Another Edition of "That's My Boy"

Brig was wearing his big boy undies yesterday with no diaper underneath. I guess he decided he needed to go to the bathroom because he reached in the hole in front, pulled his little boy part out with both hands, and proceeded to urinate standing up. Problem was, he was in our bedroom. So he "wrote his name" on the bed and the floor, and then proudly looked at Angela and said, "like Dad!" How can you not be proud of that?

A Few Things

Dan started his internship at Google yesterday. I'll leave it up to him to share his thoughts, but it's cool for me to have him around, even though I won't actually see him very much at work. I also have a summer intern working for me, and he started yesterday as well. He's a good kid, smart and eager, and I think he'll get some good work done these next few months. It's nice to get added resources for my team, even if they're only temporary.

Bummer news: JetBlue is canceling their San Francisco - Salt Lake City leg. I know, just when we were really cranking up our usage, they pull the rug out from under us. It was great while it lasted, but rising fuel costs and relative lack of interest did us in. Too bad...

The girls are rehearsing for yet another end of year school thing. This week it's two nights of the dance concert where Micah and Kennan will shake their booties to various recognizable songs. Next week it's two nights of the school spring concert, which is downright unbearable because it's not just the kids singing in the choir, it's also the kids "playing" instruments...ugh.

Cameron and Christine continue to work furiously to get the Provo house prepared for the Parade of Homes starting this weekend. We're sure they'll get everything done, but we're mostly just worried that Christine will work herself into labor this week. We hope she can take it easy enough to not induce child birth - that would complicate things.

Finally... An Update on the Landscape Weekend

I know it's been a few days, but man, we accomplished a lot during that time. Compare the picture of our house in the last post, and then consider everything we did. Here's the lowdown...

We laid 12,000 square feet of sod in about 4 hours; we spent hours on our hands and knees cutting in and patching that sod around curved curbing, sprinkler heads, and gardens; we planted dozens of shrubs, trees, flowers, and other plants; we spread a big pile of bark; and we fixed sprinklers.

We couldn't have done it without a lot of help. Cameron and I were there the whole time, and our landscape crew was my Dad, Matt, Spencer, Dan, Todd, MattMax, Brandon (Anne's boyfriend), one of Camerons' workers, Christine, and Anne. Our inside work crew was my Mom, Hailey, Rosemary, and Rebecca. Everyone was so awesome! Thanks everyone!

I'm now back in California, enjoying a quiet Memorial Day morning with Brig, and deciding where to start in preparing for our move next month. There's so much to do between now and then... yikes!

Ang and the girls had a good weekend without me. They had Morgan's birthday party on Saturday, which was a spa party where a few of the YW from the ward came over to do nails and other junk. They also had fun games, flip flop decorating, and of course good treats. Micah had her last school play of the year this weekend and she was brilliant. She had many long solo parts, and she did great on all of them. I was grateful that one of the performances was on Sunday night so I could see it when I got back. Ang also took the girls down to San Jose to see the Broadway production of Beauty and the Beast. Man, they probably want me to go out of town more often.

Dan's on the final stretch of his cross-country drive today. He's driving from SLC to Los Altos today to start his summer internship tomorrow. We're looking forward to having him with us, and especially to have Hailey and him close for the summer. Hopefully they have a good experience and want to come back permanently.

Coolest Family in the World

I am flying to Utah this weekend, not for fun, but for an intense period of work to get our Provo house ready for the Parade of Homes and for sale. We will be laying sod, planting trees and plants, and anything else that needs to get done.

Meanwhile, Matt and Debby were planning a fun get together at their house Friday evening to celebrate their recently completed house projects, and to kickoff the Memorial Day weekend in style. Well, they have generously volunteered to postpone their party, and move the venue to the Provo house where they will help Cameron and me with the landscaping. I'm so stoked that they would make this sacrifice - and I really appreciate it. So not only will we get a lot more work done, it'll be great to work alongside my family and catch up.

