New Uncle

It is now public knowledge that Ian and Sherlin are engaged to be wed.  I know that they will be happy together and I'm so happy that I got to be a part of their announcement by taking their engagement photos.  But today I'm going to talk about something related to me.

Ian and Sherlin have me over for dinner every other Sunday when they have their kids.  It's great to see Clara and Henry, but also Iris and Aeva, Sherlin's two girls.  I guess seeing me around so often and hearing Clara and Henry always call me "Uncle Jordan" had and effect, because the last time I visited, Aeva kept calling me "Uncle Jordan," while laughing hysterically.  Just a little girl playing a game, right?

Well, yesterday I visited Ian and Sherlin to take their engagement photos, but the kids were with their other parents.  Ian called and talked to his kids for a bit, then Sherlin called and talked to hers.  When Aeva got on the phone and heard that I was visiting, she asked to speak to me.  We didn't talk for very long, but I was really touched that she wanted to say hi.  Then Iris got on the phone.  I left the room to give Sherlin some privacy for her call, but I must have laughed at something because Iris heard me and asked, "Is Uncle Jordan there?"  The kids hadn't been told about the engagement yet; they just started think about me as part of their family.

I'm looking forward to being Iris and Aeva's step-uncle, at least officially -- I'm already their uncle-in-heart.

The Weekend Where Everything Happened

My weekend was long and full of adventure:

• I reduced my medication and was full of energy again starting Saturday.
• I met Ian, Sherlin, and the kids for lunch and playing.  The younger kids still make sure that I take turns flipping them around and fulfill my duties as the Fun Uncle.
• We went to a barbecue hosted by Jimmy, the guy who plays lead guitar in our not-a-band.
• We had a jam session in front of everyone (the only people who were really invested were the ones we brought).  We were missing our drummer, Joe, and his absence was really felt, but it still felt so good to play with a group again.  And I don't know if the others could tell, but my lessons are really paying off.
• I got home late because I stopped for groceries on the way home and my neighbor asked for some help moving a dresser into his upstairs apartment.  After the dresser was in its new home, he offered me money as reward, but I refused (as I did to his offer of beer); I did, however, accept a box of high-quality chicken breast -- the man works as a delivery man for a meat company and was allowed to use some product for his own purposes, so he used one box to pay me. I may have to help him again.
• I attended a Linger Longer after church on Sunday and stayed the whole time and talked and met new people -- it's amazing what happens when you're not depressed and have energy to do something about it.
• I cleaned up my dining room that had been messy for months due to my depression.
• I baked a loaf of whole wheat fig bread, a strawberry cake, and a double batch of cream cheese cookies.  I took them with me for my visit with my good friends the Simciks.  It was so good seeing them again.  In fact, when I got there, my arms full of goodies, I went right in their open door so I could put the food down before turning to see Mark and suddenly I was giddy with excitement.  Based on how he and Lori reacted, they were too.  It was just like seeing family that you haven't seen in a while.  It was so wonderful talking with them and sharing a meal (the loaf of bread was intended for Samuel, my old roommate, which they promised to pass on).  When it came time for them to leave for a dinner engagement, Lori started debating if they should flake out to stay and continue visiting, but I made their decision easy for them by making my way to the door.  Hugs were exchanged and we agreed that we needed to meet again sooner and not go so long between visits.
• On my way home, I stopped by a clothing store to return some pants that I decided did not fit as well as I had thought in the store.  When I was parking, I noticed a set of missionary Elders walking around.  I made sure to say hi them and ask how they were doing.  I told them what ward I attend and they named some of the Elders serving there, though I had trouble confirming all of them (we have four companionship in my ward).  It was about 5:30, so I asked them if they had a dinner appointment that evening.  They admitted that they did not, so I told them to wait while I handled the return and then I'd take them to dinner.  I had them pick the restaurant because I didn't know the area very well (I knew the store I had gone to and not much else), so we went to a Chinese buffet.  We talked about where they're from and what they're plans are for careers and education, but they mostly asked about me.  After they were sufficiently fed (I had a few pieces of sushi, but I was mostly full from my visit with the Simciks), I paid the bill and I drove the Elders back to their car in the parking lot where I had seen them earlier.  As they got out of the car, they asked for my name because they want to talk me up to the Elders in my ward when they see them at the next Zone meeting.
• I came home and made banana bread to take to work tomorrow.

