Bailey Helping

I thought that this was so adorable I just had to grab the camera.

More Bailey

This has some really good smiling footage, enjoy!

Movie Time

So, for those of you who do not get to see Bailey on a regular basis I thought some video might be nice so you can actually see what she is like. The still pictures, while cute, just don't do her justice. There will be more videos forthcoming but for now, I know that I have mentioned her dancing so here it is for all you Bailey fans.









You've got to love the fact that the video ends with her bashing herself into the TV armoire.

Oh, and props to April Meservy, the music in the background is from her newest album, available now on iTunes.

Rip Off on the River

Okay so the title is perhaps a little harsh but I am just a sucker for alliteration. A few weeks back one of my regular customers was buying a tuxedo from me as he conducts a high school orchestra and also plays in a local one. He mentioned that they had a performance in Reno and asked if Jenn and I liked classical music. When I told him that we did he said, "You should come check us out". Then he wrote down the name of the place they were playing and the date for me. I had the night off so we decided to check it out.

When we got downtown it had a definite Gotham feeling to it. It reminded me of the scene in Batman, Christian Bale or Michael Keaton take your pick, when a young Bruce Wayne went to the Opera with his parents. The architecture of the Trinity Episcopal Church where we were going only reinforced these feelings. Luckily there were no muggings or accidental shootings so Bailey is spared the life of a vigilante for now.

Upon arriving at our destination we received a nasty surprise. They had a little table set up in the foyer with a sign on it that read "Adults $20". Now I had suspected there might be some charge, like the "free" Art Town concerts where they accept donations but I did not consider that it would be this expensive. Well being caught completely off guard and being supremely embarrassed I did not know what to do. I told them frankly that we couldn't afford it all the while feeling waves of hot shame flush over me. They kindly informed me that we could mail it to them at a later date and not knowing what to do I accepted. I am still kicking myself over that decision. A forty dollar concert is completely out of our budget, especially this month. I can't believe I got suckered into that one. Well we felt uneasy for the whole first half and ended up leaving early because we were having too hard of a time enjoying it. Well, next time I'll know better.

Last Day of Seminary

Well, it was bittersweet to be sure. I have taught my last day of early morning seminary, for now at least. For the past three and a half years I have met with this class and though the students change year by year it has been a highlight of my church service. I have been so impressed by the dedication of this group of youth, this year in particular has been something that I look forward to each morning. It is with a heavy heart that I pass the reins on to the new teacher. I love each of you very much.

Pictures

Well the blog has been a little light on pictures lately so here are a few of the latest and greatest.


This is our handy girl. Bailey loves to play with screwdrivers and to try to "fix" things.


She's just adorable, isn't she?


Caught in the act. Bailey knows that she is not supposed to play with the electrical outlets so here she attempted to hide herself behind the laundry basket so that we wouldn't notice. It's not like the laundry basket was even there, she actually pulled it over to conceal herself, honestly, where do they learn to be sneaky from?



This is how daddy puts Bailey to bed. He falls asleep and eventually she gets so bored that she falls asleep too.

UNR Self Guided Tour

I was at TMCC long enough that I got pretty familiar with the campus, besides there were only three buildings to try and remember. Well, UNR is a different story. There are rows and rows of buildings and I must admit I was a little intimidated. I decided that I wanted to do a trial run before the start of school to help make myself more comfortable. Well, to help ,my amazing wife printed out a campus map then she made post-it arrows to indicate the buildings I would need. On the arrows she wrote the class numbers and times of all the classes. The resulting walk around campus was very enjoyable. I am really excited to be starting classes at the University. In a way for me I finally feel as though I am committed to my education and that all of this school will eventually culminate in a degree and in a new career. With any luck I should be student teaching in about two years.

Thank you RTC

Well, school starts up this week and I will be looking at a much more intensive schedule, with me now taking classes full time. This means a lot more time on campus and since we only have one car it presented somewhat of a dilemma. First the obvious, Jenn and Bailey being left without a vehicle. This was a recipe for driving my poor wife insane, an obvious check in the negative column. Furthermore, parking passes are outrageous. The cheapest of which was over one hundred dollars and would only allow me to park roughly ten feet from my front door anyway (if you are reading this then you know my tendancy for sarcasm but in case you don't that was an example, the fact remains the spots were still really far away). Enter the Reno Transit... something that starts with the letter C or RTC if you will. It turns out they offer a special bus pass for students that is only ten dollars a month for unlimited rides.

I'm not very public transit savvy but this sounded like the way to go. I did my first trial run last Wednesday and was very pleased with how easy it was. Plus, I can study, while I'm driving to school, how cool is that? I think that this is going to prove to be a really good option for us and I am looking forward to trying to use it for other outings too. After all, the more I use it at this point the more money I am saving, right?

New Years Eve

So it seems like every one of our family parties of late has turned into a Wii party, and this last New Year's was no exception. To be fair we did start the evening with some human interaction. Gene and Brenda hosted and so we began with Gene placing a Post-It note on everyone's back with a name on it. Using only yes or no questions we had to try to guess who we were. Jenn guessed her Marilyn Monroe early, it took me a little longer to guess my name of Evel Knievel. It was a good time and everyone got involved. Midnight was somewhat anticlimactic as we just barely managed to pull ourselves away from our conversations to count out the last five seconds. It was a little hard to believe just how many of those that Jennifer and I have celebrated together.

Well once 2010 had finally rolled around the party began in earnest with a new game called Just Dance. For those of you who haven't seen the game trust me it is the type of thing that Youtube videos are made of. In fact you might try searching it there I would bet dollars to doughnuts that you'll come up with at least a few examples. Definitely, not a game for the inhibited but man what a blast. Essentially, it allows for four players at a time to just hold their Wii-motes and try to mirror the dancer on the screen. A couple of the evenings highlights were a group of four boys ranging in age from nine to about seventeen dancing to the Spice Girls. By far the evenings highlight though was when the dads got up and danced to KC and The Sunshine Band with an Elvis encore.

If you ever get invited to one of our family parties, be warned, their may be some dancing involved.