July 31
Home Alone
Strange feeling, it is. Last night we shipped the kids out to Grandma Thornes. Today LeAnn headed south to Oregon for Youth Conference. They chartered a bunch of school buses to save money on gas. They will be staying in barracks at Fort Stevens, OR, which is the northwestern most part of Oregon.
This is actually LeAnn's third week in a row down in Oregon (if Vancouver, WA counts) We were there on the 11-12th for the Police Concert. Then she went down last weekend to help her friend, Erica, to move into a new place. This makes her third week in a row! Then guess where we are going next week for our family reunion? Thats right, Oregon! That will be week number four for LeAnn. I told her she should apply for residency while she is down there. Then maybe we could get some of that sweet 'No sales tax' action! ;)
At any rate, now that the Cat (LeAnn) and the Mice (the kids) are away, what is the Big Cheese to do with himself? After work today I will check on Flash, our dog, and then start my night as a bachelor in an empty house. Maybe I will let Flash stay upstairs in my room...(SHHHH. Dont Tell LeAnn!). I will likely head out and hit a flick-- likely the Dark Knight. Then grab some dinner-- of course, I could cook at home, but I prolly wont. :) Then take Flash for a walk down on Redondo Beach. That agenda should keep the loneliness at bay.
July 25
Not much of a cat person,
but the site, icanhascheezburger has some funny lolcats.
Here is one that reminds me of those awkward days as a child when mom licks her fingers to try and wipe down a few stray hairs that were sticking up on your head in a strange way..
Here is one that reminds me of those awkward days as a child when mom licks her fingers to try and wipe down a few stray hairs that were sticking up on your head in a strange way..
July 09
14 years of bliss!
On 7/8/2008 LeAnn and I celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary. I am so grateful for the wonderful wife she is. She makes me a better man. She is a great example to our children and the young women she works with at church adore her. I definitely 'married up'. :)
I had a bouquet of flowers delivered to her during the day and then she came up to Seattle to meet me after work and we went out to dinner. The kids just stayed at home with Autumn in charge for a few hours. It has been great to have a child old enough to watch the other kids. Sure saves us a bunch on babysitting costs.
LeAnn arrived at my work at 5:30, but had to wait for about 15 minutes while I worked on a last minute change on the web site we are currently developing. From there, we drove down Alaskan way on the Seattle waterfront and headed toward 'Cutters Bayhouse' where I had made reservations for 6:30. I had called my sister Kelly, earlier in the day to get her recommendations on which seafood restaurant to go to.) I figured we would get there a bit early and have some time to mill around nearby Pikes Place Market. However, as we made our way down Alaskan, there was a train that came by and came to a complete stop in front of the streets that turned right toward the Market. We were trapped with no way of turning around for at least 15 minutes. We eventually got there to find that the Market is pretty much shut down at 6:00. All of the booths had been emptied except for one jewelry retailer. We then walked a couple of blocks to the restaurant and arrived about 15 minutes early. Since I had made the reservation and mentioned that it was our anniversary, the server there mentioned that they were fixing our table with a waterfront view. Woot! They then seated us and had added a nice touch by having a card and some decorations to congratulate us on our anniversary. It was such a nice touch. Our waiter was great and we had an excellent meal.
This is what I ordered (I know, imagine me ordering steak at a seafood restaurant....):
Buenos Aires Flank Steak*
Chimichurri marinade, scalloped sweet
potatoes.
(gotta love camera phones!)
And LeAnns order:
Grilled Seafood
Brochette with Molé
Salmon, scallop and prawn brochette, orange-
chipotle glaze, jalapeño-corn polenta.
We had a wonderful conversation as we reminisced on our years together. The view was gorgeous as we were up at the Market level and looking out over Elliot Bay. We could see the ferries crossing the Sound and the Olympic Mountains off in the distance. Then as we neared the end of our dining experience, we were contemplating on whether we should order dessert or not. As LeAnns meal had been a bit spicy, she mentioned that she might enjoy a nice creme brulée to cool it down. Not 15 seconds later our waiter came over with, what else? Creme Brulée! He said they wanted to congratulate us on our anniversary and gave it to us gratis! I told him he had read LeAnn's mind. It was quite funny. It was a nice touch. Kudos to the staff at Cutters!
Autumn had asked me to call her when we were on our way home. We kind of figured they might be up to something. When we arrived, they (Autumn, Austin and Jaylin) were all upstairs and yelling for us to come up. Very suspicious to find all of the upstairs doors closed. We opened our bedroom door to find this:
They had decorated our room with balloons and streamers and made us a very sweet card. We have such wonderful, thoughtful children! It was an awesome anniversary.
