Family is Forever

I love my family, they are awesome, and so for this post I decided I would write about them instead of about me.

Starting with my Dad, He is amazing. Just a few of his talents are piano, guitar, vocals, origami, pencil art, painting, pottery, and creating inventive nick-names. As an employee for Disney he is able to provide our family with many wonderful trips to Disneyland and gets discounts on many valuable movies. He is a great example of financial independence for me, owning a credit card that he pays off completely each month and then uses the reward points from not being in-debt to buy books from Amazon. About a year a go he bought a car, paying in cash, and even has entrepreneured his own Personal Wealth Guru a self help program for managing money and spending less than you earn. My Dad is an interesting mix of no-nonsense goal setting and completely inane sillyness, but he is able to differentiate between the two and knows when to be have fun and when to work. I still wish he'd play video games with us more...

My Mom is probably the very most loving and caring person I know. So much so that I think if My Mom and Chuck Norris were put in the same room, the apposing forces, yet equal in proportion, of Violence and Love would react in such a way to create an explosion of cosmic proportions immediately forcing the entire world to voluntarily live the law of consecration, and the second coming would happen before its supposed to, which is why its a good thing Chuck Norris is afraid of my Mother (just try to wrap your head around that one). My Mom has taught me good standards of Honesty and Integrity, I still remember when I was about six or five years old and I had stolen my brothers cookie and taken a huge shark bite out of it (one of those large pink grandma sugar cookies). My Mom looked me in the eyes and asked me if I had eaten the cookie, I looked her in the eyes and said I didn't. I think she knew I was lying to her because she then told me that she "hoped I wasn't lying because the day I could look My Mom in the eyes and lie to her face was the day she would... (I don't remember the rest)"... I got away with my crime, but I will always remember the guilty feeling I got when I lied to My Mother like that, and whenever i'm tempted to lie, that moment in my life comes back to memory and I make the correct decision.

If you want to know about me, read my preceding and post-ceding blog posts, they will speak for themselves, or just talk to me personally, I'm not going to brag about myself here.

Bryce is the black sheep in the family, I mean that in the nicest way possible. Most of the family is messy, Bryce is neat, three of the brothers love video games, Bryce does not, basically, Bryce has every good characteristic most of our family lacks in addition then all the good ones we do have. He seems to have inherited my Dad's artistic talents, already having won money for some of his art work and is obsessed with music. I swear, he understands music on a level all his own and he will be going far in life. The first thing most girls will notice about bryce is his curly hair and his smile, a gene from My Mom's side of the family, Bryce can grow a natural fro, when his hair is longer he likes to go up to me and say "hey look!!! I'm an inch taller than you by a hair!!!" I then remind him that having long hair just makes it easier for me to take advantage of him in a fist fight, and he shuts up :). Me and Bryce have had our differences in the past, but we are working through them, something he's taught me to do with anyone who is willing to work with me and my many annoying mannerisms.

Nathan is amazing, I don't think there is anything he can't do. He started learning Suzuki Violin at a really young age so now he sounds like a virtuoso, and he's only fourteen!!! His goal is to be an Animator for pixar and he seems to be well on his way, like bryce, he is very good at art. Nathan is a very patient and easy going person and we get along together great. He likes to grab my hand and make me punch myself, I dramatically pretend that it hurts, then punch him back. We like to see how long we can continue this until My Mom makes us stop. One cool thing that Nathan an Bryce have been doing recently is making a game for the ipod, they plan to sell it on the app store, I think their goal is to finish it this summer. Nathan has a blog at http://www.enjoythyjourney.blogspot.com/ maybe he'd be willing to post progress updates there? i'm very interested to see how their game turns out, Its looking to be really legit.

Tyler will probably hate me for saying this, but he is still really cute. twelve years old, and I still think of him with his baby cheeks :) He is learning Guitar and is progressing very rapidly for the minimal amount of effort he puts into it, if he would work harder he'd be a Led Zeplin by the time he enters highschool. speaking of which, he is starting jr. high next year, I think he's a little apprehensive about that, but i'm sure he'll be fine. Tyler's favorite things to do are play video games and read books, not all that unlike me at his age, I'm hoping that eventually he'll grow out of video games a little, like i did, and he needs to get outside more and play sports. unlike me, he has amazing eyes and I think he could be very successful if he applied himself. It will be interesting to see what he does with his life in the next two years while i'm gone on my mission, I pray that he makes some good choices.

