Friday, December 20, 2013

Thanksgiving

Tucker, Aubrey and I began our Thanksgiving Day running the Midway 5K Turkey Trot. Aubrey did awesome like usual. Tucker was rocking it at first, and then got tired and cold. It was a very cold morning and they weren't properly dressed. Bad Mom. I let Aubrey run ahead and stayed with Tucker through the finish. I believe he has some exercise induced asthma like me. He was wheezing alongside me the entire time. He finished, we each received our hot chocolate, bagel and came home to shower and get ready for dinner. 
This is the first year in many years that we didn't host Thanksgiving at our house. We had dinner at my parents house. My sister and her boys were in town, my brothers family, Grandparents Grant and great aunts Marion and Lois. We all pitched in and brought food so my Mom wasn't too stressed.

 My Great Aunt Marion.
 My Texas cousins were able to come for Thanksgiving. Lindsey, Kyle, Dave and Tracy.
 Lisa Marie, Kevin and Parker
 My brother on a mission sent a package home for us all to open. He bought all the adults shirts for Christmas.
 After dinner our family drove over to Cody's sisters house for dessert and time with the Calderwoods. It happened to be Cerola's birthday too. We have so much to be thankful for. Cody and I both dedicated each day in November to something we were thankful for. I could/should probably do that every day.

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Miscellaneous

I decided it was time to download some cool photos from my phone.

Lisa and I went to a local ski swap and picked up a helmet for Cole (he is going to learn to ski this year).  He loved it so much, he wore it the rest of the day, even when we went into 5 Guys for lunch.  Such a funny boy.


Tucker is now in Cub Scouts and loves it.  How can you not love a cute boy in a scout uniform?  So awesome.

National Bosses Day was this last month and my staff surprised me with two day passes to Park City Mountain Resort.  Lisa and I are really excited to go and are grateful for the awesome employees I have working for me.

For Halloween the kids asked me to carve a minion.  This was my attempt at a minion.  Not my best work, but not too shabby either.



Hands On Training Institute

As a dentist, I am required to take a certain amount of hours of continuing education each year to keep my license.  The number that is required is actually quite low, in my opinion.  I try to take several courses a year to continue improving my skills and knowledge to be the best I can be.  I actually enjoy learning more in my profession and improving.  The best courses are usually offered out of state (we usually go to Scottsdale Arizona).
One fun thing for me is to take courses along with my brother Carson.  Since he practices in Seattle he likes to try and go somewhere sunny and warm in the winters to escape his Pacific Northwest winter gloom.  This year Carson and I elected to attend an implant course in Orange County, California to improve our implant skills and take on more difficult cases.  Overall the course was pretty good, but the lecturer was a really pompous jerk.  Oh well, at least I learned more with regards to implants.
Here is a photo the institute took on the day of one of our lectures.


This was during one of the hands on portions.  You can see Carson and me on the upper left of the picture.  You'll notice my bald head on the back row.


When Carson arrived to pick up his rental car, they were all out of the economy ones that he had reserved.  Instead they gave him this convertible at the same price.  Hooray for us!  We got to drive around sunny Southern California with the top down.
We attended class from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm each day but the evenings were free to do whatever we wanted.


One evening we drove down to Huntington Beach Pier to eat some grub and watch a little beach volleyball.

It was the last stop of the season for the AVP tour.  The girls were super tall, but just so-so with their skills.

The guys on the other hand were really good.  They were impressive.

Lisa's youngest brother Spencer is serving his mission right now in the Irvine, California mission.  Carson and I surprised him at his apartment one night.  We dropped off a bag of home made elk jerky I prepared for him, gave him some hugs, chatted for a couple of minutes, then left to let him get back in missionary mode.  He was incredibly surprised to see us standing on his door step at 9:30 at night.

We made friends with some dentists from Colorado and New Mexico and they hooked us up one night with tickets to the Anaheim Ducks hockey match vs the Buffalo Sabres.  We had great seats and it was really fun.

