Handel's Messiah

Here is an awesome version of The Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.



Merry Christmas.

The Rock Star

As seems to happen every year around Thanksgiving, Ryan had another birthday. He is now seven years old. A lot of elementry school classes have a student of the week for the kids with birthdays that week. In Ryan's class, they have a funner title - Rock Star (teacher's maiden name was Rock.) Ryan talked about this for weeks leading up to the day. He got to make a poster of himself and things he likes to present to the class. Here are some pictures of Rock Star Day.

Ryan presenting his rock star poster

Ryan with his teacher Mrs. Sylva

Ryan has already had two birthday parties and is gunning for a third. Grandpa and Grandma Sorenson and Aunt Christine were in town for Thanksgiving. We had a party with them before they left.



Ryan loves pumpkin pie, so we always have to have a pumpkin pie cake.



Opening presents from the grandparents

 Ryan's second party was on his actual birthday (11/27.) The Meyers were in town for Thanksgiving as well. They were here to help celebrate on his actual birthday.



Ryan with the traditional birthday pancakes



Someone is excited about the Legos he got



Cute kid



Cupcakes that night

 We are glad you came to our family, Ryan. You are our rock star, too. Happy Birthday!

Crazy Stories

There is a creative writing exercise that we have turned into a game that we like to play with the older kids in our family. We have played this with some of you before. The rules are simple. Everyone starts with a blank piece of paper. Everyone writes one sentence as the beginning of a story and passes the paper clockwise one person. The next person writes the next sentence of the story, folds the first sentence down so the next person can only see the last sentence and passes the paper on. This continues until there is no more room on the paper (one side only is usually long enough.)

We have had some really entertaining stories. Here is a sampling from tonight. Enjoy the bizarre from the Lindseys.

Story 1: Universal Language

Once there was a man that was in desparate need of a potholder, but he didn't have one. So he ran all over the whole universe trying to desperately find one single potholder. He was able to find just the right one at Bed Bath and Beyond and he just happened to have a 20% off coupon.

"Now I can hatch my evil plan!" he shouted at the surprised checker. The checker just said "King Me," earning himself strange glares and stares from passers-by. Finally one passer-by said, "Man, what the heck are you talking about?"

The man said he was just practicing some new phrases he had learned in Klingon and switched back to speaking English. "I knew I could be bilingual!" he shrieked as he flashed the "live long and prosper sign" to his mother. His mother glared at him and said, grudgingly, "You'd never be able to learn Zulu!"

Story 2: Celebration of Cheese

One day som mice stumbled upon some cheese bearing the label, "Made in China." Everyone felt bad that the mice had eaten the cheese because they would surely die. They only felt bad for a moment before a wild celebration of cheese broke out. The small cluster of lactose intolerant celebrators looked stunned as the cheese was consumed by young and old alike.

"How can they eat so much, these amazingly adapted creatures from the distant future?" the intolerants said in shock and awe. "Well, I think they can eat so much 'cause they each have 36 stomachs," a stranger burst in. Everyone stared blankly at such outlandish news and said, "No wonder you are a stranger - you are strange!" With truth staring at them in the face, they sat down and composed the first sonota that had the devil's tritone in every measure.

Rockets and Recitals

Yesterday we had our second annual pilgrimage to Ogden. For the second year Mark was invited to play in the state UMTA Honors Recital. Last year we tried to go up early to go to the Hill Air Force Base Museum. It just so happened that the day before, they were practicing bombing runs just outside of the museum and one of the jets had to release one of its bombs that implanted itself 12 feet into the ground. They closed the museum so they could detonate the bomb. We ended up going to the Roy Historical Museum instead. It is a crazy little museum right by the HAFB museum that has some Utah historical artifacts along with some crazy stuff like Donny and Marie dolls, Russian army uniforms, butterflys and decorative eggs.

Anyway, this year we were successful in going to the HAFB museum. We also went next door to the Roy Historical Museum for nostalgia's sake.

Here are some pictures from the HAFB museum. We didn't get any at the RHM.

Ryan and Joesph under a big cargo jet

Joseph, Ryan and Lauren by wheels of big cargo jet

Not sure why we picked a Cessna for this picture, but it turned out well

Derek, Ryan and Joseph by a missle

Mark hand starting the propeller

Lauren didn't know I was taking this picture until too late

Ryan and Joseph by a fighter

Commander Ryan ready for his shuttle misison

A very happy Commander Joseph ready for his mission



Two brave fighter pilots in the cockpit

  Mark's piano recital was at Weber State University in Ogden. He played Ballade in G Minor, Op. 23 by Frederic Chopin. I mistakenly had the camera on photo mode rather than video mode, so I took a picture of the first note rather than recording it. Brilliant! I did record everything but the first note. I have imbedded the video below.

