Caut!on & The Bean

Back at the the first part of Feb. Collin brought home an assignment from his third grade class. A Science Project type of assignment that was required for all third graders. The assignment: Build a catapult that will launch a small load "like that of a mini candy bar, like a Snickers" - Yes, those were the actual words on the paper.. Catapult due on Thurs, 19th of Feb. so as to be ready for Competition on Friday the 20th... hmm. "Competition?" Apparently the goal was to launch said candy bar the farthest or the highest and places were to be awarded for each. That put a whole new twist on the project...

Collin and I finish his catapult the weekend prior to due date and test it a few times... It's launching fairly well, and I'm feeling quite proud of my amateur carpentry skills... Then, at one point Collin informs me that his buddy, Boston and his dad built a catapult that is as tall as Boston... "Hmm, well ours is only about 3ft long and 1 foot and a half tall" as i just kinda looked at Collin, wide-eyed and slightly dejected... "uhhh..." Then he says to me "Thats ok Dad, mine will probably still look the coolest.. I don't care if I don't win" and again I look at him wide-eyed, "thanks kiddo, but let's see what else we can do with thing to make it launch better" as my heart grew 3 sizes right then... A couple of extra pieces of wood, some more paint and an extra bungee cord later and we have come the end of our modifications. "Well, that's the best we can do with what we've got"...

Thursday rolls around and Collin is extremely proud of his black and orange machine as he walks up to the school... The only black catapult in the entire third grade!

Then.... FRIDAY! and as Collin tells it "DAD, DAD I got third place OUT OF THE WHOLE THIRD GRADE!!!" (thats probably 70-80 kids at least)... "I Beat everybody in just my class to go on the finals, with the best of the whole third grade!!" as he grins from ear to ear...

...me, i'm smiling and thinking...

...hmm.. Must've been the carpentry skills my Grand-dad taught me, back during that summer I spent in Virginia when I was just 10 or 11...

A very good friend of ours, Mrs. Amber Milton, gave the kids an incredible gift this past December for Christmas... Being of bubbly, always uplifting, and outright loud (fun) personality, what better gift could she to give than a 500 piece lenticular (3D) jigsaw puzzle featuring hundreds of brightly colored ladybugs with all sorts of random dot patterns... The puzzle had been sitting a card table in the middle of our family room since Christmas. Well after many short sessions (gives you an enourmous headache if you sit and stare at it for too long) the kids have finally put the final pieces together... Enjoy this craziness... I love how the puzzle refracts the flash from the camera and explodes with color...

Sunday the 18th day of January in the year of 2009... A day that will live in infamy.. well maybe not "infamy" but it's one that most Arizona natives will remember for many many years. A day that decided the best NFL teams to send to the Big Game in Tampa on the first of February.
The family, minus one (Caution went ice fishing) headed up to Roy, Utah to enjoy the last NFL playoff games of the year with the other family. A great day it was.. The underestimated Arizona Cardianls (my home state) beat the Philly Eagles.. and the Pittsburp Stealers beat the Ravens to advance to the SUPERBOWL. Let's go underdogs. I've always had a special place in my heart for the underdog in any situation. Hell, I root for the Saints too. Anyway, here's to whats shapin up to be an interesting Superbowl.. and what was that statistic I read .. "The team in red wins more often than the team that's not" ...

Workin for a TV station definitely has its perks. We tend to have a steady stream of free tickets to big events coming through this place on a regular basis. And every so often, I’m privileged enough to be on the receiving end of these fine gifts. Last night was one of those lucky nights. A few nights back a gracious co-worker said she scored a bunch of tickets to the Walking With Dinosaurs event and that she would like to give me four of them… Yup. Walking With Dinosaurs!! 4 tickets!! If ya haven’t heard of this show, you better check it out cause it’s incredible. Huge, true-to-life sized dinos walking around the Arena floor. I still can’t get my head around how they pulled it off. The way they moved and the sounds they made were so life-like. Collin and Sara were completely entranced the entire time… Five minutes into the show Sara moves to my lap ‘cuz she cant see around the big-head adult in front of her. 2 minutes after that, as she’s watching a little meat-asaurus try to eat some dino eggs, she turns her head and whispers to me, “Dad, are they gonna have a brontosaurus?” Me, “I don’t know little one, but I hope so”

