Isaac is getting bigger!

Thought I'd post some pictures of the little squirt. It's been awhile and they grow so fast!

Isaac in his cute cloth diapers. The red one is a fleece cover and soo soft. Was tempted to buy some spiffy, neat-o one-size cloth diapers by bumgenius that my friend Renee raves about, but I already have all the cloth diapers I need since Matthew was little. And at roughly $20 a pop I just couldn't justify it.

Crawling:


Tried to get a picture of him head on, but he kept crawling towards me too quickly. [Must EAT camera!] Good shot of his baby blues though!
His hair curls back after baths just like Melissa's did as a baby. I think he's going to have curls!

Just today. Happy baby!

Recent Pictures

Reading with Great-Grandma Sinden during our last trip to Washington.
Visiting Grandpa Don in his new office. It's really nice!

Matthew holding Isaac. Matthew loves to hold and play with his baby brother.

Pictures of me from PyCon

Open space discussions at pycon 09

Open space discussions at pycon 09
Originally uploaded by jbellis

It was about 80% full to start with; then filling the rest of the
spaces became a bit of a game.

Nursivore

While at the dinner table Matthew, Melissa, and I discussed what different animals ate and classified them as herbivore, carnivore, or omnivore. When we got to people, we talked about all the different kinds of food people need to eat to stay healthy and "grow BIG." The "grow big" part was added for Melissa's benefit- she's become a bit picky lately. She desperately wants to be big, though.

Matthew grew thoughtful for a moment and then chimed in, "but what about Isaac? Is he a nursivore or a milkivore?"

This child needs to sleep better

He's been awake roughly 4-5 times and up since a little before 5 AM. This is where Daddy usually takes over and lets me rest while he gets Isaac back to sleep.

Daddy's out of town.

First I fed him, but he remained restless. I'm a pretty sound sleeper, but even I can't sleep with a squirmy baby kicking me and rolling around. So I wrapped him up and put him in his bed. He started crying. Sigh. I rocked him and he settled down and fell asleep. When placed back in his bed, full throttle crying ensued with his fists waving angrily. I picked him up and held him while rubbing his back. He calmed down and silently thrashed around for a bit, then tried to nurse. Sorry kiddo, you've eaten, you're full, the girls are empty, and I'm done. I'm NOT an all night buffet. Sorry. Exhausted, I tried putting him in his own bed while patting him, but he just cried louder. So I am singing (a tired tuneless song). He doesn't seem to mind the mediocre performance. Right now he is quiet in his bed and not tossing much. *Music* calms the savage pumpkin.

It's been over an hour of this and Mommy is beat. Matthew will be up in less than an hour to get ready for school.

Sigh.

I miss Jonathan when he is out of town!

[Update: 6:10 I think he's going to sleep...signing off.]

[Update 2: Well rats! He went back to sleep, but I couldn't.]

Daddy serves breakfast

Daddy serves breakfast
Originally uploaded by jbellis

Aww yeah.

Melissa's first bouquet

Melissa's first bouquet
Originally uploaded by jbellis

I got both my girls flowers on our last trip to the store. Melissa
was _very_ pleased. Of course she wanted the pink ones.

Chasing the baby

Tonight we played "I'm going to get Isaac!" for the first time. Isaac didn't really get the running (crawling) away part, but he still enjoyed being "caught" and tickled. Baby laughs are fun!

That's a lot of crap

This is how much stuff you need to take three kids to Grandma's for
five days.

Stealth cops

Stealth cops
Originally uploaded by jbellis

Unmarked police cars are not sporting to begin with. Now there are unmarked _SUVs_ pulling people over.

That's just not right.

Rolling over the Caravan

Rolling over the Caravan
Originally uploaded by jbellis

This is the minivan that Rachel's brothers drove in high school.  We borrowed it while we were up for the wedding.  If you couldn't tell that it's getting along in years from the dents her brothers put in it, you definitely could when you turned on the heat, and then immediately turned it back off because the smell of exhaust was overpowering.

