Relay For Life

Last Friday we did the Relay for Life with some couples from our ward. For those of you who don't know what it is you can read more about it here. The basic premise of it is that you raise money for cancer research/treatment by walking all night. You do it in teams so only one person per team needs to be walking at any one time. Our team switched off by the hour.

Besides walking, there were multiple other forms of entertainment for us. First, there was the 2-year-old boy from our ward, Grant. He is awesome. He often calls his dad by his first name, Mike, and when he gets angry he calls him Jokey or Shortie. No one knows where he got the name Jokey, but in his mind it is definitely an insult. He also frequently calls his mother babe. Here he is entertaining us with his interpretation of what a headlamp should be used for:


Another form of entertainment was the KISS cover band. You probably can't tell from the pictures, but the lead singer was about 6'5" and had 3 inch platforms on. Daniel and Phil fought their way to the front for some great photo ops.


Daniel and I signed up for walking times of midnight and 2 AM. We each walked at the other's time so we didn't have to be alone. As we walked around the track we realized the event is a middle-schooler's dream. They could stay up all night, essentially unsupervised, with members of the opposite sex. There were groups of middle school kids walking around the track all night; most of them didn't even take a break.

All in all, it was a good experience. We left at 3 AM after we finished walking because we had a breakfast with a recruit at 9 AM that morning. It took a few days to make up the lost sleep, but we would recommend it to anyone who is considering it.

Apology to the World

*****Before reading this understand that Carly is exaggerating this a little bit. She got annoyed with me for saying she is more rude than I am and that led to this post. Anyways Carly has done an excellent job of getting back at me here. Maybe I should buy her this shirt.************

Tonight Daniel informed me that most people would describe me as a rude person. He told me that I say really rude things to people all the time whether I know them or not. How did he describe it? Ah, yes, I must not have the same social filters that most people do. I offend people constantly!

So this is my message to the world: PLEASE point it out when I say these incredibly rude things to you. I would like to know! I did not realize that I fit into a category as a "rude person", but I am trying to claw my way out of it. I know I am fairly blunt with most people and I have definitely said some rude things in my life, but I did not know it was a constant occurrence, one that happens so frequently that most would quickly identify me as rude.

One of my worst nightmares when I was young was that I would figure out I was adopted or mentally retarded and everyone knew but me. This feels a little bit like that. I apologize for being so rude to everyone! Why are any of you my friends?

Cubs Camp

I just want to start off by saying I hate the Lakers and thoroughly enjoyed watching them get beat by the Celtics tonight. I like the Celtics so it is very easy to cheer for them anyways, but the fact that they could win the championship against the evil Lakers only makes it that much better.

This week we had our first basketball camp of the summer. The difference between this camp and the camps we normally do is that it was for little kids which can make things very interesting. I was in charge of the gym of 8 year olds which was really fun because the kids get excited for most any kind of game, but at the same time it was a constant test of patience.

The hard part is the gap between those that have been playing sports and those that haven't is huge. I say this because at 8 some kids have been playing organized sports for 3 years while others are showing up at camp having never played basketball and their parents figure it would be good for them to try it out. This means that on the same team are kids that can shoot and even make 3 pointers and kids that just pick up the ball and run with it. I realized this gap in knowledge was wide when I asked a boy on my team why he just stood at half court while we were on defense and he replied, "What does guarding mean?" At that point I explained what guarding meant, but maybe I should have pointed my young friend to the highly popular clogging camp. At the same time I had a kid ask me why they weren't in the bonus yet. What eight year old knows about the bonus?

With all of that said it still is a blast to see just how excited kids get when they win a meaningless contest. It doesn't matter if there are prizes or not because they just want to win, even the clueless kids got excited about their teams winning relay races. Even though I had to say, "no dribbling while I am talking," like 1,000 times, it was still fun to coach little kids all week.

No Kickball...I Swear

So since our last kickball game we haven't posted anything which I am guessing has led to, less for Courtney to do at work, and probably made you think that without kickball we don't have lives. Well I have a news flash for you Walter Cronkite, we do have lives. O.k. so we haven't really done too much, but we did have a BBQ, play volleyball, and played tennis today so thats not too bad.

Now some random thoughts from the last few days. Sorry they are long and don't make much sense.

