Sunday, January 31, 2010

N Speaks

Just now, this morning, N was fascinated by what I was doing on my computer--for about three seconds, and then walked off. Before she was out of range I called out, as I often do, "I love you."

For the first time ever, clear as day, N responded, "I love you too"

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Center of Attention

This clip speaks for itself. I was teaching N how to play with little sister:





If you can't watch it here, then http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LN5Izh73qPI

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Our Second First Date

So, Dani and I don't get out much. We try, but it always takes such careful planning to find a babysitter and to prep the house for our absence by providing food and other needs of life for our kids--you parents know what I'm talking about. Even just thinking about all the planning that needs to go into a date is sometimes exhausting.

Two days ago, both Dani and I were going absolutely stir-crazy. N was whining about every little thing, V wouldn't stop crying for more than five seconds to catch her breath, and both Dani and I were so tired that we wanted to go to sleep about three hours before we actually were able to. At one point we both came very close to saying, "I can't take this right now, I'm going for a walk, I'll be back when I'm ready." Of course, when both parents are at that point, you're in a bad situation.

So, yesterday, I still was kinda "snapped," and took some quiet reflective time to focus on just one thing I really wanted that I could do today. The thought hit me rather quickly, "I want to fall in love with Dani again."

I'm still very much in love with my wife--but the whole process of meeting and courtship has a lot of thrill to it. So, I asked Dani out on a spur-of-the-moment second "First date." Where we'd both pretend that it was a first date, and that we were free to talk about anything. The goal was to get to know each other again, and hope that it led to a second date :).

J. Buck was kind enough to watch Mulan with our kids for an hour in a half, and I took Dani to Olive Garden. The "First date" mentality started as soon as we were out the door.

While we already knew most of the things we talked about (how many siblings we have, and hobbies and interests) it was nice to get a fresh perspective on it. Dani said that she learned a number of new things about me, and I found it to be much more enjoyable than our more recent dates.

It was fun, feigning shyness, trying to avoid physical contact due to the typical awkwardness associated with a first date. I definately think that our next date will be a "Second Second date." It felt a little silly at first, but turned out to be a lot of fun.

Monday, January 4, 2010

Twelve days of Steam-mas

We'll have a proper Christmas post here as soon as I get all the pictures sorted out and find a way to make it interesting.

In the mean time, today marked the end of what I am now calling the Twelve days of "Steam-mas"

Steam is a program that lets you buy and download computer games without having to worry about CDs or registration keys or updates or anything like that. The nice thing about Steam is that most the games are about $5-$15 cheaper than they would be in the store, and you can put them on just about any computer anywhere.

During the Holidays, Steam offers some amazing deals on games. The worst deals for Steam games are about 25% off, and the best are about 80% off. To commemorate the great deals I got, I wrote a jingle, sung to the "Twelve days of Christmas"

It goes like this:

On the first day of Steam-deals, Valve Inc gave to me:
A really awesome RPG

On the second day of Steam-deals, Valve Inc gave to me:
Teee--am Fortress 2
And a really awesome RPG

(since you know the tune, I'll just write the new stuff now)
Three expansion packs
Ci-vil-i-za-tion 4
Criiiiii-sis Warhammer!
Tom Clancy's Rain-bow six
Ransom of Seven Ships
Section 8 by Timegate
9th Company
Garry's mod (version 10)
Eleven Indie fan-hits
Twelve games under Twelve bucks


That was for the one gamer who reads this blog.

Why I'm (still) a Mormon

I don't expect much more to ever be posted on this blog, and I'm largely just posting this to share it with some particular friends....