And The Winner Is...Tunisia!

No, there was not a contest or anything, but the first African red dot on my visitors map showed up today. Someone in Tunisia checked out the blog lately. I hope they enjoyed what they saw and will be back many times - gotta grow that red dot you know.

Note: my friend Kyle that is in Africa did not go to Tunisia, so I know this is not him, this is a real, honest-to-goodness visitor from the continent of Africa.

Piano Recital

Chloe and Jordan had a piano recital last week. Some friends of ours recorded their children and Chloe and Jordan and gave us the video. Here is the upload of the video they gave us. You can stop watching after Chloe and Jordan or you can watch Candace and Elysse as they play.

Good job Chloe and Jordan, you sound great!

Saturday Night

Tonight was Saturday. We invited Kevin and Tanya over for dinner and games. The kids love Tanya and Kevin. Tanya is Diana's cousin. Tanya is pregnant with her and Kevin's first kid (girl). Diana had invited Kevin and Tanya over while I was in Europe and all I heard was stories about how much fun they had and how Kevin likes bubble baths.

You see, they had played "Whoonu" which is a Cranium game where you try to decide what someone likes out of the cards you have. At some point Kevin picked bubble baths over something manly. The kids must bring this up once or twice a week.

Tonight we had a yummy Pronto Pasta Bake out of the Pampered Chef cookbook. It was super yummy. I like pasta. We then brought out the games. We started with Pictureka! which is a super fun game we got for Christmas from the Devoogd's. Tanya won one round and then Kevin won the second. I should warn you that Kevin is very competitive. Kevin was very happy to win.

After Pictureka! I was going to have us go to Whoonu, but once Kevin heard about Giant Spoons, he wanted to play a game where things could get a little violent. We started playing Giant Spoons and Kevin eliminated Tanya pretty quickly. He kept stealing the spoon from her and she was out. Jordan went out next, he played good, but he was just a step slow.

Chloe was the next to go out and she was sad, but she stuck around to watch. Jordan and Tanya went down to play Skee Ball. Next Diana went out - but just barely. She had just taken a lead over me, but I came back and got rid of her. Now it was me and Kevin head to head. I had to win two in a row to win. I did it. I took him out.

On the last hand I got two aces early and I saw that he put both in his hand. When I got the third one I put it in my hand, knowing he could not get his four of a kind. I now just waited to get my four and take the spoon. The card I needed came and I was done. I grab the spoon and winner, winner, chicken dinner! It was a great time.

Next, Tanya and Diana chatted while the kids and Kevin played around and goofed off. The kids love playing with Kevin. All in all, it was a great time! Thanks for coming over Tanya and Kevin, we will invite you again soon!

You Had a Bad Day

Everyone has those days where things just don't seem to go right. Where you think you are the unluckiest person in the world and one of the biggest losers (not the kind that is on TV losing weight).

Today was not one of those days for me, but for my lovely wife. She woke up with a big migraine, that is never fun. Migraines are the worst. Maybe they are contagious because Jordan went to bed last night with one. Diana slept in to get rid of the migraine so she was not able to get her list of things done today.

Then, on the way to pick up the kids from school...well, I better tell this the way I was told from Diana. "I was driving and I cut a person off, so as I went to wave [editors note: the one-finger wave?] I did not see how close the person in front of me was...and then my foot slipped as I tried to stop. We barely even touched!" That is her story...not mine.

Diana says there was no (hardly any) damage to the person she hit. Our car looks like this:

Just kidding. The car is fine. There is a little crack in the front bumper, but the car is just a thing and Diana is a person, so it is great that she is OK. When she called me she was hysterical, but I had her laughing pretty quick.

The day did get better as it went on. The migraine cleared up, she went to activity days and learned all about the girls she will be working with, she got to hang out with me (this is probably the best thing you can do if you are having a bad day) and she had friends commenting that they hoped she was OK on facebook after I updated my status that I was worried about her.

Hope things stay good for a while honey!

Christmas Eve

Today is Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve is the day before Christmas. How come other holidays do not get an "eve"? I have never celebrated Arbor Day Eve or Columbus Day Eve, but I have been out and about on All Hallows Eve, which is the day before Halloween. Scaaaaaaaaary (not really).

I guess Christmas is just such a great holiday that it gets an Eve while most other holidays do not. I am getting excited for Christmas to be over. I cannot stand much more horrible Christmas music on the radio and in the stores. Lets get back to the Muzak that I do not usually even hear.