In Honor of Dan

Dan has a lot of ground to cover over the next week. Many of you know that he and Hailey are coming out to California for the summer, with a short stop in Utah along the way. Like the gallant husband that he is, he will put Hailey and Preston on a plane tomorrow, and then hit the road for the roadtrip from H-E-double-hockey-sticks. Sure he's probably excited for the challenge, and for the adventure of the open road. But ask him again as he's sitting in trucker traffic just outside of Chicago, watching the mind-numbing sameness of the Midwest crawl by - then there might not be much excitement. I believe he's checked out the complete Audio Book section at his local library, and I'm sure he'll find his way through many a 7-11 before he turns off his engine for the last time. Just enjoy the road, Dan, and avoid looking like this...

I'm sure he wouldn't mind periodic WAKE UP! calls, so remember to check in with him over the next couple of days. Dan, we can't wait to see you next week! Drive careful and be safe!

Weekend of Firsts

First thing's first: thank goodness that darn heatwave has passed us by. Today was a very manageable 85 degrees; have fun all you guys further east...

Brig and I went camping on Friday night, and we had a great time - his first campout, my first fathers and sons as the father. We found a campsite right next to a bunch of our friends from the ward, and it was my kind of campsite - relatively flat ground, room to park the car close to the tents, picnic table close to the fire pit, and only staying one night. It wasn't until I had pitched our tent (for the first time) that I realize just how big it was. Sure, we didn't need all the extra room, but I wasn't complaining when it came time to move our stuff in and out and being able to stand completely erect without hitting the top. Sure beats the little two man pup tents we used to have when I was a kid! Brig's highlights were (in order): carrying around his own working flashlight, repeatedly kicking off his crocs and ending up barefoot in the dirt, eating a hotdog he watched me cook over the fire, running around with his buddies from the neighborhood looking for Lions, and being the only person in the whole camp to sleep soundly through the night. A couple of my observations: thank goodness for a whole box of baby wipes so we were actually pretty clean before going to bed; smooth ground while camping is an illusion - what feels pretty good when you first lay down quickly and cruelly turns into a hip-pointer waiting to happen; some people are really good at roasting all-beef hotdogs over a campfire (me) and some people are really good at making dutch-oven potatoes, cobbler, bacon, eggs, etc. (my campmates); the kid with the flashlight is always the coolest when it gets dark - it's worth whatever it costs to stock up your kid with his own; and why is it so easy to wake up at 5:45 while camping and it's already 75 degrees, when it's almost impossible to wake up that early at home? All in all a great trip.

Another first on Saturday was taking all the kids and one friend to the Giants game up in San Francisco. It got chilly, the game was slow (I know you're thinking ... "duh", but this one was actually really slow), but we had a good time. I didn't find out until today at church, but our friends sitting in a different part of the ballpark saw Brig and me on the scoreboard picture as I was throwing him up and down, oblivious to the game. Fortunately it was timed to coincide with a "slow" period of the game in which they were playing music and encouraging people to pretend like they were having a good time so they could film people looking silly, so we fit right in. The kids liked their $17 Giants Dogs (not really, but close), and I think it was a great effort to last until the 8th inning.

I also got to take Brig on a bike ride during the day while we waited for the girls to get home from their sleepovers the night before. He's a good little kid, and I love him a lot. We had fun hanging out, although there were times when he'd just get this look like, "where's everyone else...where's my mom?" It's been a fun weekend to hang with him, Micah and Morgan. Church went well today, and having the kids actually got me out of counting tithing today, so not too bad. We're definitely all looking forward to Mom and Kennan coming home later tonight, but we haven't been at each other's throats, and the house is actually clean, so I guess it's been a successful weekend without Mom. ..... Maybe that's a first too.

Africa Hot

On my mission in Australia, my companion and I had a saying when it was unbearably hot, that it was "Africa Hot". Yesterday was approaching Africa Hot, and today will be more of the same. Sure you may scoff at mere 104 degree temperatures, but when the entire previous month's high never deviated from between 65 and 75 degrees, to be hit with that was withering. Needless to say I'm seeing a lot of shorts and flip flops at work today...

Ang and Kennan made it safely to Utah yesterday and are enjoying time with family. The rest of us here are also having a good time as last night was Little Caesars pizza and two recorded episodes of American Idol, which the kids absolutely love. I enjoyed this season early on, and then sort of lost steam, but enjoyed watching with them last night. Micah told me it's the girls against Dad in the finals because their favorite is David Archuleta and mine is David Cook.

