Cocobaby Sighting

All these years and I've never known where the cocobaby really came from. Until, we went on vacation to southern Califormia last week and took Max to Disneyland. His favorite ride was--you guessed it--It's A Small World. In the south pacific room, standing on a surfboard, there it was: the father of all cocobabies.




Take special note of the hair.

When we weren't on It's A Small World, which we did 3 times, we were riding rides at Disneyland and California Adventure in between staying at Michael McLean's house in Malibu. It was one of the first vacations that we've ever taken that was completely our own. We set our own schedule and did things just the way we wanted. That isn't to say that it isn't great to go on vacation with family and/or friends, but sometimes you just need to do your own thing.

Day 1
We flew in early last Saturday morning and drove up to the McLean's. Uncle Mike and Lynn were still home, so they gave us a tour of their amazing house and took us to eat at one of the local digs in Malibu, Malibu Seafood. We even took their RV, which was like pure heaven for Max. Later, we met up with Jeff and Kathryn and went to the beach.

The house was amazing. Three of any four walls were glass. You always had views of the canyon and the ocean. There were no window coverings, so it was tough to get Max to sleep before dark. We loved the modern architecture.

Day 2
We ate breakfast in the car in the church parking lot because there was no food at the McLean's house. I hadn't realized that the grocery store would close early on Saturday night, so when I went, it was closed. That was ok by Max, he liked eating in the car, but I spilled his milk and didn't do a very good job cleaning it up. So, it only got stinkier as each day went by.
After Church, we went to the cemetery where Ginna's grandparents are buried. That would be Max's greatgrandparents. We spent the rest of day visiting with Ginna's relatives. We had a great time with them. We did some swimming and lots of eating. In fact, we got so much pizza to take home with us that we ate it for the rest of the week.



Day 3
Beach and shopping. We went swimming at Zuma beach and finished it off with some shopping at the Beverly Center. Max also pooped in the toilet there, but I'll spare everyone the pictures.


This is Max and me shaking off some sand at McLean's, so we didn't get the concrete bath tubs too sandy. We did anyway.

Day 4
Disneyland. Max really liked it. We scared him a little bit on Splash Mountain and Pirates of the Caribbean, but he fell so in love with Autopia and It's A Small World, that it made up for it.




Day 5
California Adventure and more Disneyland. We got to CA early and it wasn't too busy, so we got to ride a lot of rides without having to wait in line. We did Monsters several times to start the day. Max also got to see lifesize lightning McQueen and Tow-Mater. They let him help wash them.
The highpoint for Max was probably when we were going into Soaring over California and a huge group of EFY counselors spotted Max's BYU shirt and broke into a BYU cheer. Max was a little overwhelmed. They all ended up on the ride with us and Max copied everything they did, screams, cheers and claps. Afterward he was super smiley.




Day 6
This was our last so we spent it cleaning up the house and getting packed up. Still, we made time to hit the beach one last time. Max got so much in his hair that his bed at home is full of it. We still haven't got it all out, several baths and swimming trips later.



Ginna put together a great YouTube video of some of the stuff in case you're dying to see more. Ha. We had a great time and thanks to the McLeans for giving us an amazing place to stay and to Ginna for working hard to make it all happen.

Thanks for the Feedback

Thanks to everybody for their feedback on the photos. We ended up using the third blue shirt picture and we feel really good about it! May everyone that gave their opinion have the best weekend ever!!!

Opinions Needed: Application 2x2s

As part of my application to residency programs I have to send in a 2x2 picture. My approach to the whole process has been to treat each part of the application as if it could make or break the the whole thing. We took a whole bunch of pictures today, but we're having trouble deciding which one to use. I decided to post some of them and ask for advice on which one we should use.
Just imagine you are going to be looking at a stack of applications and all you have is a 2x2 picture to put a face on it. Which picture makes you want to interview the person? Which one makes you want the person in your program?
Any feedback would be great. Thanks,

Blog on

New Movie

Kelly made a new movie with Max!!! It's great, check it out.
Max thinks he's a movie star.

Good News All Around

Good news around our place this weekend. You'll note the picture: evidence that I've started to ride again. There's a guy at church named Gordon who has been begging me to take him for a bike ride. In fact, his wife actually asks me about it more than he does. Everyone wants me to take him out riding, but due to the Ti clavicle, I haven't been able to, until now.
Saturday morning Ginna was at a primary activity and Gordon was there too. Sure enough, he was hastling Ginna about when she was going to let me take him on a ride (and we all know that the only reason I haven't been out riding before this is because Ginna didn't want me to start too soon). It turns out that the reason Gordon is so desperate to go for a ride is because he hasn't been able to ride much since moving to Kansas City for residency in--you guessed it--orthopedic surgery. Gordon explained to Ginna in doctor terms why I should be albe to start riding and then promply scheduled time for us to ride this week. When Ginna got home from the activity I was about the lend my bike to Jeff for a couple of weeks while he waited on a new bike to be delivered. Said Ginna, "you might not want to do that."
Yesterday, I went on a ride for about 45 minutes. As I walked out the door Max said, "dad, be carefull on your speed bike." I would be lying if I said I wasn't a little nervous at first, but the feeling went away and I had a great time. Nothing gets the endorphins flowing like a good ride, so I felt good the rest of the night too.


