This week's comings and goings:

Grant's Junior Jazz team had a rough one, losing about 35 to 20. Yes, I'm the coach. I yelled as loud as I could... We'll get 'em next week!

Morgan went to a birthday party tonight and came back with a monstrous kids make-up set. I foresee a lot of glamor happening tomorrow. I'd better warn Ethan to keep his distance if he wants to remain manly.

The ward relief society presidency was changed around--all except Carlin who remains as secretary. Their inaugural presidency meeting the other night went a good 3 hours.

Ethan prowled around the house most evenings this week trying to strike up a game of Pit. He loves that game.

I made the Priests watch Johnny Lingo for mutual--only one had ever seen it before, believe it or not.

Injury report: dad remains on crutches and generally helpless; Grant is hobbling with a sore arch in his foot--probably need to get that looked at; Morgan went to the doctor today for some ear weirdness and will go back to the specialist next week to look at the tubes that were put in last year; Ethan seems almost recovered from his cold; Carlin having more post-gall bladder fun with stomach stuff. At least Percy (our terrier) seems in tip-top shape.

This is a common sight in our house. Angst and misery over the next day's homework assignments. Carlin handles all the heavy-lifting on this front. I contribute by hollering a "do as your mom says," periodically.

Under the knife

So here is a report on my foot surgery that happened yesterday.

First, my super-wife (though she wasn't wearing her cape yesterday--darn) drove me safely to the hospital. Next, I filled out some health history paperwork. I was able to write "no" next to all sorts of horrible diseases and conditions I am glad not to have. I also wrote "no" next to the question about whether I was currently taking any medications, but Carlin sabotoged me a bit at this stage by telling a nurse that I take Vitamin C pills. They took this quite seriously for some reason, and I was asked no less than three times that day to explain why I was taking Vitamin C and how often. (Apparently, eating extra vitamin C during cold season is not as common a superstitious habit as I thought.)

The most dramatic point of the day came next. Young, inexperienced nurse came in to insert the I.V. She was very bad at this and rummaged the needle around under my skin for some time, giving me a chance to demonstrate my manliness by acting as if I hardly noticed. She finally claimed success and hooked up an I.V. of fluids. However, something didn't seem right. My arm hurt like a bear and a lump was forming at the base of where needle was inserted. It turned out the needle wasn't in a vein at all and the fluid was pooling under my skin. Yikes. Young, inexperienced nurse called out for help and old, experienced nurse came in and quickly pulled out the needle and reinserted in another vein and all was well.

After a bit of waiting, I was wheeled into the O.R. I got a bit of a tour, as an orderly pushed me from room to room trying to find the right one. She almost left me at O.R. #11, but then realized that was the wrong room (thank goodness--they might have removed my spleen). I was relieved to see my own doctor at O.R. #3, and we chatted for a moment and I think I did one of those fall unconscious in mid-sentence from the anesthesia things.

Next thing I knew I was groggily awake in recovery with a foot bandaged and splinted. Yet another nurse was checking my vitals. She was concerned she couldn't find much of a pulse, and I told her it was probably because I was verrrry relaxed (Carlin says I slurred this part like I was on drugs--which I guess I was).

We made it home fine, and I have been sitting comfortably in an easy chair in our bedroom ever since!

Carlin adding on here:

Troy remembers the nurse saying that she couldn't find much of a pulse and then asking Troy if he was an athlete.  For some reason, even though I was standing next to the nurse, I never heard her ask anything about anyone being an athlete.  All I remember was Troy closing his eyes with a big grin on his face saying that he was verrrry relaxxxed.

Sacrament Performance

Yesterday, our family had our first Sacrament musical performance!  With everyone gone for the week, I think they were a little desperate and called us knowing that I can't say NO.  So we sang the I Have A Family Here On Earth song.  All in all I think it went really well.  As everyone knows I can't sing, carry a tune, hear music and even though I have been learning how to read music doesn't mean I can sing it.  So I stood really close to Troy and tried to follow him.  

