Rocky Mountain High

Middle School Choir Concert

2011-05-08T09:07:00.005-06:00

Knz's choir concert

She had a solo in 'Joyful, Joyful' from Sister Act:

This guy had a solo, and is a looow Bass:

They sang Hey Soul Sister:

She accompanied the pianist for the 7th grade choir on 3 Little Birds:

Seasons of Love with the Men's Choir:

The Rose:

Rockin' Robin:

Feb 20 Hoops

2010-02-22T12:20:00.003-07:00

OK, here is the recent update for the weekend's basketball games.

Kerr

Another coast-to-coast move to score. Notice her sweet spin-move. And it's amazing that she does all this with just her right-hand! HaHa

Here she takes a pass at the top of the key, spin-moves, and drives it in.

Mitchell

Down at the baseline, grabs the looseball "pass" from his teammate and puts it up and in, all the while being triple-teamed!

Hooping it Up

2010-02-12T10:26:00.002-07:00

OK, the kids love to play basketball.
They don't get it from me; I'd much rather kick the ball.

Kenzie
Making a basket at the YW game:

She ended their season last night on a great note.

Mitchell
Driving the baseline into traffic before scoring near the end-of-game buzzer:

Setting a pick against a guy twice his size:

Truly a force to be reckoned with on the court!

Kerr
Scored 3 times in her game.

Here she is, striking terror into the hearts of her opponents. A veritable wolf in sheep's clothing:

1st basket, wisely utilizing the backboard for the bankshot:

2nd basket, taking the ball coast-to-coast. I love how she trips her defender then drives the lane to the hoop:

3rd basket, taking the ball coast-to-coast, she sees daylight, and down the side to the baseline avoiding the pack in the key:

She's unstoppable.

I Heart NY

2008-10-07T08:57:00.016-06:00

The 2 of us made a trip out to NYC to see Rob & Em.
It was a quick Wednesday to Sunday trip. R&E were very gracious in letting us invade their space and crash there. And they were great in giving us tips for Manhattan, doing our late-night debriefings of the day even when they had work the next morning, and hanging out on Saturday.

We knew we wanted to see Broadway shows and also sight-see as much as possible since there is a lot there. Everything we've learned about NYC we learned from movies!

Their apt is right on the East River in Queens. A view of Lower Manhattan.

Each day started with the 7-line into Manhattan. We got pretty good with the subways as long as we remembered Uptown or Downtown, and Local or Express. These 7-day Unlimited passes were great and easily saved us at least $17. :-)

Our 1st day we went to the top of the Empire State Building to get our bearings and enjoy the landscape

A shot of Lower Manhattan and the Financial District from the top of the ESB. The Twin Towers stood behind that white stepped building on the right

Pic I grabbed from the internet of the Twin Towers at night from the ESB. You can see the white stepped building on the right

You can see Queens across the East River, and R&E's apt is there

We visited the Statue of Liberty. She's still there. It was very impressive and majestic. There were crowds of people for the Liberty Island/Ellis Island ferries so we just waved to Ellis Island from our seats after visiting Liberty Island. I mean, we've seen Hitch so what else is there to see there? Altho we missed "the Butcher of Seville". :-) Probably telling of our times, there were constant Coast Guard and NYC Police helicopters flying all around her, not to mention backpack checks everywhere in NYC!

A foreigner on the boat was really helpful -- she took this picture of us and told us she was able to get us and the Statue of Liberty in it. Sure enough, she did get us all in there. So helpful

A shot of Lower Manhattan from Liberty Island. You can see the Empire State Building on the far left

How geeky are we but how cool is this? Police on horseback!

Trinity Church graveyard -- Alexander Hamilton is buried here

The main stained glass in Trinity Chapel. We visited many of the cathedrals to see the stained glass and architecture and join with fellow Catholics in prayer. But they also proved to be some of the only places to sit!

St Paul's chapel

This is the pew in St Paul's chapel where George Washington prayed on his inauguration day. They've now turned the church into a makeshift memorial for 9/11. The firefighters would sleep in the church after their shifts in "the pit". It was very sobering and touching to read and see the lives affected and lost from the 9/11 attacks.

A shot of Ground Zero outside St Paul's. What was so amazing to us was that these remaining buildings are so tall. And the Towers were more than twice their size.