Like I said, my weekend was busy.  Busy, but great.

Easter Break

I did something different for Easter this year: I went to visit my sister, Margot, and her family.  I was only there for a couple of days, but I had a great time.  I helped make dinner on Saturday, I baked goodies, and I played with my nieces and nephews.

While I was there, one of my nephews, Cooper, was baptized!  His dad, Bryan, performed the baptism and I got to join in for the confirmation.

It was a fun trip, but a tiring one.  So instead of detailing everything that happened, I'll share some pictures.

Making blue cookies for Cooper's baptism.

Phoebe was my helper when I made brownies.

The funny thing about this one is that I'm the only one with a bow in my hair.

Cooper and his parents before his baptism.

Cooper and some of his extended family (we took a bunch of pictures and I guess Cooper is a bit over it in this on).

The Best Gift

On Saturday, I visited with the Larsens to celebrate Clara's seventh birthday (it wasn't her actual birthday, but it was when we could all get together).  Last year, my birthday present to Clara (and later, Henry) was to make her whatever birthday cake she wanted -- which was chocolate with mint frosting last year.  This year, I was ready to offer the same gift, but Clara requested one before I could ask.  I was touched: apparently she now associates custom baked goods with her Uncle Jordan.

Clara asked for a strawberry shortcake, but I suggested something that I thought would be a fun twist on that idea: a trifle.  As soon as she saw a picture of one she quickly agreed to the change.  I made the pound cake and custard the night before so that I would only need to assemble everything the day of.  After buying fresh bananas, strawberries, and blue berries, I washed the berries, hulled and sliced the strawberries, cubed the cake and layered everything in a trifle bowl (cake, bananas, strawberries, blueberries, custard, repeat).

When I arrived, everyone said how yummy the dessert looked.

(Ian and I shared this exchange:
Ian: Wow, that's impressive.
Me: 'Tis but a trifle.)

We did a few activities before digging in, though I added fresh whipped cream to the top of each serving.  I don't think it's unreasonable to estimate that if you were to buy a similar dish from a bakery, with everything made from scratch and the out-of-season fruit included, it would cost about 60-70 dollars.  Everyone agreed that it was lovely birthday treat.

I'm happy to be able to provide a gourmet dessert experience to my family and I'm glad that Clara wanted me to be a part of her birthday celebration.

Christmas 2015

Christmas was a bit weird this year.  My past Christmases in Maryland have been spent with Ian and his family, but because of the way holidays are scheduled with him and his estranged wife, he didn't have his kids.  Since it was just the two of us, we kept things extremely low-key: I made dinner and we watched a couple of movies.

Thankfully, we also made a trip to visit the kids at their mom's house.  Oddly, Amanda's parents were extremely pleasant and I think they were genuine in their friendliness.  I don't have the highest opinion of Amanda these days, but her parents are fine.  I'm also happy that they were so nice because it made things less awkward for me -- Ian visiting his kids makes perfect sense; him bringing his little brother with him might have been seen as pushing it.  Thankfully, they welcomed us both with warm smiles.  We visited with them for about an hour before we headed home for dinner.  It was cute to see Henry continue to ask us to wait because he wanted to show us more toys that he had gotten.

On Boxing Day, Ian and I went and saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens (come back tomorrow for my review) and had the kids visit to open presents from me and their dad.  It was really nice to see for Ian because, despite all of the toys they opened the day before, the kids' favorite gift came from their dad.

Christmas this year was mostly a stag party, but it was still fun and I'm glad that it worked out how it did.

Laborious Weekend

I hope all of my readers have had an enjoyable Labor Day Weekend.  Mine was pretty much packed to the brim with activities.

