Happy  Christmas

Family Christmas selfie.

It snowed a lot more.

One advantage to not buying the latest thing is that when you do get it it's new to you. We got a used Xbox 360 for Christmas that came with a bunch of games. We played for hours and hours.

We got to Skype with Kaitlin in Paraguay.  I posted some video highlights from our conversation on Kaitlin's missionary blog. So pop over to her blog to watch! 

This Week:

Jared turned 13. We celebrated by eating fish and chips and playing minecraft together.

Here is a video he made on his birthday of himself doing yoyo tricks.

It snowed. A lot.

Chuck and Becky went on a date to see the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert, which was excitingly excellent.

Not pictured:  Becky's church choir Christmas program was today. Becky sang a duet and Chuck sang in the choir.  The choir did great, and Becky waved her hands at them with vigor.

Today Debate, Tomorrow the World

Ruth competed in another debate tournament this weekend. She was competing in two new categories, Oratory and Poetry Reading, as well as her normal Humorous Interpretation (HI) category.  She won first place in HI varsity, and first place in Declamation (which was open), and she got second overall in speech categories for the entire competition; that's second out of hundreds of students.  Her wins also put her in first place on her school team which she was pretty excited about.

I spent all day Friday judging at the tournament, but I'm not allowed to judge any student from Ruth's school, so I never saw Ruth.  Still, it's fun to watch these bright and talented students compete.  They come into the room all giggly and goofy like normal teenagers, but once they stand to compete they are all very impressive.

First Band Concert

This week was Jared's very first band concert.  He played the snare drums, jingle bells, and bell set.   He did a really good job and seemed to really like it.

You  might remember that I basically forced Jared into band this year, but this week when a friend asked him what his favorite class was he said "band."  I'm amazed.  I hope he decides to stick with it.




Wedding

We went to my niece Amy's wedding this weekend.  My sister put on a beautiful lunch and reception, and we enjoyed visiting with family and celebrating with them.   Another niece brought face cut outs of my nephew Benjamin and Kaitlin, both on missions for the LDS church, and we passed them around and took pictures with them.  

After being put off because of employment and insurance issues, Jared finally got his braces on this week.  He's been a little sore but has enjoyed having all-you-can-eat pudding all weekend.  The orthodontist is guessing a year and a half for this guy.

After all the costume contests Becky has competed in this fall, Chuck finally won one of his own.  At our church's Christmas party people were assigned a color to wear based on gender and age.  Chuck won this sausage for the old man set who were assigned the color blue.

I had some friends lined up to go to the free day at the new local aquarium (usually costs $17.00 so I'd never been) but they all dropped out last minute.  Undaunted, I decided to go by myself and had a very pleasant time.  Here is me with the sharks.   It was a fun day to celebrate my completion of NaMoWriMo.  I finished the first draft of my book on Nov 29th - a day early. 

Ruth had a debate tournament this weekend. She made it to the finals in her category and got 4th place.  She also competed in an additional new category this time and said she learned a lot.

Happy Thanksgiving

What could be better than a long holiday weekend when you don't have much to do but hang out together and be lazy? 

On Wednesday Jared and Ruth helped me with our Thanksgiving food assignments.  Ruth made most of a very complicated apple pie recipe and Jared made the majority of a pumpkin roll.  Both were a big hit at Thanksgiving.

Chuck came home from work early on Wednesday feeling crummy and felt no better on Thursday. It's been one sickness/health thing after another for him the past couple of months.  So he opted to stay home and sleep all day while the rest of us went to grandma's for Thanksgiving dinner, which was very nice (the dinner and visit, not Chuck being sick).

cousin's table

The rest of the holiday we just basically hung out.  I kept checking the black friday deals, but there just wasn't anything I needed to buy so we didn't do shopping or anything.

We did spend the day on Friday setting up the tree and all the Christmas decorations.  That is a big project, but with so many helping hands it wasn't too bad.  So now we have all the halls decked and we are fully immersed in Christmas spirit.

Another Quiet Week

Jared doesn't like posing for pics.

