Missy's Wedding

Go here for pictures....

http://www.annazphotography.blogspot.com/

After 4.5 Long Years

Growing up, pretty much all I did was play basketball. Andrew Hill and I played dunkball on my driveway for hours on end. We played in the rain, the snow, before school, after school, etc. In addition to dunkball, Ty and I played ball up at the Roosevelt building. We routinely woke up at 6 am on Saturday mornings (even during the sleep-in years of highschool) to go play ball. For whatever reason, basketball never got old for me.

Then, in some strange twist of fate, during my senior year of highschool I dislocated my right shoulder. While dislocating a shoulder hurts like hades, the most painful part for me was that it kept me from playing basketball. The dislocations continued and eventually, 4 months before I left on my mission, I had rotator cuff surgery (plus a little more) on my right shoulder. I stayed away from the game for the first year of my mission. With time, however, I allowed my cravings to get the best of me and played on New Year's Day of 2003. Shortly after that I dislocated my left shoulder and continued to do so until finally in the fall of 2005 I had shoulder surgery on my left shoulder.

Considering that Kristin and I have been poor starving college students our entire 4 years of marriage (and the fact one surgery runs $6,000), I have stayed conservative and not played basketball. At all.

Until, that is, Christmas Eve of this year. The past few months I've lifted weights to strengthen my shoulders and on the 22nd of December Scott Jacobsen invited me to play basketball on Xmas Eve. I jokingly told him I'd come - to which he replied with a version of "stop getting my hopes up" (Scott has endured 4.5 long years of asking me to play and always receiving a negative response).

Kris and I got talking about the offer and came to the conclusion that the weight lifting combined with some reserved play on my part might make me basketball eligible. I mean, you can't allow a shoulder injury to hold you down forever, right? So, I played. And it was a blast. Sure, there's a bunch of rust from the 4.5 year layoff - but it was still a blast. Scott was so surprised by my appearance that he snapped an Iphone photo for proof:


Let's hope the shoulders hold together. Kristin gave me the best Xmas present of the year by pushing me out the door on Xmas Eve. If it weren't for her, I'd still be waiting to step out on the court. Thanks, Kris.

BCS

Thank you, Eric Boyd, for showing me this wonderful piece of literature.

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/news?slug=dw-ncaafplayoff120709&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

Kind of long, but worth the read.

Wow

I intended to come here and post about the BYU Utah game and how I thought BYU played a good game, etc.

Then I heard the following comments from Max Hall. What an idiot, I'm sorry, but what an idiot.

Sportscaster: "Personal redemption Max because you didn’t play as well against these guys last year?"

Maxie: "Um, a little bit, yeah. I don’t like Utah. In fact, I hate ‘em. I hate everything about ‘em. I hate their program. I hate their fans. I hate everything, so it felt really good to send those guys home.

"Um, they didn’t deserve it. It was our time. It was our time to win, we deserved it. We played as hard as we could tonight. And it felt really good, again, to send ‘em home, to get ‘em out of here. So, um, you know, a game I will always remember."

Sportscaster: "Any particular reason they are not your favorite team?"

Maxie: "Uh, you really want me to go into it? I mean, I think, I think, I think the whole University, their fans and the organization is classless. They threw beer on my family and stuff last year and did a whole bunch of nasty things. I don’t respect ‘em, and they deserved to lose."

Wow. That's all I can say. Wow.

Thankful Indeed

I imagine the folks in Utah heard about this story - but for those of you out of the State, read the following link.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705347398/Efforts-to-save-a-life-praised.html

And, if you can spare 5 bucks, donate to the Emily Jones fund. She is left widowed with her 18-month-old daughter and another on the way. God bless her and the rest of the extended family.

Halloween 2009 (new and improved)

Thanks to my sister and sister-in-law, this Halloween post is now new and improved. Below you will see pictures (including of the forgotten child Kimball) of the festivities. We carved pumpkins, dressed the boys as bengals, visited family, and had a good old time.

Anger

My institute teacher introduced me to a great talk the other day. Kristin and I decided it's worthy of sharing. Here's a snippet:

"To those who say, 'But I can't help myself," author William Wilbanks responds: 'Nonsense.' 'Aggression, ... suppressing the anger, talking about it, screaming and yelling,' are all learned strategies in dealing with anger. 'We choose the one that has proved effective for us in the past. Ever notice how seldom we lose control when frustrated by our boss, but how often we do when anoyed by friends or family?"

Here's a link.

http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=dfbc605ff590c010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD

2 Years Old

Patten turned 2 on October 12. We threw him a Pooh-bear birthday party. Thanks to all of the friends and family who came to wish him a happy birthday. Here are a few pictures.


Patten getting ready to open his presents.

Natalie (Dave's sister) and Derek (Kristin's brother). They are the same age. I won't say anything else.