Morgan and Ethan opened for us and did a very cute job!  They were both so excited that every practice we had they couldn't hold still and they had to keep touching the microphone.  But they did wonderful and held super still with big smiles on Sunday... I couldn't have asked for more.  Then we all sang the chorus and the Grant sang the second verse.  He hit all the high notes and sang it perfect.  I think he got the most compliments out of all of us!  He was even asked to sing in the ward choir, which will be really good for him.  He tends to get stage fright, unlike Morgan who could live in front of a microphone.  

Well, we survived and we all had our hair combed!  The other reason we may have been asked to sing, just to see if all of the Keller's could have their hair done for 9 o'clock church.  Since the beginning of the year I've always missed someone as we have run out the door.

Sledding on the golf course

Ethan jumping Grant
Aftermath of Ethan plowing into McCall
Calvin
Grant jumping McCall
Georgia & Brett
McCall

Sledding on the golf course

We have the Keller's from Connecticut visiting us this holiday weekend.  And as planned, we received a good snow storm the day before they were to come out and snowboard.  We thought we'd take a few runs down the neighborhood sledding hill (better known as the Eagle Wood Golf Course).  It was cold, but the sun came out and kept us warm and in good spirits after each snowy blast down the hill.  We had to carve new trails through the fresh powder and each time we went down the snow seemed to find it's way into our boots, coats and down our necks!  We had a great time and were pretty worn out after an hour.

McCall and Grant built up a jump and took turns jumping over each other.  After a couple runs Calvin was done hiking back up the hill and rolled to the bottom and crashed there until we were done sledding.  Ethan and I, together on a tube, went the farthest and we are very proud of out distancing every one else.  Georgia and Brett even got a few runs in before heading back to the warm, dry house. 

McCall was a good sport to take Ethan down the hill and to also let him fly off a jump and ram right into his chest.  I think it shocked them both.  McCall was working on the jump and Ethan decided to go down the hill.  I yelled at McCall and when he turned to look up the hill Ethan was right there in his face!  No one seemed hurt or at least they were both laughing in the end.

 

I wrote two poems.

The Wind

by Morgan Keller

The wind is blowing very strong--

So hard it sounds like a gong.

It's getting softer, very slow.

Now it's like the winter snow.

I like the wind.

A Book

by Morgan Keller

A book can be a wonder.

A book can be a bore.

But books you like the most,

Come knocking at your door.

We meet up with our friends, the Garners, and headed out to Farmington Bay to see if we could see some Bald Eagles.   I guess during their migration they will stop at Farmington Bay to catch Carp.  We saw a lot of Eagles and it was cool to see them catch the fish, they are so big and beautiful when they open up their wings.  We also saw some Short Eared Owls, they were very beautiful too.  

Morgan and Nathaniel thought the cat tails were much more entertaining as you can see.  I think it they were trying to see who could pull the most cat tails apart.  Ethan just enjoyed chasing after them and stomping through all the mud.

One of the many owls we saw out at Farmington Bay.

  

Bald Eagles we saw catching Carp.  There were easily over a dozen Eagles out there and we saw a couple of them catch and eat the fish.  It was pretty cool.

The creature in this photo is the most obedient member of our family. (You already know I'm not talking about Morgan--as wonderful as she is). His name is Percy and he does what we tell him to do about half the time. It's all relative.

He has several tricks, some of which he learned (like playing dead) and some he came to instinctively (like catching morsels of food). He loves chasing little stuffed animals we throw for him, especially if they resemble the real thing, and he can shake them in his ferocious death shake. He hates baths.

Georgia, if you are reading this, you should know Percy is always very excited for more kids to come to our house because he loves all the attention and he especially loves to sit under the table and wait for tasty things to be dropped.

Candookie night at the Kellers. We realize the rest of the world calls these things no-bake cookies, but we feel it our cultural duty to preserve made-up words like this. It's sort of like those native american languages that die off when the last member of the tribe goes. Sort of.

Thursday night and Saturday afternoon Morgan was in the play Pinocchio.  She was String Bean the donkey that leads Pinocchio to the City of Simple Simons.  She was, of course, the star of the show!  She knew her lines and threw in a couple extra turns and bows.  I think she would love to live on a stage!  She was ADORABLE!