We meant to take a picture when we rolled it over at 200k miles, but forgot until 15 miles later.

We thought Brian would get a kick out of this.

Drier hands through technology

Drier hands through technology
Originally uploaded by jbellis

With 150 employees, 90% male, in an office space designed for 30, some problems were bound to ensue. One such was the Great Paper Towel disposal problem: with that many men washing their hands, the used paper towels would quickly fill the bin and overflow to the floor.

Enter the Dyson Airblade. It dries your hands with cold air in about five seconds, literally blasting the water off of you rather than evaporating it -- you can see your skin rippling under the pressure. Truly a manly solution.

This is what $5000 looks like

This is what $5000 looks like
Originally uploaded by jbellis

We're adding 4 of these 160GB SSD cards to our database servers, for a total of $20,000 each.

It's sort of impressive for how unimpressive it looks.

Reminds me of the time I was an assistant sysadmin at BYU, and one of the memory boards in the combustion simulation lab's most expensive machine went bad. This was one of 8 256MB boards in the machine, each slightly larger in area than a sheet of paper, giving it 2GB of ram. This was when Windows 98 was new and a typical desktop had 32MB. And of course this was proprietary SGI memory which meant it was even more expensive. $15,000? It was enough to freak me out when I was handling the new one lest a freak static discharge ruin it.

This amazing toy entertained Isaac for all of lunch

This amazing toy entertained Isaac for all of lunch
Originally uploaded by jbellis

Yes: a stick.

A close call

There are 4 music stations I can listen to in San Antonio: one each of classical, rock, alternative, and metal. Everything else is pop, latin, or country. My favorite is the alternative station; I like most of what they play but it's not stuff I've heard a thousand times. (Except for when they sometimes play country. Sorry guys, country is not "alternative." Especially not in Texas.)

But a couple days ago I'd turn it on in the morning driving in to work and get some latin crap. What the hell? I switched back and forth unhappily between the other stations. When I got closer to work I tried it again and this time I got the alternative station.

I thought some other station must have started up and was overpowering the poor little alternative college-radio transmitter.

But last night when I got the latin I decided to wait for the station ID to see what was going on. When the song ended the DJ started interviewing the singer, some fairly popular guy from Brazil who's won a few awards. (Although he's not that popular -- I tried to google him based on knowing that his first name was Alexander, he's from Brazil, and he's on tour in the US now including SA this weekend. I failed.) So the latin crap was from this guy's latest album to promote his tour. Presumably Monday all will be back to normal.

Whew.

Matthew's Art

Matthew really likes to draw. Here are some of his most recent doodles:

Boy with Glasses (From his minimalist period)

For a long time Matthew primarily drew with pens. Lately he's become fond of oil pastels. Regardless of his medium, he often puts glasses on the faces he draws.

Valentine's (still from the minimalist period)

This was a card for Jonathan and me. Inside he wished us a Happy Valentine's Day and ended it with "Love, Matthew" Notice the glasses, and the spiky hair. A fairly accurate representation of Jonathan, I'd say! Matthew's let me know that he wants to be able to spike his hair next time I give him a haircut.

Birthday Cake

This one I think is inspired by the Hispanic culture here in San Antonio. It's supposed to be a birthday cake, but he used colors you would find more at home on the Mexican flag than a traditional birthday cake.

Boat on the water

If you look closely you can see all of the smiling people in the portholes. Guess they aren't seasick yet...

Starry (Day?)

Matthew has a series of drawings inspired by Van Gogh's starry night. This is the only day time one he's done, and I can't seem to find the night scenes (sometimes he draws a mountain, sometimes not)... Additionally he doesn't typically asked how to spell words, if he doesn't know he just guesses phonetically. Hence the "Mete the new picture. I like it. What do you think about it." I'm rather surprised that he knew how to spell "picture" but not "meet!" Go figure.

