Happy Birthday Dad

I know this comes post birthday for most of you...but I am a night owl. We wanted to tell everyone is our Dad's birthday today and wish him a public Happy Birthday! We love this picture because it shows what he is like. He is fun, funny, smart, kind and every other nice thing you can think of. We love when he comes to visit and when we go down to see him and my mom in Texas. He can always make you laugh and he gives the greatest advice. One of our favorite things about him is when he laughs really hard. Everyone in the family knows what I am talking about. He will kind of wheeze and then gets the hiccups and he can't stand still when he is laughing. I have great memories of that. We love you Dad! Hope you have a wonderful birthday!!!

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

(these are the candles on your cake)

97...94...68

Jenny won--I'll admit it right from the get go. I was having an off day (not that I ever have an on day with bowling-- but I went last week and got a 121. Impressed?). The best part of our bowling adventure is that Addie Laing beat everyone. We went to Fat Cats with the Laings (a guy I work with and his family who we love!!) and their little girl beat us all! Pretty sad to be beat by a 3 year old girl, and then to be beat by your wife. Oh well. Bowling isn't a real sport anyways. Jack had a fun time. He was a little timid at first and didn't want to try, but once he go a hang of it he was loving it. He actually got a STRIKE on one of the frames! He was excited. This one is not the STRIKE one obviously. But with good aim with the metal thingy and using the bumpers I got a few spares for Jack too. It was kind of fun this way.

CHANGE OF SUBJECT...CHUNKS NEW TRICKS

called out...

Ok, so a few days ago our friend Holly posted about the beach. Jenny and I loved reading it. At the end of her blog, she asked for comments about the beach. We didn't comment. Holly knows we love the beach, so she called us out on it. We deserved it...here is our response. (p.s. go check out their blog--If T-Mobile had you pick out your faves on blogs, it would be one of our 5).This was our backyard in Hawaii. This is why Holly's post ruined our day. We got homesick for Hawaii. If you've been there you can relate. It is a special place. Expecially North Shore, and especially Laie. It is very unique, and as Jenny always says, Hawaii is like a feeling more than a place. That mind sound wierd, but maybe you can relate. This is getting off topic-- The Beach:
Since we lived right on the water, we went to sleep to the sound of the ocean every night. I have always loved the sound of the water. It is calming. I like when it is so subtle you don't notice is and I like it when it is so loud you have to yell for people to hear you. I love picking sand out of my hair and having ocean water drip out of your nose hours after you have left the beach. Some of you are grossed out by that-- but I loved it! Growing up, I used to hate driving home from the beach and having any sand on my feet--now I love the feel of it. I feels like fun! I love the smell of the ocean. Salt and suncreen and sand. They should make a cologne or perfume...I'd buy it. We miss living by the ocean. I like mountains, but I like oceans more. I like seasons, but I'd prefer just two-- Hot summer and Warm summer. I can remember a day in Hawaii after a long, frustrating day of work and school I got home after dark and realized I had not been in the ocean all day. This made me more frustrated, so I ran out back and just walked right into the surf in all my clothes. Its therapeutic. I miss it. Can't wait to go back...2009 baby!

Its the most longest time of the year....

So, I thought I would do a combo post over the last little bit of time. I was planning on doing a post for June 21st, since it is one of my favorite days of the year, but it has come and gone, so the excitement from that day will be included here. Yay! There you go. No really...This is our street at 9:00 PM on the 21st. 9:00!! Don't you love how bright it is? I love summer time!I have been having fun with some new smoothies that I found in this book we got at Costco last week. I had seen it there a few months ago and I guess someone returned it, so I snagged it! I love it! To celebrate the first day of summer I made this one:

It was a rasberry lime slushie. Addictingly tart and very refreshing. Anyone can come over anytime you want one! (This was actually not in the book, I made it up. This means I should name it...hmmm...how about Rasberry Lime Summer Smoothie--too long. The RLSS--not catchy...Razzle Dazzle Limeade or Rasime or Limerry. Ooh, I like Limerry. The Limerry Dream. Perfect. Jenny just pointed out that this was a very very long afterthought. Perhaps I should've put the first part in parenthesis.)

This is swimming at Aaron and Jessie's house. Chunk absolutely LOVED playing in this float Jessie let us borrow. He had a ball as you can see. We went swimming twice over the weekend. On Saturday, as many of our readers will know, we went to the Memorial Pool again...this time to celebrate Josh's birthday.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOSH ! ! !

