Golfing with Grandpa!

While Tara toiled away on some of her final assignments for this semester, the boys and I snuck in an afternoon of golfing with Grandpa Barber and Uncle David. It's always a rarity to sneak in a round of golf in Northern Utah after Thanksgiving. 

Romney shows us here that he has learned a lot from Grandpa. Here is the line up and practice swing. 

 Followed by a great hit onto the green. A great day all around!

A Different Type of Flying William

With Christmas about a month away, Bill decided it was time to use his present from last year, a hang gliding lesson. (The year before's present only took 9 months to use). He came home with a giant smile on his face, and said it was a lot easier and a lot spookier than he thought it would be. Now I just have to come up with a clever idea for a present he can postpone using for another 9-11 months.

Monkey Turns 10

My monkey turned 10 today. 10 years of laughter. 10 years of keeping me on my toes. 10 years of seeing things in ways I never imagined. To celebrate our favorite monkey child, we let Romney choose his party. He was specific. A sleepover with his best friends. Dinner at the Gateway and money to spend for him and his friends and the new toy store downtown. Dinner was eaten, yo-yos were chosen, and it was all capped off with a movie projected up on his wall while Romney and his friends all snuggled up in their respective sleeping bags. (P.S. When you are 10, you are way too cool to smile, even when having the time of your life.)

He was spoiled by his buddies in the morning with some very thoughtful gifts. His buddy, Lucas, gifted him an entire box of pins with funny sayings for his collection. Romney has proudly added them to his "pin hat" and is wearing them proudly.

Only a very good friend would know how much Romney wanted bath salts for his birthday. Seriously. This item was high on his wish list. He has bathed in them twice already (and I can't tell you how nice it is to smell lavender coming from the back bathroom, rather than pre-teen/teen boy smells.) Added to the bath salts were 2 packs of Pokemon cards. Such an eclectic mix of non-traditional boy and traditional boy. Exactly how I would describe Romney.

Romney had initially said that on his actual birthday he wanted a Mama breakfast date at the Original Pancake House. But, this morning he woke up and said "Never mind, Mom. I just really don't want to be late for school." So, he went to school on time and had a normal breakfast here at home. After we all got home from school, Romney got to open the family gifts. Bill made Romney a holder/carrier for his duct tape and we added a few duct tape rolls to the collection. He has been dying for a flash drive to put the cool presentations he makes at school on to bring home to show us, so he got a purple monkey flash drive. He received a Zombie Romney for President shirt. And, from William, a giant sock monkey stuffed animal.

The Universe gave Romney one of the most stunning sunsets we have seen this year.

Romney couldn't wait to put on his Halloween costume and stand next to his giant new friend. I personally think the monkey on the right is the cutest monkey I have ever seen, even hiding under the Zombie Sock Monkey facade.

I Couldn't Resist

I just can't resist posting this! I am a T.A. for a class called Doing Sociology, with the nicest man alive as the professor for this course. This is a professor who gives half points for "trying", even if the answer has nothing to do with the question. This is a professor who will assign only 1 point to a difficult question and 10 points to a question asking for an opinion to see if there were any problems with the quiz. I mean, he has to be one of the nicest, most generous professors I have ever seen! But some people just can't be helped, and I am afraid the person who answered the following question incorrectly may be one of them. The question read: As of 1997, every nation now has at least one TV station. (**Hint: This is FALSE!!!)-- and the student answered True. When the professor gives you the answer and you still get it wrong, that is not a good sign for the rest of your college career. I couldn't help but laugh out loud when I saw it, and I couldn't resist posting- though I did resist posting on Facebook in case I embarrassed any one who took or is taking the class right now and also missed that question. Too good!

The Monkey and The Snowman

First big snow storm of the season today. It is the time of year when the snow is novel and fun. Knowledge that it will soon melt makes it easier to appreciate the white stuff.

Another Year Older

Another year has passed and our little boys are becoming little men. Handsome ones at that. William is now 14.

Romney is mere days away from turning 10.

Both have braces, both are hilarious and both are growing up entirely too quickly.

Scary Stuff

Scary stuff happened around our house this Halloween. First, William out grew trick-or-treating. He decided he wanted to stay home, decorate the house spooky and hand out candy instead of heading out with friends gathering goodies of his own.

