Part 1A: Trip to L.A. & Phoenix

We are at our hotel now, The Anaheim Hilton. Sounds rough. Oddly enough, we stayed here via Priceline.com a few months ago. We were not impressed. So when we pricelined this hotel again, we asked for the recently remodeled room. I will post pictures soon of the room. It is great. There is a 32 inch or so flat screen LG LCD screen, a king size bed, a nice desk, and our hotel is on the northeast corner. That means we have a view of the park and of Angel Stadium.

Anyway, the whole point of me staying up to write this was to tell a few things that people said to us about Derek today. 

'

"He's cute. Did you make it?" 

This was said to Nancy in the bathroom of Angel Stadium as she was changing his poopy diaper. (Earlier, I posted that the question was "Did you make him?" I was so tired last night that I messed up the story). 

"He's so cute. Is he auditioning?"

I heard this in the elevator of the Disney Studio. No, we weren't auditioning. However, Derek was ready to bark at any squirrel on the campus. 

Pictures and more stories to come, plus updates on our new home. 

Where's Rocket?

Where's Rocket?
Originally uploaded by bryce.randle

Derek loves "Little Einsteins". We caught him looking for his bath toy "Rocket" the other day. Well, Nancy was doing her hair so he wasn't trying to be that sneaky.

This is the sweet life

This is the sweet life
Originally uploaded by bryce.randle

I know, I know. I am a bad parent for putting my kid in front of the TV for some time in the morning. He gets some crackers, milk, his blanket, and then he wants to watch a Little Einsteins episode. Today he watched his Disneyland Fun Sing Along Songs DVD. I was on the phone with Rimage about the duplicator (getting a new drive for free- again) and I came out and he was comfortably watching this DVD- upside down. He knew I thought it was funny so he stayed until Nancy got out of bed to see him.

Nancy's new haircut

Nancy's new haircut
Originally uploaded by bryce.randle

Nancy wanted a new haircut so she got it done and then was having a hard time doing it the next day. So she went to another place and got it done again. She came home with this haircut. I think it looks great. She has her 5 Year High School reunion this weekend. She is one of the reunion planners so we decided that it needed to look good.
What do you think?

Derek watching Jennifer play Build a Bear

Derek watching Jennifer play Build a Bear
Originally uploaded by bryce.randle

Jennifer loves to play Toontown and get on Build a Bear's website. She doesn't understand that Derek doesn't really care. Well, he doesn't most of the time. Today, Mother's Day, after we talked to Clay, he seemed partially interested. He stood still for a few seconds and then decided to slam the keyboard.

We had a good mother's day. I hope everyone else did. I got Nancy a Canon Rebel xTi, just like my mom's and Cammon's. I am not sure if Ginna has the same one or not too. I found a good deal from Amazon.com.

Please subscribe to my Flickr pictures. I love getting comments on them and I do try to post some fun pictures as often as I can.

Derek and a Hockey Stick

Derek knows how to walk. That doesn't mean that he does it. He can stand up straight. He can walk with one of his hands being secured by either mine or Nancy's. Yesterday, Derek found a new piece of security to hold on to- a hockey stick. Is this a prophecy of some sort? 

Excuse my voice of an excited Dad talking to his son on this video. It was very exciting. Derek has only ever taken steps from a couch to the table. It was more of a shimmy of two steps than walking. Enjoy the video.

Just for the Record

Well friends, tonight my father-in-law, Quint, teased me, once again, about that dang car accident. He didn't even know about the mention in the post I wrote last night.  I swear to you, he will never let me live it down.  

Do I care? No. It may have taken a while, but the intimidation that Quint has tried to bestow upon me for the past seven years no longer effects me.  The only problem? I have yet to figure out what lame joke, bad mistake and/or terrible accident to always tease him about.  

Let the hunt begin.

But just for the record, even my insurance agency doesn't care about that accident anymore.  (Have I ever mentioned them? Geico? I love Geico.) 

One more reason I'm sticking with Geico

When Bryce and I got in our car accident two years ago, we depended on our Geico Auto Insurance.  Their rate was the best when we got married, and they continued to beat out any other quote by at least $100.  We even just got a $20 monthly discount.  Thanks, Bryce, for having a birthday.

For those of you who know me well, you know that I'm not that opinionated.  Or sarcastic.  But I promise I will never switch insurance because of the awesome service we received.  Seriously.  It was above and beyond what I ever expected.  

Anyway, beyond the awesome insurance, I LOVE their current advertising campaign.  I could do without the cave men from the past, for sure, but their current celebrity campaign is of Target genius.  Here is the one we saw tonight while watching Leno.  It's killer awesome.

And please, for the record, please don't confuse the car accident I referenced here with the time I totaled my boyfriend's dad's car.  Oh, and yes, he did turn out to be my father-in-law.  Somehow he still hasn't forgiven me for that.  If you don't know that story, once again, you probably don't know me very well.  

This time it was a different inexperienced teenage girl who totaled our car.  But please note it wasn't icy. Or hilly. 

Dang it, Quint.  I'm even defending myself on my own blog!  

A few random things tonight...

I've had a few random things on my mind. I have wanted to blog about all of these different things, but I am not sold on each of the ideas. Apparently I have been tagged on Joellen's blog, but I never got a notice from her. I saw it on her blog eventually. I guess I will have to do that tonight too.

1. I hate Ryan on "The Office." I have always thought he was a prick. Tonight he really drove me crazy. I will leave it at that for those of you who haven't watched it yet.

2. I have wanted to blog about one of my favorite groups on facebook. It's called "Awkward Engagement Pictures Rock my Socks" or something to that effect. Here are a few of the reasons why I like it:

Exhibit A) Please notice the pictures loaded on this post. These pictures are merely promoting the group itself and not used with permission of the couple, even though the group claims so.

Exhibit B) I love to read people's comments on the photos. 

Exhibit C) There will always be more photos added to the site because there will always be people uncomfortable with themselves.

I have also wanted to write about More Tips on Going to Disneyland, but I am not sure how much my other tips people will really take to heart. The other advice I would offer is about why we fly down.

I still like Desmond the most from LOST. 

Magleby's Fresh is my new favorite restaurant in Utah Valley. 

I got the best birthday cards for Clay and Sterling. I want to write about them, but it would ruin the surprise. Sterling will have to blog about it in 7 weeks. 

We move in 3 and a half weeks. (That was for you, Shark!)

My RSS feed feature of my Mac Mail wouldn't download any new feeds for about 6 weeks. One night I opened my mail and I had about 115 new blog posts to read. 

I just started editing "50 Ways to Score More Goals." I just finished logging it yesterday. I have started to sync the multiclips today. I am about half way done there. I would like to devote more time to it, but I don't get paid for it until it is all done. I am trying to squeeze it in throughout render times and burning sessions. 

That's all for now folks. I hope to see Ironman soon. I am glad it got good reviews. 

Let me know which topic you want to hear more about.