Hopefully all of you read this before Jenny deletes this picture off of the blog. Yes, she was laying outside on the lawn with the dog and letting Jack and Christian play with him. I am wearing her down. Christian gets so excited when the dog comes over. So does Jack. But Jack is afraid of Franklin and I'm not sure why since this dog next door is practically a lion. Speaking of dogs-- I caught this lady yesterday trying to let her dog poo in our lawn on her walk. She was so lame, because I walked out the door and she immediately looked up away from the house and started humming and calling after the dog. I thought...BUSTED! She knew I caught her and tried to play it off. It was kind of awesome.
P.S. I think I lost all progress on Jenny liking dogs when Jackson stepped in our neighboor dog's poo while he was "mowing" our lawn. Oh well...

Totaled!

I got the call yesterday. They are going to total my car. I guess I haven't officially heard yet, because the insurance company hasn't called with a quote or anything, but the body shop told me the damages were about $7,000 and our car is not worth that much. Can you believe that amount? Yikes! So we are just waiting now for the insurance company to call and tell us how much they are going to give us for it. I have done all my research, so I know how much it is worth.The bummer is, we were going to save money until our next baby before we were going to sell one of the cars and buy a "family car". AND we were planning on driving one of the cars until they died (and I was tentitavely figuring we would keep the Saturn). Plans change I guess and everything will work out. At least everyone is ok.

Here was the expensive part. The body shop guy told me the parts alone to fix the airbags was almost 2000 bucks! They look funny just drooping there don't you think?

Isn't it funny, too that a car can be considered totaled and still look like this from the back. Dang Saturn, your bootie look good!

So farewell to the green monster. We will miss you. A memorial fund has been set up in the car's name at Wells Fargo Bank if you would like to donate.

Are you kiddin' me?

Jenny got on the internet today to see if we needed to reserve a spot at Payson Lakes campground because we wanted to go camping there this Friday. Before she went to their Web site, she looked at KSL and one of the stories, as you may have seen, was a notice that the Payson Lakes campground was closed because of another bear sighting at those campgrounds. We thought it was a little ironic considering our chat about bears last night. (Emma, did you call them and fake a bear sighting so we wouldn't go through with the intervention?)

Movie Review

****

I liked this movie. I thought it was good. Profound, huh? That would be a good movie critique for USA TODAY. That would be awesome. "Four stars! It was good, I liked it!" No, really. I was pleasantly surprised. Now, before you run out this second and rent it based on my trusted opinion, I have to put in my ClearPlay plug. Robin Williams has been known for some crude moments in comedy, but I didn't get any of that with our DVD player, and I think those would have ruined the movie. So...without any crude humor it was a good movie (and I did notice parts where the movie skipped a little and muted, so...). Funny and an entertaining plot. Very political (obviously), but there was definately a political agenda here. It was not as bad as the absurd 'penguins have families and feelings and we should pay much more for gas so we don't drill in our own country in order to protect the dancing and singing walrusi and spotted owls' ending to "Happy Feet". (Yes I said walrusi and I would have said meese if it were appropriate.) We are getting off subject. Back to the basics. Be careful of bad jokes if you don't have ClearPlay. I liked it. It was good. :)

A thought on Fathers...

Mom gave a beautiful tribute to fathers on her blog (I know you are tempted not to check it because the posts are few and far between), so if you haven't read it, go read it. I wanted to pass something along that Sister Dearden in our ward said during sacrament that I thought was an amazing insight.

She has a friend who had a father who never showed her any love. She always felt alone, never trusted, never supported and never that calming and strengthening assurance that her father loved her. When she joined the church, she had a hard time developing a relationship with God as her Heavenly Father. She had a hard time believing He loved her always. She had a hard time accepting Him as a Father, because it didn't seem fitting for her that Someone so good could have the title Father, when the only father she knew never showed the attributes we know to be true of our Heavenly Father. She has a hard time going to him when she needs someone, because she has never had someone like that.