Patten, Dave, and Kristin preparing to blow out the candles. You can see the focus on sir Patten's face.

Who is trying harder? Patten, Kristin, or Dave?

One of Patten's many awesome presents. He also received a set of plastic golf clubs (okay, 3 plastic golf clubs), lots of clothes, the baby Einstein rocket (thank you our Kmart exec), and tons of other fun stuff I don't remember.

Soon after Patten's birthday we headed down to Las Vegas for the Utah UNLV football game. On the way we visited our good friends Taylor, Ruby, and their daughter Lydia in St. George. Patten fell in love. Even now, one week later, he won't stop talking about Lydia.

Here is Patten giddy-as-a-school boy next to Lydia.

She even held his hand.

And a luv.

And finally, a few pictures from Vegas. Kristin and I took Patten to a park close to Uncle Steve and Aunt Deb's house. It was 90 degrees in the middle of October. Gotta love Vegas.

Here are Patten and Tanner (Kristin's cousin) on the top of the slide. In addition to repeating Lydia's name everyday - Patten repeats Tanner's name everyday. He loved hanging out with his cool older cousin.

Western Newsie

Dave leaves for Priesthood session and comes back to...




Which made Dave

The Boys

Time for an update. Kimball is now 8 weeks old - and he is growing up all the time. Kimball and Patten loved summer and did a lot of fun things.


Here is Patten eating watermelon. He loves standing on his stool to help Kristin cook. He loves it even more when Kristin gives him an entire ring of watermelon to chomp on.


Good story behind this one. Patten decided to jump while sitting on his chair at the table, fell down, and knocked his head on the side of the table. His forehead got real big real fast - so we pulled out an ice pack. Trick is he wanted to finish watching his show. We rigged up a self-contained icing kit using a couple of t-shirts. Patten had to stay laying just so - but it allowed him to finish his show.


Not sure what to talk about here.


Mmmmmmmmm....... chocolate.

Patten and Kimball on the couch. We had Patten hold Kimball for a couple of pictures - he did a great job.

Johnny Stock and Coach Sloan

Senator Hatch's words concerning Stockton and Sloan:

"Mr. President, I rise today to speak about a matter of great prominence to the people of my state. This past Friday, in Springfield, Massachusetts, Jerry Sloan and John Stockton were inducted into The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. This is a well-deserved honor and I wanted to take a few moments to congratulate them both.

"As any fan of professional basketball can tell you, the Energy Solutions Arena in Salt Lake City is widely considered one of the most difficult places for visiting teams to play. Now, some have tried to blame this on the city's high elevation, but, if you've ever been to a game there, you know very well that it's because of the Jazz fans.

"You see, due to its relatively small population, Utah has only one major sports franchise - the Jazz. And, there were times when people thought that this small market would not be able to sustain even a single NBA team. But, for more than two decades, the Jazz have enjoyed one of the most loyal and supportive fan bases of any team in professional sports. This is due in no small part to the careers of both John Stockton and Jerry Sloan.

"John Stockton grew up in Spokane, Washington and played basketball at both Gonzaga Prep and Gonzaga University in his hometown. He was a relative unknown when he moved into the professional ranks, picked by the Jazz in the middle of the first round of the 1984 draft and initially relegated to a reserve role on the team. But, after three seasons, he became the full-time starter at the point guard position and went on to have one of the most prolific careers in basketball history.

"Over the course of his career, he accumulated numerous honors. He was selected to play in the NBA All Star game ten times. He played on the 1992 and 1996 Olympic teams - the first two Olympic squads to include professional players - winning gold medals in both years. He was selected to the All-NBA First Team twice, the All-NBA Second Team six times, the All-NBA Third Team three times, and the NBA All-Defensive Second Team five times. In 1996, the NBA celebrated its 50th anniversary by selecting the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History. Of course, John Stockton was honored on this list as well.

"Though the accomplishment of winning an NBA championship eluded him, Stockton did lead the Jazz to two consecutive NBA Finals appearances in 1997 and 1998. John Stockton was immortalized in the first of those seasons when, in Game 6 of the Western Conference finals, he scored the last 9 points for the Jazz, including a last-second three pointer to send the Jazz to the Finals for the first time. This was probably the most memorable moment of Stockton's career and the history of the Jazz franchise and it is still replayed in montages of great sports moments.

"It's impossible to talk about John Stockton without mentioning Karl Malone. Together, these two formed one of the game's legendary 1-2 punches. Together, they became the league's models of consistency, commitment, and success. The two played 18 seasons and an NBA record 1,412 regular-season games together as teammates. Due to their collaborative efforts, Malone finished his career as the second-highest scorer in NBA history and Stockton holds the all-time career assist record.