Valentine Fun

Last weekend Morgan had a dozen girls over for a valentine brunch.  We had a SILLY lunch and made these cute fleece pillows.  The foods on the menu were all substituted with  valentine words.  For example the drinks were listed as "Love Potion".  They filled out their four courses on the menu and we served one silly course after another!  Thank goodness Troy was there, I should have hired a couple servers, I could hardly keep up filling the plates for all of the girls.  Troy ended up being the entertainment during the lunch.  He got girls to bite into jalapeno peppers and he caught anything they threw at him with his MOUTH.  Wish I had gotten some pictures of that.  The foods ranged from candy, grapes, large marshmallows and believe it or not, even jell-o.   We all had a great time and Morgan got to have lots of girls come play, her dream come true!

This is us last night at the new Costa Vida restaurant here in Bountiful. Very fresh, tasty food (the tortillas are made in front of you). I have a bit of history with this place, having done some of the franchise's legal work a few years ago. Glad to see it taking off here in Utah.

I reported to the kids on my trip to Washington DC this week for some company meetings. We had had some pockets of downtime here and there and I and some colleagues visited the Native American museum at one point. I came away mostly impressed with the sheer number of completely different cultures that have lived in the Americas over the last several thousand of years. Quite awing really when you think of the countless number of individuals who've walked and talked and lived lives, and we know next to nothing about them. Somehow, I wasn't quite able to convey this sentiment to the kids. I think the solution to getting them to increase their cultural awareness must be to give them more chores.

They did seem interested in my recounting of lunch at an Ethiopian restaurant near our hotel. I think their imaginations were captivated by the concept of eating without utensils. They also liked the idea of the turn-down service in the hotel. I think it came across as sort of like being tucked in, except you also get chocolates!

January has been a winter wonderland this year

By the time I get this figured out I'm sure there will be something more exciting to post on.

What a fun winter we have had so far! Morgan took to skiing like she was born with ski's on her feet. She sure loves to go fast! Her second day skiing she even went on a blue run with me (I was a little too impatient with the lines for the bunny hill). She had a couple tumbles, but got up and kept going 90 miles an hour. Needless to say, we did work on some turns, but she kept complaining that they slowed her down too much.
Grant is also doing well this year, we went back to ski's after a year of snowboarding and he has had a lot more success. He has a lot more control and is looking great! He tried a lot of new runs and even took a black run down on our last trip. His second time skiing this year he and a friend got stuck on some double black diamond run and so they took their ski's of and hiked back up to go down a different run. It took them over a hour and I think now he would be able to work his way down or at least try. I can't believe they didn't sink to their belly buttons! Ethan of course is very upset that he wasn't included in this years skiing activities and I've promised to let him learn next year. Maybe he'll like to go fast too and I can just enjoy following him and Morgan down the slopes.

We have had tons of snow this winter and so the kids have made snow forts and snowmen and have gone sledding a couple times on the golf course -- it's a fantastic hill until the snow gets blown away! With all this snow we have had tons of deer down in our yard. I even got to help heard three baby deer out the gate, because they couldn't get over the neighbors fence. Yes, this is what I do with my days!

Morgan really wants me to tell everyone that we were being silly and driving through shallow snowbanks that had been blown out into the road. Well, we were heading down a hill, so we picked up a little speed and saw the perfect spot -- about a foot of snow had been blown out, about three feet into the road. Of course everyone else was driving around it and so we decided we just had to go through it. As my front tire hit the snow it just sucked us right into the snow bank! I decided to tap my breaks to slow a little and see if we could turn out toward the road, but no, the snow was deep enough at that point that the front of the car came to a complete stop while the back continued to swing around and slam us into the snow bank : ). The snow was high enough that we couldn't open either of the driver side doors! Yes, we had to call Troy to come and pull us out. Well, that night we learned that the Jeep can pull the Pilot out of a very large snow bank, but not with a rope! Luckily, a couple stopped who happened to have a chain in the back of their truck that they let us borrow. Morgan couldn't decided if it was scary or fun. She went from waving at passing cars with her head out the window to saying, "We need to call 911!"

Carlin

Should a picture of a handsome brown caught on the green river not be the inaugural post of the family blog? What, pictures of the kids?