LASIK Plus

From the time I was in the 3rd grade I have worn glasses.  It held me back somewhat as our family moved to Wendover and then to Salt Lake City.  Luckily when I was 14 I converted to contact lenses.  While most people wear soft lenses, I have worn gas permeable (hard) lenses from that time on.  After over 2 decades of wearing corrective lenses the timing was right to have LASIK eye surgery.  

Jill's cousin, Kevin Shosted, is an optometrist, and part of the time he works at Lasik Plus.  Doctor Thompson runs the laser, and Kevin prepares the patients for the surgery.  The procedure went very smoothly and there was some discomfort, but it was absolutely worth it.  

The first night I went right to bed and slept most of the night.  I will be putting eye drops in my eyes for the better part of a month, but the very next day my eyes were 20/20.  I have no idea what 20/20 actually means, but my eyes see really well now.

Jill still takes random pictures of Alyssa and here she is showing off some of her styln' headbands.

This week the boys started doing some exercises in the evening.  The boys are doing jumping jacks, push ups, sit ups, and running on the treadmill.  Here is Logan who did 101 sit ups!  I couldn't believe he could do so many.  The boys come with me to Scouts where twice a year we practice these exercises.  Little did I know Logan could do so many sit ups.

The boys love running on the treadmill.

Landon can run up to 5 mph and he would like to go faster.  Maybe when he gets older.

Less than 24 hours after the eye surgery I was able to coach Logan's basketball game, and work on a project for the yard. For Christmas Grandma and Grandpa Bryant got the kids a swing set.  It's a really nice one, that required "some assembly."  

The boys were able to help me, they love using their "real tools," but Jill only got pictures of me putting on the finishing touches.

Sure it's January but as the temperatures are warming up into the high 30's, the boys need to get out and burn off some calories.  Playing in the backyard is a terrific means to that end.

You can see the swing set is huge! 

To get the boys outside, I also set up the trampoline for the year.  It's still pretty cold, but we should be over the hump of the coldest time of the year.  A friend of mine has a a motto for raising their children "no child left inside."  We've been cooped up for so long it's so nice to get back outside. 

Lastly, this week was Dad's and Donuts at Logan's elementary school.  Landon came along with me, and we ate donuts and read a book before school started.  I was able to meet Logan's teacher and a few of his friends.  

Fargo

This week I had a business trip in Saint Cloud Minnesota. It is 2.5 hours away from Fargo North Dakota. North Dakota is 1 of the 5 remaining states I have yet to step foot in.  It would be a long drive, in frigid temperatures.

I went for it.

While I didn't see much or spend much time there, they had a lovely TGI Friday's where I was able to have some salmon and head back to my hotel 2.5 hours away.  While my memory of Fargo will fade forever, something the waiter told me will remain with me for a very long time.  He said, "it's so cold right now, that you can actually take a cup of hot water and throw it in the air and by the time it lands it will be ice." 

On the radio the news had been updating the listeners on how cold it was. For the record it was -35 (that's 35 degrees below zero) when I went outside to try throwing the water in the air, and that was without the wind chill.

It was so cold that the weather service issued it's first "Extreme Cold" warning for the state.

It was so cold that Siberia was warmer at -24.

It was so cold that as cars passed me on the road they "clouds" similar to jets flying at 35,000 feet.

It was so cold that when I got back in my car the foam in the seat was frozen solid and provided no comfort as I sat down.

It was so cold that the blower setting on the heater was set on 3 (maximum of 4) for 2 straight hours of the drive.

It was so cold that the Mississippi river was frozen over, (okay in Minnesota that may be common but it's still a huge river this far north and it's something to see it completely frozen over).

It was so cold that I was within 35 degrees from the lowest temperature ever recorded in the lower 48 states which was -69 recoded in Montana in 1954.

My meeting went very well and I doubled back to the city to check out the Mall of America.

At one time it was the largest mall in the USA.  Inside there is a Nickelodeon sponsored theme park, that included a ferris wheele, roller coaster, and an awesome Lego Land. It had an amazing Transformer creation that was about 2 stories tall.

Next to the mall there is an inside water park.  It makes sense why the water park is inside, otherwise they would only be able to use it 2 months a year in such a cold place.

By the way the water that I threw into the air did not freeze by the time it landed on the ground, but it sure was a fun experiment.  I tried spitting too and it didn't freeze either by the time it landed.

It's good to be home where things are warming up and I'm thinking of setting up the trampoline soon so the boys can go outside and get some exercise.

This was Logan's last week being off track and he gets to go back to school next week.  He loves school, but won't like waking up tomorrow and not be able to play video games.  It's back to structure and it all cuts into video game time.