A Game

This is a game Matthew designed. He explained all the rules and details to me, but it was pretty involved. Rather than misrepresenting some fine point I will just say that it included robots, guns, tricky parts and was "cool."

[Jonathan notes: he got our neighbor Joseph to play the game with him. It involved killing bad guys, of course. It sounded an awful lot like Savage Moon on paper. After about ten minutes Joseph started asking plaintively, "can we play something else now?" Matthew tried and failed to get him to keep playing until they beat the boss. Then he tried to get Rachel to play. And then me. I sort of felt turning him down but it really did sound excruciating.]

Untitled

Not sure what inspired this next one.

Bluebonnets

Van Gogh had his sunflowers, Monet favored water lilies, Matthew likes bluebonnets. He has a whole collection of bluebonnet art on all different kinds of paper and varying styles. This one needs to be mailed to Grandma and Grandpa as you can see. Why bluebonnets? I'm guessing it must be the Texas indoctrination education system. It's the state flower naturally, and Matthew knows all about it. He is slowly imprinting on Texas. One nice side effect is his use of "sir" and "ma'am." Melissa has picked up on it as well, but she just uses "sir." Think of Marcie in comic strip Peanuts.

And finally the artist himself:

It's official

Isaac is crawling now. It's actually more of a forward scoot. But he can get where he wants to go, and fairly quickly too.

Time to baby-proof in earnest.

Stowaway

Melissa came downstairs because she "forgot someting" as Rachel and I leaned back to watch Enchanted. This was nothing unusual; Rachel showed her where she had left her (new, pink with hearts) wallet and stuffed cat. Melissa headed back upstairs with her treasures slowly, with many glances back. I knew what was going through her head: "Princess movie."

So when she paused on the stairs I shouted up, "go to bed!" And it sounded like she did. But she must have crept back because when Rachel put Isaac in the swing she saw Melissa again. "Go to bed!" Again bedward motion ensued.

When the movie ended at 11, I heard rustling on the stairs again. Little imp! "Melissa," I said, "come here, and I'll give you a ride to bed." Daddy is a softie. (Melissa talked to my mom on the phone earlier today. "Dranma says I am her sunshine!" she reported. She was very pleased.)

"Der was one dragon," she told me, "a talking dragon. A liddle bit scary." Was it a good princess movie? "Yes!" Enchanted was actually the last movie we saw in theaters as a family. I missed a lot, including the ending, because Melissa kept getting bored. What a difference a year makes when you are three.

This morning I walked Matthew to school. Everyone else is still sleeping. If Melissa gets up before Isaac, I have turned on Enchanted to keep her from barging her mom's room and waking up her brother. There is a banana on the coffee table in case she needs a snack.

Close to home

I had some extra time this morning -- Isaac was sleeping and we didn't have to get Melissa or Rachel ready for church -- and I was leafing through a Calvin & Hobbes book. For a guy with no kids himself, Watterson sure nails six year old boys. Of course some things are mixed in from older ages, but the resemblance is eerie. I read them out loud, substituting "Matthew" for "Calvin," and Rachel and I laughed hysterically. (Matthew didn't approve, of course. He does not think he is funny, at all.)

Like Calvin, Matthew is prone to exaggeration. "Never" and "anything" are very popular with him. So is "always."



Rachel and I refer to this one whenever the kids are "tired sick" (as opposed to "moaning and yelling sick"). Like Melissa today.



And when Matthew gets a shot, it goes remarkably like this. Only with less aggression and more tears.

Trial by puke

Rachel is a huge fan of "Totally Toddler" cleaning solution, but I haven't been able to find any in Texas (or online). So I got some "Kids n Pets" at Wal-mart to see if that could fill in.

It did fine on the dirt that someone tracked in yesterday morning. Rachel claims that the stride was larger than a kid's, and she had nothing to do with it. I'm not sure what she's hinting at there. But I asked if this meant Kids n Pets was the real deal, and she said we won't know until we've tested it on blood and vomit and poop and all the other things kids do.