Another quiet week has come and gone for our family.  I can't believe it's already almost Thanksgiving!  Time just seems to move faster and faster.   I just have a few miscellaneous things to report:

•  First quarter has ended and Jared got all A's and Ruth got all A's and a B (chemistry).  
• For Family Home Evening we made a family Chirstmas video for Kaitlin. It turned out pretty cute. Maybe I'll post it closer to chirstmas time.
• I got Kaitlin's Christmas package out in the mail last week and have enjoyed following it across the world. As of yesterday it was in Miami.   She asked for socks, a rain coat, and poptarts and lucky charms. 
• Ruth's high school football team won the state champtionship in a real nail-biter and Ruth was able to go to the game. She said she didn't really know what was going on but it was still exciting.
• Chuck's back has been acting up and it laid him out for a day or two. He got some new meds from the doctor that have really helped.  
• I've been doing NaNoWriMo, and wow has it been a lot of work!  But I'm right on target, as of yesterday I had 35,000 words written.  What am I writing?  A dark and depressing Frozen fanfiction where Anna is killed and Elsa goes off the deep-end.  As of yesterday Elsa was stabbed through the chest and bleeding to death. Hopefully I'll be able to save her today. 
• Jared found out his first percussion assignment in band and he was assigned the jingle bells.  He's hoping for timbales for the other song and doesn't want the cowbell. I'm just happy that he has an opinion at all about what he plays. Maybe he'll start to like it enough to stay with it.

Quiet is Good

Life is quiet and life is good.  I drive carpool, the kids go to school, Chuck rides the train, I might have lunch with a friend, and then at the end of the day we all come home again and sit down together for dinner. Then sometimes someone goes out again, Chuck to a church meeting, or Jared to scouts, or Ruth with friends; or maybe we all sit down together in the living room and watch a TV show while on our respective screens. Before bed we gather again and read from the scriptures and pray and that's it. It's quiet. That's our life.

One thing of note that went on this week is that Ruth went on her first date. She went to the school play and while she didn't like the play much she enjoyed the company of her date.

Ruth: Debate Queen

Ruth's team took 3rd overall

Ruth had another debate tournament this weekend, and I went to serve as a judge.  It was really fun and interesting to judge debate events.  Here is a group of smart, articulate, well dressed teens who are quick and deep thinkers. I was so impressed by all of them.  I confess that I giggled to myself a few times at the leaps of logic that were taken, but at least they were trying; they are looking at the world and at issues and trying to make sense of them. So what if one girl's #1 argument about why we should colonize Mars was that Earth is getting too polluted and Mars would give humans a "fresh start;"  so what if another boy referred to flip phones as "old fashioned phones?"  It's just amazing that they are talking and thinking about this stuff at all.

Ruth got first place in her category at this tournament. It was a combined level, both novice and varsity.  She really loves it and I expect you'll see more of this sort of post in the future.  Thank you so much for supporting her!

Kaitlin  is Doing Well

I assume, when writing this blog, that most of my readers are keeping up with Kaitlin on her missionary blog, but if you are not, know that she is doing great. She hasn't been sick, and she has been managing her anxiety very well, no problems at all.  She has faced some of her greatest fears (parasites and dogs) with determination and a "can do" attitude.  She had the first person she's been teaching get baptized last week and she was very excited about that.  She has asked for handwritten letters and cards for Christmas.

How to send a letter to Kaitlin: Letters go to Paraguay with $1.20 in US postage.  Or you can use the LDS churches Pouch System.  What that means is that you send a letter to the church with a normal stamp, and they put it in a pouch that is then delivered weekly to Kaitlin's mission.  It takes about the same amount of time to get to her but saves you some $.   To send a letter through the pouch system it has to be one piece of paper (I use thick paper like card stock), folded in 3rds and taped closed. You write the address right on the outside of the paper like you would an envelope.   This is so that all the pouch letters can get through customs quickly (they see there are no valuable in the envelopes - there are no envelopes - get me?).

Both Kaitlin's pouch address  and Paraguay address are on her missionary blog.  Email me if you'd like that information.  If you want to send a package know that it's like $80 to send even a very small package.  There is a different address for packages that I can give you.

Halloween in Pictures 

I've already posted several pictures on Facebook, so for the blog I've tried to find other pictures for your entertainment.

On Monday we decorated sugar cookies with pumpkin faces.

On Friday Ruth and Jared didn't have any school because it was the end of the quarter.  We carved pumpkins and Ruth went and worked at a neighborhood spook ally for a few hours.

On Saturday Ruth and I went to compete at a huge local corn maze/fall fair costume contest.  The Cyberman is not an easy costume to get on, especially in a parking lot.

