Happy Leap Year!!

Yes, dear reader, they leaped into the pool.


~the Mom

Shaq Attack

It's a bird, it's a plane.....it's a giant....

it is SHAQ!!!




that's right...the dad and i were able to attend Shaq's debut with the Suns last week!

how fun!



How LOUD! the crowd was unbelieveably loud.

HOW BIG and TALL and GI-NORMOUS he is!! (grant hill --the little guy on the right--is 6'8"!!)
OK...don't read over that little detail above too quickly. Look at the picture. The little guy is almost 7 feet tall. The little guy. He looks like a mere boy next to Shaq. Look at their arms, hands and their head size.....Shaq really does look like a man among boys.


We had a great time and could only have enjoyed it more if the suns actually won. But really, to see steve nash, grant hill, raja bell AND shaq play together...complete with a dunk or two by shaq...who could ask for much more....???

not me.

follow-up to the previous post:

For all you people out there that think that Chip is taller than me....oh well, you're right.

not that i'm happy about it. i wish i were six feet tall, but no. i wish that i could beat Chip at wrestling, but no. i wish that the sky would rain it's eyes out, but no. i wish that peanut m&ms were healthy, but no. i wish, i wish, i wish.

oh, well. can't have everything. :)

at least, now that Chip is taller, he will protect me from the monsters that live under my and Minnie's bed. right, Chip?

Twinkle

We Have Crossed a Significant Threshold

Well.

It happened.

What is so strange is that i should have suspected it. And when you look at the pictures below you won't be surprised. And yet I was. Surprised and, well, a little grossed out. But I am getting ahead of myself.

Here is the full story:

This past Sunday started as any other ordinary Sunday...little did I know what threshold we would cross that day!

So. After church, we went to In n Out Burger...a well known burger joint out here in the wild wild west. They have 4 items on their menu--hamburger, cheeseburger, fries, drinks. Period. That's it. No salads, chicken, roast beef, desserts (unless you count the milkshakes). And let me tell you, this place is always busy. always.

SO there we were on this ordinary Sunday at In N Out Burger where we had been countless other times with nothing happening that was too out of the ordinary. Except when Brett and Bryan were here, but that was more because they are out of the ordinary. Did I say that out loud? Woops.

Anyway. There we were at this simple, well known eatery when it happened. We crossed the threshold. Yup. We did. Well we crossed it by being spectators. Actually, Chip crossed it. Dove across it. Jumped across it and most importantly, chewed across it.

He did it.

He ate 2 hamburgers (with lettuce and onion--no skimpy burger like McDonalds).

2 burgers. Plus Fries. And a refillable drink that was refilled at least once while we waited for our food.

And those burgers? They joined the rest of his well rounded (not so fast food focused, and only figuratively speaking ) diet of late and have managed to make him grow. Taller than Twinkle. Yup. You can see in the pictures below, he is def taller than his sister and closing in on me, the mom, every day. Guess it goes with his SIZE 10 WIDE foot! yeesh! where does he get this from?

So tho i was a bit grossed out at the idea of eating T-W-O burgers, I am proud of the man he is becoming...just not too fast, OK Son?

zoo(minnie and mickey)

''Hello and Welcome to the ZOO!"

"Do you have a ticket?
May I please have it?
Thank you
Have a good day"

Mickey smiling even as he is falling off.

Awww so cute! The mommy and the baby. Oh! Just to let you know the mommy is called Petoonya and the baby. The baby is a boy, but I wish it were a girl. But it's not so let's call it Frank)...Is that good?

This one is Bob. He is the dad. Bob is going to jump. Will he make it or will he not...

This is a good pic

She's falling off! Someone save her!

Mickey is pushing me off (of course) and he is not willing to save me. Fine. If he does not save me then I will not save him. (he will fall off you know. it's our secret, ok? do not tell anyone at all.)


"Did you enjoy the zoo?

Was it fun?

Any answers?

Have a good day"

A couple days ago me (Minnie) and Mickey went to the zoo with some friends. (Yup the zoo, even in Jaunary.) We saw big horned sheep. They were up close, closer than usually. There was a baby too, it kept jumping and jumping really high. It was very fun, as you can tell. Well, I guess that's all there is to tell.

Minnie

Tora! Tora! Tora!

Studying WW II has its advantages and challenges....

advantages--fascinating time period with lots of documentaries and historical films to watch....

challenges??

same thing.

Remind me we don't need to watch every WW II movie available at our library......



.....oh but we might try....:)

~The mom

Don't Look if you get queasy with blood

By popular demand, we have been asked to post a pic of the 'injury'

yeah, yeah.. it's easy to see cuz there's less hair..

Superbowl Breakfast

Tony Dungy

for all of our Chicago friends, eat your heart out...Mike Singletary - (yup, they do get back to 'normal' size after their playing days..)

bad picture of the breakfast head table from our seat.. (from left to right: Jerry Colangelo, Tony Dungy, Brent Jones (at the podium), Bart Starr, LT, etc...

NFL Experience Pics

The following pictures are from Saturday's Superbowl Experience.



The kids posing for a beau-tiful picture.

That's me making the winning catch. Yeah, right.