"Let's talk about that assist record for a moment. In the 63-year history of the NBA, only four players have career assist totals of over 10,000. Stockton finished his career with 15,806 assists. Mark Jackson, number two on the list, collected 10,334 assists - 5,483 fewer than Stockton.

"But, the raw numbers don't do this record justice, Mr. President. To put it in perspective, only 37 players have dished out 5,483 or moreassists in their entire careers. Indeed, just getting that many assists over a whole career would put you in pretty elite company - and that's the difference between John Stockton's total and that of the guy who's next in line.

"This record is among the truly unbreakable records in all of sports - and it isn't the only one held by John Stockton. He also holds the career record in steals, also by a considerable margin. He holds the NBA record for the most seasons and consecutive games played with one team, and is third in total games played.

"John Stockton's success on the floor was matched only by his consistency. He missed only 22 games during his career, 18 of them came in one season. In 17 of his 19 seasons in the NBA, he played in every single game. Overall, he played in 1,504 of 1,526 possible games. These are Lou Gehrig or Cal Ripken-type numbers.

"Stockton will always be remembered for his no-nonsense approach to the game, his hard-nosed defense, his matchless work ethic, and his quiet, unassuming personality. His unflashy, fundamentally-sound style of play earned him the respect of John Wooden, the legendary UCLA basketball coach, who once said that John Stockton was the only NBA player he'd pay money to see.

"Stockton retired in 2003 and returned home to Spokane. While other NBA greats have sought careers in broadcasting and coaching after their careers were over, so far, John has been content to stay at home with his family. This comes as no surprise to those who know him.

"Guiding John through most of his NBA career, was coach Jerry Sloan, who, once again, is also being inducted into the Hall of Fame. Sloan's careers as both a player and a coach have been characterized by his unyielding toughness and an unmatched drive to compete.

"Jerry was born and raised in McLeansboro, Illinois and played his college career at the University of Evansville. He played one season in the NBA for the Baltimore Bullets before being selected by the Chicago Bulls in the expansion draft. In fact, he was the team's first player, earning him the nickname "The Original Bull." Sloan quickly became known for his tenacity on defense and he led the expansion team to the playoffs in its first season.

"He had an exceptional career as a player. He played in two All-Star Games, was named to the NBA All-Defensive First Team four times and the All-Defensive Second team twice. He also led the Bulls to the playoffs on various occasions and helped them to win the franchise's only division title prior to the Michael Jordan era. After his playing career was cut short by knee injuries, the Bulls retired Sloan's No. 4 jersey, the first jersey retirement in the team's history.

"Immediately after his retirement, he became part of the Bull's coaching staff, starting out as a scout, eventually working his way up to head coach, a position he held for three seasons. A few years later, he joined the Jazz coaching staff as an assistant to another Utah sports icon, Frank Layden. In 1988, when Layden's health forced him to retire, Jerry was named head coach of the Jazz, a position he has held ever since.

"Coach Sloan just finished his 20th season as coach of the Jazz, a milestone that, in today's sports world, is almost unthinkable. Over the course of his Jazz tenure, literally hundreds of coaching changes have taken place throughout the NBA. In a league that has had a number of great coaches in its history, none have coached for the same team as long as Jerry Sloan.

"This extends to other sports as well. Currently, Sloan is the longest-tenured coach in any major professional sport.

"There are a number of reasons to explain his longevity. The most obvious is that he's been successful. He's currently fourth on the list for all-time coaching wins - though he holds the record for most wins with one team. In 17 out of the 20 seasons his been in Utah, the Jazz have been in the playoffs, the only absences coming in transitional years after the departures of John Stockton and Karl Malone.

"Another reason Sloan has been able to stick around is his consistent, no-nonsense approach to the game. Over time, teams have changed strategies to become flashier in order to cater to younger fans and the new era of players, many of whom have been self-centered prima donnas. Throughout that time, Coach Sloan has been a model of consistency, placing premiums on discipline and hard work among his players. The result has been a franchise that, for over two decades, has competed at a high level.

"In many ways, Stockton and Sloan were alike and their strengths complimented each other. Neither one will claim to have been able to be successful without the other.

"Currently, there is a huge statue of John Stockton in front of the Energy Solutions arena alongside a statute of Karl Malone. Chances are, in 20 or 30 years when Jerry Sloan finally decides to hang it up, they'll want to build a monument to him as well. Neither of these gentlemen would actively seek such limelight, but few are as deserving.

"Once again, I'd like to extend my congratulations to both John Stockton and Jerry Sloan for this great honor and to thank them for their contributions to the Utah community."

Patten plays the flute and hits a wicked golf shot!!!

When we left the married student apartments I accidentally took with us one of the apartment complex's red plungers. Now, just so you know, the plunger was brand new when we moved into the apartment and we never used it in the toilet. Instead, it became, and still is today, one of Patten's favorite toys. As you will see in the following videos, the magical red plunger plays many roles in our house.