I had a bouquet of flowers delivered to her during the day and then she came up to Seattle to meet me after work and we went out to dinner. The kids just stayed at home with Autumn in charge for a few hours. It has been great to have a child old enough to watch the other kids. Sure saves us a bunch on babysitting costs.
LeAnn arrived at my work at 5:30, but had to wait for about 15 minutes while I worked on a last minute change on the web site we are currently developing. From there, we drove down Alaskan way on the Seattle waterfront and headed toward 'Cutters Bayhouse' where I had made reservations for 6:30. I had called my sister Kelly, earlier in the day to get her recommendations on which seafood restaurant to go to.) I figured we would get there a bit early and have some time to mill around nearby Pikes Place Market. However, as we made our way down Alaskan, there was a train that came by and came to a complete stop in front of the streets that turned right toward the Market. We were trapped with no way of turning around for at least 15 minutes. We eventually got there to find that the Market is pretty much shut down at 6:00. All of the booths had been emptied except for one jewelry retailer. We then walked a couple of blocks to the restaurant and arrived about 15 minutes early. Since I had made the reservation and mentioned that it was our anniversary, the server there mentioned that they were fixing our table with a waterfront view. Woot! They then seated us and had added a nice touch by having a card and some decorations to congratulate us on our anniversary. It was such a nice touch. Our waiter was great and we had an excellent meal.
This is what I ordered (I know, imagine me ordering steak at a seafood restaurant....):
Buenos Aires Flank Steak*
Chimichurri marinade, scalloped sweet
potatoes.
And LeAnns order:
Grilled Seafood
Brochette with Molé
Salmon, scallop and prawn brochette, orange-
chipotle glaze, jalapeño-corn polenta.
We had a wonderful conversation as we reminisced on our years together. The view was gorgeous as we were up at the Market level and looking out over Elliot Bay. We could see the ferries crossing the Sound and the Olympic Mountains off in the distance. Then as we neared the end of our dining experience, we were contemplating on whether we should order dessert or not. As LeAnns meal had been a bit spicy, she mentioned that she might enjoy a nice creme brulée to cool it down. Not 15 seconds later our waiter came over with, what else? Creme Brulée! He said they wanted to congratulate us on our anniversary and gave it to us gratis! I told him he had read LeAnn's mind. It was quite funny. It was a nice touch. Kudos to the staff at Cutters!
Autumn had asked me to call her when we were on our way home. We kind of figured they might be up to something. When we arrived, they (Autumn, Austin and Jaylin) were all upstairs and yelling for us to come up. Very suspicious to find all of the upstairs doors closed. We opened our bedroom door to find this:
They had decorated our room with balloons and streamers and made us a very sweet card. We have such wonderful, thoughtful children! It was an awesome anniversary.
July 05
Miller Times - June 2008
Following is our family's June entry for The Miller Times Newsletter.
==========================================================================
After putting my mind on rewind, and gleaning some other information from LeAnn, here are a few of the events that happened with our family during the month of June, 2008:
The kids all finished up school at Star Lake elementary. Autumn finished 5th grade, Austin finished 2nd grade and Jaylin finished kindergarten. Autumn and Jaylin had 'graduations' from their respective grades with nice ceremonies in the gym. Autumn dressed up for hers and looked beautiful as always.
Prior to finishing the school year, each of our kids participated in a play put on by the school. They had stayed after a couple of days a week to practice their parts. Jaylin, the youngest of all of the actors had a significant role. She played the part of some type of playful pixie who would go around and tease the other people. She did a great job of remembering her lines as she had quite a few of them. Autumn and Austin also pulled of their parts to perfection.
The Ghost Riders, Austins U8 soccer team which Todd coached went undefeated during the spring season. It was a blast being out there with those boys, (and showing them that I still have a few moves left during some scrimmages. :)) I must have inherited the stat tracking gene from dad. I had been keeping track of the scores of each game. It turned out that we scored 67 goals through 10 games this season. 6.7 a game. Not too shabby. Of those, Austin scored 34. 3.4 a game. He was quite incredible.
The kids all started up on summer swimming lessons. The girls had taken them last month as well, but Austin joined in this month. LeAnn mentioned that last week Jaylin was starting to feel quite confident in the pool and got herself into a near-drowning situation. The teacher had gotten all of the kids in her class out of the pool, but Jaylin climbed back in and went a bit too far into a place where she couldnt touch down. LeAnn saw her go under a couple of times and started running down to help her-- and jump in if necessary. Jaylin finally remembered some of the things she had learned and held her breath as she went under and swam back over to the side. Phew! Sometimes we all have to learn the hard way!