Her application was the same as mine, but this one was personal to me. My dad did love me. My dad still loves me. My dad does support me and cares about me. My dad is there for me. So accepting God as my Father has always been very easy and natural to me. The attributes I admire and look up to in my dad are attributes he has learned from our Heavenly Father. Because I knew and know I could go to my dad with any trouble, I learned from an early age that is what fathers do. They love, protect, teach, rebuke, respect, provide and care. I learned from an early age what my Father in Heaven was like by watching my own dad. I have never made that connection before. My dad, by being my dad, lead me to greater faith in God as a Father. My relationship with my dad, because he acted the way he did, taught me about God as a Father.

I thought that was a cool insight. I love thinking about it. It brings a lot more meaning into my relationship with Jackson and Christian, and great memories and feelings of my relationship with Dad. I love you!

A short cheer to our dads! We love you!

Happy Father's Day!

S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y Night! (and day, and Friday)

Just wanted to post some "adventures" from our last couple of days. I love a full weekend! Here are some pictures from Aaron's birthday party that we went to. (Aaron is Jessie's husband--Jessie is Jenny's sister in case you don't know). Jenny's parents have a fun big backyard, so that is where we had his party. We set up the bounce house and Jackson and Christian loved it!They also have a sand volleyball court that we love to use during the summer. Every summer it is alwasy one of my favorite things to do! Jessie and Aaron spent the night Friday night and then Saturday morning Jessie and Jenny ran the 10 mile Provo River Trail Run. We went to cheer her on with Jacquelyn and Josh. Jenny did really well and the running environment put a little bug in me for our big run in August. It will be fun!

Chunk loved the after-run treats!

We went up to the canyon for a picnic after the race. John and Emma were on their way to Costco, so they joined us for the feast! Unfortunately, our favorite park up the canyon doesn't let you do fires anymore ( I think that is a picture of a fire?--or maybe there are no scorpions or something).

Then a swim at the Veteran's pool in Provo. I am a little bit against paying to get into a pool, but this one is really fun, especially for the boys. Christian loves to just splash and crawl around in the water. They have a really shallow part that gets deeper and deeper in the kid section and Chunk will crawl deeper and deeper until his face goes underwater then he sits up surprised, smiles at us, and crawls back. Then he will do it all over again and again and again! He is so cute. What is fun about the park is they let you take little kids down the big pipe slide, so Jack and I went down together and Jenny took Christian even. We had a blast!

We ended the weekend at Smart Cookie--we got to meet Jules and Tate, who we previously only knew through the blog world (it was good to see that they were real people :). We kind of thought Jacquelyn and Josh just made them up so they could have a lot of links on their blog--but we will vouch for them...they are real people and they are cool.

(Please visit Jake and Josh's blog in about a month for some pictures of our Smart Cookie party.)

I don't want to be too dramatic about this, so I thought a little Batman reminder would lighten the mood :).

I got in a wreck today. This is David and I was by myself to answer all of your first questions about the kiddos and Jenny. Everyone is fine...including me. But the Saturn, on the other hand, is singing a different tune tonight. I was on my way home from work and turned up Temple View Drive right by the MTC (heading eeast up towards the temple) and someone pulled out of the Wymount Foreign Student parking lot right in front of me. Luckily it is only 50 yards or so from the intersection, so I wasn't going that fast, and no one was behind me. Although I did hit her pretty hard. Jenny and I disagree on the amount of damage caused...but I hit hard enough that the airbags deployed and I burned my forearm just a little bit on it.

Sorry, if you were expecting something more gruesome...just a chemical burn and scratches on my arm and then the airbag popped my nose I think because my hand had blood on it and then found it a little bit splatted on my shirt (by the way, does anyone know how to get blood out of a shirt?). I also feel a little sore in the neck, but I'm not sure if it is psychological or not. I think it is because I didn't feel it until someone asked me if I whiplash :)

When I got in the wreck the car filled with smoke, which I think was from the airbags. But it was enough that I was coughing and trying to breathe all at the same time trying to figure out what happened and fiddling with my seatbelt (which I was wearing kids!) and get out of the car because I had a panic attack like in the movies when they get stuck and the car blows up. The car never blew up.

I felt really bad for the girl I hit. She was pretty upset about it as you can imagine. She was dropping off a friend at Wymount and there are those cars parked on the street so you cannot see very well down. I've seen people almost get in wrecks o nthat roas coming out of there or out of the temple parking lot. It was just an accident, but I feel really bad for her. She didn't mean to, and now she will be in the middle of this mess a week before she goes home for the summer. I don't want to sound fake or preachy, but I think some prayers on her behalf would be a great blessing.

