First Father-Son Outing

On Friday, June 26th, I took Benjamin to his first ever Father-and-Son outing. It's pretty interesting how things come full circle. I grew up going to the Father-and-Son outing with my Dad and brothers. We always had a good time and made good memories, which is something I want to pass onto my kids.

We went to a place called Celebration Park, which was about 20 miles south of our house. It was an interesting place to go camping; for what it lacked in trees (cause there wasn't any) it made up in overgrown sagebrush.

All-in-all it was a good time and was the start of a new generation of passed down tradition. We listened to some anticlimactic ghost stories and a good message from our bishop. It seems that the highlights for Benjamin was making two fires (without any matches, accelerates, etc... -- that's right Kaylynn!) and pitching our tent in the middle of 3 very active army ant hills.

Until next year...

  

Look, No Training Wheels!

On May 2, 2009 Brittney officially shed her training wheels and hasn't looked back since. She has wanted to ride without training wheels for a really long time. I ran behind her for a few minutes, but clearly she didn't need my help.

It's hard to believe we have all to quickly crossed another milestone. I'm going to miss this...

A Salute to Women Drivers

I was sent this video by a good friend of mine (thanks Don) and I couldn't resist putting it on here. I thought it was pretty funny, and scary accurate. haha It really is a wonder why guys' insurance is higher than women's.

Enjoy the aww inspiring skills demonstrated by these women drivers.

The Wrath of Hagen

The winter time is exceptionally hard for Hagen. He doesn't get the daily exercise he needs, so he has a lot of pent up energy with no outlet.

Yesterday after returning home we found a respectable size claw mark in the wall next to the trim (that he has slowly been ruining) from Hagen trying to claw his way through the wall. After cleaning up the first mess we had to leave again. I returned home before Kaylynn only to find sheetrock laying on the floor and a rather decent size hole in the wall.

Long story short — Hagen has earned his exercise.

Looks like I get to replace the trim around the door, again, and now patch the hole in our wall. I'm sure glad I don't have to pay somebody to keep fix these little Hagen surprises.

Benjamin is 6 years old

It's hard for me to believe (and accept) that my little superman is 6 years old already. As a child I never understood why I would hear adults make comments like "where does all the time go", or "you're just growing up way to fast", and "I can't believe you are ___ years old already". Now, after having kids of my own I understand with such clarity these comments.

After the last couple of days Benjamin can cross off two milestones, he lost his first tooth the day before his birthday and he turned 6, which means he can no longer count his age on just one hand.

I remember when I turned six and thinking how big and grown up I must be because I had to show people how old I was with both hands -- Where does all the time go...

For Benjamin's birthday I took donut holes to his kindergarten class and had the opportunity to go to library with him and listen to a story. Luckily the librarian was able to finish the story before the fire alarm went off.

After the library and fire drill we went back into his classroom where he was crowned with his special birthday crown and he was told to pick 6 kids (since he turned 6) to be his candles (he is blowing them out at the end of the video). I didn't know they did anything like this in his class or else I would have brought my nice camera, however, in an effort to get 'something' I took some pictures and the video below with my cell phone.

Happy 6th birthday Superman!

Benjamin's First Tooth	Blowing out his candle
Benjamin getting his crown	Benjamin in his class

Christmas 2008

It's hard to believe that Christmas has come and gone already and that 2008 is officially over. This Christmas Kaylynn wanted to start a new Christmas tradition for her side of the family by introducing them to "Clementine", the Christmas Bear. This seemed to be the start of a tradition that was well taken by all the grandkids, and adults.

This video isn't exactly mind blowing but rather something I quickly edited together with some of the footage shot on Christmas day. Here's to the new year.

Motorcycle Riding...

On November 28, Kyle, Kirk, Sean, and myself went motorcycle riding at Little Lake Trinity. This was my first time there and it turned out to be a great day and place of riding. I spent a lot of my time taking pictures and video with my cell phone, but will definitely be bringing my other camera gear next time.

Having said that, I'll apologize in advance for the quality of the pictures and video, especially the video. My cell phone only records video at a rate of approximately 12 frames per second, compared to 30fps (generally speaking).

Below are three videos of Kyle (one successful jump and two not-so-successful ones), Kirk's triumphant ascent up a steep mountain side of which nobody wanted to be its first victim, and Sean's attempt to not be defeated by what would prove to be Kirk's seemingly insurmountable success...at least for Sean.

Me	Kyle

Kirk	Sean

Kyle's jump.


Kyle's first crash.


Kyle's second crash.


Kirk climbing the mountain.


Sean's 3rd of about 9 attempts to climb the mountain.

Gee, Thanks Hagen!

Kaylynn and I seem to go back and forth with a debate that has waged on since we got our cat, Tiger (as pictured on the left). The debate is over which of the two animals does more damage to our house, Hagen or Tiger.

It has always been my opinion that Tiger has done more damage hands down. My case against Tiger, he likes to:

• knead on our bed
• claw at [and has ruined] the weather stripping when he wants to come inside, both from the garage and from outside
• climb up the screen door, and has ruined it and,
• for reasons only known to a neurotic cat he will go into my office and eat any pictures I have laying on my desk, only pictures....yeah...I don't know either.

However, it looks like after today I will have to concede this debate to Kaylynn. We all left the house today like we normally do, with Hagen unattended. Rarely does he do anything he isn't suppose to when nobody is home, but today was different...a lot different. I think a "normal" dog that wanted to misbehave while being left unattended would find something to chew on that they aren't suppose to but is nevertheless readily accessible to them. Things are done a little differently around our house evidently. When we got home we found that Hagen decided that he would chew (or claw) off the trim around our front door. This isn't going to be very hard or expensive to fix, but seriously....what dog decides to chew on trim of all things? Also, in case you're wondering, no, he didn't get in trouble for this since it wouldn't have be fair to him because we weren't home to catch him in the act. It's also not his fault since I have not been excercising him as much as he needs to be. Who knew a dog weighing 120lbs could do more damage than a cat that ways what, like 7lbs? You win Kaylynn...you win... Above: Hagen at 15 months old at 120lbs

Christmas Lights

We are the first ones to have Christmas lights up in our neighborhood, for once. Even though I'm not finished with them yet it's still an improvement over what we've had previously.

We have lived in our house for three (going on four) years now and the first year we didn't hang Christmas lights, the second year we did (but it was about 2 days before Christmas - thanks Dad for the lights!), but this year is going to be different.

As a side note, when I went outside to take this picture a small section of lights decided to shut off above the garage. So, after I'm sure looking like a crazy person to our neighbors as I was jumping and swatting at the lights I went back and took the picture anyway. Lights: 1 Cory: 0

Halloween Pictures

In October we went to the park and took some pictures of Benjamin and Brittney dressed up in their Halloween costumes.


Brittney, such a cute witch.


Benjamin as Batman, he takes his this very seriously haha.

Benjamin's Crazy Dance

Benjamin saw the video of Brittney and asked me to put his video on here. This video is actually one of the first ones shot during the same day as Brittney's, which is the reason she wanted me to record her. Benjamin thought I was taking a still picture of him so he was trying to hold really still and then figured out that I was recording a video. Again, I apologize for the video quality as this was also shot on my cell phone.

Brittney's Dancin' Debut

First, I apologize for the poor video quality, it was shot using my cell phone. Brittney wanted me to record a video of her "going crazy" (i.e. dancing) so she could watch it playback on my phone. As I was getting my phone out she kept backing up until she was under the bar...

(Benjamin is standing on my side and is mostly who you can hear laughing.)