We're moving faster than I anticipated to mark off that list. At 1:00 AM Melissa puked violently all over herself and the carpet. Kids n Pets acquitted itself well. She didn't make it to the bathroom but at least she got out of her bed. Daddy does not like making beds at 1:00.

Melissa claimed to be all better when she got up at 9, but we kept her home from church anyway. (Duh.) She was not pleased about this, but didn't make much of a fuss. If you know Melissa you know that this is unusual for her. But the real proof came later.

Rachel: "It's time for some rest. Let's go to bed now."
Melissa: "Okay."

Okay? Okay?

Wow.

A historic moment

A historic moment
Originally uploaded by jbellis

Isaac getting into things he shouldn't:

Isaac's nebulizer

Isaac's nebulizer
Originally uploaded by jbellis

It helps his bronchitis a lot, but Isaac does Not Approve.

Beautiful Washington

As an Army brat, I grew up all over the country and have called many places home. I have to say that western Washington is the most beautiful place I have ever lived.

Here are some pictures just in my parents' yard and pasture from our latest trip.

Even in the dead of winter, it is still quite green. Moss grows on EVERYTHING that is stationary. The house roof has to be de-mossed each spring. In the spring, summer, and fall Washington is a kaleidoscope of brilliant blooms and even more shades of green.

Here's a picture of the barn. My Dad grew up on a farm and is true to the saying, "You can take the boy off the farm, but you can't take the farm out of the boy." Since he already has a career and is in the Reserves, he's more of a part-time gentleman farmer. He raises a few cows 'cause he likes cows. Our first cows were named Midnight and Moonshine. Midnight, as her name suggests, was a pitch black calf. She was quite willful liked to escape. Before the housing development went up next to my parents' property it was a wild jumble of pasture and massive blackberry vines. Midnight ran over and hid in the brambles. We had to lure her out with her mama, but even then she was extremely tricky to catch. We spent hours chasing down that dumb cow!

In addition to cows, some years my Dad would grow a great big vegetable garden. I remember planting row after row of corn the day of a high school dance. I was barefoot and stamping the dirt down to cover the kernels. I'd remembered to put sunblock everywhere, so I thought. However, that evening I noticed that I'd managed to sunburn the tops of my feet! Then when it was time to harvest the corn, the six of us spent the entire day blanching, cutting the kernels from the cob, and bagging the corn in freezer bags. Several large kettles boiled the water for blanching and we had two new trash cans filled with icy water for chilling the corn afterward. It was quite the production. We had plenty of corn that winter.


Right now my Dad's "herd" consists of just a mama cow and her twin calves, a little bull and a heifer. They were born a few weeks after Isaac was. My father is quite proud of the twins. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if he keeps a picture of them in his wallet, right next to the grandkids.


Right outside the front porch is a boulder wall which wraps around half of the house. Currently it's just moss and ferns, but in the spring it is simply gorgeous. I'm guessing that there are about 10 different massive rhododendrons, several lilacs, and other blooming shrubs.


And another view from a different part of the wall.

There's a duck pond too, but I only saw a few canadian geese roaming around. Mom was dismayed when she learned that I'd taken some pictures. "But it's so ugly right now! Everything is brown and dead!" I think she would have difficulty adjusting to more arid climes. Even in the winter I find Washington gorgeous.

Almost crawling

Almost crawling
Originally uploaded by jbellis

Isaac likes to rock up on his knees a lot now, but he's not quite sure what to do from there.

How not to do it

Rachel received this email. I believe the sender has a college degree.

Wedding Pictures

Pictures as promised:


Aren't they a gorgeous couple?

Melissa generously shared her tic tacs with everyone. Good thing too, because there was some smooching going on! Imagine that!


I just love this shot I took of Andrea when she was leaning over to chat with Melissa. What a beautiful bride!