Here we are waiting for the contest to begin.  To our left is the Charlie Brown family that ultimately won. Ironically, the same family competed in the Pumpkin Festival that I won two weeks ago.    And there is Jared. Jared didn't want to dress up and wasn't thrilled with sitting through an hour long costume contest, but I think he had some fun at the corn maze- he smiled a few times at least.

Ruth as Astrid. She wore this costume to school on Thursday as well.

Here I'm being interviewed by the host.  I decided to take off the helmet to add a "human" element to my entry.

The corn maze has a lot of activities, including a huge corn pit. The corn pit is my favorite. There is nothing like siting in and sinking your feet into 24 inches of corn.

Ruth dressed as a pirate for Halloween eve.

Chuck and I dressed as The Doctor from the TV show Doctor Who. I'm the Twelfth Doctor and he is the Eleventh Doctor.  It wasn't lost on me that dressing up as the same person was kind of weird for a married couple.

I put the cyberman out for Halloween. Most of the people coming to the house said it was a nice 'robot' but there were a few Who fans that were impressed. The cyberman has been in the front room ever since and it freaks me out just a little every time I walk past it.  

Debate

After weeks and weeks of preparation Ruth competed in her first Debate tournament.  When Ruth signed up for Debate I thought it would just be two teams arguing points across a table, and there is that, but there is so much more to it.   There are several different kinds of debate, as well as speech writing, impromptu speaking, congress, and dramatic and humorous interpretation. For Ruth's first competition she chose humorous interpretation which basically means that she memorized a 10 minute play in which she plays all the parts. There are no props or costumes, she communicates it all with body language and voice changes. Ruth is really good at it.   Hopefully I'll be able to record her presentation someday (she will do the same one for the entire year) and post it.  But if you're curious look up "humorous interpretation" on YouTube and you can see what I'm talking about.

This weekend was Ruth's first competition and it was "open" meaning that they weren't separated by experience level, so she was competing against all the varsities as well as the novices.  Her presentation went short, which penalized her, so she was super excited when she placed 3rd overall.   Once she gets this event under her belt, she will add one or two other events to her competition schedule.   She has another tournament in a couple of weeks.

Pinewood Derby

While Ruth was off at Debate tournament; Jared, Chuck, and I competed in our church Pinewood Derby. Pinewood derby is usually a cub scout activity, but this year our ward hosted an event where adults could compete.   We entered our Nauvoo truck, basically a block of wood with a Nauvoo brick in the back, but had a little problem with the new axles, and so didn't win anything.  We couldn't compete with the car with the airplane propeller on it it anyway.

Sick of being Sick

We've had a bout of sicknesses go through our family (again) this week.  Chuck got the worst of it and ended up missing almost a week of work.  He didn't have that much sick time accumulated, but his boss let him do some work at home, so that helped.  I was down for a few days as well, and Ruth felt crummy but didn't miss school.  Jared was the healthy one.  

Pumpkin Festival

When I heard about the costume contest at my city's Pumpkin Festival I knew I had to enter. I mean, I have a few costumes lying  around that might work.  While the judging was pretty sketchy I'm happy to report that my Cyberman won first place for the adult division.  I was announced as "Robot."  Afterwards, talking with the judges it was clear that none of them were familiar with the character.  So I've learned that I'm an amazing cyberman and a pretty darn good robot as well.   Taking the cyberman out in a non comic-con environment was a lot different.  First of all, very few people knew what I was and a few children were afraid of me.   After awhile people seemed to warm up to me and I gave out quite a few fist bumps.  One kid shook my hand over and over and then hung on my leg until his mom dragged him away and another little boy asked Chuck if I was a real robot or if there was a person in there.

Sweet 16

Ruth celebrated her 16th birthday with a big party at our house.  I was again reminded how loud a group of teens can be and how much they can eat in the space of a few hours.  They played games and had a Mario Cart contest - or so I am told. From what I heard from the safety of my bedroom the party consisted of a lot of squealing, singing, and talking. Ruth seemed to have a great day and I was glad that so many friends came to celebrate with her.

Some answers to questions Ruth has been fielding lately.  When is she going to get her license?  Ruth is afraid of driving so she still has a lot of hours to do before that is going to happen.   When is her first date?  Good question. Ruth doesn't have any dates lined up just now, but she is just happy to have it as an option.

Party prep. She wasn't even asked!

