Why William is the Favorite Uncle

As if the Rubik's cube was not enough, William decided that he still had to give the best gift to Chris' son, our nephew, Charles. And what better gift for a 2.5 year old then a . . . .

NERF CROSSBOW!

This was the first present opened and kept Charlie- and the rest of the family- entertained for the rest of the night.

The only drawback (or maybe blessing for my brother and sister-in-law) is that Charlie is just a little too weak to fully pull back the launch mechanism. Thus, for the rest of the night, he kept going up to people and asking them to help him get it ready. Then, he would shoot it up into the air (not at people, although his dad Chris kept breaking that rule by shooting William) and each time it would be shot, he would yell "Yess" or "All right!" and then run and get the arrow. This occurred over, and over again all night.

The best is that Charlie calls William "Bill"- but he says it with this southern accent like "Bi-i-ll". It is HILARIOUS! I was going to get it on video, but we didn't end up seeing them another time before we left since their whole family was sick. Not only did he love "Bi-i-ll" for the cross bow, but also for the large bubble sword that he bought him and then went and showed him how to use it outside. The bubble sword was short lived in comparison to the cross bow- I mean who can compete with a great gift like that :-)

Brains vs. Brawn

As many of you know, William has a long standing "special" gift exchange with his brother Chris. I have the "special" in quotes because basically, it means finding the most unusual and/or difficult way to open the present for Christmas.

I call this year "Brains vs. Brawn" and the photos below will illustrate both of these camps.

BRAINS
After William's "snotty" gift last year, he decided that he would go to the opposite extreme this year and give Chris the following challenge: The Rubik's Cube.

As you can see, this is not-your-average Rubik's cube. There are several letters on each square and on every face of the cube.

I thought that it was pretty difficult to follow all of the letters across each face but that wasn't tough enough for William. He then scrambled it all up and gave it to Chris to figure out. William was kind enough to leave the package instructions for Chris, but even then, it stil took him awhile

MEANWHILE- this other part was occurring simultaneously

BRAWN

Chris REALLY wanted to make William work for it this year- from start to finish- and Chris made great use of the resources at his job at the lumber shop. As you can see, besides wrapping up the gift nicely, he also wrapped it in shrink wrap. Under the shrink wrap was this wooden box.

Looks fairly innocent right? WRONG. Not only are there several layers of wood that are nailed together in multiple places, but there is also an extra bonus of a layer of GLUE holding it all together. (FYI- all of the following occurred with the presence of my father-in-law, ensuring that we would not have a special Christmas Eve trip to the emergency room).

William first tried the crow bar with zero impact. He then went for the chisel and hammer, also to no real impact.

Thus, he decided to pull out the power hand saw.

And finally with this, he had some progress- slow, but progress none the less. Chris had warned William at the beginning that there was something "fragile" inside but William had just thought that it was a gift card. So, while the power saw did help him to get inside to the gift, he actually sawed off the top part of his gift.

It's kind of hard to tell but you can see that he cut right through the box of his all time favorite cereal- Reese's Puffs.

While he was able to access them, we did not eat them because we did not want the added "fiber" from the woody shavings that also made it inside the box.

WINNER??

Ultimately, it was a DRAW. Both brothers finished up at the same time- one expended forth more mental energy and the other one physical energy. This being said, I have NO IDEA what they will do to try and top this for next year . . . .

Museum of Ancient Life

My mother-in-law has a membership to Thanksgiving Point and so on Monday January 3rd she took us there to the Museum of Ancient Life. It is a great museum- with so many amazing dinosaur exhibits. We also watched this fascinating film about how they do modern day coal mining- I had no idea just how specialized it was.

We found our dream type of countertop- with iron banded throughout (it looks kind of like gold!)

The dinosaur models were the most impressive. They even had impressive modeling around the display bones, as well as a large number of skeletons.

The powerful T-Rex- definitely the most impressive skeletons at the museum.

