Year in Review...Entry #4

BYU is still freakin' awesome! That is what I have to say about that. Of course everyone knows that I'm a huge BYU football/basketball/overall fan. BYU sports have become something more special to me in the last couple of years. When we first adopted J Scott, I took him to every basketball game. When I say every, I mean every. Some of my fond memories of the early days are of carrying my sleeping boy out of another home victory. In fact, in all the time Scott and I have been going to games...he's witnessed 2 losses at home. (One loss in basketball against Loyola Marymount, and one loss in football to the Utes. He must be pretty good luck, but I digress.) Anyway to me BYU sporting events have become chances to hang out with my son. Many times just the two of us. As my friend Cody once remarked, he is my "built in BYU buddy."

This year my father, brother (Ben), Scott and I had season tickets to football. Saturdays were really fun. For home games we baked in the sun and cheered. Scott is a very enthusiastic singer of the cougar fight sone...it's pretty cute. Most away games we watched at home with a group of usuals. Un(fortunately really) some of my feelings about Ute fans have been soaked up by my boy. The other day Scott told Nellie "I'm never going to like the Utes." Good for him. Since Scott now owns many things BYU, he told me he's sad they don't make BYU shoes....I've maybe got him in too deep. Anyway, the cougars are important in the Perkins household. Even if Daddy's degree isn't from that awesome institution. At least Mom's is.

Year in Review...Entry #3

Having covered our major trip of the year and our major visitor of the year, I think this review should be about the people who make up my awesome every-day life- my wife and kids. This year has been a good year, but really not many unusual things have happened. I manage to feel like I have a relatively boring life when people ask me what I'm doing. Have you ever found a good way to answer that question? I haven't. In fact, I'm still guilty of asking others this...but I digress.

Eva has experienced many changes in her life this year. As you might expect she's figured out the walking thing, figured out some talking things, and (if you read the lyrics to her song you'll realize) the bossy thing. Probably the most notable thing that has happened to Eva this year that doesn't happen to every baby is her helmet-head days. Eva was born with torticollis which means when she was in the womb, her head was almost always in the same position, which resulted in the neck muscles on one side developing short and squatty while the muscles on the other side were longer. Since her neck was off, she slept in the same position and ended up with a large flat spot. To fix her neck we had to take her to physical therapy for 5 months and Nellie stretched her neck at home several times a day. After her neck was fixed, we got a helmet that Eva had to wear 23 hours a day. The helmet was on from February until the beginning of June. We definately got stared at a lot, which didn't bother us like I might have thought. We'd often hear other children asking their parents about the helmet, and were surprised to hear parents responses. I figure, if you don't know, ask! Eva ended up with a nice round head in the end.

Scott experienced a few changes this year also. In the spring he wrapped up his Kindergarten year at school, which he loved (as do all kindergarteners it seems). One of his major changes was the transition from Jaden to Scott. For those of you who might not know, his full name is Jaden Scott Perkins. His grandpa goes by his middle name of Scott, and he had several friends who went by middle names, so one day he decided he wanted to go by Scott. As parents, it was very difficult to call him by another name. I never realized how many times in the day you say your child's name. I was sluggish in my transition until one day, apparently frustrated he said "you just called me Jaden, that is not my name! My name is Scott!" I think after that day, I got a lot better a lot faster.

Scott has been doing very well in school, and he loves first grade and his teacher Mrs. Glass. He was student of the month in February, and again for September. He seems to really get into the recognition, and he is pretty proud of it. Scott also played soccer for the second year. I don't know that there is a future in soccer for him, but he seems to like it anyway.

As for Nellie and I, I had a very good year at work this year. I seem to get the hang of it slowly but surely. This year I hit my 5-year mark in May, which isn't really a long time, but with the turnover rate at my company I'm only 5 years away from getting a Rolex for my time there (woohoo!) Nellie seems to have really figured out what the mom thing is all about this year, how she juggles everything I will never get. She volunteers for Scott's class, deals with Eva, ends up doing a lot of free photography for people who don't really appreciate what they are getting, keeps the house running efficiently, and manages to hammer out one craft project after another. Her craft room is really getting to be a thing of beauty. She manages to keep it pretty organized, I am always surprised at how many projects could come from her "room of requirements" as she calls it.

Nellie has been an all-star resolution keeper. Instead of having a huge list of new-years resolutions she focused on doing one thing for several weeks to a month and then moved on to perfect the next thing. I've really seen a lot of improvement from her. One of her major accomplishments was taking off the baby weight and more this year. Last year about November she really started to watch what she ate and her caloric intake. By June you could really tell she was losing weight, but from June until now she's really shrunk to where everyone seems to be telling her how great she looks. It really took a lot of work and a lot of will power and I'm proud of her.

Christmas! Part I and II

Christmas Part I

On Friday night, almost a full week before the real Christmas, we had our Perkins Family Christmas. Since we didn't want to haul presents down to Arizona, we chose to open most of our presents on Friday night. It was fun to watch Scott open his presents, he was really good at acting excited, even when some of the gifts were un-fun, like shirts. He is such a sweet little boy! Eva doesn't get this Christmas thing yet, but she is starting to enjoy ripping apart the wrapping paper, so she did a good job. My favorite presents were the little BYU cheerleader outfit for Eva, and the BYU jersey that we got for Scott. That's going to make a cute family picture. Although Scott felt a little ripped off that he couldn't take his gifts with him, I'm sure he'll be happy to return to them when we're done in Arizona.