This is the view from the ferris wheel. We waited in line for 45 minutes.

That's the stadium where the AMAZING game of Patriots versus Giants was played. GO GIANTS!

Another view.

So cute. :)

Soooo super cute!

There had to be 523421 billion people at the NFL Experience. No, maybe 1000000000 trillion. Anyway, it was a HUGE number.

Do you notice the strained smile? That's because we were, like, 100 feet off the ground in a rickety ferris-wheel-cart that did not even shut right because there weren't even locks or bolts or nails and I think we should have our money back.

Oh. 

 Who's that crazy girl?   Ahem.

One last note:

Mason accidentally closed the cargo-door on the car. So what? Well, the corner landed on Dad's head. Blood everywhere.  recovering nicely, though...

Twinkle

Weekend of Sports (contd)

hey.. a couple of more details on our unfolding weekend:

1) the golfers as mentioned below were:
Jesper Parnevick - used to employ the twin sister of Tiger's wife as nanny help for his kids.

2) Jerry Kelly - Wisconsin guy who's as loose a pro golfer as there is.. really down-to-earth guy. very much like the pros we have met in the area who are in the minor tours.. i introduced our boys to two conditional Nationwide players.. when they haven't 'made it,' they seem to be much more open and friendly.. Jerry's still like that...

3) afterwards, the Dad, Steve, DJ and Brad played a round (or a portion of the front 9 before calling it quits due to slow play)... much could be said about the round, but we played 2-man best ball. the Dad and Steve won running away... it wasn't necessarily due to the quality of golf, but the quality of trash talk which distracted the opponents' golf swing..

4) if that wasn't enough golf, Mickey and Chip had their regular friday afternoon golf clinic the entire afternoon; topped off by a marathon putting contest with the Dad (who is losing more and more to the boys).

Saturday morning, Mom and Dad attended the annual AIA SuperBowl breakfast where the NFL sanctioned event honored the 2008 Bart Starr award winner LaDainian Tomlinson of the Chargers - a really good guy.. (i'm a fan now).. he wept during his message several times talking about the influence of his mother, his affection for his dad (who passed away last year) and his love of the Lord.. Brent Jones, Tony Dungy, Anthony Munoz, Mike Singletary and about 30 NFL'ers were there (in addition to Bart Starr himself)..

we have several pics of yesterday and will post later today..

All-Sports-All-the-Time!

Living in the city that is hosting the Superbowl has inspired us here at Phoenamenal Days to take sports to a whole new level these next few days...Our all-sports-all-the-time-weekend began last night....



First, the dad and I (the mom) went to the Phoenix Suns-Spurs game last night. It was a packed house and we had great seats--thanks to our friends the E's. It was a sloppy game, tho and even tho the suns were winning for the entire game, they lost in the last 35 seconds! they clearly needed a little more of something..maybe a cheer or two from a former highschool cheerleader would have done the trick...but we will never know.


If you look closely at the people seated on the floor you will see Phil Mickelson . He's in town for the FBR Open. And here he is with the gorilla mascot on the big TV...




Then today the entire family--minus Halmoni--went to the FBR Open in Scottsdale TPC. WOW! what a great event! It is set up like a party that includes a golf tournament! There is a party tent and sponsors' tent and tons of people! We were at a tent on the 16th tee. Sadly I have no pictures because we weren't allowed to bring our cameras--they were electronically scanning for cameras and cell phones! so we had neither:(

For those of you uninitiated and unknowing golf fans (like I was until today) the 16th hole is a short par-3 set up like a stadium with multi level tents almost all the way around it and a crowd like a football game. There is a group of college/mid 20's kids--"the house that Phil Built" and they call to , cheer and heckle the players as they enter thru the tunnel and walk out to the tee box. what a great time! and if you don't hit it well, the fans down at the green boo you!! yup. thats' right. Booing in Golf. The best part...? The guys all do this while holding their own "quiet Please" signs!! hahaha!

a few funny comments--
One of the players we saw won at the FBR Open in 1990. SO the college kids yelled out: We loved you in 1990!!! Then a lone voice: I was only 7 years old but I remember it!!

hahaha...the golfer himself laughed at that one.

Then later to another golfer they sang out, " Who's your nanny?"

This confused me until chuck told me that the golfer's nanny ended up marrying Tiger woods!

lastly....

They yelled,It's almost Feb 6th!...... happy almost birthday!!

Many of the golfers prob don't like it. But the ones who do make it more fun.

One guy stood over the ball as they cheered for his alma matter...they politely quieted down as he stood over the ball to hit. He stopped and looked up and raised his hands as if to get them to cheer again --which they did. Then as he stood over the ball they quieted again...again he stopped and raised his hands to get them to cheer more....they did and kept cheering while he swung! he loved it and they did too!

They were pretty funny and had clearly done their homework on each player.... Gotta love smart golf fans!

And lest we leave out the biggest sporting event in town this weekend, tomorrow we head to the Superbowl Experience. A carnival type atmosphere with Superbowl activities and things to do with the kids. Should be memorable.

And we are topping it off on Sunday with visits to a few super bowl parties of some of our friends here.

whew!!

I feel a little bit like ESPN Sports Center!

Have a great weekend!

~The Mom