Duped

Jaylin (7 YO) came up to me yesterday afternoon and asked me to show her how I write a capital K on a notebook. I wrote it down for her. 'Hmm.' she said. 'That looks exactly how the easter bunny writes his K!' She totally tricked me. The easter bunny had written the kids initials in pen on the cardboard box of a chocolate bunny in each of their baskets. (so they would know whose basket was whose). I think she is onto me!

Rough Ride

Rode the Sounder Train into work and brought my bike along. The train is quite relaxing to ride in on. Brings back memories of riding the trains in Japan. The train lets out near Pioneer Square, then I backtrack a mile to SODO. They have a bike cage locker at the Starbucks building where you have to have access to enter, but everything is quite secure in there. The weather was perfect for a ride- 65 degrees. I left work around 3:30 and used 'iMapMyRide' app on the iPhone to track my route. It uses GPS coordinates to track how fast, how far and the route you take. I had thought the ride from Seattle back to Kent Station was around 20 miles, but it turned out to be 17.

The new and old bad knees held up pretty well. The worst part was my whiney heiney. Had to stand up a number of times to relieve its protestations. Overall was a good first ride of the year. I will be ramping up to ride the RSVP again in August. I had checked for tickets, but they were already sold out as of a few weeks ago. So, we will be going solo. I have talked with Austin and Autumn about training for this and riding along with me. We will see how that develops.

Bribed

Recently, I told Austin if he completed the requirements for two more activity badges - Artist and Geologist, that I would take him to the 'Percy Jackson and the Olympians' movie- both he and I have read and enjoyed the book. I also told him he needed to finish his 'art collage' project for the Artist badge before we could play Halo3 together again. It was quite effective. I will be employing similar tactics with Autumn and her Personal Progress projects.
LeAnn started playing into the bribery Ive been dealing out on the kids. A couple of days ago, after I told her the doctor wanted me doing 100 leg lifts a day to rehab my knee, she used my own tactics on me. She said if I do them for a week, that she will take me to see Avatar. Ive been trying to get her to go with me since it came out. Jaylin ended up making me a chart and even has stickers that I get to apply when I have completed my task. :)

Beautiful Princess

Highlight from my surgery last week. When I was taken into get the Anesthesia, I found that the anesthesiologist was Japanese. I asked her if I could practice my Japanese on her. She said I could, but she likely wouldnt catch very much of it. (Must be second generation :)) So I threw out the following: "Kyou wa tottemo tanoshimii ni shite imasu!" or "I am really looking forward to today! After she heard that, she said: "So you are feeling like a beautiful fairy princess!"? Thank you Dr. Watanabe for lightening up the mood of a not-so-fun situation. :)

Spilt Milk

Spilt milk all over the kitchen at work yesterday. Didnt cry. Just cleaned it up. :)

D'OH! A deer!

We drove to Coeur D'Alene, ID this past weekend to go see our new niece, Willow's baby blessing. We stayed at the condos on the lake again with LeAnn's parents. We had a pretty much uneventful trip up until we started the windy trip around the lake to get to the condos. It is about 11 miles and takes about 20 minutes from I-90. I figured I had driven long enough by that time, and pulled out to switch with LeAnn. I think she was quite surprised as I had already driven about 5 hours, so why not finish it up? Anyway, we switched and she started driving the final leg. There was some snow on the edge of the road but it didnt feel to treacherous. We were just a few miles from our destination, when LeAnn suddenly shouted: "Oh my gosh! There's a deer!" It had bounded across the road and she started hitting the brakes to make sure she wouldnt hit it. Then, just as suddenly, another one appeared right in front of the right front bumper of the van. I saw its head briefly before we nailed it. It made a tremendous thump, and LeAnn screamed a bit more. We were doing about 20 MPH as she had slowed down to avoid the previous one. We couldnt tell if it was dead or not, as by the time we stopped we couldnt see anything else. I went out to inspect the damage and saw that our front headlight was hanging from the wires. Luckily, it wasnt significant damage and none of us were hurt. Scary stuff though.

Situps

Austin has been working very hard on his Activity Badges for Webelos over the past few weeks. One of the badges is 'Athlete'. For this, he needed to do a number of physical activities and keep records of his improvements. These include: Pushups, situps, pullups, 1/4 mile run. It is fun to see him strive so hard to reach and then surpass his goals. The first week he did the situps and completed 25. The next week he did 50, then 75 and 100. Amazing thing is, now that he completed the 4 week requirement and demonstrating improvement - he was still doing the situps to try and beat his record. I sat and watched in awe as he completed 200 in my bedroom last Thursday. Then on Friday, he did 300 in a row!! I watched as he had a pained expression on his face from the time he hit 100. This is one driven kid!
I told him I wasnt sure if I had done that many total in my whole life!