Austin had cub scout day camp where they went down for a few days to a camp on the Puget Sound and had a blast doing different activities. Todd was asked to help with helping the boys to make stilts. It was a bit crazy assembling them as we had a hard time lining up many of the predrilled pieces and being able to get the washers and nuts on the countersunk bolts was quite tricky. Thankfully, they had three leaders there to help their group of 7 boys assemble. For the most part, I would get everything connected and have the boys help drill a couple of holes and then use the socket wrenches to tighten the bolts down. It was fun to go afterward to the firebowl where they did skits and sang song. Brings back great memories of my cub scouting days. Austin did a great job this month in completing his Wolf badge and has now earned 6 arrow points.
We decided to get a trampoline in June. We put the old swingset on Craigslist (for free), and I got about 15 responses within about 20 minutes. We ended up giving it to a family from Tacoma who would be using it for a daycare that they were opening. After getting the trampoline home I went right to work setting it up. It assembled in about an hour. Word started spreading around our neighborhood, and soon there were another seven or eight kids in our backyard. I finally got all of the springs attached and LeAnn and I put on the pad. The kids were chomping at the bit to get on there. LeAnn told them that she and I were going on first. They were all deflated by that. :) We got on and gave it a test run. It was pretty fun. LeAnn was giggling like a school girl and I popped her up in the air a few times. After about 5 minutes we reluctantly got off and let the kids go crazy. They were quite excited. It was fun to see them bouncing around and having a blast. I still need to put up the enclosure, but they should survive for another day or so. It works out well that today is their final day of school before they get out for the summer. Now we can add one more thing for them to do when they ask us: "Im bored. What can I do?" :) As long as I dont jump on it with Brooke, I should be safe from getting my 'egg cracked' like when I was 16 and Brooke's teeth came down in my head as we were playing 'crack the egg'.
LeAnn kept busy with the young women as usual. She attended Girls camp one evening over on the Peninsula and had a good time with the girls. I think she secretly is glad she didnt have to stay overnight with them as camping is not one of her favorite things. She also helped with a cool activity the youth had called the "Budget Challenge". The kids went to a place where they give them money, start a career and work on real-life budgeting. They decide what to do with their monthly income as to whether to buy a house, get a car and how to budget their money on clothing, food and other necessities of life.
I was the MC at a ward activity called "Home Video Night" I guess they wanted someone goofy to provide commentary in between videos. (I made sure that no one would compare me with Bob Saget) There were a bunch of fun videos submitted that we watched. We also put in the one of LeAnn skydiving. That one was a hoot to watch and the whole ward was quite impressed by her daring spirit. (One of my comments was; "After this video you will wonder to what extent you want your young women to follow the example of their Young Women's President) We then had an "unbiased" panel choose the top 4 videos of the night. Austin ended up taking 4th place for a video we submitted of him flexing and posing in his bathing suit while naming each of his biceps "Thunder" and "Lightning"
==========================================================================
After putting my mind on rewind, and gleaning some other information from LeAnn, here are a few of the events that happened with our family during the month of June, 2008:
The kids all finished up school at Star Lake elementary. Autumn finished 5th grade, Austin finished 2nd grade and Jaylin finished kindergarten. Autumn and Jaylin had 'graduations' from their respective grades with nice ceremonies in the gym. Autumn dressed up for hers and looked beautiful as always.
Prior to finishing the school year, each of our kids participated in a play put on by the school. They had stayed after a couple of days a week to practice their parts. Jaylin, the youngest of all of the actors had a significant role. She played the part of some type of playful pixie who would go around and tease the other people. She did a great job of remembering her lines as she had quite a few of them. Autumn and Austin also pulled of their parts to perfection.
The Ghost Riders, Austins U8 soccer team which Todd coached went undefeated during the spring season. It was a blast being out there with those boys, (and showing them that I still have a few moves left during some scrimmages. :)) I must have inherited the stat tracking gene from dad. I had been keeping track of the scores of each game. It turned out that we scored 67 goals through 10 games this season. 6.7 a game. Not too shabby. Of those, Austin scored 34. 3.4 a game. He was quite incredible.
The kids all started up on summer swimming lessons. The girls had taken them last month as well, but Austin joined in this month. LeAnn mentioned that last week Jaylin was starting to feel quite confident in the pool and got herself into a near-drowning situation. The teacher had gotten all of the kids in her class out of the pool, but Jaylin climbed back in and went a bit too far into a place where she couldnt touch down. LeAnn saw her go under a couple of times and started running down to help her-- and jump in if necessary. Jaylin finally remembered some of the things she had learned and held her breath as she went under and swam back over to the side. Phew! Sometimes we all have to learn the hard way!