Today the kids get to swim with some friends, both the girls have birthday parties, and both of them are sleeping over at a friend in the ward. We're so grateful to a handful of very kind friends who are helping with the kids at different stages of the day as I have to fulfill some work commitments during parts of the day. I'm really looking forward to camping with Brig tonight for our ward Fathers and Sons. You'd think we're going on a week-long wilderness survival trek with all the gear I've got piled in the front room, but I want to go all the way with putting up our big tent and having a fun experience with him. He'll just be happy to have his own flashlight and maybe a roasted marshmallow or two. Good times.

Peace out.

The Joy of Showering

Brig has discovered showers. I had to give him a shower with me on Saturday because I didn't have time to shower and then bathe him, but he did NOT want to get in with me. After forcing him to come in, he quickly changed his mind, and then was extremely mad when I turned it off. For a little kid, I was surprised how much he likes standing with his head directly under the water. But now every day he walks around saying, "take a showa", and he loves to get in with anyone he can. It's a little disconcerting though when you're in there, washing soap off your face, and you feel these two little hands on each cheek...yeah, those cheeks.

I haven't written much about the Jazz recently, so I wanted to give them some big props for coming back the last two games and tying the series with the Lakers. Unfortunately, it's impossible for them to win in L.A. because they will not be able to get the foul calls, and the Lakers will get every possible advantage from the refs. I don't blame the league - the whole country would watch a Lakers-Celtics series. Just saying that the Jazz can be a really great team, but they won't win this series. I think it will go 7 games though, so we have a few more opportunities to cheer them on.

Angela and Kennan head to Utah this weekend for Camille's baptism. They're excited for their little trip, and we're happy to support them in it. Friday night we're thinking about Micah and Morgan having a sleepover at a ward friend's home, and then Brig and I going camping for fathers and sons. I'm actually really excited to do that with Brig, I think it's going to be a blast!

Mother's Day and Stuff

We had a good day celebrating Mother's Day yesterday. The kids made multiple cards and small gifts for Angela, and she also got breakfast muffins, a letter from her husband, a running shirt and a Jamba gift card. The girls had a couple of good lines in their cards: Morgan said, "I love you because you let me watch TV", and Kennan said something funny too but I can't remember what. We probably could have done more for her throughout the day, but it was still a good day. She's so great for our family; I don't know what we'd do without her.

This week marks the start of our crazy late spring / early summer period. Travel, end of year school things, swim team and tennis lessons starting, getting ready to move, and much more are just around the corner. I feel like I need a seat belt ... I'm dizzy.

I was able to go over to Stanford hospital late Saturday night and administer to a relative of one of my hometeachees who was just about to get a lung transplant. It wasn't super convenient, and it made for a late night, but it was neat to be able to participate in it and to help out. One cool thing was just by chance the conversation with the patient, as well as with the Stanford chaplain (LDS and in our ward), revealed that both of them had had previous interactions with my dad, and both had come away blessed by his actions. So that was really cool. It made me proud of my heritage and that I have a really great dad.

Pictures

Happy birthday Morgan!

Sound of Music girls

Birthday breakfast at Google

The Build-a-Bear crew

Brig, Morgan, and Snowflake

That is one happy little boy

"...you want crystal gel?"

Micah performing at the school picnic

Curly hair and gray hair

Ang and Morgan at the picnic

Morgan's excited about the bubble gum, and you can see Brig eyeing it too

Nice smile Brig

Cool Story

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Birthday Recap and Travel Plans

Morgan had a really great birthday yesterday! We decided that rather than load her up with a bunch of stuff, we would create the perfect birthday day from start to finish. Angela did an amazing job of planning fun things throughout the day. She would open a new envelope each time one of the adventures was done to find out what the next one was - here's how Morgan's day went:

First, donuts with the family as per our unbreakable birthday tradition (unfortunately Dad was already at work on an early call); Second, breakfast with Dad, Mom, and Brig at Google; Third, a trip with Mom and Brig to Build-A-Bear where she got a husky named Snowflake and a High School Musical dog outfit; Fourth, afternoon kindergarten (not part of the fun...); Fifth, a trip to the beauty salon with Mom and the girls to get toenails painted all sorts of funky colors and patterns; Sixth, a family picnic to a beautiful area in the hills where we got to watch Micah perform some dances with her team; Seventh, tickets to the community theater presentation of High School Musical this weekend; Eighth, some presents from the family; and Last, a scrumptious ice cream cake and a late bedtime. Great day! I myself was bummed I missed the toe-painting party...