Bike Post

1983 - I had been swimming at the Alta Canyon pool with some friends. We stayed a bit later than we were supposed to, and I was supposed to have been home an hour earlier. It was now dark, and I was riding my Duster 200 home as fast as I could to hopefully alleviate any extra punishment I might be in for. I was up off of the seat pedaling with all of my might, when my back tire went right through one of the sewer grates in the gutter. I was going so fast, and the impact was so severe, that my bike post came up through the plastic seat of my dirtbike! Guess where it nailed me? Thats right-- right in the most sensitive area of the male anatomy. I pretty much crumpled right there. After getting my wind a bit later, I still had to pedal the rest of the way home without sitting down because of my broken seat. Such a 'painful' memory!

Fire Hydrant

When I was 13, I was playing football at Buttercup park in Sandy, UT. I was playing receiver and went long for the hail mary. I was going full blast and had the guy covering me beat. I looked back over my shoulder for the incoming pass, and.... ran straight into a fire hydrant. I think it was worse than a brick wall. The brunt of the impact was taken by my right thigh. I had never hit anything so hard. So lucky I didnt break my leg. I remember the bruise was the biggest I had ever had and covered the bulk of my quad. Limped around for quite a while after that.

Tidy Bowl - circa 1972

When this Todd was but a wee toddler, apparently I crawled into our toilet and was enjoying my personal jacuzzi. When finally my mom came to find me, she saw that I was puttering around and enjoying myself in the toilet. Realizing that this was the ultimate Kodak moment, she ran to get the camera. By the time she came back to take the picture, I had crawled out of the potty. In order to not let this moment be lost to history, she proceeded to stuff me back in there and take the picture. In the picture you can see that I was a bit upset to be thrown back in there in such an undignified manner by looking at the crying expression on my face!

Hidden Broccoli - circa 1978

When we were kids, we were playing hide and seek and my little sister, Brooke, who was about three, hid so well we could not find her. We looked for over an hour and then ended up calling the police. The whole neighborhood was out searching a couple of hours in. In the third hour we found her - Asleep under a pile of clothes in the laundry room!

Rascal

In the ongoing battle between father-in-law and son-in-law, FIL struck first. Over Thanksgiving, we stayed at some condos on Lake Coeur d'Alene. It is a beautiful setting, and we had a wonderful time there.

We were there for a week, and I had brought along a bunch of puzzles that I thought we could put together as a family. I started working on one a couple of days before Thanksgiving, and spent a couple of hours each night puzzling away. (Didnt get much help from anyone...) One night, I stayed up until midnight to finish it. I felt quite accomplished and was relishing the completion into the next morning. I had been reading a book in the bedroom, then came out at about 9 a.m. LeAnn's dad apologetically mentioned that someone had bumped the table and the puzzle had been broken apart. Disappointment washed over my face as I looked over to the table and saw a jumbled pile of puzzle pieces. My three children even looked over at me with sad expressions on their faces. I tried to remain stoic and played like it was no big deal, but they could tell I was a bit upset about it. I proceeded to take a shower and came out 15 minutes later. LeAnn's dad quickly told me that the kids had put the puzzle back together again. I look over, and there it is, all complete! He went on to say how it must not have been that difficult as they could finish it in that short of time when it took me four days! As the wheels are churning in my head, I realized that I had been 'played'. The puzzles I brought had five different puzzles in one box. They had all moved the completed puzzle into another room and pulled out one of the other uncompleted ones!
touché
After getting punked like that, I decided I had to get back at FIL! After my family had duped me before, I decided that I needed some cohorts in exacting my revenge. First, we waited until grandpa and grandma left the condos. Then we proceeded to toilet paper grandpas bedroom. We went through a roll pretty quickly, and then realized that we might run out of TP if we used another roll, so ended it there. It was funny to see his reaction when they got home. Since that was a pretty tame prank, I wanted to take it to the next level...
Grandpa has this bottle of super-spicy salsa that he brought along for the trip. It has habaneros, jalapenos, scotch bonnets, all of the super-hot chilies in it. It was a bit much for most salsa eaters. When we stopped at the store that evening, I asked LeAnn to purchase some mild Pace Picante sauce. Begrudgingly, because she knew she would likely be implicated as a partner in my crime, she bought it for me. Upon arriving home, I took FIL's special salsa bottle and removed its contents. This, I replaced with the mild stuff. The kids were so excited to see the show that night because we were having Mexican food and we knew grandpa would break out his 'special salsa'. As dinner preparations were being made, there was a bag of corn chips out on the counter to entice him. He took the bait. He got his salsa (what he thought was his salsa), and took a dip with a chip. We were all watching expectantly to see his reaction. He smacked his lips a couple of times, and looked quite confused. He took another chip, and tried again. His eyebrows scrunched down in consternation as he thought he was going crazy. He must have figured the third time was the charm. He took another bite, and then said: 'Something is wrong with my salsa!' The room erupted in laughter and he finally realized that he had been duped.
Now I just need to watch my back as I know he will be scheming to get me back again. :)

The Flap.