Austin had cub scout day camp where they went down for a few days to a camp on the Puget Sound and had a blast doing different activities. Todd was asked to help with helping the boys to make stilts. It was a bit crazy assembling them as we had a hard time lining up many of the predrilled pieces and being able to get the washers and nuts on the countersunk bolts was quite tricky. Thankfully, they had three leaders there to help their group of 7 boys assemble. For the most part, I would get everything connected and have the boys help drill a couple of holes and then use the socket wrenches to tighten the bolts down. It was fun to go afterward to the firebowl where they did skits and sang song. Brings back great memories of my cub scouting days. Austin did a great job this month in completing his Wolf badge and has now earned 6 arrow points.
We decided to get a trampoline in June. We put the old swingset on Craigslist (for free), and I got about 15 responses within about 20 minutes. We ended up giving it to a family from Tacoma who would be using it for a daycare that they were opening. After getting the trampoline home I went right to work setting it up. It assembled in about an hour. Word started spreading around our neighborhood, and soon there were another seven or eight kids in our backyard. I finally got all of the springs attached and LeAnn and I put on the pad. The kids were chomping at the bit to get on there. LeAnn told them that she and I were going on first. They were all deflated by that. :) We got on and gave it a test run. It was pretty fun. LeAnn was giggling like a school girl and I popped her up in the air a few times. After about 5 minutes we reluctantly got off and let the kids go crazy. They were quite excited. It was fun to see them bouncing around and having a blast. I still need to put up the enclosure, but they should survive for another day or so. It works out well that today is their final day of school before they get out for the summer. Now we can add one more thing for them to do when they ask us: "Im bored. What can I do?" :) As long as I dont jump on it with Brooke, I should be safe from getting my 'egg cracked' like when I was 16 and Brooke's teeth came down in my head as we were playing 'crack the egg'.
LeAnn kept busy with the young women as usual. She attended Girls camp one evening over on the Peninsula and had a good time with the girls. I think she secretly is glad she didnt have to stay overnight with them as camping is not one of her favorite things. She also helped with a cool activity the youth had called the "Budget Challenge". The kids went to a place where they give them money, start a career and work on real-life budgeting. They decide what to do with their monthly income as to whether to buy a house, get a car and how to budget their money on clothing, food and other necessities of life.
I was the MC at a ward activity called "Home Video Night" I guess they wanted someone goofy to provide commentary in between videos. (I made sure that no one would compare me with Bob Saget) There were a bunch of fun videos submitted that we watched. We also put in the one of LeAnn skydiving. That one was a hoot to watch and the whole ward was quite impressed by her daring spirit. (One of my comments was; "After this video you will wonder to what extent you want your young women to follow the example of their Young Women's President) We then had an "unbiased" panel choose the top 4 videos of the night. Austin ended up taking 4th place for a video we submitted of him flexing and posing in his bathing suit while naming each of his biceps "Thunder" and "Lightning"
July 04
Austin's Soap Carving
This morning Austin wanted to try carving something with his pocket knife. He called his Aunt Rebecca, who is an artist and does soap carving herself to get some ideas on what he should try first. One small cut and 45 minutes later, here is his first creation:
Now here are a few words from Austin describing his project. (Next is Austin typing...)
My aunt said it would be a good thing to start with animals like fish and turtles so I decided to do a turtle. At first I cut myself but it wasn't too bad so I came through in the end and this is what it looked like when I was finished.
By AUSTIN
Now here are a few words from Austin describing his project. (Next is Austin typing...)
My aunt said it would be a good thing to start with animals like fish and turtles so I decided to do a turtle. At first I cut myself but it wasn't too bad so I came through in the end and this is what it looked like when I was finished.
By AUSTIN
July 03
Sad day in Seattle - Sonics are Gone
[Check the banner at the top of the arena-- riiiiiiiiiiiight...]
Having been here in Seattle now for 14 years, I had become somewhat attached to the Sonics. Of course, my true loyalties will always be with the Utah Jazz, but I had been to a number of Sonics games over the years and enjoyed it very much. 41 years of history are now headed to Oklahoma City. It is a shame how this whole deal was handled by Clay Bennett, the new Sonics owner. Granted, it was a huge mistake for Schultz to sell the team to an out-of-towner, but supposedly Bennett had intentions of keeping the team here. There were plenty of mistakes made on the Seattle side, but the fact that someone can waltz in and pull the rug out from our city's feet is quite upsetting.