Ten minutes later… Sara whispers, “Dad, where’s the Brontosaurus?” Me, “I dunno, keep watching”

Another ten minutes go by and the back curtain opens up to reveal a long necked dino… Sara, “Dad, Dad, look! The Brontosaurus!” as she proceeds to flash the biggest smile of the night so far…

The narrator then goes on the say that this is actually just a baby Brachiosaurus, (sorry Sara, no such thing as a Brontosaurus, but she doesn’t need to know that just yet) one of the biggest dinos ever. And it was HUUUGE. Just a baby, but still enourmous. Then another smaller meat-a-saurus, I think it was a Stegosaurus or something, starts threatening the baby Brachiosaurus… This goes on for a few minutes until the back curtain opens again and out rumbles baby Brachio’s GINORMOUS Dad charging right at the tiny Raptor… And as Sara eyes grew to the size of baseballs she shouts, “Dad, It’s the Daddy Brontosaurus!!!” It was Awesome! Truly a night to remember...

Like I said before, If it comes your way, I highly recommend it…

I'll be updating very soon .. I promise!!

Collin and his 2nd grade class went on a field trip to the Kennecott Copper Mine. And like the sponge that he is Collin was full of info when he came home. Some of the more amazing facts he filled me in on were; 1- Kennecott is the largest copper mine on the planet; 2-You could stack two Sears Towers on top of each other and still not reach the top of the mine; 3-The Mine can be seen by the space shuttle astronauts as they pass over the United States...

What do you think of when you hear the words "South Carolina"? What about the word "ziploc"? Well after this little story you may think of something completely off the wall when you hear any of those words...
On Tuesday, April 1st, Collin and Sara's Grandparents took a trip out east. The company Grandpa works for took them to South Carolina for an annual business trip. I've been back east and its quite an experience; heat, humidity, lots of greenery, and nice beaches. Grandma took to collecting sea shells to bring home to the kids and even talked Grandpa into hiking down a rocky ledge to pick up one very special shell. Friday rolled around and Grandma 'n Grandpa came home to some very excited grand-kids.
"Wait 'til you guys see what I brought you!!" Grandma says, as she hands the kids a Ziploc bag filled with sea shells.
"Cool", they exclaim.
"'Bout killed myself tryin ta' get ya that one" says Grandpa pointing to the special spirally one.
The kids dumped out all the shells and counted them, sorted them, and played with them. When they were done they were good kids and put them all back into the Ziploc bag, but left them sitting on the living room floor.
The next morning Jodi and I were sitting around relaxing and watching some TV. When all of the sudden Jodi turns towards me and says, "Brandon! Did you see that?"
"What?" I ask.
"The bag..." she points to the Ziploc bag still sitting on the floor, "it moved!"
"What?"
"I swear it moved!"
"nah... the shells were probly just settling in there", I say, brushing her off like nothing.
The day goes on and that afternoon I sit down at my computer to do some freelance work (the computer is in the living room as well). Collin is layin' on the floor playing Madden 08 on his PSP. Every so often Collin hops up to show me a great replay on his game. "Dad, Dad, you gotta see this blah blah just ran 80 yards for touchdown" or " Yes! Check out this awesome catch" etc., etc. Then all of the sudden after a few minutes of gameplay i hear a small rustle from a plastic bag on the floor right next to Collin's head. Oh yes, Collin heard it too... Actually, he saw it move! He pops up off the floor faster then a startled grasshopper in the Arizona desert and he's white as a ghost, "I just... I just... there was.. I saw, I saw... something moved in the bag ... and it was black".
My eyes wide and my heart racing a little I bend over to pick up the bag. Looking it over thoroughly, I see nothing suspicious. Nothing at all. I take the bag upstairs and bring everyone around the kitchen counter to help inspect.
"I told you I saw the bag move! I told you!" Jodi shouts.
And Grandma says, "Oh there's nothing in here", as she picks up the bag and walks into the bathroom, where she proceeds to empty it into the sink. She pushes all the shells around and finds nothing. "The only shell in here that could hide anything would be this spirally one right here" She holds up the shell that Grandpa took a hike to retrieve. She flips on the hot water and waits for it to get hot. Once the water is scorching, she puts the shell under the hot water and waits. A few minutes go by... and... then complete panic and commotion come screaming out of the bathroom!
"What? Sara, what?" I ask the terrified child.
"There's something in the shell" she screeches through frightened tears. And I pick her up and hold her while she calms down...