And even a baby woolly mammoth

So, while William decided to put sand in his hands,

I decided to go bigger and put the whole world in mine :-)

I highly recommend this museum for those in the Salt Lake/Provo area :-)

3 Days vs. 3 Hours

As many of you know, William and I love to complete puzzles, especially when we are with his family as we were for about a week. Well, his Aunt Jeannine gave us a puzzle shaped like a Christmas tree and so we decided to complete it, since it was the season and all. This puzzle was the most difficult one we have completed YET even though it was only 500 pieces. It doesn't look that hard, but we weren't even able to complete the edges until nearly the end. Also, they had IDENTICALLY sized puzzle pieces that only slightly varied in color!! When we thought we were at the end, we had to switch out four different pieces since they were in the wrong places. It took us 3 days to complete this puzzle, with 4 people working fairly hard on it (William placed the most effort into it- I could only do a few pieces before I was frustrated beyond belief!). And here is the beast-

So, to regain our confidence, we then undertook this scripture puzzle which restored our faith in our ability to do puzzles since this 500 piece puzzle only took us 3 hours.

This other one took us several hours since we finished it over several occasions- we started it while on vacation at Disneyland and then finished all of the green pieces over the holiday. Still, with the two combined times, it still took MUCH less than that first puzzle.

The group together- all over 1,500 pieces.

If anyone is up for a challenge, let us know because do we have a puzzle for you.

Primary Release

Today I was released as a primary teacher. I have mixed feelings about it- I absolutely LOVED the class that I taught during 2010. They were pretty much my dream class. All of the kids truly cared about learning the gospel- they participated in class and remembered the lessons that I talked about. I did a Jeopardy game for our last lesson of the year (at least with me) and they answered every single question that I asked. I even asked some more obscure ones (worth 500 pts). Even my sister Sarah was impressed when she taught them and how they already knew parts of the story of Jonah and the whale before she had taught them. I was especially sad to see these kids go but they have a great teacher now. One of the girls from my class- Kennan- is moving to Utah. They had a goodbye party for her tonight and it was so fun to be able to see her and talk with her one last time. It was also great to be able to talk with her mother and tell her what a wonderful and amazing daughter she has raised. Her mother told me that Kennan would sometimes offer to do the lessons from our class for family home evening- seriously, what an incredible girl. I feel that I could say the same for all of the kids in my class.

At the same time, I was actually quite relieved to get released because the class that I would have this year is quite difficult. I had them come to my class a couple of times and it was extremely tough- even when I had William with me. I couldn't imagine how I would handle them when it was just myself this year. Maren, give my regards to Ryan and let him know that he is my hero for having that class. It was nice to be able to go to Sunday School and Relief Society after not going for nearly 2 years, but I miss the kids already. At least I am able to still talk with them at church :-)

Books in 2010

Well, I did not come close to my record set last year of 87 books but I was impressed that I was able to come fairly close even with working 3 jobs. For 2010, I read 75 books. The vast majority of the books read towards the end of the year were "kid books" as I like to call them because they are literally found in the children's section of the library. Yet, many of them are so good and to me, of the calibur of Harry Potter. I am a particular fan of the Hunger Games series, Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, and the 39 Clues. I also love the Greg Mortenson books- "3 Cups of Tea" and "Stones into Schools". I have several that I started in 2010 that are still not finished so I have carried them into 2011. Let me know of any "must reads" or if you have any questions about the following list. I echo the quote of Thomas Jefferson- "I cannot live without books", as is evidenced by their appearing in nearly every available space of our 500 square foot studio apartment.

