friends also did well.

after the race.

we had tickets for the 7:00 ferry that night, but decided to trade them for sunday morning. so since we had the afternoon, dan and i decided to go diving. we rented some gear, and went for a dive among the giant kelp forests. it was pretty cool. the deepest we went was about 70 feet. that's the deepest i've ever been. there were lots of fish, and of course the giant columns of kelp. it had taken us so long to get the gear and stuff so it was dark by the time we came out. we had lights and stuff, and there were plenty of other divers nearby, but i still get nervous in the dark so we surfaced.

we had cold stone ice cream for dinner, then went to a movie. the theater was way cool, the ceiling was dome shaped and there were murals painted all over. there was even an old organ right up near the front.

the next morning we packed our bags and got on our bikes to ride over and catch the ferry, when we found out that the winds were too strong so our boat was cancelled. we rode over to the dock anyway and changed our tickes for 2:00. well, that boat was cancelled too. so finally, about 3:00 we were advised that all of the ferries for the day had been cancelled, so we had to stay another night on the island. the hotel we were staying in gave us half off since we were stranded, so that was cool. that afternoon dan was able to go out to one of the sailboats with a guy we met the day before. he lives on his boat, and when he found out that was dan's dream he invited him to go and check out the boat. they took some kayaks out and dan hung out on the sailboat and swabbed the deck and stuff, while i went shopping.

dan and peter going out to the sailboat.

earlier that day we had seen the missionaries and found out that they had a group that meets at the bank at 4:00, so we went to the services where there was one other member besides us and the missionaries. i guess that area has only been open since january and they have had 13 baptisms, but all were spanish speaking and attended the 6:00 services. the services were about a half hour long. we sang a song, took the sacrament, the missionaries each shared a thought, and then we sang again and that was it. it was great. the missionaries invited us back to the spanish services, and asked me to share my testimony. we went back at 6:00, and there were a couple of families there that we were able to meet. we had the same services, but in spanish. they did have sunday school after that for about a half hour. it was pretty cool.

so the next morning we were finally able to get on our ferry. the seas still had some big swells, so they were handing out puke bags, and on the deck below us there were people taking turns puking into the garbage can. it was awesome. anywho, we made it back to the mainland, and drove all day and finally reached home at about midnight last night. we had a good time, and it was fun to get to know alicia and mike better. i went to pick up the girls this morning at my mom's house, and when i got there the girls looked at me, then went right back to doing whatever they were doing before. i asked annie if she missed me, she said "nope". well, at least it's nice to know i was missed while i was gone.

october

stuart and i did the lake powell triathlon. he was brave and did the olympic distance, i did the sprint distance. i was scared because i thought it was going to be pretty flat, but there were some good sized hills. it was fun. i ended up with 3rd place in my division. they gave me a medal and i ran before they could take it away. a kid i went to elementary school with won the whole thing for the olympic distance, and one of the kids i coached on swim team won his age group. stu did awesome for not having run in a couple of years.

the girls on halloween. well, this was actually taken the weekend before when we went to jon and nicole's halloween party. on halloween we went trick or treating at dan's work, then dan took the girls around to a few neighbors. they thought it was great.

barack and michelle (c'mon, use your imagination!)

we went to go pick out pumpkins, and the girls had so much fun. annie's was carved to look like a panda bear.

this was me on halloween night (i'm a stick person). after dan got back from taking the girls trick or treating, i made annie go out again with me so i could walk around in my costume after dark.

catch-up

so i know i've been a blogger slacker lately...so here's a quick recap of the last few months.

september:

dan and i did the summit triathlon. they gave me a 3rd place medal, then changed their minds and i ended up with 5th place. at least i got a picture of myself with the medal before it was stripped from me.

i also did the timp tri club swim across deer creek. it was about a 2 mile swim (round trip) across the lake and back.


we went to logan for our annual tradition of the demolition derby. we also stopped in brigham city for peaches. i think this was annie's 4th demolition derby. yeah, we're pretty white trash.


dan had a birthday, and i made him this awesome cake. i had seen pictures of maisy's that she made for xander's b-day, and i thought it would be appropriate for dan since his birthday is on national talk like a pirate day.

i sprained my ankle while running in the dark. it was sprained pretty badly, and i skinned up my knee pretty good too. this was a few days after.

we went up to midway to emily (dan's sister) and nate's cabin house where they reside on the weekends. they made some yummy tacos. we went on a walk, and the leaves were beautiful.

for something interesting to read

since i am too lazy to post something of my own...you can read this if you haven't already read it.

tennis anyone?