Christmas Part II

We've been in Arizona for almost a week now, and it's been fun to spend time with Nellie's family, the Grows. Christmas at the Grows has been jam-packed this year, and it's been tiring to be in the middle of it all, but also very fun. In addition to a house full of Grows, we've seen Katie and her fiancee, Jared and his family, and Grandma Grow is staying here. On Christmas-eve day we hung out and Nellie and I got a good make-up nap. Nellie's Uncle Bob came into town and Eva instantly liked him, it was cute to see her warm up to someone so fast. She tends to be pretty easy-going, but she definitely has her favorites. I guess she doesn't mind his famous zerbits (if that's how you spell it). Scott got to go with Nellie and Papa and some others to visit Uncle Jared at his fire station. Scott loved being able to ride in a fire engine and had a great time. For Christmas Eve dinner we had some mexican food, Sarah made some fantastic however-many-layers dip, and I made smothered burritoes.

After dinner, we had Advent. Advent is something the Grow's have been doing for the better part of two decades, four Sundays before Christmas they start to read scriptures about the coming of the Savior and sing songs. They say it gets them into the spirit of the season, and it was really nice to take some time to think about the Savior, especially reading Luke chapter 2. What really made the night fun was Sarah's friend Whitney who is amazing on the piano. She accompanied all of the singing, and it felt like something out of the movies. I would give the night an A grade.

Later (this is turning into a LONG post...), I attended midnight mass with the Bruce family. Arlene Bruce, or Grandma Arlene as she is better known, is a good family friend who we all love. She has a really fun family also, and I really enjoyed attending mass with them. They are just as sarcastic and funny as I am (okay, I'm giving myself too much credit), but it was great to sing more songs about the savior and to get a different perspective. Attending midnight mass was something that I did on my mission at the urging of my mission president, and I've enjoyed attending with the Bruce's for the last couple of years.

Christmas morning started early for me, and not for the reason you may think. It started early because Eva decided around 4 am that she wasn't going to sleep anymore. After losing the battle to her, I watched the Christmas Story on tv and waited for an appropriate time to let Scott get up. This has been Scott's "Santa Year," as Nellie labels it, and it's been really fun as a parent to see him get all excited about Santa. He is extremely worried about upsetting, or lying to Santa. Just before Christmas break, Scott's class was writing letters to Santa. His teacher had provided them a template that said, Dear Santa, I have been really good this year...I would like..., Scott approached his teacher and expressed concern that sometimes he was naughty. His teacher said that was the first time any kid had even considered their behavior in the process of Santa letters. Funny kid. Anyway, around 7:30 we started the presents, Scott got the requested firetruck from Santa while Eva got a little people amusement park.

After all the present opening was done, we had a great breakfast provided by Mom Grow. She is a fantabulous cook and makes this amazing cinnamon rolls, breakfast was delicious. Later in the day we had another fantastic meal, again prepared by Mom. Grandpa Grow and JoRae visited for dinner at this point and I had a really good time. Spending time with the in-laws is definately a lot better for me, than for everyone else. After dinner Aunt Laura joined us and we had pie and just talked. I think the highlight of Christmas night was hearing Bob, Laura and Dad Grow talk about their mishaps they had as youths, maybe better than the stories was the reaction from Grandma Grow who was hearing many of these stories for the first time.

All in all, Christmas as the Grows was great! I'm sorry for such a long entry, but I'm not really that great at knowing what to leave out.

Utah to Las Vegas....

So everyone, we're moving to Las Vegas.

Alright...that's not true. This is actually a short account of our trip to the Las Vegas bowl on our way to AZ for Christmas. Saturday December 20, about 4 am, we packed our kids into the Xterra and headed south. Because the snow had been falling, we wanted to allow ourselves plenty of time to get down to LV. It wasn't a bad drive overall, though we did have a few times that the use of 4-wheel was necessary. We stopped by the cougar tailgate at an auto dealership in Mesquite where we picked up a couple of footballs for Scott and Eva, and other necessary cougar supplies. When we got to Vegas, we were there several hours before check-in. Our hotel was nice enough to allow us in early. We stayed at the Trump International Tower and Hotel which was amazing. I have never stayed at a hotel that had only valet parking, and felt a little embarassed handing over the keys to our filthy Xterra, but I got over it. Back to the hotel though, it was fantastic! The room we were in was just like the pictures on the website...the bed was ultra-comfortable, and it just felt luxurious. Too bad Eva wouldn't cooperate.

After checking in and cleaning up, we went and did some awesome stuff. There is a place called the Boneyard in Las Vegas where all the old neon signs that have been put out to pasture are stacked on 3 acres of land. They are raising the funds to build a museum that is going to be amazing. It was a lot of fun to go on a tour, Nellie was in paradise. Think rust, broken glass, old stuff...and you get the picture. I wasn't expecting much, but I was very very impressed. I suggest anyone reading this take an opportunity to do the tour next time they are in Vegas. Google the boneyard and you can find out how. After the tour was over, the local CBS affiliate who was there doing a story on the boneyard interviewed me. Eva was in my arms and kep reaching for the reporter's microphone, poor reporter had no idea what he was getting himself into.

That night, Scott and I went to the Las Vegas Bowl which was fun, but very dissapointing. To make matters worse, we ended up getting lost and missed David Hasselhoff singing the national anthem. Scott was all dressed up in his cougar gear, and he was a great fan. He is starting to understand the game better all of the time. I think that was one of the highlights of the year for me, going to all the cougar games with Scott this year. I have to keep him stocked in treats, but it's a special father-son time. BYU lost to Arizona, never really playing like themselves in the process. They managed to miss 3 field goals, and two receivers dropped could-have-been touchdown passes. When they lose by 10, those types of things eat at you.

The next morning, we sauntered out of town on our way to Peoria AZ...