Now for travel plans - we have made a few decisions on travel plans for the upcoming months so I thought I'd share with you where we'll be and when.

Next week, Angela and Kennan are flying to Utah for a quick trip. The main reason for the trip is to be at Camille's baptism (she came to Kennan's), but I'm sure Angela will take the opportunity to help finalize any house things that still need to be done on the Provo house.

The week after that (Memorial Day weekend), I will fly out to Utah on Friday afternoon and go straight to work with Cameron on the Provo house. We'll work late that night, and all day (and night?) Saturday. We should be laying sod, planting trees, moving staging furniture in, and whatever else needs doing. Should be 'fun'.

And we've finalized our big summer trip dates as well: We'll drive to Utah on July 26th and all be there through the end of the Richards family Jackson Hole trip. I'll fly back to CA on the 6th to work until the 15th. I'll then fly back to SLC after the work week to collect my reluctant family. It turns out that Dan and I will likely be heading to SLC the same weekend, so my options are fly and be grateful I'm not driving, or drive with Dan and be grateful for the time with him. Pros and cons to both...we'll see.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MORGAN!!!!

Or as she is still sometimes affectionately known: "Mowgan". It's our little precious girl's birthday today - 6 years old! Wow, that just doesn't seem right somehow. Each year I exhort her to stop growing and stop getting smarter so that she'll be my little girl forever, and each year she assures me with a mischievous smile that she'll stop after her next birthday.

Morgan came up to Google and had a birthday breakfast with Ang, Brig, and me this morning. Her day is going to be one fun thing after another as Angela and I have planned out some really fun activities for her day, wrapped around school this afternoon.

I wrote this tribute for Morgan on the Richards family website and want to share it here:

Morgan, our sweet, happy, fun, loving girl turns six today. Morgan was our only child whose sex was a complete surprise to us at birth, and just like it felt so right to have a third girl, each of her additional new surprises just adds more and more to our family. She has always stood out as a special girl, whether it was her beautiful big brown eyes, her infectious smile, or the way she leads her friends now. I particularly love this note her kindergarten teacher sent us unsolicited: "What a blissful sense of joy she brings into our classroom. Her enthusiasm for learning and participating is contagious to her friends. Morgan has developed such a teachable heart. She listens actively and is a risk taker! Way to go Morgan!" That sums up nicely the Morgan that her teacher and classmates know, but it leaves out the parts that the kids at school don't see. Morgan is a wonderful big sister to Brig; she adores her older sisters and wants to be like them; she is a songbird who lights up our home with melodies; she is Mommy's little buddy; she loves primary and Jesus; and she loves her family. We love Morgan so much, and are grateful to have her in our family.

We love our Morgan very much!

If any of you are thinking of offering birthday wishes, can I ask a favor and have you take a minute to make a quick phone call or leave a voicemail? The kids love so much to hear your voices and hear from you that you love them and are thinking of them. It's not quite the same to refer them to a comment on the blog or to an email we received on their behalf. Thanks so much!

Seis de Mayo

I didn't write anything related to Cinco de Mayo, so I'm writing something about Seis de Mayo. Actually, it's about Cinco, just written on Seis... We had a big Mexican food BBQ at work yesterday and a mariachi band rocking the Googleplex for lunch. Good times, good food. I saw a lot of confused looking Asians though, and I heard "what's this?" a lot in the food line.

Just so you know, I'm wearing flip flops at work today. But they're 'professional' looking flip flops (leather), not the old plastic kind. Come on, this is a business and I have standards to uphold.

My buddy Jason is getting back into running after a prolonged foot injury, and it's awesome to be running with him again. I've already had a pretty good spring of running - according to my exercise log I've run 325 miles so far this year. St. George lottery results come out this week and hopefully I'll get some good news there - which means the running will start ramping up in a few weeks.