This week Jill was able to take the kids swimming with Shanel and her kids to Marv Jensen rec center.

Utah Jazz Basketball

Logan has been playing Jr. Jazz basketball this year.  It's fun for him, and exhausting for me as the coach.  The kids are cute and they try so hard, but they really don't know what to do other than to maul each other for the ball.  Saturday was my coaching debut.  We've conducted a few practices/clinics and we were gone for the first game, so this was my first actual time coaching.

I'm exhausted.

Much of the time I was yelling out orders for the kids to have their "hands up" and to "come down by me and play defense." As a youngster I loved basketball and I'd like my boys to play.....if they want to.  These kindergartners have learned so much in the few short practices we've had.  I'm sure given time, they will understand the game and begin to figure out how to play on their own.  Until then, I'll continue to exhaust myself yelling out orders (coaching) them. 

New Year's Day was our team's turn to go to a Utah Jazz game and watch the professionals play.  They played the Memphis Grizzley's and the boys had a ball going to the Energy Solutions Arena.  "The Bear" was the big hit, but everyone had a blast.  

Being the coach I had 2 extra tickets so I chose Landon and the brother ofanother boy on the team.  Logan and Landon were excited to see Grandma and Grandpa at the game.  They often let us go to games using their tickets so it's not very often that we actually get to see them at a Jazz game. 

Jr. Jazz tickets are "nose bleed" tickets.  You can see the back wall, so we weren't very far from having the highest seats in the building. Here you can see Brad, Doug (assistant coach) Greg, Ben (also assistant coach) Hyrum, Logan and Landon. Not only are these Logan's teammates, but they are our great friends. 

The pictures were taken with the camera phone so they aren't the best, but I wanted to have this in our record book.

Technically this should have been the first blog entry of the year, but with our trip to Disneyland it bumped the Jazz game post down a few weeks.  Also settling back in after Disneyland this week there wasn't anything picture worthy to write about.  

Alyssa and Landon did go to the doctor this week for a checkup.  Alyssa did have an ear infection return so we had to treat her again.  This time we used another medicine so it wouldn't have the same "side effects" as did the Amoxicillin.  Otherwise the kids are healthy and doing well.

Landon Bryant 

4 Year Old checkup

38 lbs 63% of weight

40.1 inches 36% of height

Alyssa Bryant

6 Month Old checkup

18 lbs 74% of weight

26.7 inches 69% of height

Disneyland Vacation Day 6

Day 6 didn't go exactly as planned.  As the day begun Aaron and I went on a short run through Downtown Disney.  All the Roundy's were feeling ill, so Aaron and I did a very short run together.  When we got back all the children were awake.  We could look down from our room onto the Buxton van so we knew when they were getting ready to leave.  At 8:00 a.m. I took the boys down to to say goodbye. It's cute to see them hug goodbye.  As we got back up to our hotel room, Logan put up the door-stop and went outside in the hallway.  I coerced him into the room and asked him what was wrong.  I could tell something was bothering him because his shoulders were slumped, and that's a dead giveaway when he's not well.  He started crying real tears because he already "missed his cousins". He was really upset and it took a while to consul him.  He sure love his Buxton cousins and will miss them until we go to Snowbird in the summer. 

After the goodbye's, I went down to pick up a few pieces of luggage I had kept in the van so we could pack up.  I knew something was wrong when the van wouldn't unlock with the key fob.  Sure enough the battery was dead.  After asking around the good people in the parking lot, I was able to find some jumper cables and get the van running again.  With 100,000 miles on the van now, it's definitely time to trade it in. 

We checked out just after 11:00 a.m. and drove down to Newport beach where we checked out our new hotel for the night.  It's a gorgeous resort called Newport Beach Coastal Villas.  

Lunch today was at a classic hamburger joint called Ruby's.  Great food and the kids just love eating corn dogs and fries.  This week hasn't been the best for their nutrition. The kids loved the restaurant because they had a really cool paper car project where they built the paper car and modified it with stickers. 

Then Amy wanted to see Laguna Beach.  It was a bit cold, but that didn't stop the boys from wanting to get into the water.

The picture almost doesn't look real.  We loved being by the water and having temperatures in the 60's rather than in the teen's like it is back home.

This was such a beautiful beach.  All the cars in this city were high end BMW's and Mercedes. This is a very nice city.

Monday when the boys went to the beach they played the game "Incoming!" Today was no different.

We walked out to where the water receeded, then as the waves came in we ran away yelling "Incoming!"

Then we had to swim in the beautiful pools of our hotel.  The water was so warm, I love heated pools.

You could see the ocean right over the swimming pool

It was a much more casual day today, but very nice to wind down from all the action of Disneyland. 