A couple of weeks ago on a Saturday morning, I was down on the couch in my 'lounge pants' reading a book. Jaylin and Austin came down and Jaylin took a look at my pants and noticed that there was a 'hole' in the nether regions. I tried to explain the purpose of that 'hole' in the most refined way that I could. She kind of made the big saucer eyes and said 'that is gross'.
Austin, on the other hand, was quite enraptured by the conversation. I noticed him listening in and told him that he would have the same type of hole in his whitey tighties. He said, 'No, I dont!'. I told him he should take a look. He pulled down his pj's a bit and said 'That part is sewn down'. I then told him he should go check it out in the bathroom. Twenty seconds later, I hear him screaming - IT WORKS! IT WORKS!
I guess I never thought much about teaching him about 'the flap'. So funny that he made it to ten years old before realizing that he could use it. Now, everytime he comes out of the bathroom, he tells me- "I used the flap!"

Pirate Battle

Last Tuesday night, we had a parent vs. kids scrimmage for our soccer team, the Pirates. We played at a lighted field in Federal Way. We were actually on a sand field, which I wasnt too thrilled about initially. It was raining during the whole game, and it turned out the sand was probably easier to play on than the grass fields would have been - not quite as slippery, although the ball would skid pretty well as there wasnt the grass to stop it.
We started out going 7 parents against the 6 boys that were there. The boys were pretty excited to 'give it to us'. They held up pretty well for a while, although the parents team had some pretty good passing going on. I kept yelling at the boys to watch how well their parents were passing the ball around. Gunnar's dad, Bob, is quite athletic and got a couple of good shots in. Soon we were up 3-0. I could tell the boys were getting a bit dejected, so I told them they could pick one of the parents to come over onto their team. The parents ended up voting and sending me over. So, I held down the defense a bit tighter as I was guarding Bob. I started giving the boys more opportunities to get some shots, but the parents were not very compassionate. They were all playing for the win. At that point, I figured I needed to up the ante. I pushed forward a few times and scored a couple of goals. Then one of the boys got one and we were tied 3-3. The parents came back though and Bob scored a header off of a corner kick. We came back down and I scored another to match them. After that, we had been playing for over an hour, so we decided that the next goal would win. I was trying to get one of the boys to get the winning goal and passed a number of them through that were denied good shots. Finally, we came down the middle, and I was trying to direct traffic to get the boys to push through so I could lead them with a pass. Austin saw me pointing and made a good run toward the goal. I sent it through to him and he dribbled past one defender and put it in for the win! He was so excited. It seemed like a bigger deal to him to score against the adults than it did for the multiple goals he would score in his regular games. It was just as fun for me to be able to participate with him and work together to score that winning goal.
I have payed for all of that fun by being in pain for the past week. My knees were not happy at all with all of that action. My 'good knee' is now feeling worse than my surgically repaired one. :( It is probably worse after running against adults as opposed to playing against the 10 year-olds

9 seconds

Austin took the pass from the first kickoff of our game last Saturday, weaved his way through five defenders, and scored our first goal in 9 seconds. It might have been eight even. I use a stopwatch to keep track of how long the boys have been in and then sub them out in 7 minute increments. After he scored so quickly, it might have taken a second for the shock to wear off before I looked down at the stopwatch. It was an incredible play, and so thrilling to see him doing so well.

gassed

A couple of weeks back, after soccer practice, I drove down to Auburn with Austin and Jaylin to deliver a birthday invitation to one of Austin's friends, Conrad, from his soccer team last spring. We stopped by his practice and said hi to him and his dad before heading back home. We were in the Kent valley and my gas light had been on for a while. It is a totally unreliable indicator as it goes on about anytime after I have put over 150 miles on the tank of gas -- when I know that I can get 275 out of a tank. So, usually, I let it ride for a while longer before filling up again. On this particular night, we were at about 250, so I figured I could get back up the hill to the station by our house. I passed one station and had driven not quite a mile when the Malibu started 'gas'ping for gas. I quickly pulled off the main road and gave it a couple of tries to start the engine again before I gave up. It wouldnt have been a big deal had I been by myself, but I had AK and JA with me. I told them we would be going on an adventure back to the gas station. It was about 7:00 at this time, and it was quite cold. I found one blanket in the car and wrapped that around Jaylin. Luckly, I had a jacket as well, and gave that to Austin. They were quite the 'huddled masses' They both did really well on the walk to the station. No complaints at all. It felt like a mile, but on the way back I used an iPhone app that calculates trip distance  #iMapMyRun , and it showed it was just over a half a mile. I told them on the way back, that we were hiking along like the Pioneer children. Hopefully, that is as close as we get to going on a pioneer trek in the cold.

