Halloween and Pumpkins

This year we had a Little Mermaid and a Vampire in our home. Jacob and Anna dig Halloween -- the holiday is a very close second to Christmas. So when our pumpkins were stolen this year they were very upset. When they noticed the "crime" they ran into the house to tell Jennifer, who made the comment that some teenagers probably took the rotting orange veggies as a prank.

Not satisfied, Jacob and Anna schemed to find the perpetrators. When Jennifer was not looking, they snuck out of our house and ran across the street to accuse our neighbors of the crime. These neighbors have 3 teenagers -- the only teenagers that the kids know. When Jen finally saw the kids across the street the dad was at the door fielding questions from the twins: "where are our pumpkins!?", "why did you take our pumpkins!?" etc.

Ahh, the joys of having bold 5 year old twins who know how to fire each other up. 

First Triathlon

I completed my first triathlon this weekend. It was a lot of fun and I think I'll do another. There were 155 participants -- I had the 24th fastest pace in the swim, 90th in the bike ride, and 106th in the run. So I guess I am much like a whale -- good swimmer, poor runner. :-)

The picture is of the kids giving me a high-5 during at the end of my run.

The kids are growing up

Last week the twins started kindergarten. I was very excited about the start of school -- someone else would assume some responsibilty for turning the creatures into productive human beings, and Jen would get a break for a few hours in the day (OK, not much of a break becuase of the baby).

So I was surprised by how I felt when we dropped them off for the first time. After getting them situated in their class they were happy to see us go. They were making friends, having fun...and I realized that we no longer had total control over their lives. For a control freak like me that was pretty scarry. :-)

And then last night Anna and I went on a daddy/daughter date the see the Beauty and the Beast play. We had a lot of fun and it didn't feel in the least bit like babysitting! :-) I cannot believe the kids are growing up!!!!

A few pictures are attached (one was taken from my cell phone so the quality isn't great).

Politics

This year I decided to get a little more involved with politics. I am the Republican precint chair in my neighborhood and a volunteer on Senator Hatch's campaign (not that a five term incumbent needs much help). I've also crashed a few fundraisers -- and the picture below is from a Chris Cannon event. The guy to my left is very involved in politics and works for me as Winder's VP of marketing -- he's also related to Chris Cannon. At this event he arranged for us attend a VIP session with several congressmen and local big shots. From left to right are Senator Bob Bennett, Congressman Chris Cannon, me, Mike Winder, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky (also Majority Whip), Senator Orrin Hatch and Utah's Lt. Governor Gary Herbert.

Before taking the picture they asked us to introduce ourselves. Mike Winder introduced me as his partner -- and silence filled the room. I quickly added that we were of the business and not domestic variety, and Senator McConnell burst into laughter. True story.

Fun Utah Weekend

We just completed a great Utah weekend. One of the things that I love about living in Utah is the variety of outdoor activites. On Saturday Kim and Chris took Jacob and Anna on a rafting trip down the Provo River. The kids had a BLAST! Jacob is now saving his pennies so he can buy a raft. Also on Saturday we ran in the Cedar Hills 5k. This has become an annual event for us and I push Jacob and Anna in a jogging stroller while I doing my best to avoid a heart attack. Their cheers of "Go Daddy!" and "Hurry Daddy, you're loosing!" must have been more effective this year as I dropped my time by 4:30.

And, of course, we spent most of the weekend holding Nathan. He's weighing in at about 8lbs now and is doing great. Jennifer will not let me tell you what she's weighing in at, but she's also doing great. :-)

Wasatch Back Relay

A few months ago I said I was training for a relay from Logan to Park City. Well, the race happened the weekend before Nathan was born and I actually finished it (my 3 legs equaled about 15 miles). The race was a blast -- we should do it next year as a family (seriously). We began Friday morning at 8AM and finished the race Saturday at 1:50PM. I beat my estimated time (which I set at a turtle's pace) and completed my segments without walking (lots of Advil...and some would interpret my run as a walk). Here are a few pictures -- the last one shows the altitude change along the race route.

So who wants to do the race next year?

Nathan is born

Nathan Lawrence Dutton was born on Wednesday morning. He is 6 lbs 15 oz and measures 20.5 inches long. Baby and mother are great.  

Riding bikes

So the twins have finally mastered bike riding. We went on our first biking adventure tonight to a small lake near our house. After riding some nice, paved trails, Jacob decided to try his hand at mountain biking. He went down a hill and tried to squeeze between two metal posts at the bottom to get on the next trail. The result? The dude went over the handle-bars and bruised himself from head to toe (literally). The most painful part was the bruise to his developing ego. :-)

Ballet recital

Anna had her summer ballet recital last night. She did great! Her brother liked it so much he presented her a bouquet of flowers afterwards. I never thought dancing to the theme song of Scooby Doo could be so interesting. :-)

Teaching kids common sense

The other day Jacob noticed that our neighbor's teenage kids were on their roof. Jacob is fascinated with being on the roof -- the height, the mystery of what's up there, the danger...the roof is cool. So later that night, after Jacob was supposed to be in bed, Jen walks by his room and finds Jacob crawling out his second story window! The dude managed to get the window open and the screen removed, and all he had left was to throw is fanny over the window sill.