Quiet Week

Other than Ruth's birthday it's been a quiet week. Chuck's job is going well and the kids are doing well in school. I still don't have a job but have come to accept that perhaps that's not what I'm meant to do right now.  I've failed to mention in the blog that I conducted the stake choir at stake conference a few weeks ago.  It turned out really well and I was super pleased about it.  I've been working on starting a stake music library, and went to a all day music training where I learned a lot about conducting.

Comic-Con!
Following is a long ramble about all our fun at Comic-con.  

Ruth's Mandalorian Cosplay

What an amazing weekend Ruth and I had a Comic-con.  Our local con is the 3rd largest in the USA, over 100,000 people attend.  It's quite a large pond to make a splash in, but splash we did. I saw panels with Jenna Coleman (Doctor Who), Felica Day (the Guild), Christopher Gorman (Covert Affairs), James and Oliver Phelps (Harry Potter), Sabastian Stan (the Winter Soldier), Anthony Daniels (C3Po), the voice actors from Pinky and the Brain, the Animaniacs, and the Simpsons, and Studio C (skit comedy show).   At the con you can pay money for an autograph or photo with your favorite stars, but I am morally opposed to paying $60 for some other human-being's signature, but we would go to the signing tables just to see the actors.  So at the signing tables we saw quite a few other famous people including Agent Carter and Scottie (who is quite old looking now).

Me asking a question

At these panels they usually open them for questions from the crowd. I've never asked a question but when I found out that my favorite actress was coming (and because I refuse to pay money for autographs) I knew my only opportunity to talk with her would be in a panel.  So I wrote out my question, made an attempt to be there really early (which failed) and then ran up to the front to line up at the microphone.  I figured that even if I didn't get to ask my question, the view from standing in the front was much better than sitting in the back of a room with 4,500 people.   I ended up being about the 10th question, and before I could ask my question, Jenna said she liked my costume, and then they put the camera on me and everyone clapped at cheered. It was really surreal.  She was very nice in answering my question and it was such a fun experience that I asked questions in two more panels that day to Felica Day and Christopher Gorham. And then later I had the chance to meet Christopher Gorham and shake his hands and I was a big idot - don't ask.

This is who I was cosplaying

I played Missy the entire con and was stopped constantly for photos, either because they loved Doctor Who or they thought I was Mary Poppins.  I even had one father ask me to discipline his children as Mary Poppins.  I would estimate that I probably was asked over 120 times over the weekend to take photos with people. If they thought I was Mary then I would smile, but if they knew I was Missy then I could scowl, or even kill them with my disintegrating device.  I killed three Osgoods (a very popular character on Who that Missy killed last season) and several other random people in pictures this weekend.  It was odd, but very fun.

Some of our photos and the fun people we met.

Ruth dressed in her Star Ward Mandalorian costume (Ruth built and designed this costume herself) on Thursday and Friday and she also got stopped quite a bit to take pictures. I had to warn one handsome and friendly boy that Ruth was my daughter and he should back off (and I had a disintegration device to back it up).  Ruth and I spent most of Friday apart, so I'm sure she has her own fun and interesting con stories to tell.

view from front of ballroom

Saturday was the cosplay contest.  It's hard to describe to people who are not familiar with this world, but this is a pretty big deal. Salt Lake is the 3rd biggest con in the USA and some people fly in from all around the USA to compete at the Masters level.  There are thousands of dollars given out in prizes.  Ruth and I were competing as intermediates (Ruth had to change from her Mandalorian into the Cyberman in the bathroom - it was an adventure). The level of craftsmanship and skill of those we were competing with was amazing! True artists working in leather, metal, fabric, and foam. It really was just an honor to be competing against so many amazing costumes. 

Some of the other cosplayers in the contest - to give you an idea.

Everyone we talked to was so nice and we all had a great time sharing our experiences and expertise.  They cued us in the big ballroom, and there were maybe around 2000 people there.   We had one minute on stage and were judged on costume accuracy, diversity of materials used, and stage presentation. The celebrity judges scores were then added to our prejudging scores to determine winners in each level.  Ruth and I worked out a stage routine and it went pretty well.  We were just trying to have a good time.

At the end of the competition we were called with several others to go back stage.  When we got called up we knew then that we had won something but had no idea what.  They announced first, second, and third in the intermediate division and Ruth and I were not called out. Eventually we were standing all alone back stage and all the winners had been announced.  We thought that maybe it was a mistake and we hadn't won anything.   They called up the celebrity judges to thank them and then announced that they were awarding the Judges Choice Award - and it was us! We got a trophy and got to bow while people clapped.  It was really amazing!  And super surprising because there were so many incredible costumes that were so much better than ours. 