Please be aware that this is nearly a nine-minute piece. Also due to the outstanding microphone on our camera, Mark says it sounds like the glockenspiel version of the song (i.e. music box rather than grand piano.) He played very well.


Mark Honors Recital Chopin from Derek Lindsey on Vimeo.

After the recital, we headed to Sweet Tomatoes for dinner. It was a really fun day.

Topaz Mountain

We had fall break from school on Thursday and Friday of last week. We were originally planning on going somewhere to do some camping, but for one reason or another we ended up not going. We still wanted to try and do something. There are several places in Utah that we have heard a lot about, but hadn't ever been. One of Marsha's goals was to go somewhere we hadn't been before. The choices were to go to Goblin Valley, Midway, Topaz Mountain and the Deardens. (OK, we've been to the Deardens before, but that's always a good choice of things to do.)

We asked the kids what they wanted to do. There were varying degrees of enthusiasm and responses. When Ryan found out that there was a place where we could find crystals AND try to catch lizards, he wondered why there was even any discussion of going anywhere else. We decided to go on a day trip to Topaz Mountain. 

Sunscreening up at Topaz Mountain. It is actually a mountain as seen in the background.


Since there was rock hounding invloved, we invited the Deardens to go with us, but they had some fall cleaning that kept them from coming. We did manage to round up a book on the best way to find crystals at Topaz Mountain and off we went.

Lauren on Topaz Mountain. Look at all the miles of nothing around.

Topaz Mountain is in the middle of nowhere and I'm not even joking. The closest towns of any size are the thriving metropolises of Eureka and Delta Utah. You drive to about half way between the two and then head west for 40 miles. When we were about halfway out to the mountain, Joseph asked where we were. We had to honestly tell him that we were nowhere.

For those unfamiliar with what topaz looks like, the following picture will give you an idea.


Museum grade golden topaz

It used to be that you could find large rough topaz crystals lying around at Topaz Mountain. You now have to dig for them and even then chances of finding anything are remote. We took hammers with us to break up promising looking rocks. To Joseph, all rocks looked promising.



When you have a hammer, the whole world is a nail.

 We found pleanty of topaz crystals. Unfortunately, they were all around a millimeter in size and imbedded in rock. The biggest one I saw was about 2 mm. It was fun to see the sparkley rocks. The rock formations were pretty interesting too.

Mark in front of a windblown rock formation

Luckily there were hundreds of lizards around to chase. Ryan was in heaven. The lizards were extremely speedy and hard to catch. They could scale rocks like you wouldn't believe.


Ryan in hot pursuit of a lizard

Laruen actually caught a lizard. Ryan was/is so excited that he has talked about little else since then. We have lizard pet material from when Mark had his lizards, so we brought Dexter (the lizard) home with us. He is, miraculously, still alive and eating the crickets we have been feeding him.

Mark also caught a large lizard, but managed to crush it pretty good in the process. Sadly, that lizard didn't make it.

On the way home we decided to go to another place we heard about that has Apache Tears, obsidian drops that could have the appearance of black diamonds. We followed the directions we had to try and find them but couldn't find the place. The map we had showed a back way to get back to the old pony express trail. I knew that the old road lead back to Lehi. We (I) decided to follow the back road. We ended up driving about 110 miles on a dirt road. It took about the same amount of time to get home as it would have to take the highway and our teeth were a little looser for all of the jarring we took on the dirt road.

We made it, though. A fun time was had by all (even though there was weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth by some members of our party before we left on our adventure.)

Two Goals

Marsha sent out e-mail not too long ago reporting what was happening in our lives. One of the things she said about Ryan was: He's playing fall soccer and really loves it. He's a courteous player which is not exactly a good thing in soccer.

His team is called the Volcanos. He and another boy on his team are about the same height and both are about the tallest in the league. We keep telling Ryan that he is so much bigger than the rest of the kids that he just needs to keep kicking the ball even when another kid comes up and tries to get it away from him. His usual MO is to back off and let the kid on the other team kick the ball.

In his game yesterday, he got the ball on a break away (nobody was between him and the goal.) He dribbled almost the length of the field and scored. We were pretty excited about that. Ryan, stoic as ever, high-fived people but didn't even smile.

Later on in the game, he had another break away, but a kid from the other team ran back to guard the goal. True to form, Ryan backed off and let him kick it. There was kind of a scrum in front of the goal. The ball squirted out and Ryan kicked it into the net for his second goal of the game. His team was celebrating like they had won the world championship. A kid on his team about half his size kept trying to pick him up. It was pretty funny.

After the game I told him that he did great during the game. He modestly said, "I know." And then we went and celebrated with slushies.

Here are some in game photos. Sorry no action shots.

Three First Days

OK, it took me a little while to get to this, but we had three first days of school in one week.

Ryan was first. He started first grade at Renaissance Academy on Monday. His teacher is Mrs. Sylva. He is doing great at having a long school day. He enjoys eating his lunch at school.