Zuki is our dog, her favorite things to do are sit on peoples feet, beg for food, and play with the neighborhood pets. Nathan named her after his tutelage, Suzuki, Zuki, get it? we think it's an awesome name. Zuki is an amazing pet, she doesn't smell, she doesn't bark to much, she doesn't bite, she knows tricks, and she comes back when you let her out of the house. We miss our old dog Nala, but Zuki is about as good of a replacement as can be found.

I'm so Hungry I Could Eat a Famine

This week I had the blessed opportunity to receive my mission call, unlike most eager missionaries, I put off my urge to open my call so that my family and friends could come and be there while i open it. Plus is was a good excuse for a party and in motivated my parents to finish their counter top early... :) I opened it at 8:34 p.m. on saturday night. I don't regret waiting that long because I was able to have over twenty of my closest friends and family there and several attending on the phone.

There was tons of good food, my Dad was gracious enough to smoke pork-shoulder and crock-pot some roast-beef, hence there was tons of food to eat. I waited until all my friends arrived then opened my call, afterwards we talked and socialized for a while and once all my family had left we decided to watch a movie. I watched Despicable Me for the first time, I was personified by either Gru or the Henchmen both of with i'm okay with. :) now my ringtone on my phone is a direct quote from the movie from when the henchmen are laughing while photo scanning their rear ends. :) It's funny, trust me. :)

On sunday I went to the Stake Priesthood meeting with my Dad, they talked a lot about good parenting and how to be a good Father, I listened as long as I could, but eventually the late night got to me and I fell asleep... The same thing happened at Stake Conference, I tried really really hard to stay awake, even doodled and wrote poetry, but after a few speakers my hungry stomach and my tired brain shut off and I was closed to any insight at all for the rest of the meeting... It would have been different if the choir had sung hymns between the speakers instead of all at the beginning, but oh well, it was still fun to be with my family.

After church I ate more food left over from the previous night. made a delicious sandwich and then washed it down with a glass of milk. Then I took a nap. I slept very well and woke up in time for a meeting with my Bishop to follow up receiving my mission call. When I got home an hour later my brothers were playing basket ball in the driveway. I immediately joined them, in my sunday cloths. I'm told i looked kind of silly with my knickers rolled up to my knees, in bare feet, and a suit coat, but I could care less, it was fun. I went in to change after a few baskets and got to talk to my Grandma/Grandpa in Brazil, they were nice enough to offer a check to cover some of the expenses of going on a mission. Thanks you Pots and Pans, your the Best!

Finally, the best part of the day, Dinner. For dinner we had left overs, and it was delicious. mash-potatoes, brocoli, and pork-shoulder and roast-beef. of course washed down with some milk. I went to bed feeling very relaxed, but not before watching a extremely funny, and very cheesy, old batman movie. It was hilarious, and its on netflix, so I highly recommend it, it's awesome. In other news, today is my Brothers and one of my friends birthdays, Bryce is turning 17 and Nicke is turning 20, Happy Birthday you two!!!

In closing I'd like to mention that I'll be serving in the South Dakota, Rapid City Mission. Thanks for reading my blog! :) I'm leaving on August 17th

Christmas 2010

Christmas this year was a blast! On Christmas Eve. we watched The Nativity and then opened our pajamas, the whole family got matching Star Wars Pajamas and red "Proud to be Awesome" tee-shirt, except my mom who didn't want to have a fly in her pajamas... like the fly in her soup she found later in the day... Among my favorite presents this year was a  canon proshot 12.1 megapixel camera, and a new book by Rick Riordan "The Lost Hero" This book combines Greek and Roman mythology to create a story of supreme quality. After opening presents my brothers immediately turned on the computer to play the game I'd gotten Nathan for christmas, and I sat down to watch them. We then went to my Grandma's house, I teased Spencer about going on a mission on Wednesday! and we ate really good food. then opened presents. I documented the whole event with my new camera, then made a slideshow about it, enjoy watching.