A shot of the bustle of Times Square

I saw a big Hershey bar from the Empire State Building. Later we were just walking by and happened to look up and find "Big Chocolate". That happened frequently with us, just walking along and looking up and finding cool things to see!

We ate at Bubba Gump's. I managed to answer all the Forrest Gump trivia by our waiter but missed the last question; what was his jersey number?

Hairspray

We tried the lottery for Hairspray tickets. They had 2 tickets left on the front row and we snagged them! Great show! We were excited too because "Norm" (George Wendt) from Cheers was Tracy's mother, Edna Turnblad.

We walked across the Brooklyn Bridge with many people.

Here is a view of Lower Manhattan behind us from the Brooklyn Bridge. Rob works in the tall, mirrored building on the left.

City Hall -- a policeman told me that Mayor Bloomberg was inside. This is also the site where the Declaration of Independence was first read to General George Washington and his troops, but they wouldn't let us go see the exact spot because of security reasons.

It turned out that this wasn't the exact same manhole they fall through in Enchanted.

Us posing with 'Patience' at the New York Public Library

Inside the Rose Main Reading Room. Very impressive. It turns out that they didn't really burn all those books to keep warm in Day After Tomorrow

The 3rd book in the Eragon trilogy Brisingr came out while we were there. The library had this exhibit set up where you could touch this golden dragon egg and it hummed

The front of Rockefeller Center. If we would have known, we would have gone up and spat on Katie Couric for her mean-spirited inquisition the following week.

Radio City Music Hall (FYI right out the door from Godiva's Chocolatier)

I lost my savings on Wall St

The back of the New York Stock Exchange

On the side of the NYSE

Grand Central Terminal

Inside Grand Central. I wanted to get a picture of Weird Al cleaning all the bathrooms in Grand Central Station with his tongue, but it was surprisingly clean

Federal Hall, where George Washington was inaugurated

Mamma Mia!

Em scored us awesome box seats to see the show! I have to confess, I did keep an eye on the curtained door for would-be John Wilkes Booth impersonators.

We met R&E after work to see the show

Busy Times Square after the show

We visited the MoMA on the first day of a Van Gogh exhibit and saw Starry Night. Rob's GS connections got us in!

Sonya & Em shopping on 5th Avenue

Riding the carousel at Central Park

We visited 'Strawberry Fields' to see John Lennon's Imagine memorial. I like to think that together we were imagining a world without angry liberals trying to completely change the world

Of course romantic Bow Bridge from Enchanted and the rowboats

R&E

Bethesda Fountain in Central Park from Enchanted. It was larger than it seems from the "How Do You Know If She Really Loves You" scene.

R&E

We didn't see those Jamaican steeldrummers but we saw these street performers

Em and her Obama :-)

The Met Museum. It's so large, we tried to focus on just Impressionists, American, and European. We saw a lot of great paintings. And these are the exact steps where Hitch's Albert Brennaman (Kevin James) spills mustard and soda on his suitpants!

The American Museum of Natural History from Night at the Museum. Turns out the Teddy Roosevelt statue is on the outside

On the roof of the Met museum with an awesome view of Central Park

Sonya and her balloon dog sculpture on the Met's rooftop

Lombardi's pizza -- best in NYC, well worth the wait. We ate here at the height of the Feast of San Gennaro in Little Italy and afterward grabbed chocolate-chocolate cannoli

Another subway shot. On the way home, Sonya inserted herself into a "sports discussion" with an angry Yankees fan who was upset and ranting about the Yankees' performance. She let him know that she was a Rockies' fan. He rattled off a couple of our players and then said to her, You have no idea who I'm talking about, do you? But we managed to disembark without incident

Some New York pies -- doesn't that just make you hungry?

We went up and visited the Julliard School at the Lincoln Center from August Rush

The Manhattan Temple -- we exited the subway and couldn't find it. I knew I had the right address but didn't see it anywhere. Then we looked up and sure enough there was Moroni

Inside the Manhattan Temple

Rob dropped us off at the bus stop to La Guardia airport on their way to Church -- you can see him in the window of car 2028 checking his wallet to make sure we didn't clean him out while he was getting dressed. If you find a $10 donation on your credit card to the McCain/Palin campaign, I don't know where that came from

Philmont

2008-07-21T17:14:00.011-06:00

We went and attended the LDS Leadership Training at Philmont Scout Camp in Cimarron, New Mexico. The cool thing is that my folks were also there, Jeff and Sandy's family, and Mike and Connie's family.
We also saw Charles Dahlquist - the Young Men's General President, Vicki Matsumori - 2nd Counselor in the General Primary Presidency and Linda Christensen - General Primary Board member. So of course we got pictures with them.

