Extreme Cheapskates Part Two

When it finally got cold enough to turn on the heat, we turned it on low so it would just run when necessary overnight. We realized that we were doing fine with the thermostat set so low, so we just kept it at 62 pretty much all the time. We turn it up to 65 occasionally, but we're usually fine wearing jackets around the house if we get too cold.

It has led to this:

Since I don't handle heat well anyway, I've enjoyed our cool house. I do admit that it does feel good to occasionally visit warm houses and stores.

Christmas Excitement

We've had a very busy week with lots of long nights. That has led the kids to be progressively worse-behaved each day, and especially each night.

When we went to  my mission reunion last night, I was the last to arrive and the first to leave. Brian had to work, so I took the kids by myself, and they were monsters. Both my mission president and the girl I sat by offered to hold Owen so I could eat and help Camille go potty, and each time he ended up back with me within 10 seconds. The only time they were good was when they were eating cookies.

Owen was so tired for his nap that he fell asleep standing up in his crib. Every time he started falling over, he caught himself, all while asleep. I got this bad picture, but unfortunately he woke up from the sound of the camera and wouldn't go back to sleep.

The kids were so wild that by the time of the Christmas party this evening, disaster struck. Brian was working and I had to be there, so I took the kids by myself. Both kids wanted to run around, and I was determined to keep them from running around as that is a big pet peeve of mine at church functions. Camille made it out to the hall once and took off. I couldn't see her by the time I got out there. I frantically looked for her for the next ten minutes. When I was about to ask a bunch of people to help me find her, I saw a sister in the ward carrying her to me. Camille had gotten outside and was alone, crying and cold. The lady fortunately heard her and brought her in. I was glad it was this lady because her kids are rather wild, so she didn't judge.

Camille was brave enough at the party to sing with the primary and to sit on Santa's lap. She told him she was three and told him her name, but wouldn't tell him what she wanted. She did tell me earlier today that she wants Santa to bring her a hot dog stand. Good thing she wasn't courageous enough to tell him that tonight. He told her that he would just pick something nice to give her.

I've also been missing the snow. I do enjoy when the clouds sit on the mountains like this, though.

Snow!

It snowed a tiny bit before today, but this was the first real snow this year. Camille was super excited and wanted to build a snowman immediately. She even sang the first six lines of "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" and she hasn't ever even seen Frozen. So we went out at 8 am and made a snowman.

It obviously used up almost all our snow.

Arizona Trip

In the last six months I have visited Arizona twice. Although I am not a fan of Phoenix (too hot, too dry, and too many people), I very much enjoyed the people I saw there. The wedding and reception were very nice, and Jenae was as happy as could be. Owen threw up six times on the drive for reasons unknown to anyone except maybe him. That made the drive there long and gross and smelly. But we made it and saw Jenae get married and even saw the Grand Canyon on the way home. I so much wanted to hike down into the canyon, but with two small kids, that will have to wait for another trip at least 15 years from now.

We let throw up boy face forward after the first 3 throw ups in hopes that it would help the car sickness.

The guy who offered to take our picture got his finger in.

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And to prove that our kids are big goofballs:

"Camille, smile for the picture!"

He was extremely tired, but wouldn't go to sleep until I sang the Mary Poppins "Stay Awake" song. He immediately did this pose and eventually fell asleep.

Halloween Preview

The only redeeming thing about Halloween is that I sew, and I can make cute costumes for my kids. Thus, I present this year's Halloween costumes, which debuted at our ward's Halloween carnival. We let Camille do each carnival game once, and then we took off before anyone mentioned Trunk or Treat.

General Conference Idea

I saw this idea to help kids pay attention during General Conference and decided to try it.

The chairs and pulpit were originally from the Friend, but I got them from a blog. The GAs were from the middle of the Ensign. I really liked the addition of the choir and organ pipes since that view is a Conference tradition. 

I also cut out the general auxiliary leaders and the Presidency of the Seventy (also because there was a good chance of some of them being called to the Quorum of the Twelve). They didn't get seats, but Camille generously seated some of the sisters in the empty chairs until the new apostles were called. I cut out some basic pictures of things I thought people might talk about as well.

Camille did a good job moving the little people to the pulpit for the first several talks. The topic pictures didn't get much use unless I prompted her. After awhile she started complaining that she couldn't tell who was speaking, which was probably a valid argument from a three year old. She did enjoy just playing with the little pictures though.

This was how the second session went.

I'm hoping it will be more successful next April.

A Metamorphosis

A sister I visit teach told me about these butterfly kits she had ordered for her nieces for birthday presents. They were apparently a big hit. Since we are supposed to be doing preschool at home, I got a kit for Camille so we could study the caterpillars and butterflies before it got too cold to release them.

The caterpillars came in this cup with the food at the bottom. These guys grew fast!

When they are ready to pupate, they hang in J's from the ceiling. There is a little paper disc at the top of the cup. Notice that the first chrysalide fell from the top and is sitting at the bottom of the cup.

All the chrysalides

Close-up. They don't actually make cocoons, their outer layer just hardens up.

After 7-10 days the butterflies emerge. This is one just coming out. It's wings are still crumpled up.

They expel this red stuff--meconium.

Ready for release

This one hung around for pictures, most likely because he had trouble flying.

Science is beautiful!

My Trip to Amsterdam, Netherlands

This is Brian. I was fortunate enough to recently take a business trip to the Netherlands (Holland), so I figured I'd share some pictures of the trip. It was for the International Broadcasting Convention.

We took a taxi from the airport to our hotel. Half (or more) of the taxis at the airport in Amsterdam were Teslas! I was quite impressed at the acceleration.

View outside my hotel window.

A totally separate bicycle road, with intersections. Mopeds, bicycles and these weird one-person cars could travel on these roads.

They sure love their bikes.

Dam Square, where some scenes from The Best Two Years was filmed.

They ran out of parking lot for their bikes, so they started parking them on this boat. Weird!

Very cool and very old buildings.

Church in Amsterdam. I guess they don't want people climbing to the roof!

Another picture in front of Dam Square, when it wasn't full of people.

Making fresh stroopwaffles. They were so much better than the non-fresh ones--and those were still awesome!

 

The city has a series of concentric canals throughout, seen below.

They must have had a hard time building straight buildings without all the fancy heavy equipment and precision tools we have today.

They really like their waffles, and I did too!

A 400+ year old windmill in the heart of Amsterdam.

A picture I took while flying home over Greenland! What a cool frozen tundra. I took it somewhere around these coordinates.

What an adventure, and how nice it was to have a non-stop flight from Salt Lake City to Amsterdam. What I learned from the trip (besides the work side of things at the convention) is that I really liked traveling internationally. Where should we (Sarah and I) go next?

Some things never change

 Camille at 1 year old

Camille at 2 years old

Camille at 3 years old

Wearing Brian's biking attire (gloves, sunglass, pant clips, and holding his combination lock).