Saturday
Ian and the kids came up to visit and we all went swimming at my apartment complex's pool.  Clara was happy to jump right in, but Henry took some time to warm up to the idea of getting in the water.  I've gone swimming with Ian and the kids before (Ian likes to have a 1:1 ratio of kids to adults when swimming) and Henry has a strong fear of water.  I'm not sure what caused it, but the last time we went to a pool, Henry was freaking out the whole time, even while wearing a life vest.  One big difference between the last time and this time was that this pool's shallow end was three feet deep rather than four.  That meant that once Henry worked up the nerve to get in the water, he could stand up with his feet flat on the floor and keep his head above water.  Simply doing that was a big improvement for him.  So while Clara started practicing basic swimming components like kicking and floating on her back, Henry being able to walk from one side of the shallow end of the pool to the other was still a big victory for him.

After the pool, we went to one of the dozens of Italian restaurants in my area and had pizza, which was really good.  The kids were a bit impatient while we waited for food to arrive, but I have yet to meet a kid that pizza won't improve their mood significantly.

After swimming and pizza, we went back to my apartment to relax a bit.  I got some pillows for the kids to lay on and Ian set up Up to play on his iPad.  As the kids watched the movie in the living room, Ian and I hung out in the dining room, about a dozen feet away.  Once the movie finished, I served some birthday cake that I had made (chocolate fudge cake with candied strawberries and whipped cream), in celebration of Ian's birthday -- which was the day before, but with a Saturday literally the next day, it made sense to wait to celebrate.

With all of the fun activities finished, Ian and the kids piled into their car went back home.

Sunday
After Church, I came home and did some laundry before packing an overnight bag (and the leftover cake) and driving down to the Larsen's.  Ian had had some trouble with a cat marking her territory in the living room, so he needed to replace the carpet.  I came to handle the kids the next day while he was busing with the installation crew.

When I got there, it was scripture-reading time.  It was great to see how excited Clara got for her time to read.  Henry's reading skills aren't to the same level as Clara's, but he still was happy to get to a chance to stumble through a few verses.

Monday
After a quick breakfast of eggs and frozen waffles (fun fact: I eat three raw eggs every morning and, yes, it grosses out everyone who hears about it), I took the kids in my car to a local shopping center.  I had a plan and a schedule to follow, but I had decided to keep the big activity a surprise, in case the installers finished early and we needed to go home sooner than expected.

Our first stop was at the local pet store to look at the animals on sale.  I wasn't sure about this as an activity, but Ian was the one that suggested it, so I decided just roll with it.  After the kids got bored with the animals, we walked down to a dollar store (really a five dollar store, so, you know, a fancy dollar store) because I knew the kids like temporary tattoos and figured that would be an easy win.  The girl running the register sent me to the opposite side of the store when I asked where I could find them, but based on her age I'm pretty sure this is her first job, so I probably shouldn't have expected much.  With the temporary tats in hand (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for Henry and Disney Princesses and their pets for Clara), we walked to the first big activity, frozen yogurt, only to find that the place still hadn't opened for the day.  We were due for a bathroom break, so we walked down to the Target.  After everyone had gone, we walked over to the in-store cafe to see if an ice cream-like treat could be obtained.  While no ice cream was to be had, I did get each kid a slushy.  They were both excited because this was an even rarer treat than frozen yogurt.  With the frozen treats consumed, we walked down to the main event: watching a movie in the theater.

Ian had looked up the theater's showtimes the night before and found that there were only two PG-rated movies playing and only one that the kids hadn't seen.  We decided that I should take the kids to see Inside Out, the latest offering from Pixar.  With a large popcorn and custom drink (half-fruit punch, half-Sprite) for the kids to share, we all enjoyed the movie.  About an hour into the movie, I got a text that later turned out to be Ian telling us that the carpet installation was complete.  After the movie finished, we went home.

And while that could have been it, the kids asked that I stay a little longer.  Ian said that they needed to go grocery shopping, but Clara asked that I stay and play with her and Henry while their dad when to the store by himself.  We both thought that was fine, so Clara, Henry, and I headed outside to play Hide-and-Seek.  After a few rounds, it was decided it was a bit too hot and the kids asked if we could play a board game instead.  Since I was getting attacked by mosquitoes again, I was happy to change activities.  The kids chose Monopoly Junior, which Clara won.