I also can't wait to actually get a parking spot at a store that is within 200 feet of the store entrance. I hate walking through the whole parking lot to get to my car. As an aside: do you notice how Walmart parking lots are sloped? They always slope up (so you are walking up a slight hill) on the way in and then slope down (so your cart feel empty and light) as you walk to your car. Very crafty Walmart, very crafty.

I do want to take a second to thank all my friends for the great treats and gifts they have dropped by the house the past couple days. Most of your treats have been very yummy.

Lastly, I just want everyone to know that I really did not get Diana a big screen and entertainment center for Christmas, I was just tricking her because she thinks I would actually write the gift I got her in my blog.

Talk to you all tomorrow when I post pictures of the kids opening their presents! Merry Christmas!

I Love Blogging

Tonight, we had some friends over for a dinner party. It was a good time. We got to talking about Facebook and blogging. I was surprised that many of the people had blogs. I thought I was a weird person with a blog of my own. We had a good discussion about blog security and Facebook. As you know I really enjoy Facebook but I just use it for the networking part. One of my friends is a big Facebook gamer. I will have to check out a couple of the games and see what I think of them.

I have been so busy these days that blogging has been one of the last things on my list. As I talked about my blog tonight I thought about how if I am going to blog I should do it more. I am really going to put a little more attention to the blog in the next little while. It is the least I can do for you, my loyal readers.

Babysitting

Diana and I are watching some friends kids tonight (Chloe is out babysitting). The five-year-old told me the song he made up:

"I am the ice cream man
Running over fat kids
In my big white van
They want ice cream
I will just give them
Some broken bones"

He made this up on his own - I swear! He is in the living room while I am in the kitchen singing it over and over again. Diana loves it and is wiping the tears of laughter off her cheeks.

Around Town

Prague has about 1.2 million people within the city. Kind of like Salt Lake. I do not generally run into co-workers or people I know while out on the town at home. In Prague that is a different story. I ran into many, many people I knew while out touring for about 4 hours. The list of people I ran into yesterday:

Mike N.
Mike N's current woman
Bob
Lori
Big Philly Style
Trent
Eric
Homan
Karl
Stephani
Tom
Choward
Collin
Doug
Kelly
Chris R

Well, I guess today is the day I head home and stop runing into people randomly. Prague has been fun, we had a great conference. I am excited to come back to Prague next year now that I have a good feel for the area. I am even more excited to get home. Here comes the 21 hour trip to get me home and into my own bed at night.

Well, I gotta get in the shower and get ready and then go check out. I have a taxi leaving in an hour.

Sorry I Missed A Week

I am sorry that I was not blogging for the past week. I heard from a lot of you. You do not have to worry. I am fine. The family is fine. There has just been a lot of things going on with the family and especially with Diana and my friends - the group of couples that we have been spending a lot of time with.

You know how sometimes the way other people's decisions affect you surprises even yourself? Well, that is what happened. One of my good friends has made some very stupid decisions. For a week it really took the joy out of a lot of the things I like to do. One of these things was blogging. I felt that if I sat at the keyboard and started to blog I would just go on and on about what an idiot my friend was, and you do not want to hear about that.

Well, I am finally past all that and I will get back to letting you know what is going on with me and the family and out life. And it is a busy life.

Friday Night

Last night me and Jordan went to see the new star wars movie with sone friends. We had a good time and even saw some real star wars characters. Right before we left another guy called to see if he could bring his son and I said sure. Here are some pics of our fun night out.

Storm Trooper and Pilot:

Anakin look-alike and Empire General:

Jawa:

Darth Vader:

Darth Vader with some of Jordan's friends, you can also see a SnowTrooper in the background:

Last Night

Last night we (the entire family) went to a neighbors house for a little get-together. We had a good time hanging out with friends and talking. As the night went on we shot off some parachuters. The wind did not seem that bad, but once the parachuter was in the air it drifted on to the top and over the house. I kept moving back and further back until I in the neighbors yard. After I shot off like 10 parachuters the owner of the house came out and kicked me off his property. The kids weren't happy because then the parachuters drifted too far away. I wasn't happy about the neighbor guy and I told him that I only had a couple left to do. I wasn't happy, but my friend that lives by the guy told me that the guy was always a jerk and it wasn't just me. After the parachuters we did some sparklers. I had like 20 kids around me all trying to get their sparkler lit at the same time. Needless to say, there were some injuries. One of the girls got poked in the chest by someone else with a sparkler and another girl stepped on some hot ash. Once I got back to the adults I had to tell them that there was a reason I have only 2 kids, I can't control any more than that.

Overall it was a good night. The kids went right to sleep when we got home. We tired them out, and that is always a good thing.