• In Too Deep- Jude Watson
• The Black Circle- Patrick Carman
• Beyond the Grace- Jude Watson
• The Sword Thief- Peter Lerangis
• One False Note- Gordon Korman
• The Maze of Bones- Rick Riordan
• The Best Medicine- Mike Magee and Michael D'Angel
• Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Ugly Truth- Jeff Kinney
• The Girl Who Married a Lion and Other Tales from Africa- Alexander McCall Smith
• The Battle of the Labyrinth- Rick Riordan
• The Man Who Lied to His Laptop- Clifford Nass
• Singular Intimacies: Becoming a Doctor at Bellvue- Danielle Ofri
• The Double Comfort Safari Club- Alexander McCall Smith
• The Titan's Curse- Rick Riordan
• Kitchen Confidential- Anthony Bourdain
• Eat, Pray, Love- Elizabeth Gilbert
• The Age of Empathy- Frans de Waal
• It's Not the Media- Karen Sternheimer
• Gang Leader for a Day- Sudhir Venkatesh
• Spider Bones- Kathy Reichs
• The Wimpy Kid Movie Diary- Jeff Kinney
• 29 Gifts: How a Month of Giving Can Change Your Life- Cami Walker
• The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy: Primary Phase- Douglas Adams
• For Better: The Science of a Good Marriage- Tara Parker-Pope
• The Sea of Monsters- Rick Riordan
• The Lightning Thief- Rick Riordan
• Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days- Jeff Kinney
• Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw- Jeff Kinney
• Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules- Jeff Kinney
• The Lost World- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
• Who Moved My Cheese?-Spencer Johnson
• Diary of a Wimpy Kid- Jeff Kinney
• Stones into Schools- Greg Mortenson
• The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society- Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
• Middlesex- Jeffrey Eugenides
• A Thousand Splendid Suns- Khaled Hosseini
• The Invisible Gorilla and Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us- Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons
• Getting Things Done- David Allen
• A Train to Potevka- Mike Ramsdell
• The Turn of the Screw- Henry James
• The Woman in White- Wilkie Collins
• The Alchemist- Paulo Coehlo
• Exploring the Connection Between Mormons and Masons- Matthew B. Brown
• The House of Mirth- Edith Wharton
• So Much For That- Lionel Shriver
• No Apology: The Case for American Greatness- Mitt Romney
• Robinson Crusoe- Daniel Defoe
• Catching Fire- Suzanne Collins
• Damned Lies and Statistics- Joel Best
• The Man From Beijing- Henning Mankell
• The Portrait of a Lady- Henry James
• On the Road- Jack Kerouac
• More Damned Lies and Statistics- Joel Best
• The Unbearable Lightness of Scones- Alexander McCall Smith
• The Hunger Games- Suzanne Collins
• In Cold Blood- Truman Capote
• The Eye of the Leopard- Henning Mankell
• The Happiness Project- Gretchen Rubin
• Italian Shoes- Henning Mankell
• How to Be Alone- Jonathon Franzen
• Kennedy's Brain- Henning Mankell
• Glass Ceilings and 100-Hour Couples- Karine Moe and Dianna Shandy
• The World According to Bertie- Alexander McCall Smith
• Death By Prescription- Ray D. Strand
• Love Over Scotland- Alexander McCall Smith
• Our Daily Meds- Melody Petersen
• The Therapeutic Nightmare- Morton Mintz
• Super Freakonomics- Steven D. Leavitt & Stephen J. Dubner
• Cry, the Beloved Country- Alan Paton
• Powerful Medicines: The Benefits, Risks, and Costs of Prescription Drugs- Jerry Avorn
• Espresso Tales- Alexander McCall Smith
• What the Dog Saw- Malcolm Gladwell
• Three Cups of Tea- Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
• Have a Little Faith- Mitch Albom
• 360 Degrees Longitude- John Higham

"I'm a Back"

For those not familiar with Super Mario Brothers for Wii, this is what one of the characters says after they die and are allowed to re-enter the game- "I'm a Back". I thought that was the perfect title to begin the blog post after my long hiatus.

Firstly, let me just say that everything is GREAT! I truly do appreciate all of the emails, facebook messages, texts, and in-person requests making sure that everything was okay with us since I wasn't blogging. Let me explain what I have been up to for the past few months. In August, we went on a trip to Utah for the Kunz family reunion and celebrated my 30th birthday with my family. I went European and took a blogging break for that month and I very much intended to resume blogging in September.

However, with 10 days before the beginning of the quarter, Santa Clara University called me and asked if I would be willing to fill in last minute for one of the other full time professors who had an "emergency" (not sure what) but couldn't teach the class. The books had already been ordered (there were 5 and I was only familiar with 2 of them) but I was able to get a very rough syllabus together for teaching Social Problems in the U.S. I really LOVED this class- maybe even a little more than Intro- although I would definitely change some of the readings for next time. But, this class is the reason for my blogging hiatus. I was working 30 hours a week doing qualitative research in addition to teaching the class, which takes up an incredible amount of time to prepare and grade, so any free time I had was not spent on the computer, but squeezing in some cultural adventures- primarily with my husband- to keep my sanity :-) We also spent 2 weeks in Utah for the holidays, together with both our families so much time was spent having fun there. Thus, blogging suffered BUT I'm a back now since I only have ONE job for now- doing research at Palo Alto Medical Foundation- thus leaving me with more time to catalog many of the adventures that we have experienced and will experience.

While I am kind of sad to not be teaching again, since I really do enjoy it so much, I am very happy to have a "break" and reconnect with everyone. Thanks to everyone who has been patient awaiting, and expect much, much more to come for 2011 :-)