Once the game was put away, Clara and Henry were sent off for some quiet time while Ian and I talked about some detail regarding a video for Danfoss.  With that completed, I said my goodbyes and came home.

It was nice to not only get to celebrate Ian's birthday with him and his kids but to also help him out and spend some time with just my niece and nephew -- and it was great to hear that they enjoyed it just as much.

Tuesdays with Media: Ignoring Mr. Fields' Sound Adivce

W. C. Fields has been attributed to having said "Never work with children or animals" as one of the secrets to success in filmmaking.  On Monday, Ian and I ignored this bit of wisdom and attempted to make a quick and silly video with Henry and Clara.

Part of the problem with working with kids is when they still don't know how to read.  I would read the line for Henry to repeat, but sometimes he'd forget the last word, so we'd have to start all over again.  Or he'd say the line right, but not be looking in the right direction.  Or he'd say the line right, but not with the right emphasis or emotion.  Or the cat would walk in front of him, distracting him.  My point is that being five, it was hard for him to understand why he had to keep saying the same thing over and over again and he started getting frustrated and wanted to stop when we nearly had all the shots we needed.  We were able to convince him to stick with it until the end, but it took a lot of cajoling.

Finally, we were ready to move on and shoot Clara's scenes when Ian realized that he never turned on the microphone.  We had to shoot everything again!  He told Henry, who just collapsed into a pile of frustration and disappointment.  After weighing the options, Ian decided to call it a day and break the set.  Henry was happy to get out of his costume, but Clara was so disappointed that she started bawling.  Even after she stopped crying, she just would not cheer up.  I even picked her up and swung her around, which usually gets a big squeal of laughter out of her, but this time I got nothing.  The only thing that got her out of her funk was teaching her how to do a basic clapping game.  The act of learning and playing a game together put a smile on her face and she was fine for the rest of the evening.

Was it a mistake to try to make a movie with the kids?  No, but it was a real test of patience for everyone involved.  I can imagine that if we weren't related to the kids, it would be easy to swear off working with children ever again.

"[They'll] Go Inside Someday..."

On Saturday, my ward hosted a viewing of the documentary Meet the Mormons at the Washington, DC Temple Visitor's Center.  I had already decided that I wasn't interested, but I suggested to Ian that we take his kids to see it since it would be good for them to be so close to the temple.  He agreed and we made plans to attend.

When we got there, we had some time before the movie started, so we walked around with the kids, showing them the various displays in the Visitor's Center, including a replica of the Christus and a detailed model of the temple that includes a "cut-away" section to show the interior.

Click to enlarge

Both kids were disappointed when we told them that they had to wait until they were 12 before they could go inside, but they also said how they looked forward to being old enough to enter someday.  Clara especially seemed captivated by the idea of temple attendance.

The movie itself was better than I thought it would be, though I must admit I wasn't expecting a lot.  Henry was too wiggly and Ian decided to take him out for the last ten minutes to walk around the temple grounds, but Clara wanted to stay and finish it.  The last segment was focused on a family preparing for their oldest boy to serve a mission, so I whispered to Clara about all of the people in her family that have served missions (I left out relatives or ancestors that she hasn't met) and by the time it was over, she was talking about how she wants to serve.  I realize that kids get excited about all sorts of stuff -- I wanted to be an astronomer for most of my childhood and I would probably have scoffed at the idea of being a writer -- but being introduced to the idea of missionary service at an early age is important for every kid.  When we rejoined Ian and Henry, we joined my ward for lunch (that they provided) and walked the temple grounds one last time with Clara.

Usually when I go to the temple, I go alone to receive revelation on a matter of person significance.  In fact, before Saturday, I had never before gone inside the Visitor's Center.  And even though I was motivated to expose my niece and nephew to information about the temple, I certainly received something person from the experience as well.