But way more important than my return to cycling is Max's triumph on the toilet. The hoss in this picture was two days in the making. We were nervous, but Max seems to finally have decided that he doesn't want to poop in his underwear or a diaper. He has been doing a great job of staying dry, but the toilet duece has been very ellusive. We celebrated with two rolls of Smarites. If you can't tell, I was very proud of this poop, which left behind Max's first skid marks. What a boy.

Fake out?

We took Max to the theater to see Ratatouille (did I spell that right?) last weekend. He loved it. He was great. He stayed in his seat the whole time and wasn't loud and even fell asleep at the end. We were so excited. And it was a good thing he was good too, because we went down to the plaza, and before we realized it we were paying $30 for us all to go to the movie!!!! They charge full price for kids!!!
So anyway, we were proud and excited.
So this weekend we tried to take him to a planetarium laser show. We were too late and missed it, so we hurried and decided to go to this 3-D dinosaur movie at the extreme screen. It was like a science movie. He was terrible. We made him promise that he'd wear his 3-D glasses, and he said he would but as soon as we sat down, and a dinosaur head came at him from the screen he pulled off the glasses and refused to put them on again. Then he wouldn't sit still and he wouldn't even sit down. So anyway, that was a bust. We're thinking he faked us out. We'll try again with another movie, but now we're a little nervous. Maybe it wasn't an unfair test of behavior because it was a pixar movie, and the only movies he's actually ever sat through are pixar movies.
So we'll keep everyone updated. We'll probably hit the dollar movie for our next test.
Oh for the days::

The Best Husband Ever!

Kris snuck out of the house last night at 12:30 to go get me a copy of the new Harry Potter book. How sweet is that?
He surprised me with it in the morning. I was planning on heading down to the bookstore sometime this afternoon to get a copy, but he was afraid they would sell out, which evidently they did, so he made sure that I had one.
It was a great surprise, and so thoughtful!!!
Now I just have to find time to read it--the fact that I have to give a talk tomorrow morning and teach my lesson for the CTR 5 class makes it tough, but I'm sure I'll find a way.

The Hit List

I finally submitted my residency applications. It's still a few weeks before the first submission deadline, so we're doing well on time. I don't expect to know anything about interviews until late fall. And if I'm lucky enough to have interviews, I won't know anything about where I've matched--if anywhere--until February. It's a long road, but we've made the first step. So, without further adieu here is the list of programs we're applying to:

The Children's Hospital at Colorado
Primary Children's Hospital at Utah
University of Washington
University of Missouri-Kansas City, Children's Mercy Hospital
University of Ohio
Cincinnati Children's Hospital
Children's Hospital of Wisconsin
University of Southern California
Buffalo Women and Children's Hospital
Jocobi Medical Center, Bronx NY
Lutheren Medical Center, NY
St. Barnabas Children's Hospital, NY
Albert Einstein Memorial Hospital, NY

Wow, that's a lot of places. It would be fun to end up some place where we have friends or family, but we'd be happy to go any of these places.

New Max movie

I (Ginna) assembled a new Max movie this morning. This movie was inspired by the "Missing Mama Fish movie" that Kris's brother Kelly made a few months ago. For those of you that haven't gotten to see that movie, I think I'll stick it in the end of this entry.
Anyway, this footage was shot in late April, shortly after the Mama Fish movie. So it's a little outdated, but still a big hit at our house. Max has already watched it like 15 times. He's very proud of it. I like it pretty well myself.
Please excuse the intro screen here, I'm not entirely sure why that's the part YouTube decided to make the introductory screen, it's not a "potty" movie. anyway.....
Enjoy!



I think Max is a pretty good actor. I think he should be earning us money doing commericals. Just kidding. But I wouldn't complain if he earned us some money with his good looks. Ok, just kidding again. ANYWAY

Here's the Mama Fish movie. Big thanks to Kelly, who is the creative genius. He did this with Max while babysitting one afternoon. He put it all together in about an hour or two. Pretty amazing. It still tops the list of Max's favs and captivates him whenever it's on. We don't have to reinact it four times a day anymore though, so that's nice.