We drove to the NW for spring break. We stopped in Portland for a couple days to visit friends. I got dropped off to work for the week. The manager that replaced me there decided to move back to Michigan to be closer to family, so I will be spending some time covering until they find someone else. Rest of the family drove up to BC to visit Shannon’s parents. They missed the open house for the new Vancouver LDS temple by a day or two, but luckily the temple president is a lifelong family friend so they were able to get a super deluxe private tour. They all loved it. More visiting in Portland, then we made our way south to Shannon’s sister’s near Sacramento.

My sister Margo lives near the Paul Kruger’s family in Utah valley. He was a beastly, defensive superstar for the University of Utah football team and now plays for the Baltimore Ravens. He is Ty’s favorite football player since they are both running on one kidney. Kruger lost his from an ATV accident when he was young. Margo asked his mom if she could get Paul to autograph something for Ty. He sent Ty an autographed Ravens ball and two autographed 8 x 10 photos. Awesome!

Dylan and I went to the Kings/ Canucks hockey game tonight. The Kings are resting their starting goalie (backup goalie for US olympic team) and called up a kid who had only played 6 games in the minors. He had a shut out a couple nights ago for the Kings. His winning streak continued tonight going up against gold medal goalie Roberto Luongo: Kings won 8-3. I was happy, Dylan was sad. They gave out Ryan Smyth bobbleheads, so Dylan took out his frustrations on the poor guy:

Saturday we went to the Getty to check out an exhibit of Rembrandt sketches I heard about on the radio. Apparently he didn’t sign his sketches and had dozens of students that did similar work, so many sketches were falsely attributed to him. Over the last 30 years specialists have systematically come up with ways to figure out the artist behind the sketches. They paired similar Rembrandt and student sketches side by side and explained how to tell them apart. Most of the time it was immediately obvious: Rembrandt’s usually had fewer strokes and shading but conveyed MUCH more feeling. Even the landscapes. Very cool exhibit!

Next we went to Universal Studios which is about 20 minutes northeast of the Getty. It wasn’t too busy for a Saturday: 20 minute wait for the Simpson’s ride, 30 minute wait for the Studio tour. The studio tour highlights: Wisteria Lane, Skull Island from latest King Kong, flash flood, earthquake and the tour guide. We finished up at the animal show where Shannon was selected from the audience to get pick-pocketed by the parrot from Ace Ventura. She held up a dollar bill and the bird flew across the stadium, grabbed it and flew back. With that and her conversation with Craig Ferguson a couple nights before, she made quite a splash in Hollywood this week. We went to the taping of Friday night’s Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson Thursday evening. The guest was Jon Heder (Napoleon Dynamite). It was fun, but we missed out on the musical performance by Corinne Bailey Rae (saw her in the parking lot) and the commedian who both taped with the afternoon show. That audience also got a Sirius satellite radio with a 2 month subscription. They also cut our close-up audience shot! We were sitting right behind a pregnant lady who they zoomed in on during the email portion of the show. Also cut: CF kept trying to get Heder to swear, but he wouldn’t do it.

Friday I went snowboarding at the resort up the road from our house. They got 5 feet of snow last week, so I was anxious to get up there. I had to work last weekend, but Dylan went snowboarding with his cousin and uncle Saturday, the first clear day after a week of snow. The ski resort is only 10 miles away, but it took them 4 hours from when they left our house until they were skiing!!! Could have almost been to Mammoth in 4 hours. They had to put on chains, even though they had 4WD and the ticket line takes forever. They still had a great time. Friday my biggest delay was the line for lift tickets: 45 minutes. The snow was still in great shape and the lift lines weren’t bad. REI has discount passes, so a day pass was only $25.

Gave surfing a try for the first time on Saturday. We drove down to Carlsbad to spend the day with Bishop Dave and his family. The waves were OK when we first went out, but quickly started breaking wrong and I was denied the transformative experience. Looking forward to giving it another shot soon.

We went skiing at Mammoth on Monday and had a great time. It’s been cold, so the snow was in good shape. We were able to ride/ ski together all day for the first time: no lessons and everyone kept up pretty well. After going back and forth, Gavin seems to have settled on snowboarding.

Dylan and Gavin finished up hockey last night with a win to put them in 3rd place for the tournament. Their team played great…especially on defense. Dylan scored a goal and they both showed LOTS of hustle. They are going to take winter season of so we can go skiing, go to the desert, go out on Friday and Saturday nights, go on scout overnights, catch up on scouting, etc.

Grace had a soccer playoff game…their winless streak is still intact. We bribed her with iTunes downloads and it worked. She played really hard. She starts figure skating lessons tomorrow.

We got our Christmas tree yesterday and decorated it tonight!

Dylan’s middle school flag football team beat Upland in a make up game today putting them in 1st place in their league! Dylan played on defense and the kicking team today.

Gavin is feeling and looking much better. He is even planning on playing hockey this weekend!

Yesterday Grace played soccer (scored first GOAL of the season!), waited a few hours then had a Halloween recital where she played monster mash on the piano and sang “It’s A Hard Knock Life” with her piano teacher and voice coach accompanying her. She nailed the piano part, but you could tell she loved the singing part. She dressed as a princess…bit of a stretch. Today Gavin and Grace were in the primary program. Gavin talked about our ancestor who was the head stone mason on the Logan Temple and Grace talked about her cousin with cancer who has seen many answers to prayer.

Shannon found a baby bird of some sort wandering the streets late at night (the bird was). Guessing it’s a chicken or a hawk? Tried to rehab it, but it only lasted a day.

Gavin is feeling better more often. Still gets nasty headaches mostly in the afternoons.

Last night we had dinner at a fancy restaurant in Riverside with a large Hearst party in the next room. Must have needed a night away from the castle?

Plans for the NFL stadium 20 miles from our house are moving right along, clearing some significant hurdles recently.

The regular running back was sick, so Dylan got to start at RB this afternoon. The first play was a pitch to him that he bobbled and dropped. Next play he took the hike and ran it half the length of the field, setting up a touchdown. Had a solid game on defense as linebacker, too. They were down 12-13 most of the game, then scored a couple TDs off interceptions at the end to win 25-13.

Gavin is on week 4 of feeling yuck. Headache, no fever, no energy. Seems like mono, but blood tested negative for mono. Trying a different MD tomorrow.

Dodgers are KILLING me!

Grace’s soccer team finally played a team that was equally timid. They tied.

Dylan and Gavin are on the same roller hockey team. They had two games last night against the same team: lost the first one 1 to 3 and the second 3 to 4. Dylan played well with one goal in the first game and two in the second. He had an amazing shot near the end of the second game that would have tied it up, but the goalie stopped it at the last possible second. Gavin wasn’t feeling well enough to play.

Dodgers finally clinched…took them long enough!

Dylan ran the ball in for a touchdown yesterday!! He started out on the kicking team then, when the team got up by a couple touch downs, he got to play running back. He bobbled his first lateral, but held on and advanced the ball. A couple carries later he ran in for 6 points. He even had a couple tackles. He was super excited. Their QB has a great arm, throws very accurately. They even had cheerleaders! The Panthers beat the Pioneers 30-6.

Gavin is sick again. He wasn’t feeling well last week, but healed up enough to go to visit the cousins in No. Cal last weekend. We had a blast! Ty’s central line was out, so he could swim and rough house for the first time since March. He was in great spirits and very energetic. Got to watch the Ducks beat up on Cal and saw most of the Utah game. Don built an amazing motocross course on their property: almost a 1/2 mile with jumps, berms, whoop dee dos, etc. I was foolish and didn’t wear gloves at first, so my delicate girl hands got giant, painful blisters.