Tight pants

Two days ago, after I changed into my pants after our
workout, I was quite flustered to find that they were feeling a bit tight. This
was a new pair of pants which I hadn’t worn before. I had purchased the same
size I usually get – 38 x 32.  All of the scenarios started running
through my head – did that slice of pie I had for my birthday put me over the
top, are my muscles getting that much bigger… ? I was a bit depressed for the
morning that I seemed to be bulking up. They weren’t uncomfortably tight – like
it hurts when I sit down tight, but it was quite a bummer that day.

 

Fast forward to the end of the day – we were planning to go
play some kickball with a bunch of friends at the park. I changed out of those
new ‘make me sad’ pants. On a lark, I figured I would take a look at the size
of them. THEY WERE 36 x 32!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Those never would have fit in a
million years before starting with the fitness training/nutrition program I started in July.

I must have grabbed the wrong size off of the rack when I
bought them! (likely they had the wrong size listed on the hanger)

Still not quite comfortable with that size, but they did somewhat
fit. I haven’t worn size 36 in well over 15 years! :)

Tanjyoubi

39 should be a good year. Yesterday had a fun surprise after church. The kids had filled my car with balloons and left a fun Happy Birthday! poster under the windshield wipers. It was so fun to see how excited they were about their surprise. Once we got home, I went off and finished Clive Cussler's 'The Chase' - classic Cussler. Then it was nappy time. The kids have been great at respecting the Sunday afternoon nap and not barging in too often. Although that likely led to Jaylin having too much time on her hands to give herself a self-made haircut . Then LeAnn threw some Steaks on the barby and we had a nice dinner with the family.
After dinner, we had a little party. I am finding out how much of a prankster Autumn is starting to become. She was quite giddy before giving me her gift. I was quite shocked when I opened it to find a 'Ken Barbie' doll inside. Huh!?? She went on to say how I had told her the week previous that the only way I would eat the Barbie Cake that they had made with their Aunt Ashley was if they also made a Ken cake to go along with it. (A good case of my bad jokes coming back to haunt me) She laughed her head off for about 10 minutes. Not sure what I should do with that one.
Jaylin was adorable in making me a tie-pin with the letter 'T' on it, that she had drawn, colored, cut out and attached to a safety pin. She also made a 'T' magnet, which we put on the fridge. So thoughtful and cute.
Austin gave me an awesome poster storyboard with candy bars taped to it. It was so fun and imaginative. I will fill in [the blanks] with the story when I get home today.
LeAnn gave me a cool gift called a 'Chillow' it is a pillow that you put in your pillow case that will help keep your pillow cool at night. My head is like a furnace at night and I always get quite hot. This chillow has you add water inside its plastic casing which is then absorbed into some foam-like material. I tried it out last night and it was literally 'Cool' - almost too much.
It was funny that the birthday wishes are coming in in various methods now-a-days. I got a text from Brandon, an Email from Kelly Jean, a bunch of birthday wishes on Facebook. Mom/Dad, Brian, Brooke, Kelly and Ashley did it the old-fashioned way -- by phone :)
Thank you all for a wonderful birthday!!

Choppa Choppa

Jaylin did it again. When she was four, she found some scissors and whacked out a good chunk of her hair. That was THREE years ago! What possessed her to do it at age 7 1/2, Ill never know. She took a good six or seven inches off of her bangs just in time for school to start.

Skinny Guy

I have been doing a program called Kinetix, which is a fitness/nutritional
program, for the past 6 weeks. We get a personal trainer who helps with weight
training and nutrition. It has really changed up the pace for me and helped me
to make better decisions with food. It has really been paying off as I am down
about 12 pounds and have gained 1 pound of muscle. Today when I walked in for my
training session, my trainer said: ‘Look at you, skinny guy!’ (of course
trainers have to say those type of things, but it was still a good feeling :)) I
think the last time I was called skinny was by LeAnn, back in 1996 – she told me
I was too skinny at that time ;) (I showed her, didnt I! :))