Outside our tent

Family photo after Church

3 Generations of Scouters

Kerr and her cousins Madison and Rachel

Family by the famous Philmont covered wagon

Kids in their costumes before the Family Parade
Mitchell was a forest Ranger (like Robin Hood, Aragorn, Faramir), Kerr was a Butterfly, and Kenzie was "I Dream of Jeannie", wait, I mean, Aphrodite, goddess of Love and Beauty.

Kenzie dancing with this guy at the Western Dance. His name was Sasquatch. Weird, huh?

We did a way-early morning hike up Lover's Leap. From there we could see the fabled [Buck]Tooth of Time, or [Snaggle]Tooth of Time if you prefer. Mike has always wanted to hike it to earn a patch but has never been able. It was closed so maybe next time, Miko!

Here are the Scouters with Pres Dahlquist

Kenzie and Sis Matsumori

Mitchell and Sisters Matsumori and Christensen

Mitchell and Pres Dahlquist

Kerrigan and Sisters Matsumori and Christensen

Big family photo by the Philmont wagon

Mitchell was able to participate in a camp flag-raising ceremony one morning. It was a good experience for him.

This was cool. This is the only fossilized footprint from a T-rex in North America.

Dad bought all the adults these hand-crafted bolo ties

Sonya and me with Bill Burch who carved our bolo ties

Here are the Woodbadgers
...Back to Gilwell, happy land, I'm going to punch my brother if I can...

Good Memories

It was a great time. But hands-down, the funniest moment was, next to watching Mike brown-nose Chuck, I mean, Pres Dahlquist, after the closing ceremonies to get a hug, [surprise, surprise] while gathered around the camp-lantern late one night watching Mike lean waaay in to tell the Ross Ashcroft grandpa knife-murderer ghost story to Sonya after getting mad at me and Jeff for spoiling the mood and Jeff sneaking around and grabbing his rib with the Lake Windemere Talon! I think he roused the entire camp with his yell! Priceless!

Garden of the Gods

On the way home from Philmont, we stopped in Colorado Springs to climb around

Rock Wall

Climbing at Longmont Rec Center:
Mitchell

Sonya

Me

Kerr

Me doing a flip off the diving board

RockBand

OK, who are we kidding? The best part of the trip, having Uncle Mike come and get RockBand as a homewarming gift for us! Everyone needs an Uncle Mike; even if he thinks your powdered milk tastes funny and the tomatoes don't smell fresh enough.

Presidential Election, Vol. 1

2008-06-27T10:36:00.004-06:00

Here is a good article by George Stephanopoulos called "How to be a better voter" from PARADE magazine. I like his point about not ruling out "flip-floppers".

And I like this Opinion by Glenn Beck called Obama No, McCain Maybe on CNN. I like his comment that our country isn't a Reality Show where we vote for whoever is left after all the lying and backstabbing. And I like his delineation between a conservative and a republican.

Father's Day

2008-06-19T15:55:00.005-06:00

This is the You're the Greatest Father candy bar note that they kids made for me. They've been bugging me to share and eat it ever since.

The kids made a Clue Hunt for me. As I solved the first hint, it gave the location in the house of the next clue. We ran all over finding where they had hid these. They did a great job, making sure each clue rhymed. We were hamming it up and having fun.

The last clue took us into the basement for this:

I was shocked! I shouldn't have been shocked that I couldn't kick them off the game to come play Ticket to Ride Europe because it was my day.
It was a great Father's Day. They keep this side pretty well-hidden, and maybe it was just because they wanted to play Guitar Hero, but they are great kids.

Running with the Devil

2008-06-09T16:38:00.005-06:00

I ran in the local 10k race on Saturday, the 23rd Longmont Sunrise Stampede. It was cool because I ran 10 years ago in 1998 in the 13th Stampede. Here are the posted results. My time was 54:02, a personal best. My splits, as best as I recall them, were 9:00, 9:05, 9:05, 8:30, 8:30, 8. I figure my average pace was 8:40.