Lauren's first day of school was Tuesday. She decided to go to the Junior High this year rather than staying at Renaissance. She is really enjoying junior high and has some fun classes. The seventh graders started a day earlier than the rest of the school so that they could get acclamated before the rest of the students showed up.

Mark started 11th grade at Lehi High School on Wednesday. He has a crazy schedule with 3 AP classes (Biology, History and Calculus), an early morning orchestra class (he couldn't fit it into his schedule during the normal day), and marching band after school. His parents are more stressed out about his schedule than he is. We've tried to talk him out of some of it, but he won't hear of it.

We have a fourth first day coming up this week. Joseph is starting preschool this week.

West Coast Tour

We had a great time on our trip that we took. We were gone for 15 days, drove about 2400 miles and stayed with 5 different families. We left Lehi on July 30 and made stops in Nampa, Portland, La Pine, Eureka and San Jose. Thanks to Grandpa and Grandma Sorenson, Aaron and Jenny, Jim and Becky, The Smiths, and Grandpa and Grandma Lindsey for letting us stay with them on our adventure. We did so much at each stop and between that a blog entry that detailed everything would be about a hundred pages long. Here is a list of the things we did with some pictures sprinkled in.

• Swim at the Nampa rec center
• Nightly Quiddler matches
• Visit to Larry and Tawana's with the Tophams
• Delicious apple and berry cobblers with home made ice-cream
• Checking out the animals with Hannah
• Shopping

Fishing with Grandpa in his boat at CJ Strike

• Everyone caught something
• Joe caught a trash fish
• Seeing a lizard
• Blowout on the boat trailer tire
• Ryan losing a front tooth in the car

Stopping at Multnomah Falls on the way to Portland

• Wrong turn across Fremont Bridge
• Giant bubbles with Trevor
• Visiting with Aaron and Jenny and Christine
• Finally a piano to play

Autobon Society Bird Refuge with Christine

• Seeing salamanders in the pond
• OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry)
• Portland Zoo
• Nirvanah of finding the big snakes
• Thai food
• Domino Effect
• Visiting Aaron at work and seeing the cool animation that people are doing
• Ben and Jerry's stop in Bend
• Throwing balls for Jim and Becky's dogs
• Homemade pizza

Horseshoes

Floating the Deschutes River in La Pine

Marsha, Derek and Joseph tipping the canoe and falling in

• Saving camera, keys and wallet, but losing a flip-flop
• Dinner with friends
• More horseshoes

Crater Lake

• Jedadiah Smith Forest and the big trees
• Skipping rocks 

Trinidad Beach (very cold)

• Another piano to play
• Blackberry picking

Sequoia Park

• Banana slugs
• Tennis with Alan Smith
• Old town Eureka

Feeding / chasing pigeons

• Gepetto's Toy Store no longer in business (we are so sad)
• Chinese yo-yos
• Carson Mansion
• Feeding chickens and rabbits
• Blackberry pie and ice-cream
• Mark performing on piano and getting to practice Chinese
• Crossing the Golden Gate Bridge
• Fisherman's Wharf
• Pier 39

Sea lions

• Joseph riding elevators/escalators
• Crazy hats
• Crazy socks

Crazy sign (details upon request)

• Ghirrardeli Square

Yummy ice-cream

• Crazy singer with handlebar moustache (details upon request)
• Fun with Meyers (rocket ball in back yard)
• Back to school shopping at Valley Fair Mall
• Bowling with grandpa
• Ice-cream at Sweet Retreat
• Trip to Oak Meadow park
• Ride the carosell
• Play on the fun equipment
• Frisbee

Riding the Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad

• Visit to Meyer's in San Juan Bautista
• Tramp jumping
• Catch Phrase
• Pulled pork sandwiches
• Uncle Brad's famous smoothies
• Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk

Body surfing

Sand crabs

Checking ocean current conditions

• Ryan losing a second front tooth this trip
• Home at last.

We had a great time. We have photos of most of the things listed above if anyone wants to see more.

Feeling Lonely?

If you are ever feeling lonely and like you don't have any friends, I have the perfect remedy for you. Here's what you do:

1. Go to the Home Depot
2. Pick up a plastic owl
3. Carry it around the store for a few minutes

 You will have more people talk to you in those few minutes than you would ever need. People who haven't spoken to another human being in years will feel the need to talk to you about how an owl worked in keeping the doves out of their mother's barn when nothing else would work. People will ask you if you have problems with woodpeckers. People will offer advice on how to place the owl just right so that it will work.

I bought an owl to try to keep the robins from eating our cherries. The owl didn't work, but I now have about five new friends that I talked to between picking up the owl and walking to the checkout stand. And yes, all of the above were things people talked to me about in the store.

Here is a picture of the owl.