Thursday, December 17, 2015

Thanksgiving

This year we volunteered to host Thanksgiving at our house. It was a Calderwood year in terms of who we would be eating with since we drove up to Pasco last year and spent the holiday with my family. My parents were going to be alone with Spencer so we invited them up as well. We have a great hosting space and fit well, so a few extra people actually is nice when splitting up the meal. We cooked the turkey and made the gravy and the sweet potato casserole. I received a delicious recipe from a friend in Maryland years ago that I get compliments on year after year. Even my Grandma thinks it's good, so it's a keeper!
Cerola brought this fun tablecloth for the kinds table that had activities and coloring for the kids to stay busy. Ironically, the 2 Grandma's are shown in the picture. 
 Aubrey and I got up and ran Midway's annual 5K Turkey Trot. I stayed with her and we finished in about 37 minutes. Not bad for not training and being 21 degrees outside. We were freezing and ready for the hot chocolate waiting for us inside town hall. We took hot showers and helped finish getting the house ready for our house guests set to arrive by 1:00. Cody's turkey was amazing as was the rest of our meal.

After the meal we enjoyed some football on tv.

The tryptophan from the turkey was kicking in some people decided to kick back and grab a power nap.

There was even some wrestling later on.

 My parents brought up their ukulele and my Dad and Aubrey played some duets for us. I bought a newspaper earlier and we all looked through the Black Friday ads for some good deals. There wasn't anything worth going out late or early. Friday afternoon we drove down to Salt Lake and did a little shopping at Scheels and picked up a couple items when the crowds weren't bad.
Saturday Mickey and Cerola met us at our house in the morning and we celebrated Cerola's birthday and drove up Lake Creek and cut down our Christmas tree. I stood in line a month earlier to buy my permit at Soldier Hollow. The tree isn't as full as we typically get, but it's still a good one, nice and tall. 




Tucker Pheasant Hunting

On Saturday November 14th my dad had the opportunity to go pheasant hunting up by Tremonton. A vendor he uses at work offered to take him and some guests hunting. Unfortunately for me I came down with a nasty stomach bug after coming home from Washington DC. I was in bad shape, so we sent Tucker to go have a great hunting day with his grandpa.

I have some great memories of pheasant hunting with my dad while I was growing up. I was excited for Tucker to build some of the same memories.  

They had a very successful day, and the weather was perfect for a fall hunt. Tucker even shot his first pheasant all by himself. That single shot 410 is a great little gun for him. The smile on his face says it all.



While I am sad that I wasn't able to go along with them, I was super happy that Tucker and my dad had such a fun day together.

Friday, December 4, 2015

BYU Football season tickets

For the past few years my dad and I have shared season tickets for BYU football. It's been a ton of fun to go spend a few hours with him a few times during the fall. BYU made it a really entertaining year too by winning all of their home games.

Here's one of the earlier games when the weather was warm.



Here's the final home game they played against Fresno State. A little colder, but still entertaining.


Towards the end of the game I went down by the field to get a closer view.

The home games are all finished now for the season, so I am anxious for next year already. It's becoming a great fall time tradition with my dad. Go Cougs!

Washington DC

Back at the beginning of November I had the opportunity to go to Washington DC for a week as part of the delegation from the Utah Dental Association to attend the American Dental Association caucus and committee meetings. Each year the location changes, and over the next several years I'll get to travel to Denver, Atlanta and Hawaii.

It's always fun to go back to DC. It brings back great memories of our time out there for dental school. While we were there we took a tour of the White House. It was pretty cool and educational.



We had some awesome views out over the White House lawn towards the memorials.


We also took a tour of the Capitol Building. I've done the tour before, but it's still a good tour.

As a group we went around and visited with the Utah congressmen and senators. We were talking with them about some resolutions and bills that are before the respective floors that we would like to see passed. The bills deal mostly without unfair practices that dental insurance companies practice that cheat patients out of their dental benefits. Basically we are just asking that the dental insurance companies play by the same rules that every other business in America is required to. Here is a picture we took with Senator Orin Hatch after our meeting with him.

One evening the ADA had a reception at the Museum of Natural History. They based it off the movie Night At The Museum. Lisa and I visited this museum several times while we lived out there. It's one of my favorites in DC. I took this selfie in front of the Easter Island statue and sent it to the kids. I titled it, "You, Dumb Dumb! Give me gum gum!" They got a good kick out of that.

Most of the time we were there was spent in long, boring meetings unfortunately. Here's a picture of some of the Utah delegates at our table during one of the very boring procedural meetings for the ADA.

In all it was an eye opening trip for me to see how the ADA functions. It makes me appreciate all the time that people put in behind the scenes.