We went to Aaron's (my brother-in-law) birthday party, and we have some fun pictures from that, but you will have to wait until tommorow or something. I am exhausted.

The best part of the whole thing was after we filled out paper work, the tow truck took the car and the cop drove away and Jenny and I were like...welp, see ya later. She came to pick me up and the first thing she said to me was, David, button your shirt...and you didn't even shave! We are not quite sure where the car is or what to do, but that will be tommorow's adventure. Adios.

p.s. Jackson was cute about it. He must have asked me like 50 times what happened to me. I would say: I crashed. Jack: oh...like Lightning McQueen? Me: Yup, just like it. Jack: oh...did the tow truck take your car? It was fun for him...

Wednesdays (34 left)

Wednesdays used to be my busiest day of the week. It still is pretty full, but now there is nothing to look forward to. My schedule on Wednesday used to be:

1. Work

2. Mow the lawn

3. Go to mutual

4. Take out the trash

5. Watch LOST

Now, this is my schedule:

1. Work

2. Mow the lawn

3. Go to mutual

4. Take out the trash

LOST...I miss you!

In Hawaii on Waikiki they always had movie nights like this one. I found this picture of watching LOST on Waikiki movie night. What a dream!!

Jack loves to watch me mow and then mow "the roads" after I am done. The roads are the lines made by the mower.

We have to stop Chunky from eating the dirt. He LOVES to play in the dirt and eat it!

Some of the new arrivals in our lawn. They look cool, huh? Kind of tropical-like. Maybe the lawn misses LOST too.

Do ya'll recognize the song?

Smart Cookie

Jenny and the boys and I all went to this place in Provo for family home evening tonight. We have been a couple of times before, so we decided to share our new found joys with you today. It is right by that "j-Dawgs" hot dog joint that became so popular and by Cougar Creations down south of the Wilkinson Ctr. You pick out your cookies and Dreyers ice cream and they make your own little ice cream sandwich. Cheap (2 scrillas) and delicious.

Here is Jenny's. White chocolate/coconut cookie on top, chocolate toffee cookie on botton and mountain rasberry ice cream in the middle. I know what you are thinking...not a good combo--but you must understand that Jenny eats the cookies seperate from the ice cream since it is too big. If you weren't thinking that, you were probably laughing at Chunky cheering in the corner. Cookie!

Mouth watering...I know. Peanut butter chocolate on top, white chocolate coconut on the bottom and dulce de leche ice cream in the middle (caramelish). Beautiful combo, beautiful taste. Winner--me!

Jack-- a cup of the rasberry. Good choice, but sheem sheem (boring for you Korean deficient people).

Chunk got his fix on napkins. Easy to please...

Ok, now the little video- let me explain- Jackson was saying the funniest things, so we tried to get them on the camera, but he got a bit camera shy. I did get him feeding Jenny doing that face that all moms do when they feed babies and act like they are eating it. And I wanted to show you what it would be like to eat a smart cookie, but the best part of that is the strange duck noises that Christian makes in the background. It makes the video.

We'll take anyone, anytime. Just call...we'll show you the ropes.

Movie Review

Hello again. Another movie review.

The Nativity Story

****

This movie is somewhere between 4 and five stars (I've got to come up with a way to give half stars somehow). I loved this movie. I thought it was really well done. It brings up things about the Nativity that you have maybe never considered before--the culture, the hardships etc. I would've given it 5 stars instead of 4.5 if they would have done a little better job on one part, but I don't want to tell you that part so that it won't ruin it for you (not that you don't know what is going to happen--they make it to Bethlehem by the way). Anyone who spends money and time to produce a movie that builds faith gets high stars in my book anyways, but the characters were well chosen (in my opinion) and the film was touching. You should definately see it--it is one we are considering buying.