So what was in the shell you ask? Well I'm sure many of you can guess... but this will make it much more fun. If you'd like to see a photo of what was in the shell... CLICK HERE to see what the kids have aptly named "Ziploc" from South Carolina.

I know there's a few of you that will totally dig this... My nephew, Jacob, has a birthday on April 4th and I wanted to paint a groovy painting for him... He plays PeeWee football for the Bingham Miners and he's quite good... So what better gift than a painting of him playin some ball... Here's a couple of shot of the painting process... Enjoy!

Every so often the family does a massive cleaning and sorting session, where we go through all the miscellaneous "junk" we've acquired over the past year or so and decide what can be given away to the Big Brother's, Big Sister's group , the MS folks, or whatever charity may be looking for donations at the time... and, believe it or not the kids really get into this... the thought of giving away some toys or books or whatever to someone less fortunate is actually a concept they both understand. They like the thought of doing something to make another person smile. Collin has even given away some of his most valued "treasures" in previous donations. And, as you can see Sara literally got right into the giving spirit today... (sorry, the picture's a little blurry)

Man, I don't think my imagination was quite this vivid when I was eight... and published no less!

Today has been an extra special day for the kids. It started off with building a snow-man in the fresh snow this morning. We got about 5 or 6 inches of snow last night and it was perfect for a snow-man. Then, after we came in and put some dry clothes on we went down to the nearest Macy's and picked an Angel from the Angel Tree .. We spent a few hours shopping for two little girls, one 4 and one 6. Pants, shoes, shirts and even some Barbies. And since my work, KUTV, is a sponsor of the Angel Tree program, they paid for it all. Pretty neat, to say the least. Later this evening we were instructed to take all the gifts we purchased to the drop-off point at the Zoo. Yup, that's right, the Zoo... Middle of December and we were off to the Zoo. The Hogle Zoo has, for the first time ever, put up over 2 million christmas lights throughout the park. Granted most of the animals are keeping themselves warm in their pens or dens... but it was still magical. A most wonderful way to end a wonderful day!

Today was a beautiful day. A special day. 4 years ago today a small girl joined us all in this wild, crazy and often harsh world. This game we call "Life" can be tricky and cruel sometimes. Hah! Yeah, right! Not to this little spitfire. Nope, this girl has enough spunk and heart to give "life" a serious run for it's money... Oh my Sara-Bean... You are someone special. Sure, you can be a handful at times. But, that doesn't compare to the amount of heart you possess, at just 4 years old...
... Let me give a wonderful example: Just last week, after I received the dis-heartening news of my uncle's passing, I walked into my room and sat on the side of my bed... out of the corner of my tear-filled eye, I saw your little face peek around the door... then you walked in and, without a single word, you handed me your favorite little floppy, pink baby-doll... the same baby-doll that comforts you and gives you strength when you need it... you had no idea what was going on in my head or that I had just lost a very special person in my family... and yet, somehow, you did know something. Something that was very heavy... and the moment that pink baby-doll touched my fingers, a little weight was lifted... Thank you, my little sweet-heart... Thank you so much for being my little girl... Always!



So without further ado ... The Princess Birthday Tea-Party! ... The planning for this amazing event was immense. It's a good thing Jodi knows a thing or two about Tea Parties and Princesses, cause I wouldn't have been able to pull off an party like this... Complete with food, "tea", games, dancing... Oh, and we can't forget the bestest part of the day: A visit from the one and only Princess Belle of Beauty and the Beast. (Thank You so much Aunt Kristie)

Happy Birthday Sara-Bean! I Love You My Little Princess!