The article below addresses this situation quite well.
ESPN - Sonics saga sends out a bad message - NBA
July 01
Three Birds. One Stone
I procrastinated the day of my home teaching til the last Sunday of the month. I had had a streak of about four months where we had set up appointments for the second week of each month, and it was working well for a while there, but then I regressed. As the 29th of this month came, I decided to mix it up a little bit and invite the families I home teach over for a BBQ and FHE. I ran this by LeAnn, who agreed to help me out. I figured I could kill not two, but three birds with one stone. I could check off home teaching, FHE and as a bonus have a BBQ thrown in! I must confess LeAnn ended up doing the bulk of the work to get the house and backyard ready. We had had a big inflatable pool out for a few days, but it wasnt holding its water too well, so we drained it out and took it down. As I didnt have time to mow the lawn yesterday between getting home from work and 6:00 when the FHE BBQ was starting, LeAnn took it on herself to mow the lawn. Whatta Woman!!! Now I can pass that chore on to her! ;) Austin sounds like he is willing to mow the lawn now, so I will practice with him a couple more times before passing that baton on to him. LeAnn had the kids out there with her weeding and cleaning up the dog's presents to get everything ready. I am very grateful to her for helping me with my home teaching project!
I have two active families assigned to me to home teach. The Smith family: Cory, Lisa, Jessica, Josh, Juliana, Janie, Jacob (yep, thats alotta J's!) and the Burt family: Craig, Kris, Michael, Brandon and Laura. We also invited our friends, the Rice's over: Matt, Melody, Haley and Leah. People started arriving at 6:00 and I threw the meat on the Barbie. We had burgers, dogs and chicken. I made it through the night without burning anything, and everyone seemed to enjoy dinner. A bunch of the boys were hanging out inside playing Mario Kart on the Wii, while Autumn and Juliana were doing picto chat on their DSes and the younger kids were out on the trampoline. Of course, Flash was a big hit will all of the kids. He tolerates the excessive attention quite well.
A bit after 7:00 I started setting up for FHE/Home Teaching. I took some yarn and starting winding it crazily around inside the house. I weaved it around doorknobs, up the stairs, around couches, etc. Then at the end of 100 feet or so, I put a bowl of candy on top of a shelf. Then I went into the backyard and called everyone to gather over. I think we had 12 kids and 8 adults. We talked about how our prophet receives revelation which he passes on to us, and that we are able to receive our own personal revelations through prayer and fasting. Then I had the kids go in the house and follow the trail of yarn- I compared that to following the counsel of our prophet and that when we "hold to the rod" we will be 'rewarded' at the end. I think everyone had a fun time and the kids were thrilled to find a bowl of candy at the end of the yarn maze.
Afterward, the Smiths and Burts left and the Rices stuck around to visit a bit more. I showed them LeAnn's skydiving DVD and they were quite impressed. :) It was a fun night. Gotta love that three birds with one stone!
I have two active families assigned to me to home teach. The Smith family: Cory, Lisa, Jessica, Josh, Juliana, Janie, Jacob (yep, thats alotta J's!) and the Burt family: Craig, Kris, Michael, Brandon and Laura. We also invited our friends, the Rice's over: Matt, Melody, Haley and Leah. People started arriving at 6:00 and I threw the meat on the Barbie. We had burgers, dogs and chicken. I made it through the night without burning anything, and everyone seemed to enjoy dinner. A bunch of the boys were hanging out inside playing Mario Kart on the Wii, while Autumn and Juliana were doing picto chat on their DSes and the younger kids were out on the trampoline. Of course, Flash was a big hit will all of the kids. He tolerates the excessive attention quite well.
A bit after 7:00 I started setting up for FHE/Home Teaching. I took some yarn and starting winding it crazily around inside the house. I weaved it around doorknobs, up the stairs, around couches, etc. Then at the end of 100 feet or so, I put a bowl of candy on top of a shelf. Then I went into the backyard and called everyone to gather over. I think we had 12 kids and 8 adults. We talked about how our prophet receives revelation which he passes on to us, and that we are able to receive our own personal revelations through prayer and fasting. Then I had the kids go in the house and follow the trail of yarn- I compared that to following the counsel of our prophet and that when we "hold to the rod" we will be 'rewarded' at the end. I think everyone had a fun time and the kids were thrilled to find a bowl of candy at the end of the yarn maze.
Afterward, the Smiths and Burts left and the Rices stuck around to visit a bit more. I showed them LeAnn's skydiving DVD and they were quite impressed. :) It was a fun night. Gotta love that three birds with one stone!