One night we met up with our good friend Brandon Jergensen from dental school.  He and his family live in San Diego, so he drove up for the night and we had dinner at Dukes.  It was really fun catching up with him again.

I have a few more courses planned for 2014 that I am already looking forward to.

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Halloween Happenings

We were invited to one of Cody's high school friends house for a party the Saturday before Halloween. It was up in Kaysville. We hadn't seen most of these friends since my Running with Lisa Fun Run. Too long. Of the 5 guys that were friends, there are only 3 girls between us and the rest boys. 14 boys, 3 girls.
 Heather went all out with games for the kids, treats, dinner, etc.
 The kids were a little hopped up on candy and fun and finally sat still for a little bit and watched The Croods. They would turn to us adults and tell us to be quiet because they couldn't hear the movie.
 Spencer, Cody, Tyler and Doug. Dave couldn't make it and Joe lives out of state.
 Wives club. Amanda, Heather, me, and Jamie. These ladies are great and make me feel part of the group.
 We had a family theme going on for Halloween this year. We went hunting. We have our baby deer, mounted deer and another deer. Tucker wanted to be a hunter instead of the moose that I was going to make him be. He ran off to trick or treat with friends before I got a picture.
 Cody out scouting for the kill.
 This was Blake's first real trick or treating experience. We took him last year, but mainly he stayed in the stroller and I pushed him to the front porch. I stayed home and passed out candy while Cody took the younger kids around. After they were done we dump their buckets out and confiscate all the peanut items. So much candy has peanuts. Reese's, M&M's, snickers, paydays...and more. Good and bad news for Cody and I. I'm trying to eat healthier, so I snacked on one of each and then gave out the peanut candy to trick or treaters that night. Tucker wandered home an hour or so later with his friend. He hit the jackpot with a pillowcase full of candy.

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Randoms

My cancer friend, Jen, came into town awhile back. We were able to have them over to our house for an evening. It's always great to see each other in person. Her hair is growing back and I believe she only has one more round of chemo to go. She just celebrated her 1 year cancerversary.
I took the kids up to my Grandpa's cabin for Fall Break. My Mom was able to come with us. I love that, I can actually relax and she plays with them. We drove up to Smith and Morehouse Reservoir and threw rocks into the water. It was cold and rainy.
But...beautiful with the fall colors mixed among the pine trees.
We made donuts one night and I sewed a bunch.
I made this cute owl for one of my friends daughters. I figured out how to use my embroidery machine a bit more and put the little heart on it too.

The little boys had a preschool field trip to HeeHaw Farms in American Fork. Blake asked me every day for probably a month when we were going. He was so excited when we drove up.

Cody went to California for a dental implant course with his brother for a few days last month. He leaves again tomorrow for the 2nd half of the course. I took the kids to the Zermatt to see the Scarecrow Festival.

More sewing has happened. My Etsy shop has been slow, but I was picked to be a vendor at Swiss Christmas again and have lots to stock up on.
This dinosaur was for an order placed online.
I'm still not quite caught up, but getting there.

Monday, October 14, 2013

Snake Creek Canyon

This past Saturday we took a drive up Snake Creek Canyon behind our house.  We love to go for drives back there and enjoy the scenery.  We live in such a gorgeous place and feel so lucky to have such beautiful mountains just a few minutes drive from our door step.  The aspens were fantastic that day.


We went up to a meadow where we could shoot our guns.  We took my semi-auto .22 rifle and Tuckers BB gun.  We had fun shooting water bottles and cans that we brought up.

It was some good, old fashioned red neck fun.


On a side note, I got my euro mount back from the taxidermist and hung it on the wall.  It looks great above the french doors of our office.  Lisa actually likes it as well.

We got the meat back from the butcher and our freezer now has a bunch of elk meat to keep us fed throughout the winter.  Delicious!