Then we went directly from that grandma's to my aunts house, I was going to take out my camera and take lots of paparazzi photo's like I had before, but there really wasn't anything I thought worth documenting there, we talked, ate flavorless food, and delicious cookies, but it wasn't quite the same as my grandma's had been.

After that we went home and my brothers immediately went back to the game i'd boughten Nathan, seems I really know how to buy presents. 

[edit]

I just realized that a lot of my photo's seemed to be centered on someone's elbow... that might foreshadow something...

Variations on a theme by my Brother.

My brother, Nathan, needed a video for an asignment in his Spanish Class. having put it off to the weekend before like so many students do, he needed something quick.So he asked my dad how to speed video up to twice their normal speed, my dad demonstrated with a video he'd taken of the song I was playing for Jury, and then Nathan cleverily supplanted spanish on top, whala! video done, total time: 1 hour. anyways, It's really funny, so enjoy watching!

My life as a social recluse.... as apposed to the brown one...

This week was fall break, for me, it started last friday and continued all the way until next monday. hence 10 days of complete solace, with one exception, I should have gone home to visit my family, but I didn't. The beginning of break was awesome, I went to dinner and a dance with a friend from my Ballroom class on friday, learned how to play an incredibly awkward game called "bop" from some LDS fraternity boys, saw a magician, then stayed up really late talking to Tanner and Jannalee, (Tanner was eating pie.)

The next day I woke up around noon, (a pattern i'd be repeating the rest of the week), practiced for four hours on my clarinet, piano, and composing. then went back to my dorm and ignored life (which isn't very hard when there is no one around to NOT ignore. The campus has been so quiet this past week, it feels like walking through a cemetery at midnight, only its the middle of the day!!! Saturday night there was a piano concert I had to go to for my Concert Attendance class, Jannalee also had to go to it because she is taking piano lessons, so we went together. it was a good concert.

the next day was sunday, at church I had really cool insight come to me, which if you want to read about you should go to the blog where I record my spiritual insights and stuff like that... the link is: http://moralitiesandanalogies.blogspot.com/ and there was another concert this night, but jannalee didn't want to go because she was leaving for home early the next morning. so I asked my friend from ballroom (and yes sean, I am intentionally omitting her name so you can't tease me about her :P ). it was a rather fun concert, and it was featuring faculty so it counts as double!!! I then came home and since the dorm was so quite, me and Jannalee stayed up really late watching The Testimates, and sharing stories about our life's before college.

then my life got boring, remember the pattern? well, I wake up every morning around noon, practice until my mouth falls off, pick my mouth back up, put it in my pocket and go back to my dorm to do practically nothing until work was over. (the cafeteria was practically dead, so I spent a lot of time dusting). I watched a lot of movies the first night, Brother bear, Brother bear 2, and such. ironically, sean and were still awake at 3am that night, so we had a video chat, college rocks no? tysum.

Tuesday was about the same thing, except I didn't work, and Nicke called me and asked if I would accompany her to rent a movie. we didn't end up renting a movie, instead we went shopping for her iphone cover, then got sandwiches and tacos at the food court. I got back at around 11ish, and naturally didn't go to bed until about 1.

Wednesday was probably one of the most boring days, after waking up around noon, practicing until 4, then doing a little bit of homework until bed, I got my annual stuffy nose from drinking milk, and it wasn't very fun.

Thursday doesn't seem to be much of a blast either... I woke up to find that my phone is broken because I had missed the pocket when trying to put it away after talking to my mom, and it fell 5 feet, hit the floor and shattered the phone. I have to work today, do laundry, write a 1-page paper, and re-read the inferno of Dante. should be a great day.

but, I am going home tomorrow so that is something to look forward to. I have learned my lesson, and am not going to do everything in my power to avoid campus during extended breaks. might see my family more that way... also in my eternal optimism, (and half-asleep humor) I can only be grateful that in my practice of Reclusism, i was not turned into a brown recluse and forced to bite people. who knew?

and now to go put food in my belly, gel in my hair, and money in my wallet... assuming I can get my laundry done....