Patten playing the flute.

Patten playing Golf.

Dancing Kimball

Enjoy.

Yes Sir

Let me be the first avid Utah fan to congratulate the Cougars. Amazing game. You hung with the Heisman Trophy winner until he got hurt. Your D manned up against OU's line. And you won the game.

I can't wait to hear what the pundits have to say about the MWC now.

Wakesurfing

Behold Wakesurfing. I'm sorry for the farmer's tan and for the fact that the video is sideways most of the time.

Kimball Neal

Well, we did it. Let me rephrase --- well, Kris did it. Kimball Neal Johnson joined our family on Friday July 31, 2009 at 7:23 am. He's healthy. Kristin is healthy. We all are tired. But it is great to have Kimball as part of the fam. Here are a few pictures for your enjoyment.

Kimball having 1 oz of amniotic fluid sucked from his lungs

Patten, Kimball, and Daddy

Patten meeting "bebe bimbo"

Proof of his massive weight and size

Perfect for burping

Grandma and Kimball

Look at that hair

In case you were wondering

Some of you may have known that I was suppose to be induced yesterday (Wednesday July 29th). It turned out that too many women went into labor yesterday so they did not have room for me. They have rescheduled the inducement for Friday and have promised me that they will do it no matter what even if they have to do it in the late evening. If only my body would be normal and go into labor! :) I guess we will end up having an August baby instead of a July baby. We'll let you know as soon as he comes.

Photo Shoot

Here are a few pictures from the photo shoot. I've put numbers underneath the three family pictures - let us know which number you like best. FYI - it seems the picture quality decreases when we put them online...

Enjoy!

Thanks again Caitlin.

Guardian Patten

Patten and Daddy

Patten and Mommy

Family Picture #1

Family Picture #2

Family Picture #3

Just You Wait

First of all, please notice the fact that the countdown on the right has reached 7 days. 'Nough said.

Second, we had a great time last night taking family photos with Caitlin Connolly. Caitlin is our good friend, we also happen to be good friends with her entire family (her brother and I served as mission companions, Ty and Drew roomed together for most of College, Missy and Caitlin roomed together in College, etc., etc.)

Here's one picture from the shoot.

No photoshopping on this baby (at least I assume as much because Caitlin sent the photo as a "sneak peek" last night directly following the shoot). If you are looking for a great photographer - look no farther than Caitlin. And, if you can convince Robbie to come along for the ride he will keep your 21 month old son laughing for an hour and a half (I still don't know how he pulled that off).

Thanks again Caitlin and Robbie. We look forward to seeing the rest of the pictures.

Patten the Performer

Here's what happens when you put Patten by a piano with a little bit of JT. Please don't mind the singing by the dad, just enjoy Mr. Patten rockin' out.

A Request

We are looking at having some family pictures taken. If you know a good (reasonably priced) photographer who would take our pictures - please leave a comment with the person's name and contact info.

Thanks.

Memorial Day Weekend and More

Can you believe it? We are actually putting another post up! I know it's amazing. We just happened to take a few pictures and do a few fun things that we wanted to share with you. You can thank Dave for being more aware of picture taking :)

Our friends invited us for a Memorial Day lunch Barbecue. We went to Lindsay Park which is located up in the avenues. They were so nice to invite us especially because they brought most of the food and mmm was it good! We had hot dogs, hamburgers, spare ribs, and shrimp all barbecued as well as multiple salads and chips. The children loved the park and enjoyed getting dirty in the baseball field. Sadly I didn't think to take a picture of that.
Above: Evan, Brigette, Melaine and Adam
They all look so great!

Above: Me, Dave and Patten

After the barbecue in the park we went up to Dave's family cabin for the traditional Memorial Day dinner. Their family goes up there on every summer holiday. Their cabin is located in Millcreek Canyon and I have to say that it has become my favorite canyon.

Above: Patten and Natalie(Dave's sister) inside the cabin

Above:Tyler (Dave's bro), Patten and Grandma LeNila
We were so excited to take grandma up there. We had lots of fun with her.

Above: Missy (Dave's sister), and Mike (Missy's BF)
It was fun to see Mike again after he had been gone on his month long trip to Asia.

Above: Natalie, Tyler, and Patten

I have become increasingly frustrated with Patten's hair recently. He not only has sooo much of it but it grows so fast. Now these would all be great and awesome things if he was a girl. What little girl wouldn't look cute with long hair? But sadly these things were wasted on a boy :) So we decided to buzz his head. I wish I had taken a picture of the finished product before I put him down for his nap this morning. His hair looks pretty cute all spiked up! While we were cutting Patten's hair he was a pretty good sport. Dave was able to snatch a few great pictures below.

Yeah!

Watch out for the attacking belly!

That is all for now. We hope life is treating all of you well.