Movie Review (a new feature on the Butler blog)

The Fountain

*

There was no way to give this movie half of a star, so there is only one there. This is probably the worst movie we have ever seen in our lives. There was another one we saw soon after we were married that is right up there with this one, but I have blocked it from my memory so I can't remember the title. If someone asks me what this movie is about I honestly must say, "I have no idea". I really don't know. The trailer I posted is very deceiving, because it makes it seem like a real movie with a plot instead of the waste of film that it is. It is awful! Do not rent it! Do not waste your time looking at the cover in the movie store. It will be wasted time. I would rather knit my own socks then watch this again. (P.S. We just found out today that the movie was "R". I was trying to show the trailer to Bro. Boyle and it came up "R" right before it. I swore I checked that. But, this is one more testament to our ClearPlay DVD player, cause we had no idea. Bro. Goss, we can discuss this later if you want:)

Weekend Review

I know a lot of this will be a repeat from our "Sunday at Suz's" conversations, but for posterity's sake I wanted to do a weekend review. After Youth Conference, we got a little surprise package--Logan. It actually wasn't a surprise (we have known for weeks), but Julie (Jenny's sister) went to Texas (what! what!) to pick up a truck their family was giving them for free as long as they came and picked it up. So we watched little Logan while they flew down and drove it up here. Jack and he had a great time playing together. He was so easy and fun to have around. They only fought once, and of course it was during Julies phone call to check up on him. I kind of miss having him here already, but I'm sure the Williams are all happy to be together again.REAMS had a sale on rasberries on Friday, so I went and got some cases of them. Jenny already started making some freezer jam with them and we have been stuffing our faces with them. They were also having a sale on cherries. When I was there they had a contest in the bakery. You stood under numbers hanging from the ceiling, and if they called your number, yo uwon the cherries. I didn't win. So I bought them anyways. Cherries remind me of Utah. So does rasberry jame. Well, more specifically, rasberry jam reminds me of Suz. She has always made the best rasberry jam! I'm excited to try ours, I'm sure it will taste delicious!

I wanted to clear one of our terraces out back so we could plant some green beans and cucumbers on it. Last year, we planted the tomatoes too close to the cucumbers and the cucumbers took over. I started howing for about 3 minutes and decided to go get some roundup before I start this project. Maybe I won't ever finish the project! I took these so I could give a before and after, but as you can see, the "after" picture will be a little bit more time coming. Stay tuned! (At least they look nice and green, right?)

We did, however, get our tomato plants in (And some pepper plants) A few we got from Costco and a few we got from Chris's garden. Even if we did transplant the Japanese beetle from Orem into Provo, we are still happy and thankful we got some of Chris's hard work into our garden. They look good. (Yes those are the delicious dewberry/blackberry bushed in the background--I can't wait!!)

Youth Conference

Home again home again jiggidy jig. I just got home from our youth conference in our ward. I am the advisor to the priests quorum in our ward, so I have been gone a couple of days with the youth. We left Wednesday afternoon and got home Friday morning. We went up to our bishops "cabin" in Deer Valley. I use the word cabin loosely because his master bathroom was bigger than our bedroom. It is right on the ski slopes in a beautiful neighborhood. It was a big nice cabin and we are lucky that he was willing to allow all of us to stay there and do our activities there. We had planned on going swimming and boating, but Wednesday afternoon it started to rain down here and snow up at his place, so our plans changed a little bit.

The group that we had go up was stellar! I love the kids in our ward! They were such good sports and we ended up having an amazing experience. One of our friends came up and did an amazing morningside with the kids about his experience surviving a plane crash in Alaska. Jenny's roomate from Hawaii married this guy and not long after they were married, he went on a fishing trip to Alaska with Stephanie's (that's the girl) dad and brother and uncles and brother-in-law. They crashed in the icy waters and only Ben (our buddy--Steph's husband) and Steph's sister's husband survived--very miraculously. It was a very touching story about faith and prayer and his testimony of the reality of God and His miracles. The kids loved it! I loved it! I'll have to tell ya'll more another time.

Bishop had the kids playing this game where they passed the lifesavers through toothpicks in their mouths and then you had to stick them on the face of one of your teammates. We have such a fun bishop!

I spoke to the kids also in a little workshop I did, and then the bishop and second counselor spoke to them as well. Our themes were: "Build It" "Dream It" and "Live It". We gave all the kids these bands to remember the messages.

and they all got a blanket that had inscribed on it our theme:

I love these kids and feel super blessed and lucky to be able to work with them! Some of them are graduating, and I will really miss them, but I love the whole group! Jenny did ok sleeping by herself for two nights. It was wierd to be away. But, it was only training for our high adventure trip in July when I will be gone for a whole week. Hopefully Jackson and Christian will remember me when I get back!