Friday, January 9, 2009

Holiday recap

I love the holidays:

1. You eat and eat and eat. (New Year's Resolution: starve, starve, starve.)

2. You get to see old friends that reconverge on Zion (That's one perk about living in Utah. It was so fun to see the the Winkels, the Linds, the Bowens, the Thomases and the Perrys. We miss you guys!)

3. You don't have to work (I KNOW my Christmas was good because I stayed in my pajamas for 3 days straight. No joke. Gretchen called me out.)

We had the best time.

First, I went to CA to visit my family.

We went to Brookstone. Why do they sell this here? So you can practice bull-riding from the comfort of your own home?




The boys rocked the family Christmas Pageant initiated years ago by the Stone-von-traps.




We watched a ton of good movies.




And got in the Christmas spirit. (Jordan and Tyler DID wear this hat outside.)





Then, I came back to Utah Christmas Eve to be with Criag. I wrapped presents all day. I love doing it. I know, it's weird.





We invited ourselves over to Marc and Gretchen's for Christmas morning because what's Christmas without kids going crazy and opening presents?




These guys are so cute. Thanks Marc and Gretchen for letting us crash!


Then, we headed up to Craig's parent's house where we were greeted with a white Christmas. It was beautiful. This is the view from the the front porch.





I'm glad I have my new iphone or else Christmas wouldn't have even been documented. Hope you all had a great Christmas, too!

Friday, January 2, 2009

Self Defense?

Sometimes I worry about Kristin walking to her car by herself at night. I mentioned this to a friend and he told me that he had heard something about people using crazy bright flashlights as a crime deterrent. I googled it and I don't know if I'm just living right or what but this is what I found. I didn't buy either of these but based on the cover I think I have a working understanding of the techniques.

Phil's technique relies almost entirely on confusing the potential attacker with your unexplained use of a flashlight in broad daylight. Though somewhat effective Phil found there were some situations where normally non-violent people punched him simply because he was shining a flashlight at them in the middle of the day.


"Light Him Up!" had more parenting advice then I was looking for. Steve uses the flashlight as a tool to squelch Steve Jr's rebellions. Since Steve started disciplining with the flashlight Steve Jr. is back wearing the family t-shirt and haircut, but he's still not happy about it.


I think I'll buy her some pepper spray.