Thanksgiving 2014

I'm going to do something different this time and just let some pictures speak for themselves.  So, sit back and enjoy some visual proof that I had a great Thanksgiving and a Black Friday spent at the best mall there is: the National Mall.

 

I hope that everyone had a happy Thanksgiving.

Trick or Treat

For Halloween, I headed south to the Larsen home.  I stayed at home to pass out candy while Ian and the kids went out to collect more.

Henry and Clara as Spider-Man and Queen Elsa, respectively.

Henry was especially excited to go out trick-or-treating, though Clara was enthusiastic, too.

Their neighborhood only allowed trick-or-treating for a couple of hours, so I expected a steady stream of kiddies from 6 o'clock on, but we only had a handful of visitors for the whole first hour.  That said, once we got to 7 o'clock, things really picked up.

I was surprised at how old a lot of the groups were.  I think there were about three or four groups that were made up of thirteen to fourteen year old girls, which is really pushing it for free candy collecting.

There weren't that many repeats as far as costumes go.  I saw one other Elsa (Clara being the first), but that's it.  I did see a lot of superheroes - though whether that was because I pay attention to that sort of thing or because they were the most prevalent, I can't say.  I will say that the older kids seemed to be more creative with their costumes, which I appreciate.  One girl had her face intricately painted in a Día de los Muertos style.  The creepiest costumes, from my perspective, was a teen couple (probably about fifteen or sixteen) dressed as Little Red Ridding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf - it's creepy because it's a couple's costume and they're too young for that nonsense.

I would be remiss if I failed to mention that a lot of visitors complimented me on the pumpkins out front:

 

Batman and his nemesis, Queen Elsa.

Ian really knocked it out of the park on these pumpkins.  While it's been years since I last attempted to carve a pumpkin, I do remember that they aren't the easiest medium to work in, so his accomplishments are even more impressive.

The kids each had a single piece of candy and then got ready for bed.  Ian and I stayed up and hung out.  I wasn't planning on staying over, but after I let my eyes rest (my contacts were bothering me), Ian woke me up at around 2 in the morning and told me to crash in the guest room.  I was happy to oblige.

In the morning, Henry came into my room to wake me up.  He was excited that I stayed over and wanted to hang out.  I was not ready to get out of bed, so I had him climb in next to me.  A little bit later, Clara came and joined us.  I had the kids take turns playing games on my tablet while I tried to go back to sleep, but that was futile since all children everywhere are incapable for staying quiet for long.  Eventually one of the cats hoped in bed, so I gave up and decided it was time for breakfast.

I led the kids into the dinning room and served up a fancy breakfast of cold cereal.  There were requests for waffles, but I thought that making a mess in someone else's kitchen uninvited was a bad idea, even if I did clean up afterwards.  I played It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown for the kids while I got my own food ready.  After everyone was finished eating and the video ended, I told the kids to go get dressed for the day while I cleaned up from breakfast.

It was around this time that Ian wandered out of his room.  I told him that I had fed the kids and the animals (two cats and a dog) and that the kids were getting dressed.  He was impressed that everything had already been taken care of.  I told him that I figured that he probably didn't get too many opportunities to sleep in, so I wanted to give him the chance this once.  He agreed that he rarely gets to sleep in and expressed his gratitude that I allowed him to once again by taking care of the kids.  It wasn't too much later that I said my good-byes and headed home.

All around, it was a fun Halloween and I'm happy that I helped out in more ways than one.

For the Children

When Margot invited me to visit her and her family for General Conference, I was hesitant to make the long drive.  What ultimately helped me make my decision was the fact that I've really enjoyed spending time with Clara and Henry, but I haven't had nearly as much opportunity to spend time with Peter, Cooper, Phoebe, and Sophie, and I wanted to start making up for that.

I arrived on Thursday during lunchtime.  The boys were off at school, but that just meant more attention for the girls.  Phoebe was happy to have me over, but Sophie took some warming up - it probably didn't help that I stuck my face too close to hers while her mother was out of the room as a way to reintroduce myself.  When the boys got home, they were both surprised and excited for me to visit.  Everybody wanted to constantly tell me or show me something.  After homework and dinner, we sat down to watch The Lego Movie, which was pretty great, though it was interrupted every minute or so with someone saying, "This next part is awesome" or "This is my favorite part" or "This is sooo funny."