After the competition we stayed and took pictures, and then, because Ruth was absolutely dying in the Cyberman, we went to the bathroom to change out of it.   As she was changing I started wondering if we won any money or anything in addition to the trophy. I doubted if we did, but I know that the winners got cash prizes.  Coming out of the bathroom I ran into someone who had won third place in their division and I asked them if they won money as well and they said that they did.  So I went back down to the stage and everyone was cleaning up and I asked a worker.  A few minutes later the worker came back with an official looking woman with a clipboard who said she was glad I had found her and asked if I had earned more than $600 this year in cosplay contests - I'm thinking - who the heck earns more than $600 in cosplay contests?  She was relieved when I said no because that meant I didn't have to fill out tax forms and she handed me an envelope.  I thanked her and walked out, back down the hall to find Ruth waiting for me.  It was then with Ruth that I turned over the envelope and saw that our prize money was five hundred dollars.  We were almost the last people there, and we were jumping and screaming a hugging in our costumes in the dark empty lobby.  It was all just crazy.

Me as the Master

Ruth as the Cyberman

We made a great team.

Winner winer chicken dinner!

 Cosplay Pre-Judging

On Saturday Ruth and I competed in the first round of our comic con's cosplay contest. We will find out in the next day or so if we will be appearing on the stage for the big event. We are pretty confident that we are, as they moved us out of the beginners category into the intermediate, even though I do, in fact, qualify as a beginner.  The down side is that the competition will be harder, and we probably won't win anything. The up side is that the judges thought we were really good.  To put it into context, there will be over 2,000 people attending this contest and the prizes are in the hundreds of dollars.  Last year I didn't make it past the first round, so it would be cool to actually be able to make the stage and compete.

Comings and Goings

In the past few weeks we've said goodbye to my nephew Benjamin, who is serving as a missionary in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, and we've welcomed back my nephew, Orion, who was serving in California. Both events involved family gatherings and fun.

Jared and his YoYo

Jared's been yoyoing for awhile now, and this last week he had me sell some of his legos so he could buy a fancy new yoyo.  He was so excited when it came!  I took a video of him doing a trick and then Jared edited the video for me. I'm posting it below.

Kaitlin Almost Done at CCM

Email me if you don't have Kaitlin's blog address where I'm posting her letters.  While she has had some good experiences at the Missionary Training Center in Buenos Aires, she is ready to get out in the real world and get to work. She flies to Asuncion on Tuesday.  

Happy Five-Oh 

50 candles on the cake!

I'm not sure how AARP knew, but their membership invitation letter arrived just in time for Chuck's birthday.  Yes, Chuck turned 50.  He started his birthday by staying home from work and going to the doctor. Yes, Chuck was sick on his birthday.  He'd been sick for awhile and finally went in and got put on antibiotics.   After going to the doctor Chuck went to work, and because it was the end of the month ended up staying late to finish reports. By the time he got home he was tired and sick and opted to watch TV for his birthday activity. So that's what we did. We ate a birthday dinner, had some birthday brownies, opened up some birthday presents, and watched some birthday TV.  Happy five-oh Chuck!

Comic Con Scavenger Hunt

On Saturday Chuck and I participated in a scavenger hunt around downtown sponsored by our local con.  Wearing costumes we raced around town with 10 clues trying to find 10 locations.   Each location had some cosplayers whom we would get raffle tickets from and took pictures with.  We had 4 hours to find all the locations, collect the tickets, and take the photos.  Being a team of two adults (Ruth and Jared didn't want to come), we did pretty well finding the clues.  We got lost with the homeless people one time, and another time went to where the Opera offices were rather than where they preform, and one clue we found accidentally when we turned down a side road to turn around and then saw the clue, but in the end we were the 24th team to check in and we won two passes to all three days of comic con, worth $120 and have been entered into a raffle for more prizes.  Not bad.  We had a good time and met lots of nice people. 

Backpacking with the Scouts

Jared did his first hike-in backpacking trip with the scouts last weekend.  He hiked several miles and over 1000 feet with his troup to a lake.  He didn't like the hiking, but said the lake was pretty fun.  He took his yo-yo along and did tricks as they hiked to pass the time.