::new mexico bowl::

Saturday was the New Mexico bowl--BYU vs. UTEP. We really wanted to go, I mean a BYU football game an hour away from our house?!!
Luckily, the big snow storm didn't keep us down and we made it to Albuquerque right on time. In fact, the snow probably helped because we had to cancel work on friday, so we were able to leave even earlier than planned.

We started our outing by going to the football team's fireside at a stake center in ABQ. It was really fun to see the team up close and to hear a few of them speak and sing. The coach spoke last and he gave a great talk. He's such a good guy. He talked about how after the team struggled so much at the beginning of the year people were starting to doubt that the team could be run the way he runs it--with emphasis on the honor code and being a good person--and succeed. And then he talked about successes and where they come from, and the right reasons to do the things we do. It was quite inspiring really.
The boys behaved really well too, which made things even better.

Then we stayed the night in a hotel not far from the stadium. In the morning we got up and headed over to the stadium for the alumni tailgate party. The moment we got to the stadium I realized we'd left the tickets to the game at home. I was just sick! So as soon as we parked at the stadium, we hurried over to the will call and begged them for some help--inadvertently cutting in line on the way and getting yelled at by an angry BYU fan texan. He was mad.
Anyway, they gave us three more tickets, thank goodness, and then my weekend wasn't ruined anymore!
We went over and Max got to spend a little time in the bouncy houses, which is the stuff of dreams to him.

We ate a big southwestern breakfast complete with BYU catering's mint brownies and hot chocolate. We listened to the band for a bit.
Then we headed over and took our seats in the stadium. Max got some awesome stickers for under his eyes so he looked really intense.


Sand spent the whole time sleeping on my chest in his carrier. He was warm (super duper warm) and snuggly and seemed pretty happy. And the awesome baby carrier that I have is pretty easy on the back, so I survived the experience.



He was a trooper. Actually both boys did great and instead of ruining our fun, helped it along for once!
We stayed until half time and then left. It was good timing really and considering the game was a blow out we didn't miss much.
But we did stay long enough to see Santa, who apparently is a UTEP fan. Who knew?!


It was really fun and we'll do it again. Too bad BYU won't be coming to NM regularly anymore for football, but that's just how it goes. All this did was just strengthen our desires to come out to UT for a BYU game sometime in the fall!

::::

Go BYU!  Beat Oklahoma!  Or else, just don't get slaughtered, ok?

We have friends coming over to enjoy the game.  We're glad to have cable this year (unlike last year) so we can actually enjoy games that are broadcast nationally--although of course the nationally broadcast ones are the dangerous ones.  I mean, Oklahoma?  Yikes.

Go cougs.

This really isn't a great photo of anybody but Max, but that's not the point, right?

other attempts:

really cute:

just kind of weird:

**You Should See the Other Guy**

So at the end of the BYU vs. Utah game, Max got into a fist fight with an unruly Ute fan. He got a mean uppercut to the chin that resulted in this:
and this:
But you really should see the other guy.

OK, obviously I'm just kidding. Right after the BYU game yesterday Max was walking around with his pants down around his ankles. Kris went over to help him get his pants up--chaos ensued and giggles and shrieks suddenly ended in screams as Max ended up face first on the hard wood floor. It's tough not to end up that way when you jump up in the air and somebody has ahold of your legs.
So he ended up with a split-open chin. I don't have any photos of that, hopefully you understand.
Since it was saturday night, of course we couldn't get ahold of his doctor and ended up at the ER of the local children's hospital. I was afraid we'd end up waiting there for hours, but luckily it was pretty empty and they took us straight in.
Here he is getting a sticker for allowing the nurse to take his temperature orally instead of rectally. yay!
(Thank goodness for Camera-phones or else how would we document our lives??)
They put some topical anesthetic on his chin and let it sit for about 30 or 40 minutes. Luckily there were about 6 sponge-bob episodes on in a row while we were waiting. Otherwise I don't know if we would've made it.

After they thought his chin was numb enough they strapped him down to a "papoose board" and started into working on him.
The doctor seemed pretty new and pretty nervous. Her hands were shaking pretty bad and she was slow. But she did a good job. Kris held Max's legs and Max screamed as loud as he could the whole time. I was holding a towel at about his nose level so that he wouldn't be able to see the doctor working on him, but I got a little woozy three quarters of the way through and had to turn the job over to someone else and sit down.
Once they finished up and let him sit up he was ok. And once they brought him his orange popsicle he was extra ok.
When we left he burst out of the hospital doors yelling, "My chin is FIXED!!!" and Kris said "That is why I want to go into pediatrics. You can be basically killing a kid one minute, and then three minutes later when you're done he's the happiest kid you ever met. That's fun."
I was just glad his chin was fixed. It took three stitches. But that's nothing a little McDonald's can't fix, right?
Ah well, all's well that ends well as they say. I just can't wait until I get to take him to the doctor's to get the stitches out! I'm sure that'll be fun. Wish me luck!

::TV and Other Random Thoughts::

How cool is it that I'm watching a BYU game right now? Let me tell you, it's cool. It's cool because the BYU game was last night, when we were too busy to watch. All I had to do was pick up my remote and hit a few buttons and then I didn't have to worry about it again.
I guess the DVR/Tivo thing isn't all that new, we've had it for a while, but it is just really cool.
We end up watching a good amount of TV at our house at night because of Max--I'm sure those of you out there with little kids understand. Bedtime is bedtime. It's rather sacred, and once the kid's in bed it's not like you can head out to have fun. So we like to watch TV because it's something we can do together, instead of like reading or something (which we do also of course) that's a more singular experience. Because of the DVR we probably watch more TV than we would otherwise, but I like to think it's more quality TV, because we can actually watch the shows we want. We have a whole bunch of shows from the Discovery Health channel recorded, just waiting for when we're collapsed on the couch, ready to stone out. I just hate channel surfing. There are just too many lame, bad or nasty things on. It's also really nice to have about 40 different episodes of Sesame Street recorded for Max. If I need something to entertain him for a while I know we've got something fun educational ready to go.
So anyway, I love being able to watch the shows I like without having to plan my life around it. It's definitely a small thing in the scope of real life, but for me, with how busy our lives have been it is really nice.

How about dishwashers and clothes washers and driers? I was just thinking this morning as I brought a load of laundry up from the basement. If we didn't have washers and driers, it would take so much stinking time to do laundry. It would be ridiculous! I feel like I can barely find time to run downstairs and switch a load. We are lucky to have technologies that helps us to have time to concentrate on the more important things in life. Like blogging? Hmmm.

Max and I just dropped Kris off at the airport this morning at 5AM. He's on his way to Buffalo NY to interview for a residency position in the pediatric dentistry dept at the hospital there.
On sunday flies to New York City where he has another interview. He's going to be gone a little less than a week. Max and I are getting pretty good at taking care of ourselves, although we still don't like it. Nights seem darker and days seem longer when Kris is gone.
I'm hoping he's going to post some trip updates here on the blog, but he may need a little encouragement. Will anybody that wants to hear from Kris please leave a comment telling him so?

So I'd better go do some work and finish watching the BYU vs TCU game. It's looking good so far, but I've been a BYU fan long enough to know never to take anything for granted......
Go Cougars!!!