The next day, after a day of errands, we picked up the boys and went to a nearby park.  I mostly hung back, just helping to keep an eye on things, but Miss Phoebe (as I started calling her) did ask for my help on the monkey bars a few times.  I also pushed both girls and various times on the swings, though never both at once.  As I wrote in my post last Wednesday, we ended up kind of running out of there when Margot spotted a bear, but I think the kids were close to worn out anyway.

Friday was Pizza Night and Margot made some very tasty homemade pizza that we ate while watching Frozen, which was decent enough.  Miss Phoebe had been practically begging for us to watch Frozen, and had even dressed up as one of the princesses in the movie during playtime that day.  She was visibly excited when the movie started and she made sure I was up to speed by making occasional comments ("She's scared because of her ice powers!").  Miss Phoebe also seemed to be disappointed with my declaration that my favorite Disney movie as a kid was Dumbo.

The first day of Conference, we all ate waffles for brunch.  The grown-ups had worked the night before to help prepare for the meal (Margot mixed up the waffle batter and I made an apple compote).  The morning of we had waffles with the apple compote and a fresh-made strawberry syrup, lots of bacon and sausage, and even scrambled eggs.  What surprised me was how much everyone one ate.  I'm not a small man and I put away quite a bit of food, but that was nothing compared to Cooper and Phoebe.  I ate about two and a half waffles (as well as meat and eggs), but the two middle kids both out ate me.  Miss Phoebe ate about three whole waffles and I think Cooper had nearly four, with both of them still having a compliment of eggs and meat.  Consider me impressed.

While there were arguments, the rest of the day mostly passed pretty smoothly.  Sunday, however, things were a bit more tense.  I'm sure it didn't help that Bryan had to head back to the office to work on a project, but the kids were a lot more restless the second day.  To try to burn off some tension, we worked on a couple of activities in between sessions.  First we played the board game Candyland, though Peter refused to participate since he voted for Clue.  After we finished the game, Margot asked if I wanted to have the kids help me make a batch of cookies.  I thought that sounded fine, so we headed into the dining room to get started.  Peter ended up doing his own project, helping his mom make some dinner rolls, so it was me and the middle kids again.

Measuring flour with Miss Phoebe.

For the actual cookie-making process, I mostly measured and mixed everything, but I let each child take turns to dump in the ingredients.  Most of my job, however, was watching the kids and sending them off to wash their hands when every they touched something dirty (i.e., the floor, their mouths, theirs noses, etc.)  Cooper was observant enough to point out when a small fruit fly had landed in the batter and I was able to pick it out before mixing it up (and I took the opportunity to weird everyone out by eating the fly).  The kids helped to drop the first round of cookies on the cookie sheet before the last session of Conference started, so I finished out the batch.

"Cooper, go wash your hands."

The last session of Conference didn't go as well as we had hoped, but Margot kept saying that the first day had been the best one they've had since the kids could be involved.

Did you notice a kid that I haven't mentioned doing activities with yet?  That's right, Peter.  Unfortunately, because of Conference, ten hours of my visit were taken up with something other than playing with the kids.  Peter noticed, however, and left a note spelled out on the fridge in magnetic letters: "Do you want to play Legos?"  As soon as Margot pointed out that the note was for me, I realized my mistake.  I had done activities with everybody except Peter.  Feeling awful but out of time to correct my error, I wrote Peter a letter.  I explained that I had meant to put aside time for him, but we ran out of time (I'm sure that all of the time-outs that everyone got didn't help matters, but I left that part out).  I closed the letter promising to put aside time for just the two of us on my next visit.  Margot, who hadn't read the letter, said that Peter seemed to have been cheered up by what I wrote, so at least it had the desired effect.