Disneyland Vacation Day 5

Today is our last day at Disneyland!  We've had so much fun.  It started like all of the other days, with a quick trip to Tomorrow Land where we took on a trip to Space Mountain.  It is Dave's favorite ride, therefore it was Hayden's favorite ride, and of course since it was Hayden's favorite ride, it was our boys favorite ride too. 

Uncle Brett flew in this morning which made all the boys happy.  He is good to humor them by wrestling with them and playing games with them too.

There were a few rides we still hadn't been on.  Above we rode on the monorail for the first time, and below we rode around the park on the train.

The biggest attraction for Hayden was the Jedi Knight Training.  After watching him train to be a Jedi, we waited around for the next training and this time Logan was picked out of the crowd to participate in the training.

About 40 children were picked from the crowd to learn from a "real" Jedi.  While training Darth Vader showed up to challenge the children and invite them to join the Dark Side.

Logan dueled with Darth Maul.

The trip has been under budget so we splurged at a candy store and everyone got a treat.  $4 for a cookie is less than reasonable, but they were oh so good.  Logan got a sugar cookie, Jill had a chocolate chip cookie, I had a white chocolate chip cookie,

and Landon got a lollypop.

Before we could leave, I had to capture a moment that happened very regularly.  Each big kid ride required a certain height.  Most of the time that height was 40 inches.  Landon measures up to 40.5 inches.  Each ride the characters would ask Landon to stand under the measurement bar.  He got the hang of it, and would automatically walk over to the measurement before even being asked after the first day. 

Dumbo was an attraction we hadn't been on until the night of the last day.  Logan asked me "who's Dumbo." It occurred to me that we don't own that movie, and it's kind of creepy so we have never introduced him to that show.  Both boys loved the ride.

We did one last trip on Space Mountain before we wrapped up the night.  I was so proud of Landon who rode with Hayden in the front seat.  I sat behind them and could see as we were getting ready to free fall he had both arms up in classic roller coaster form!

Neither boy has ever been able to spend the money they make from birthday's and allowances, so we decided to let them spend some of it on this trip.  The rule was they had to wait until the last day and they only had $25.  Tonight as we were ready to leave the park we asked them what they wanted to buy.  With Logan it was a no brainer, he wanted something Star Wars and he liked the double sided light saber like Darth Maul had.  Landon likes the Astro Blaster from the Buzz Lightyear ride.  Landon still had enough left over to get the other gun used in the Toy Story ride too.  They both felt so big on this trip, riding big kid rides, spending money, and staying up late.

We had such a terrific time at Disneyland.  Landon want's to live here.  If you think about it, who doesn't want to live at Disneyland?  What a terrific place.  We aren't sure when we will be back, but what a time we had while we were here.

Disneyland Vacation Day 4

Day number 2 in the park and what should we do first?

The plan was to go to California Adventures all day, but it opened an hour later than Disneyland, so we first hit Space Mountain and the Buzz Lightyear ride before heading over to California Adventures. 

Only Amy in our group had even been to California Adventures so it was all new to almost everyone.  Here was a photo op I couldn't pass up.

There is a pretty great redwood forest area where "campers" could hike,

zip line,

do a ropes course,

and play on the rocks.  The kids loved running around and feeling so big.

We maximized our fast pass time and the men and women split up most of the morning taking turns watching the children.  While it was great to get in most of the rides, I didn't like not being together as a family.  By afternoon we were all back together again.

A Bugs Life has a land with a handful of attractions for the children.

There is an awesome ferris wheel that we rode on and could see over the whole park.

All the action tuckered Landon right out.  He kept crying about everything in the early afternoon and we knew he was tired.  Luckily he was able to take the edge off while we waited in a huge line for the Toy Story attraction.

I woke him up just before the ride and he was a bit grumpy at first and didn't want to put on the glasses.  When the ride started he snapped out of it and was happy again.

Another neat part of the day was my way cool cousin Adrianne came by to see us.  It was so nice of her to visit for a few hours and watch Alyssa while our family could ride some rides together.  AD is so friendly and went out of her way to meet all of Jill's family.

We all had a terrific time in California Adventures however everyone felt that it did lack the magic of Disneyland.  With some major renovations going on right now, adding a Cars area and a theater for the Little Mermaid it is something we will come back too, but day 3 will probably all be spent in Disneyland again. 

We finished the night watching the World of Color light and water show.  It's a quite the production and it was worth the wait, seeing the fountains with the music.  It even had fire with heat I could feel being hundreds of feet away!  

Alyssa did such a great job today taking naps in her carrier and being held by so many people.  Having a  happy baby is such an important ingredient in a successful family trip to the park.