Category Family
I can do hard things
Back in 2006 Elaine Dalton gave a talk that has stuck with me more than any other talk I’ve heard. Well, to be honest, the whole talk didn’t stick with me, just one line: Somebody, for some reason, adopted the phrase “I can do hard things” as their motto. I quickly forgot the context and […]
Teya’s Texts
One of the things that I love most in the world is when Ashley or Heather tells me about how their kids think or talk of me when I’m not around. Sometimes they tell me over the phone, but more often I’ll just get a text during the day letting me know how “Uncle Jason” […]
Tea Party
On Monday I received a phone call from Ashley in the middle of the afternoon. Despite being at work, I answered the phone. It was Teya on the other end, and she wanted to tell me all about her toilet-training successes before running off to eat her treat of chicken nuggets and French fries. Then today I got this […]
Boise – Raclette Party
I gave Heather and Jordan a raclette grill for Christmas last month. It was a gift motivated, in part, by the fact that I genuinely thought they would enjoy eating raclette and having people over to share it with them. It was also motivated by my own interest in eating raclette — I knew that […]
Boise – Dancing Queen
Both Brynn and Shae are in ballet, and this week I had the great luck of attending one of their recitals! It was great fun to see them get dressed up in their costumes, makeup and hairdos. They were clearly in little girl heaven as they became the beautiful princesses of the day. Shae, loving […]
Boise – Life Aquatic
A new aquarium recently opened in Boise. It’s a relatively small affair, stuck in a random strip mall between a pawn shop and a party place. But it’s the only aquarium in town and had been getting a lot of attention among the younger-than-ten crowd. Since yesterday was a day off from school, Heather and I took the kids to check […]
Boise in the snow
Yesterday, after a great visit chez les parents, I flew up to Boise for Part II of this January vacation. Mark met me at the airport in his Jeep and gave me a ride to Heather’s house, where we had a fun afternoon playing with the kids (being the favorite uncle that I am, of course […]
Death Valley
Death Valley is the hottest, dryest and lowest spot in North America. It’s an extreme moonscape; a fantastic geological kaleidoscope of rock, salt flats and a handful of insane plants. It’s also only about 150 miles from Las Vegas, so on Monday morning we packed our lunches, filled our water bottles, donned our Lawrence of Arabia costumes, and […]
Las Vegas – The Strip
Paris has class but not much glitz. Las Vegas has no class and lots of glitz. It also has Paris. See it there, in the distance? Not being gamblers or strip-club enthusiasts, my family doesn’t really do Las Vegas the same way most people do. Through the swirling crowds of women in stilettos and men in aggressively un-tucked […]
Las Vegas – Hoover Dam
While everyone else was enjoying a year-end holiday over Christmas and New Year’s, I was working. But now, while everyone else is back at the grindstone, I’m on vacation! The major projects that had kept me so busy through the end of the year are now completed, and the few other projects that I still have are […]
A More Gentlemanlike Manner 