The Shuffle

We went to St. Louis.

It's nice that our three daughters are all able to sit together, facing the same direction while they watch movies and bicker and poke eachother and scream about their sister leaning too far.

This was the main reason we went to St. Louis.

We met up with the Shakespears. We watched their kids Friday evening at the park across the street. This picture doesn't really show off the fact that Nora is providing a majority of the swinging force.

Justin is giving Sam a piece of his mind. No wait, he's giving her a piece of a squirrrel's mind that he found buried in the sand.

Hyrum is about 6 months younger than our oldest. They made out about 5 years ago, and there's been a romantic tension ever since.

I can't remember if Hunter was trying to defend himself against a brother-afflicted wet willy, or a brother-inflicted smooch. I never had a brother. I bet a smooch would be worse.

Saturday afternoon, we went to the St. Louis zoo. The hippo exhibit was by far the best. If you're willing to spend some money, you can pick one out and eat it, like lobsters at a sea food restaurant.

I kinda wish we had splurged and paid for a $10 parking space, because when we got about 50 miles down the road, we discovered that our laptop had been stolen while we were parked on a residential road near the zoo. I wonder if those kudus had been involved.

Cutsey Bootsey

We had a pretty decent conference weekend. Here's a shot of Becky and Nora basking in the spiritual bliss of the last session.



Now, before you watch this video, I want you to realize that it was not edited in any way, although we have been giving her performance enhancing drugs, such as cuteserol, cheruberone, and darlingdearsteride.



Sam's been taking lessons for about 3 months. We've purposely kept our craigslist piano out of tune so she'll be better trained. Kindof like the ninja guys that strap those clay sandals to their feet so they can jump super high when they take them off.

Projects

There's always something to do with a house. I'm not a particularly handy man, but it's been gratifying to do things like turn this craigslist item:


into this:


Of course, there's always more on the horizon. This is going to be our next doozy:

It will require the acquisition of some new skills.


And for your amusement

Better lighting

September 11th, 2011

Ten years ago today, I was a journalism major at Brigham Young University. I remember walking through the library on campus, and seeing crowds of students gathered around the televisions that hung from the ceilings near the entrances. I had classes to get to, so I didn't bother stopping to see what was going on. I got to my communications law class, and the teacher got up and told us that as journalism students, we would certainly learn more by going out and watching the news coverage over whatever was going on than we would by having a discussion over privacy ethics or whatever it was we were talking about.
I went out and watched the news. Honestly, I wouldn't have been able to tell you the names of those buildings had you quizzed me the day before. I was pathetically clueless about world affairs for a broadcasting major. I didn't feel connected to what was going on. I didn't feel sad or angry. I only had one friend that I knew was in New York, but I doubted she was anywhere near the World Trade Center.
I watched the news the rest of the day and into the evening with interest, but little else. I should have reflected more. Ironically, I didn't start taking an interest in world affairs until after I got married and decided against a career in journalism.
The horrible, misguided people who carried out the attacks did change the world. It sent our country into the two longest wars in US history, the cost of which have perhaps irreparably damaged our economy. The united, patriotic fervor that embraced the nation in the days and weeks following the attacks has shifted to a bubbling resentment toward our elected officials.
I don't know what the consequences would be if we retreated from the war on terrorism. Would we feel defeated? Would we feel like we had helped the world by ridding it of some bad people?
Maybe rather than worry about the uncertain future, or dwell on the awful past of a decade ago, the best thing we can do on the anniversary of evil is to do good, and be happy in spite of those who would have you feel differently.

Sunday

Only extraordinarily beautiful people are allowed to wear that t-shirt.

Farms are for dumb people.

Broom Girl

It's strange when your kids start teaching themselves to do things.

Girls

Samantha started 1st grade the other day. We gave her a home-grown butternut squash to give to her teacher. Apples be damned. We also taught her proper wedgie techniques to use on the kindergartners. She's good.



Lucy can't explain why she's adding marshmellows to her pizza toppings. She's still not very good with her L's, so the sentence, "I'm a gluttonous sloth" is still difficult.


Hair. Almost.

We've had a fair amount of trans-sister fighting recently. We don't have very physically violent daughters, but they're extraordinarily vocal. This post is mostly to remind us that it's possible for them to get along once in a while.

Here, they were reenacting the movie "Unstoppable." Sam is playing the part of the grizzly, experienced Denzel Washington. Nora is the young and brash Chris Pine, and Lucy is the the fat guy from "My Name is Earl" that lets the train go.

Here, Samantha pretends to be Al Capone, issuing instructions to the lower crime bosses over a mafia tea.

And some videos.

Thy Fearful Symmetry

The other children saw Samantha in the feline majesty that Becky created for her and demanded more of the same.