The stats:
190th out of 464 finishers
135th out of 249 men (winning time for men: 31:12)
20th out of 39 in my age group 35 - 39yr old men (winning time for this division 38:51)

It was funny because I suddenly decided to run around Wednesday. The early-registration closed Friday at 5pm. The race-day registration was like $10 more. I hustled down to 1 location (the hospital) and they didn't know where registrations were happening.
So I raced across town to another location at 5:10pm where another guy was registering for the 2-mile with the rebellious-apathetic-teenage-worker behind the counter. I was able to start registering and this old man was standing there waiting for me. He was there to pick up the registration forms and money to "close" the early-registration. I had just barely made it. In reading about the race, I saw that he was one of the original co-founders that started the Sunrise Stampede in 1985 with the other co-founder, our current mayor Roger Lange. Pretty neat coincidence.
I bumped into the guy the next day at the race and wanting to show my gratitude I thanked him for starting the race and putting it on each year. He was probably like, you're the pipsqueak that caused me to be late to my dinner appointment last night! It is so much better (I think) than its bloated inter-county cousin, the Bolder Boulder. The BB boasted around 50,000 runners this year. The Stampede had 465 finishers. Yes, it's a much smaller scale. You have drivers driving alongside some of the roads. But it's nice because you're not jostling the entire time with groups in a straight line across the road.

Top-of-Utah Marathon

While I'm blogging about running, the spouse and I ran our first marathon several years ago. The 1999 Top-of-Utah marathon in Logan, Utah. She creamed me with a time of 5:03:31.08. The female results are here. My time was 5:26:31.08. The male results are here.

Memorial Day

2008-05-29T11:17:00.020-06:00

It was memorable.

Check this out. Cor blimey!
My neighbor is retired Air Force married to a British gal. I've never seen the Union Jack being flown on Memorial Day. But I thought, why not? We honor soldiers that died in wars. And the bloody Limey's lost a lot alongside us and also are practically brothers. Well, cousins. Well, 5th-cousins twice-removed. Well, you get the point.

Momma's Birthday

My mother-in-law came to visit with my sister-in-law and her husband and for her b-day.
Here's the birthday girl with her ubiquitous Diet Coke!

Check out this awesome cake that Sonya and Sommer designed. It's a domino, which is my mother-in-law's favorite game du jour. Sonya flipped around the cake and said, hey, my age in reverse! Sweet! The only time this will ever happen. (Kind of like when my younger bro was impressed when the date and time were: 02:03:04 a.m. 05/06/07!)

Playing "Train" with the dominoes. I think Sonya counted that they played 15 games while here, including Train, Puerto Rico, Guesstures (always a party favorite!), Settlers of Catan, Ticket to Ride Europe.

American Idol

You have to love Randy-dawg's medal (I believe that is a gang-sign being flashed), Paula, and Simon's scowl and chest-hair!
The kids (and Mom) are sad that American Idol is over, and that David Archuleta lost to the better singer. There is this conspiracy theory circulating how Fox helped David Cook win by having the judges come down hard on his seemingly lackluster performance. So the Cookites rise up and vote en masse while the Archuletites are lulled into carnal insecurity because of the praises heaped upon his adolescent head. What can you say when Cook won?! I can't argue with logic like that. I would have to say in this case that correlation definitely implies causation. :-)

Scooby

This is my hoochie-mama!

Making a good first-Impressionism

While doodling and learning to draw, Kenz has invented what we call Fashion Gals. They have these huge eyes. She used them in an Art class this past year and inserted them into her portrayals of famous art.

Seurat's "Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" -- the classic example of pointillism. The school wanted to purchase this one from her but we kind of like it.

Jan Vermeer van Delft's "Girl with the Pearl Earring"

She made a quilt out of several drawings of her Fashion Gals:

Hygiene Elementary Roadrunner Club's 1-Mile Fun-Run

The organizers of this event have got to be from Arizona or Vegas as I ain't never seen me a roadrunner here in the high country! This was the 1st Annual event in the school district (probably provided they can get teacher sponsors next year) racing against other K-5 schools in the district. I love to run so we signed the kids up. Mitch and Kenz ran 1 morning a week for 6-weeks with the club. Kerr and I were still finishing up the Soccer season.