We sat Jacob down and told him how dangerous it was -- told him he could fall off the roof, that he could possibly die. But that did not phase Jacob. He told me that if he fell off and died, then he would simply be resurrected. "Dad, did you know that Jesus was resurrected in three days?"

So how's a parent suppossed to respond to that? We simply put a lock on the window and called it good.

First soccer victory

This is the kids first year playing soccer. Anna is the fastest player on the field, and Jacob has quite the ball control (so much so that he trys to dribble the ball, by himself, from one goal to another). Since I am the coach, I think I need to teach him the virtues of passing (we don't need a Kobe in the family). We had our 2nd game yesterday, and we won! Jacob scored two goals and Anna had some great assists. 

Stranded at Alta

A strom came though Utah this week starting late Wednesday night that was dumping large amounts of snow in the mountains. So I had the bright idea to head up to Alta for a half day of skiing before heading to work. Our CFO also liked the idea, so we callled a "morning meeting" on the mountain (which we try to do several times a year).

So we had a great day of skiing. There was so much powder -- the storm brought 37 new inches of snow to Alta. I have never skiied in so much powder. I even rented powder skis for the occassion which were very helpful.

At 12:30pm I was ready to call it a day and head into the office. And then they closed the canyon road because of heavy snow and avalanche danger. The reopened the canyon at 5:00pm, but shut it down quickly because an avalanche swept a carload of 9 people off the road (they are fine). Then Alta required us to "interlodge" -- meaning, everyone had to go inside. The order was enforced by the resort putting a chain over the door and a county marshall. The canyon remained closed all night.

The next day I saw a dozen avalanches, most caused by the resort firing cannons into the snow. They let us start to dig our cars out at 10AM the next morning -- my car had snow up to its windows. At 12:30PM they reopened the road, and I had the pleasure of telling the people I work with about our long, productive...meeting. Since I did not have a change of clothes, I worked the day in my ski gear. I was surprised by how so few people even noticed -- I hope I have a few more "morning meetings" this year.

It's a boy!

We had the "big" ultrasound yesterday and we are having a boy. Jacob is thrilled -- he told me that he wished really hard and his wish came true. Anna's response was more muted -- OK, she cried. But she recoved quickly and is excited to have a new baby brother. We let her buy him some clothes last night and that seemed to help.

Is it love?

Jayme and Kim were nice enough to watch the kids last week while Jen and I vacationed in San Francisco. As no good deed goes unpunished in this family, I thought I would share this picture of Kim and her man-friend. She accidentally left some pictures at our house so I naturally look through them and found Kim engaged (funny word play, eh?) in hugging a man!!! I -- like you -- was shocked and thought I would post the picture on our blog. The male offender is Chris, and Jacob likes him because he has "spikey hair." 

Running 173 miles

We've decided to create a team at Winder to run the Wasatch Back Relay, a 173 mile relay race from Logan to Park City, Utah (http://www.wasatchbackrelay.com). Our team consists of 12 people, and each will run 3 5-mile segments in a 18 hour period. I started training this week and my !@#$% hurts! The race is June 23 and 24th, so if Jen goes into labor early I may be saved by the bell....err, baby.

Ski lessons wrap-up

The kids completed ski lessons yesterday. It's amazing what they can learn in 5 weeks. Now they can snowplow through all the green runs and many of the blue. Jacob even took us down a mogul run on accident -- now the kids think they can "ski the bumps."

Injury report from ski lessons:
- Jacob ran into one tree. He ended up giving it a hug and kiss afterwards becuase he was sorry.
- Anna fell off the ski lift. It was at the beginning of the lift and she ended up catching herself by wrapping her arm around a pole -- they stopped the lift with Anna hanging about six feet off the ground. The lift operator held her feet as she let go, resulting in no physical damage to Anna, though we are still evaluating the emotional scars.
- Both kids decided to try to their luck on a jump. Jacob landed it (kind of) while Anna had a "Wide World of Sports"-like wipeout. She popped up afterwards and shouted with excitment, "DADDY, did you see my double sommersault?!?"
- And finally, Jen had a minor heart attack when I explained what happened after each lesson.

As for the race above -- Anna took Gold and Jacob Silver.

Skiing Lessons

The kids started skiing lessons this week. Upon arriving at the resort we were greeted by their instructor. His name is "Coach" (which made he highly suspicious), and he told me that the first day is mostly orientation and sometimes all they accomplish is a few snowball fights. So I pulled Coach aside and told him I did not sign the kids up for daycare, and if they were not skiing today that the kids and I would slash his tires. He looked at me like I was psycho -- and I assured him that I was -- and then said he'd do his best. I checked in on the kids throughout the day and they were skiing their little fannys off.

Jen cannot ski this year because she is w/ child, so I spent the day skiing alone. It was actually great -- I loaded my iPod with a bunch of songs I liked in high school and rocked out down the mountain. I was in the zone -- some guys tried to talk to me on the ski lift and I just pointed to the headphones. I was rad.

The best thing about the lessons is I get to spend the day with the kids doing something fun, and Jen gets a full day of rest. I'll take my camera next week and post some pictures.