Thanks Dave's Family

Tonight when I finally got home I had lasagna waiting for me. It was good. My friend Dave's wife (their family attended the Cinco De Mayo party we put on) had brought over some yummy lasagna with the pan that we had given them full of enchiladas before.

We Got Ripped Off!

So, I get a call Saturday afternoon from Card Services. It is my bank asking if I mad a purchase at McDonalds this morning. Now, I have gotten these before and there was never a problem. The lady then asks if I made some purchases at Ashley Stewart. Now, I have no idea what that is. And then she said there was two. One was 200 and one was 300. I couldn't believe it. The lady told me to go to the bank Monday morning and that she was putting a cancel order on the cards so that they could not be used. Now this wasa crazy and I was angry. I could not believe it. Someone had gotten our numbers and was making purchases. Spending my hard-earned money. I jumped on the internet and looked up our account and there is was. Showing around 500 that was pre-authorized and not yet cleared. I got madder. There was nothing I could do about it, so I moved on.

I went to the bank Monday and spent 45 minutes telling them what happended and filling out forms and showing my ID. The person that helped me (who had the same birthday as me, random info learned as she was looking at my ID) said that the person had our PIN number and had no idea how that could happen (usually the perpatrator just runs the card as credit).

The bank tells me that I have to wait 7 to 10 days for a new debit card and 7 to 10 days to get the money put back in to the account. Plus, I now am using my Disney credit card for everything. Not really a problem, I might as well get some extra points from all this happening.

Not a good time. What kind of people really think this is funny. I will no longer laugh at the Friends episode where Monica gets ripped off and then meets the person that did it and wants to be their friend. I have worked too hard to get in a good financial situation for me and my family for something like this to happen. This person needs to be punished to the fullest extent of the law - it they get caught.

Matt Got An Apron

One of my Mom's friends (and me and Diana's friend), Ersula got me an apron with my name on it. I really needed this. Usually people forget my name while I cook because they are salivating from the aroma of the wonderful food. Here is the pic:

What a good-l0oking apron.

Cinco De Mayo Party

We had a great party on Saturday, May 3. We had two (had 3 - but one cancelled at the last minute) families over. A total of 18 people. The menu included:

• Chicken Enchiladas
• Spanish Rice (first time making this one)
• Corn
• Seven Layer Dip
• Mexican Soft Drinks
• Salad
• Fruit Salad
• Tacquitos

It was great. Everyone loved the food and we had a great time with our friends. The kids all played together. From Nintendo Wii - Guitar Hero to hide and seek to jumping on the tramp they did everything. It was great. Us adults hung out and then played Mexican Train. I like that game. It is fun, and you can chat while you play. I like CatchPhrase too, but that is not really a game you can chat and play, there is too much going on.

And if you were wondering, I did win Mexican Train. Even though Diana was trying to cheat and take the title from me.

Friday Night

Last night we went to a friends house and hung out til late. We had a good time, played catch phrase and such. For dinner we roasted some brats from Colosimos and chicken kabobos from Harmons. There was probably 12 couples, and they are all fun to hang with and joke around with. The kids went to one of other couples house and played with/watched their younger kids. They have a new baby named Squishy and she has the best cry face, and she does cry all the time. Around 10 or so the Squishy's dad went to go get her and she hung with us adults for a while. I even got to hold her until she was crying uncontrollably, but she does that to everyone.

Today we ran a couple errands and got stuff for Chloe's campaign to be 6th grade representative for next year. We are making 4 large posters and she can have 10 small flyers to hang up. Chloe's campaign manager made the small ones, so we just have big ones to do.

We also got a picture/frame/saying thing to go in our front room. We just have to get our pictures printed out and inserted into our frames and the front room will be done. We have to get all that done by next Saturday - for the Cinco de Mayo party. We also got Diana's magnet board she has been wanting. We went to Robert's - and used the 50% off one item coupons. So we got some pretty good deals. I have to paint the magnet board and today I got the primer on it and one coat of paint, but I need to sand it a little now and then put some more coats of paint on it.

Yard work will have to wait until later this week or next week.

Jim Gaffigan is on Comedy Central right now. This dude is hilarous. We have his special Tivo'd permanantly on our TIVO and watch it every couple months. Here is a couple Gaffigan goodies - and of course I am leading with Hot Pockets, probably the best 6 minutes you can spend in front of a computer.





The NBA playoffs are still going on and a bunch of my predictions are way off. Of course, people point those out to me, but don't say how many I am doing just good on. Let's be fair. These are just predictions.

Hot Pockets.