Here's a shot of Mom holding up the train. The dress was a BEAST to bustle. There were six hidden loops to attached to 6 hidden buttons. Mom and I helped dress Andrea. I accidentally pulled one of the loops a little too hard and we had to do some quick stitching on the loop. Thank goodness the dress was fine, just the ribboned loop broke. I'm glad I was able to "help" with the dressing, even though I was more hindrance than help. It was so neat to be there for my sister.


Matthew played the part of photographer as well. He was quite insistent on poses. The older kids humored him though.

Melissa had fun climbing on the statues. The day couldn't have been better for pictures. It was just a bit overcast so no one was squinting, no wind, and the rain didn't start until that evening. Then it rained for the rest of our stay in Washington. Naturally.
Andrea had "something old and something new, something borrowed and something blue," of course. She wore our great-grandma Hume's crocheted shawl for old. I think the shoes counted as new? The something blue was the beautiful aquamarine (her birthstone) promise ring that Jeremy gave her until he could get the engagement ring. For borrowed she used my wedding veil! I'm quite pleased about that. I designed that veil myself and am so glad that it was used once again. Unlike many veils, it's one continuous oval piece with a simple lace trim. Unfortunately I don't have a very good picture of it, but here's another great one of Andrea.

Speaking of traditions I taped a penny to her shoe for good luck and fortune. Silly me. Still, may they be happy and prosperous!

With that I think I'll end our 1,000 SP post. Can't think of a better post for that milestone.

Multitasking

I am just sitting here.

Just sitting here, nursing a sleepy Isaac, propping the nebulizer mask up to his nose, paying bills online, and blogging.

That's all. :)

Isaac is sick

I have many stories to tell (and a house to clean!) but my priorities have been elsewhere...

Yesterday I rocked, bounced, and held a very fussy, cranky baby. That is pretty much all I did. Isaac was coughing, had a fever off and on, and seemed listless. This had been going on for week, but the last 2 days were noticeably worse. Isaac is generally such a happy baby and appears to have a high tolerance to pain and irritants, so when he cries, his parents take note. The doctor squeezed us in for an appointment at the end of the day. Apparently he's got bronchitis and an ear infection. Isaac's doc tried a nebulizer on his gunky, crackly lungs. He perked up considerably after treatment and was able to cough up some of the crud. The doc sent us home with a nebulizer off the shelf and some antibiotics.

Much to our dismay the nebulizer did not work when it was time for his next treatment. We flipped the switched, nothing, nada. Grr. Last night was another long night. Jonathan got up with him at 2-2:30 am. I took him from 5 till almost 7. This does not include all the times he woke up to eat or just needed to be snuggled back to sleep. Counting those times, I can't really say how many times he woke up. At 5 he was running a fever of 102; so another dose of motrin for you kiddo! Cleaned out his plugged up nose, changed him, fed him, gave him an Isaacsicle, rocked, sang, and rocked some more. Finally he crashed, and we both went to bed.

Jon got Matthew ready in the morning and out the door. Then he took Melissa and went back to the office to pick up a working nebulizer. The nurse verified that, yes indeed it doesn't run, and gave us a different (working) model. Isaac just finished up his latest treatment. His lungs sound really crackly now that the medication has loosened things a bit.

Poor little guy!

On hold with the IRS

So I'm calling the IRS. The recorded voice is a pleasant female. The background music is overplayed classical pieces like Dance of the Sugarplum Fairies and Eine Kleine Nachtmusic.
I dunno. I think it would be more honest to have Darth Vader and The Imperial March.
(Our 07 return was a little complicated, and the IRS screwed up. They think we should pay taxes on some of our income twice. I called because I can't find the letter they sent me. They were eventually able to snail mail -- but not fax or email -- me another copy of the letter. Elapsed time: one hour twenty-one minutes. Then I double-checked what one of the agents told me about publication 525, and realized she was completely wrong. So I called back and waited another forty minutes to talk to expert #3 who confirmed my interpretation.)