1. It will be interesting to see what kinds of music our kids like because for the most part Carly and I really don't like the others music. There are some exceptions like James Taylor, Billy Joel, and Ben Folds. Music that can fall into similar categories are also usually agreeable, but other than that it is a constant music struggle. I think that kids usually pick up on the music that their parents like and eventually come to even think its cool. I did this with music like Steely Dan, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Nancy Griffith. Now these are only a few of the people I could name, but they get my point across that parents' music influences what their kids music will branch into. Maybe the fact that Carly and I like very different music will only mean that they like an even broader range of music. Who knows, but I will pay someone to destroy the last 4 mix tapes known to man that my wife still listens to.

2. New cars are awesome. I guess our car is used, but its new to me. And it's new enough that it doesn't play tapes. Maybe I don't need to destroy Carly's tapes because technology will just phase them out.

3. Today we were watching Jeopardy and I couldn't stop laughing due to one of the question topics(neither could our neighbor Phil as I realized he was laughing at the same moments that Carly and I were). The topic was about rap and hip hop which might make you think, hey it was probably a college edition where they dumb it down, but alas it was a teacher edition with K-12 teachers. The topic led to one of the two homely looking teachers buzzing in and answering Lil Romeo over and over which was never right. The other homely looking teacher answered B.I.G, but said it like she was being coached through an ear piece and was thinking, seriously Notorious B.I.G is a person? And of course the other teacher simply was silent throughout the category knowing that his lead was very very safe. I wonder if Trebek ever thought he would be saying, "oh no I'm sorry, but Lil John is the correct answer."

4. One last thing that our good friend Chris Palmer sent us and we would like to pass along because we have been laughing at it for twenty minutes now. It is called stuff white people like and it is hilarious. Click on each item for a more in depth view of that item. Take note of number 102 where it says white people love children's games....uhhhh kickball. Seriously go now to this link.

Movin On...

...and movin up on the world of kickball. After our victory last night we had another game tonight against a team that we beat the first game of the season. Rumor had it that they were vastly improved and were going to kill us (yes there is a kickball rumor mill). This turned out to be wrong because we walked away with another victory in our march to the championship. A couple of game highlights included a triple play and Carly talking trash with some guy on the other team like only Carly could do.

Maybe we aren't meant to have pictures of our kickball team because tonight I remembered the camera and even got it out to take pictures only to have it die mere moments later. If you really need a visual then picture the most amazing things you have ever seen and then multiply them by ten and that is how awesome one of our kickball games is.

Now I know I have been going on and on about kickball lately, but we have been doing other things too. Today Carly and I went and shot some hoops for a couple of hours in which I made her do shooting drills. She was really quite impressive except for when I demolished her in horse. We also had dinner tonight with President Samuelson and the rest of our coaching staff. It was a good time and President Samuelson was really funny. Its amazing how someone so busy can find time to do all that he does and still keep up with things like women's basketball.

The Best News Yet

I have even better news than each of the last two posts. Carly is preg...ok not really, but we do have a kickball game tonight which is pretty much just as exciting. If things go according to plan we should be marching on in victory to the next round and if we lose then who cares because its friggin kickball. Hopefully we win the whole thing and get a sweet trophy like this one. Anyways I plan on not forgetting our camera so there should be fantastic action shots of the greatest game on earth. Hopefully I get a good one of Carly doing one of her classic fist pumps, this usually includes a funny yet intense face. Check back later to see if I am successful in my photographic endeavors.

********Update**********
We won our game and yes I forgot the camera again. I am now turning over the responsibility of bringing the camera to Carly. Although it was her fault that we were late for the game which was the reason I think I forgot the camera. Anyways we won, but it was ugly. I guess that's the true test of a kickball team, if you can win the ugly ones where you aren't playing at your peak.

Our New Baby

We knew whenever I got a job we would need to buy another car. I really wanted a gas-efficient car since I'll be commuting to work and our other car eats gas. Daniel just wanted something he could fit in and he was convinced that was not possible with a gas-efficient car. We really liked Lexie and Nick's Hyundai Sonata and Daniel admitted he fit in that car so we casually shopped around for them for a few hours the other day. We weren't expecting to find anything so quickly, but we bought a car today! We bought a 2007 Hyundai Sonata with 24,500 miles. It is exactly what we were looking for: excellent gas mileage, priced below blue book value, Daniel fits, comes with a 5-year/60,000 mile manufacturer's warranty, A/C works (unlike our other car), and it is super cool! It was both exciting and nerve-racking as we made the biggest purchase yet in our marriage. Here are some pictures:


One other nice side note is we found out that we both have excellent credit scores. Let's hope those scores can stay that way.

Any ideas for names?