Brig's been developing a bit of an attitude lately. He'll flat out tell Ang or me "no" when we tell him to do something. It's gotten to the point that we have to say, "ok, go put yourself in timeout", and he'll start crying and walk into his room and sit on his bed. It's actually really cute - we don't make him stay in there long, just enough to get the point.

We've been helping Dan and Hailey a little bit on their housing search for this summer. It's been great to see some really good options pop up lately that they would never have known about, so we feel like we're helping them a little bit. I point this out because Dan is going to be recruited into Richards Moving Co. this summer - and I just want him to remember that we've been nice to him while he's moving endless loads of boxes and furniture between our houses.

Full Weekend

Busy weekend, but a lot of fun.

Kennan and Morgan were both in Friday and Saturday night school productions of The Sound of Music. Kennan, who played Marta, did a great job with speaking and singing parts; and Morgan was an excellent performer in the kindergarten chorus. I could tell watching both of them, whether zoomed in through the view finder on the video camera or from the back of the room with Brig, that they really loved what they were doing. We were really pleased for them to get that opportunity without Micah in the same play to steal their thunder.

Ang and I spent a few hours down in the basement on Saturday going through old boxes and things we've accumulated over the three years of living here, trying to decide what we really want to keep (and move). We erred on the side of "if we haven't opened that box since we moved last time, we pretty much can be sure we don't need it any more". So we took a load to goodwill, made a trash pile, and actually made some good progress in organizing what we are going to keep so as to be easier when the move comes.

We also took the kids to play tennis with our friends the Baughs. We mostly just hit around, and I was once again impressed with how well Kennan can hit the ball. Actually, the best part for me was riding their 11 year old son's rip stick (pictured). It's like a skate board, but instead of two wheels on each end, there's only one. You stay on it and propel yourself by weaving back and forth, similar to what you would see a surfer do. It took me a couple minutes, but before too long I had it down and was zooming around the outskirts of the tennis courts. Man was it fun! I want to get one for myself ... err, the kids.

After a lot of activities on Saturday, the kids were really worn down in the late afternoon and we needed to get them a rest before their play that night. They didn't really want to sleep, so in fun I said, "if you don't sleep, you won't be able to be Marta tonight, and I'll have to go do it for you." Kennan in a voice full of derision said, "Dad, you're not a good enough singer." and then Morgan piped in and said, "yeah, it's true." So there you go...I guess if you don't sound like Hannah Montana, you're not a good singer.

I watched the BYU rugby team play in the national semi-finals and finals over the weekend. They looked great on Friday against Colorado, but they got the big beat down by Cal on Saturday. It was still fun to hang with some old buddies, see some rugby, and get the opportunity to tell some obnoxious BYU fans to pipe down and stop embarrassing the rest of us. You know it was bad if you hear a Cal dad turn to his son and say quietly, "son, you can learn from this that just because you're losing, you shouldn't blame things on the ref, be rude, and act like that." I told him I agreed, and then at the next outburst I walked over and told the man (mid 50s probably) to shut up. Love the school, just not all the people... (Cue Matt D and Sam with their anti-Cougar venom...)

We also had a lot of friends in and out of our house this weekend. Micah has formed a really fun friendship with a relatively new girl in our ward, who also likes playing with the other kids (dream come true for them). We also met a neat new couple who came over to see our house, and who will likely end up living there when we move out. And we had a new family over for dinner last night that turned out to be really cool and we had a great time. We're blessed with many great friends and acquaintances out here that make our lives much better.

Now I better get to work...

Morgan's Crutches

Morgan was playing over at a friend's house this morning and they had a pair of kids' crutches there from an old injury. Morgan asked the mom if she could borrow them, and the nice mom said sure. So when Angela picks them up she brings out the crutches and insists on using them at school this afternoon. Angela says no, but Morgan persists. Ang asks her why she wants to use them and she replied something along the lines of I want to get really good on them in case I ever have to use them. You can't really argue with that logic. So Angela decides it won't hurt to let Morgan walk to her class with them, but that she'd then have to give them up. You can imagine the reception Morgan got at school, and Angela was barraged with concerned mothers inquiring as to how poor Morgan was doing... Of course Angela had to explain that she was just practicing, and then Morgan got pretty upset that mom "told her secret". So there you go.

So the moral of that story: if you ever want to get a lot of attention, show up for school/work/church on crutches.