Hell is two beds and three children

Downtown Tacoma, 7 am

When we flew out for the wedding, we didn't stay with Rachel's parents for the first three nights because we didn't want little kids underfoot for the pre-wedding prep. And we didn't stay closer because even as early as December all the rooms in every hotel anywhere near Puyallup were spoken for by attendees of some sewing convention. I had no idea there were so many people THAT into sewing.

Rachel has been burned before by airlines screwing up connections or cancelling flights altogether, and while going on standby and arriving at 2 AM is no big deal when you are single (as Jeremy in fact did Friday night!) it is serious business with three kids. So we flew out Thursday to be safe.

Andrea picked us up, dropped me and the kids off at our motel, and took Rachel off to a bridal shower. Matthew had been complaining bitterly and at great length about his ear (my sympathy was sorely tested by his desire to remind me every couple seconds that it still hurts) so after dosing him with ibuprofen Rachel asked her dad to drive the half hour up and check him out. When the drugs kicked in Matthew forgot all about his ear, but it was a good thing Dad was already on the way, because it really was red and infected. Dad wrote out a prescription for Amoxicillin, and even filled it for us in the morning. There are definite perks to having a family physician.

Then we went to bed. And by "went to bed" I mean "Matthew and Melissa bickered constantly until I pulled Matthew into my bed instead half an hour later." Finally they fell asleep, but the fun was not over yet. Any time one of the kids woke up, they all woke up. So there was a lot of not-sleeping going on for sure.

Then they got far too early in the morning, and by "far too early" I mean in particular that not even McDonald's was open. They kept trying to have the best of both time zones the whole trip: go to bed on Pacific time, wake up on Central time. Mommy and Daddy did not approve.

I tried to let Rachel sleep in for a bit after the kids got up like I do at home, but it was hard to find places to take them. Watching them in the room with Rachel was of course not an option. (The object was to let her rest.) The Sinden house was too far away, and Isaac in particular was getting more than his fill of his car seat anyway. I did discover that Friday and Saturday mornings the office building across the street was open, and it turned out there was a little reception area at the top floor with a nice view, clean carpets for Isaac to roll on, and a little magnet sand game with two kid-sized chairs.

So that was my refuge, but Sunday morning that was locked up and Isaac and I had no better option than to sit in the minivan while the rain came down. Fortunately Isaac went back to sleep quickly. Often he will do this when he gets up early; just don't try to put him down. But then Matthew and Melissa woke up too. The close McDonalds didn't have a play area so we headed to downtown Tacoma. They didn't have a play area either, and they didn't open 'til 8 besides -- an hour away. So we went back to Fife where at least Jack in the Box was open by now.

To add insult to injury, the "free wireless internet" didn't even work. Damn it. Even the iphone got crappy reception there and failed about two out of three page loads. Fortunately the Sinden dsl connection worked -- until today. Rachel tells me that's dead too now. Good thing I came home early.

Wedding daze (Andrea is married, part 2)

Friday we had a bit of an adventure related to how although we had enough cars for every party that needed to be somewhere, Andrea hadn't gotten the keys to the Mercury from her parents so when Rachel took the minivan off to get bridesmaid (bridesmatron?) shoes, Andrea had no wheels. I had a very brief stint helping set up chairs in the reception hall, but the women in charge stopped us because they thought they might rearrange the tables a few more times for best effect, and the chairs would just be in the way. So when I had the chance to go run errands I jumped for it.

I didn't get to run the biggest errand, though; we needed plastic plates for the reception that were only carried by the Costco way up by our motel. I volunteered, but Dad asked if I really wanted to be responsible if I got the wrong kind. I conceded the wisdom of having him go instead.