"tennis is a gay sport anyway, you can quote me on that"

dan's comment when we were discussing some of the bond propositions for american fork city, one of which apparently included tennis courts or something.

don't vote...

threehead

last night we went to maceys to stock up on food storage items and as a reward for the girls not having too many tantrums we got ice cream cones. while we were eating them, annie missed her mouth and ended up with ice cream on her forehead. this morning she was reminiscing about our fun trip to the grocery store and how she got ice cream on her threehead.

costa rica day 4

lets see if i remember our trip since it has been so long since i have posted about it...

sunday may 4th. (jaco to la fortuna)

we woke up and decided that since we had spent the night at a hotel right on the beach, we had to at least go down to the ocean for a little while before heading back towards alajuela. we walked across the parking lot and onto the beach at about 7:00 in the morning. we were the only ones in sight. it was pretty cool. the water warm, but the girls weren't too sure about playing in the water yet. annie just wanted to build a sandcastle up by where we had left the towels. we stayed for a little while then decided we had better leave to get the rental car back to alajuela by noon.

we made it back, and had the rental car guy drop us off at the airport where we waited for a couple of hours for chame, jon and family to arrive.

we met up with those guys, rented a big 12 passenger van and started off toward la fortuna, north of the san jose area. we drove for an hour or so, singing songs along the way, then stopped for some dinner in san ramon (i think). we drove for a few more hours on winding narrow roads until we arrived in la fortuna.

annie's quotes

a few quotes from annie lately:

"I found pearl jam between my toes"

"girls go to hello kitty school, boys go to dinosaur school"

"i want the nice mom (or the nice mary poppins - if she is being jane or michael that day)"

costa rica day 3

costa rica day 3


saturday may 3: woke up this morning and, after a refreshing shower, went out in search of breakfast. we walked through the outdoor market where vendors were selling mostly vegetables and fruit and stuff, but we also saw a lady selling hats. we tried a few on annie (she had claimed dan's hat as her own) but she always would say that it didn't fit. so we gave up and continued our search for food. we found a bakery and bought some juice and some bakery goods and sat outside and ate breakfast near the dog that was foaming at the mouth.


on the way back to the hotel we walked through the market again. amongst all of the costarican vendors there was this white lady wearing a bonnet. yep a quaker lady. apparently further north in costa rica near monteverde there is a big settlement of quakers. anyway she was selling bread and jam and looked a little out of place, but i guess so did we. there was also a guy on top of a truck feeding sticks through a machine. we came to the conclusion that it was sugar cane and he was juicing them. we didn't try the sugar juice, but we probably should have.


well we packed up our stuff and headed toward manuel antonio national park. it is a park on the beach that has some trails through the rainforest. we drove the windy road from quepos to manuel antonio. when we got close to the park there was an official-looking guy in an orange vest and a name tag showing people where to park. we got suspicious when one of the other guys (not official looking) came by to tell us that it cost 2000 colones (about $4) to park. we watched everyone else and they were paying, so we decided to pay the guy because we didn't want them to be mad at us (and our rental car). so we walked toward the entrance to the park and asked some guides at the entrance if the car parker guys were official, and they said "no, but they will watch your car for you." i hate feeling like i'm beeing taken advantage of because i'm a tourist, but our car was still there when we got back so i guess it was worth it.

this was outside the door of our car when we arrived

at high tide you have to cross through some water to get to the entrance of the park. dan helped annie cross, then as he turned to help eva and I annie sat down in the middle of the little stream. well, as we got to the ticket booth, there was a short line of about 3 people. one of the guys who worked there saw me carrying eva and let me cut through the line and made a lady move her stuff off of a chair so i could sit down. anyway, by the time i sat down for a second dan had made it through the line. during our trip people generally loved seing the kids and going out of their way to help us. i guess that is one reason to take babies on a trip.

so we hiked through the rainforest on a trail along the coast. dan had annie in the backpack and i had eva in the baby bjorn. apparently the majority of people that go to manuel antonio just take the short hike to the beach on the other side of the park as some people were carrying bags of ice and drinks and picnic items. this was nice because the rest of the trails were practically empty. we took a few short, but sometimes steep, hikes through the rainforest where we saw a couple of sloths, a troup of monkeys, and a few other random unidentifiable animals.