Our intrepid ~~warriors~~ runners muster together in the pre-dawn mist (well, 9:00a.m. and it was overcast with 5% chance of rain!) to bolster their spirits and exchange spirited encouragement as they prepare for ~~battle~~ the race. Grim visages of war.

Is this day their last?
Will they ever enjoy creature comforts again?
Will they shirk or shun the fight or stand fast and prove their mettle?
Is Mississippi spelled with 4-s's or 2-s's as in Misisippi?

But alas, such distractions must be disregarded .... battle and the blood of men (and little girls' skinned knees) beckon.

Individual "Before" shots with each of the endurance-runners. A precaution born from tragic experience just in case runners from other schools attempt any "funny business" during the race, we'll know what they looked like before the race. I'm pleased to report that no hijinks nor tomfoolery were observed. All smiles, cheery dispositions and colorful helms; blissfully unaware of the brutal savagery exposed by Man in dire straits that awaits.

Mitchell leads the pack running with their coach. Fortunately Grandpa Sugar discovered last year that although this guy says he doesn't like exercise, get him talking about Star Wars or the subtle yet distinctive differences between the Archaeopteryx and the Quetzalcoatlus and he'll run to Kenya and back before he realizes where he's gone. True heart of a warrior -- all muscle and sinew, not much brain.

In a courageous display of inhuman strength and blinding speed, Kerr bursts ahead of the pack to complete the brutal and perilous race.

Three of our brave quasi-marathoners approach the finish line after their grueling 5,280 metres [sic]. The smallish warrior gasps for air at the deadly and almost lethal oxygen-deprived elevation of 5,280-feet above-sea-level. Too late, she grasps the savage irony and apprehends the epithet of this battlefield, "Mile High City." (Ed note: Or it might be a yawn; I'm not sure.)

The exhausted yet victorious band revels in their Herculean-feat and quietly reposes in a post-race celebration.
(The KrispyKreme doughnuts probably shouldn't be next to the sprigs of broccoli, right? Ah, the cruelty that is Man.)

One of the best days of my life:

Running a race with my kids -- Priceless

Be Careful What You Mispronounciate!

2008-05-28T15:04:00.005-06:00

The other day Mitchell was bragging to my mother-in-law that he usually arises at 5 A.M.

Kenz said, "5:00?!"
Someone else said, "5:00!?"
Kerr said, "Usually?!"

So funny! ROTFL just thinking about it.

Kenzie loves to read. One benefit is that you are exposed to new vocabulary. One detriment is that unless you carry around a dictionary, you don't always know how these wonderful new words are pronounciated. And so it is a never-ending source of merriment to Sonya and me to hear how the newest words are pronounced.

I try to quickly scrawl them down as she says them. Here is a list (excuse the shameless self-reference!) of some of the latest:

pathetic -- PA-thetic
Campbells soup -- CAMP-bell's
tyranny -- tie-RANNY
suffice -- SUH-fiss
fjords -- Fuh-JORDs
rancid -- RAN-kid
camouflage -- camo-FLAY-gee
gingham -- GINGE-ham
aloe vera -- AIL-low vera
supposed to -- opposed to (Kerr's)

MY FAVORITE:
hallucinogen -- (ha-LU-ci-NOGGIN) If you say it with a swedish accent, you're doing it correctly!

Her usual and valid retort is that books don't come with pronunciation guides, you know!

75 Skills Every Man Should Master

2008-05-27T17:10:00.002-06:00

It must be a sign of our times. Maybe it's a way for us to measure ourselves against a standard. It could simply be competition. Lists. Lists of what things to wear for such-and-such natural disaster. Lists of ways to show a woman you love her. Lists of movies you should see before you die. (Is St Peter going to quiz you on this one? "I'm sorry, but the final question for entrance through the pearly gates is, name the actor in 'School Ties' who portrays the Jewish guy?")
I love the lists "you're not a real man unless ...."

Anyway, here are 75 Skills Every Man Should Master.

http://men.msn.com/articlees.aspx?cp-documentid=7542349&GT1=32001

2007-12-28T17:44:00.000-07:00

This is my first post. Happy New Year's!