Dr. Doom hanging in our front yard also pretty spooky.

A zombie sock monkey and his ghoulishly green faced friend spent a warm Halloween evening perusing the neighborhood on the hunt for the ever elusive full sized candy hand out. (All of the spoils were "sold" back to a dentist and his parents-- he walked away with $9.00. Not bad for one night of trick-or-treating fun!)

Favorite part of this Halloween season? Watching my favorite zombie sock monkey publicly dance Gangham style!

Best Babysitter I Ever Hired

Last night, Bill and I had the opportunity to go to the Ballet together. With our schedules so crazy right now with school and soccer, it is a rare treat to get to leave the house together to do something more exciting than a date to the grocery store. William's 8th grade class has an annual trip to the Tetons Science School coming up and the kids are supposed to try to pay for as much of it themselves as they can. (It is $400- ouch at 13-14 years old.) William has saved pretty much every penny of his allowance since June and has been helping out around the house to try and put some cash into savings. We told him we would pay him to watch Romney for us last night, but only if he acted like any other babysitter would be expected to act. What we were looking for was William not to be too bossy with Romney and not to come home to a ridiculous mess. What we got was: a happy, sleepy Romney; vacuumed floors, clean bedrooms, dishes done, 2 cleaned bathrooms and he even made our bed. Now that is a babysitter! (p.s. He scored financially for that kind of effort!)

Turning 14 and Taking to the Sky

Remember what it was like to be 14? Did it look anything like the image on the left?  Our home was filled to the brim with youthful exuberance during a sleepover extravaganza celebrating William's 14th birthday.  William and 6 of his friends stayed up late eating pizza, watching movies and talking about whatever it is 14 year old boys talk about.  (I wish the 14 year old girl I once was could have listened in on the conversation.) Sports were played, running was done, games were created and blood was drawn on only one of the boys- I'd call it successful.
But that was the just the party, the gift was the real star of the birthday. We gifted William a very special experience- piloting a plane!  William has expressed some interest in becoming a pilot for a career.  While that may or not be his path in life, we knew there was some serious interest.  So, we recruited his Grandpa Barber, a Certified Flight Instructor, to give William his first flying lesson in a little Cesna 172.
William was beyond thrilled with the prospect of being behind the yoke of a plane.  He could barely contain his excitement while waiting for Grandpa to do the check ride in the plane before taking William up.









He was so excited, he even forgot he hates to have me take his picture and smiled from ear to ear, revealing all kinds of metal and dimples.













Once the check-ride was complete, William, Grandpa, Bill and Romney took to the sky. Though the morning had been stormy, the luckiest boy on the planet struck again as the clouds parted and allowed a perfect weather window for the birthday boy to have a chance to fulfill his dream.
Concen- trating hard, William was a pro. He was a quick learner and a conscien- tious pilot.  He quickly got the hang of how to keep the plane level without too much effort and had a blast zipping around. He got to fly over the state capitol and find his house from the air.  He got to head over Lagoon and see all the rides from above.  They look a lot like toys from that perspective. He was so happy after his hour was up. "I didn't even kill anyone!" He exclaimed jokingly. You can tell he had two happy passengers who loved having William pilot them around town.

Brace Face Romney

Wonder why you haven't seen as many photos on this blog recently depicting fun and exciting family weekends on the road?  Me too! Well, not really.  It has been a sad year for road tripping in the Barber household for a plethora of reasons.  But one of those reasons has to do with this face here on the left.  Do you see those teeth?  Those are the teeth that made the orthodontist make an exception to his "not-starting-kids-in-braces-this-young" rule.  And where part of our road tripping fund ended up-- in this cute boy's mouth. He doesn't believe it yet, but I am completely sure that one day he will thank us for putting those horrible things on his teeth. (And this is just round 1 of many, many rounds to come.)  He was not thrilled with having to get these on having had a chance to see William go through it, but he was at least glad he got to pick the color that went on the braces- he picked hot pink.  He did like showing those off at school since he decided to go back after the torture, uh, I mean appointment, was over.  That was a minor miracle in and of itself, but for a different post.