annie mostly just wanted to put rocks in this little pond

after leaving the park we stopped at a cool restaurant overlooking the ocean. they had taken an old airplane and made a bar in the inside, and the restaurant around the rest of the plane. it was kind of a fancy restaurant which usually scares me, however i loved it because it was all outside (but covered) and they didn't care that dan and annie weren't even wearing shoes.

we were going to meet chame and jon and their family the next morning at the airport so we started driving back towards alajuela. it was pouring rain and dark. in costa rica you could be where it appears that you are nowhere near a town and all of the sudden there will be someone riding a bike or walking on the road. people don't walk off to the side of the road, they walk the line. this makes for a stressfull drive. well, a couple of hours later near jaco, the rain suddenly stopped, and eva suddenly started crying. she had had another one of her famous diaper blowouts. so we pulled over in jaco (think spring break surf town) and found a place under a lightpost to try and change her. we were on the main street so people were walking by and i had eva in the trunk of the car (the trunk was open) screaming at the top of her lungs. after getting her wiped down and into a clean onesie we decided to just stay there for the night.

getting a hotel room in jaco was a difficult task as everything was full on a saturday night. after trying about 3 hotels we decided to try one last one right on the beach. they had a room which what i understood had a double bed and a single bed. however after paying and getting to the room we had just a double bed. apparently i need to brush up on my spanish, i guess it was a double or a single. we decided to stay anyway and put eva on the floor - which didn't last too long. so the four of us shared the double bed. it wasn't as bad as i was expecting however at about 4 or 5 in the morning it sounded as if every bird from the rainforest was right outside our room screeching at the top of their lungs. not just nice little good morning chirping, but jungle squaking of many different varieties of very loud birds. i acutally started to laugh a little bit to myself as i thought "are you serious?"

soul train

this is a little excerpt from the email that we got from dan's little brother joey joe joe jr. shabadoo. he is on a mission in detroit.

"at this one door we knock on the lady answers and say she doesn't care about the Mormons because they don't believe Black People have souls, (a comment we hear lots) and elder Dedrickson replies back, "It has been clinicly proven a fact that Black people actually have MORE soul than White People." Check and Mate."

i always figured that was true, but didn't know it was clinically proven. wow. does anyone remember that movie soul man from the eighties? that was good.

costa rica day 2

costa rica day 2 (may 2):
we woke up with the sun and after our continental breakfast of bread and jam, corn flakes, and baby bananas we set out for a walk of alajuela's center. we went to the plaza in the center of town where little kids were feeding pigeons and squirrels. one of the little boys gave annie some peanuts to feed the squirrels.


we checked out the cathedral, went to the market, then did the obligitory stop at pops ice cream shop. i had some sherbet - cas (i don't know what this is in english) and guanabana (soursop - i think) flavored, dan had coconut and mango, and annie had some chocolate chip. mmm. we took our ice cream, walked across the street to the plaza, sat next to a drunk guy on a bench and had our morning snack. on our walk, eva's pacifier fell out of her mouth somewhere so i suggested we take the same route back to the hotel. about a block away was eva's paci in the gutter. it had only been run over probably once so we picked it up, put some hand sanitizer on it, and rinsed it off back at the hotel. good as new.


we decided to rent a car and drive down the pacific coast. earlier on in the week, before we left for costa rica, eva got sick. we thought she was done with the diaper blowouts, but a couple of hours into our trip to the coast we stopped in a small town (orotina) and eva was covered in poop. we made space in the trunk to change her diaper and after about 20 wipes she was all clean. luckily we had stopped next to a little restaurant, so we were able to wash hands, get a bite to eat, and drink some yummy juice.

back on the road, we crossed the tarcoles river. you can walk out onto the bridge and look down to see the crocodiles basking in the sun.


about five hours after leaving alajuela we ended up at our final destination for the night - quepos. we were able to find a cheap hotel, and went out to get some food in the pouring rain. we found a place down the block and had some dinner. on the way back to the hotel i was telling dan that our hotel reminded me of the cockroach hotel we stayed in in mexico, except that it didn't have the cockroaches. when we got back to the hotel and turned on the dim light, i heard dan chuckle, then he set off stomping his foot at something. it turns out we had a huge cockroach in our room. dan, the fearless hunter, was able to kill the bug and put it in the toilet where it swirled around for a while. meanwhile, eva was having another diaper blowout, and unfortunately since we went with the cheap hotel, that meant no hot water. sorry eva.