Due to a combination of factors, I had pretty terrible insomnia while I was there and I didn't wake up until mid-morning most days.  That meant that I didn't wake up to leave until after the boys had already left for school.  So the final pictures we took were just with me and Miss Phoebe.  She was playing dress-up again, this time as a pirate fairy princess, because I guess that's a thing.  At first she was annoyed at me for leaving and refused to smile, but she eventually warmed up, probably because the girl can't resist a camera.

Look at the indignation!

Silly faces help even pirate fairy princesses smile.

Finally, a smile!

I had a blast visiting my sister and her family.  It was nice to see Margot and Bryan again, but the real purpose of the trip was to solidify my place as the "Fun Uncle."  While I didn't get to everything that I probably should have, I think I made a big dent in my goal.  Thanks for the great time, guys!

Barbecue

Breaking from tradition, I did not spend the last holiday with the Larsens.  Instead, they spent it with me.

Usually, I head south and hang out with Ian and his family in or near their home.  But since I had already volunteered to help cook at a barbecue that my ward was hosting, I invited them to come north and join me.  Ian accepted and brought the kids, though Amanda had another obligation.

I arrived at the park where the event was held a few minutes before the Larsens.  I was helping to set things up a little, but mostly I was milling about.  When the kids got out of the car, they shouted their customary greet to me: "Uncle Jordan!" but I didn't hear them, I think because they were too far away.  When they got within earshot, they were distracted by the siren call of the playground equipment and forgot about me.  Ian came up to announce their arrival and I walked over for a proper "hello" with the kids.

I introduced Ian to about a dozen people, all members of my ward.  Everyone was very friendly, some simply saying "hi" and others actually starting conversations with him.  The one comment that we got more than any other?  We don't look like brothers.  This is nothing new for us, but was funny to have so many people tell us the same thing in such a short time period.

The barbecue was fun, but it was wet.  Everyone was sweating profusely, not because it was so hot, but because the humidity was close to 100%.  Henry complained to his dad a few times that he didn't like sweating so much.  And while we Larsens had wet hair and faces, we were handling it better than some people.  I saw a few people with their shirts soaked so thoroughly that I thought that someone had poured water on them.  Even the dessert that I brought suffered: I brought a couple of S'more pies, but since they're custard-based, they melt pretty thoroughly.  Despite that, by the time the event ended, only one slice (well, pile by that point) had not been eaten.

After a couple of hours in the heat, Ian gathered up the kids to head home. Clara and Henry were still having fun, playing with some of the primary-aged children that were there, but they were also happy to leave.  After our good-byes, I took my turn cooking hamburgers, but that turned out to be "watch the grills while we take a break."  So, I hung out close to the two charcoal grills and talked with some friends.  Later on when the clean-up started, I helped out with that and even stayed behind to watch some of the equipment since it couldn't be taken in one trip.

All told, it was a hot and humid experience, but one that was fun.

Partial Family Reunion

As I mentioned on Monday, I got together with three of my four siblings this past weekend for a small get-together.  It was lots of fun to get to see everybody, especially my nieces and nephews (who really wore me out).  Rather than write a wall of text, I decided to have a post that's heavy on the pictures.

Phoebe liked to go up to people, touch their cheek, and say "boop!"

Sophie: the calmest of all babies.

If you look close, you can see that someone will be getting a visit from the Tooth Fairy very soon.

 The swings were very popular.

Henry later fell out the swing and landed hard on the ground. He just laughed and announced, "I found the ground!" 

"I learned this in my dance class!"

Peter challenged everyone to a swinging contests, even me.

Getting everyone to look in the same direction together while smiling was a bit of a challenge.

I'm not sure why we look slightly annoyed here. I thought it was kind of funny.

Amanda held Sophie while the "grown-up siblings" assembled for a photo.

Ian, you're a weirdo for not smiling in pictures.

Proof that Ian still smiles!

That last one happened right after I played a joke on Ian.  I'll tell you about it in my next post.

I hope that you enjoyed this presentation of pictures of our little event.  I don't get much of a chance to post too many pictures here, but I had fun using them to tell the story.  We'll have to do this again soon.