Saturday morning we tried to take a shortcut from our motel down to the Sinden house, our jumping off point. I missed the 512 ramp, though, and there wasn't a way to get back on track for miles, so we followed Google's instructions through the back roads. (I love that iphone.) We still arrived in plenty of time for Rachel to go up with her sister and mother to have their hair done, but the others were having wedding morning jitters and had left early. At that point we really did have a car crunch if Rachel were to take another car up to the hair salon, so we decided that nobody would care in the long run if Rachel just did her own hair instead. This turned out to be the right call, since Andrea's group was a half hour late to the temple as it was. Adding another hour round trip for Rachel to have driven the minivan back to pick us up would have not been good.

Thursday, Rachel had offered me two-to-one odds that Andrea would be late for her wedding. I accepted. The consensus among family members was that I was a fool. They were right; I now owe Rachel a back rub, even though I hear that Mom very uncharacteristically hit 90 on the way up. Fortunately, the temple was "mostly closed" for maintenance that day. I'm not exactly sure how it worked, but the result was that we were the only group there, and nobody seemed to care that the bride was late.

The ceremony was brief. I thought back to my own wedding and how lucky I was to have Rachel. I wanted to go find a quiet place and hold her afterwards; instead, I went back down to reality where Isaac was mad. Isaac wasn't feeling well and Saturday was particularly bad; when I wasn't trying to rock him to sleep, Rachel was.

Pictures took a couple hours. Matthew and Melissa were fine, and Melissa particularly charmed the photographers. (I wouldn't be surprised if the woman had a talk with her boyfriend about children that night.) Isaac was still disgruntled. After a late lunch at 3:30 -- more like dinner time for those of us on an earlier time zone -- the reception was at 7:00. Those of us not in charge (read: everyone but Mom) got a bit of a break.

At the reception, Isaac finally slept. The receiving line was mercifully brief, then Jeremy's nieces and nephews from his sister Christine and her husband Tim stole the show with an Irish tap dance. They were really, really good -- I understand they compete nationally. Very impressive. Then Jeremy had a dance with Andrea. They took waltzing lessons together especially for the occasion. They looked good.

When Andrea tossed her bouquet, Melissa was very excited for a chance to get BIG FLOWERS. The bouquet got stuck in the canopy, but when Jeremy knocked it down it landed right in front of her. Alas, shefroze and a bigger girl scooped it up. Melissa was in tears that she had been so close. Pointing out that the other girl must be very happy didn't help -- go figure. Rachel gave her her corsage as a consolation, and we assured her that when she gets married she will have BIG FLOWERS.

Shortly before the end of the reception, Rachel asked if it wasn't the groomsmen's responsibility to trash the newlyweds' car. "That's a stupid tradition," I said, and as far as I know they got away unscathed.

Pictures will have to wait until Rachel gets back with the camera.

Andrea is married

"How does it feel to have chosen your new brother in law?" someone asked me at the reception.

"Great!" I replied. I am, in fact, rather pleased with myself.

I met Jeremy when I interviewed him for a job at Feature 50, my late employer. It was clear that he was a competent programmer (yes: from me, this is a compliment) and well over six feet tall. It was less obvious that he had a goofy sense of humor and a kind heart. Or that he was 32 and single. In Mormon culture, it is still "a truth universally acknowledged that a single man must be in want of a wife."

Jeremy grew on us. I say "us" because Rachel liked him too. On one occasion he crashed at our place (five minutes from the office) after working late rather than driving the hour back up to Clearfield, and made waffles for the kids in the morning. They loved him. In fact, Jeremy reminded me a lot of my brother Grant. I thought how cool it would be if the kids could have an uncle around again, and what a great uncle Jeremy would make.

Yes, this is how you start to think, as a father. Romance? The happiness of a young couple in love? Those are great side benefits but in my parenting-fogged mind my first thought really was, "He'd make such a great uncle!" Matthew seemed to agree, and later gave Andrea some unsolicited advice as to how to get this one to marry her. We still need to get Andrea to write about that.

So we set them up on a date one weekend when Andrea was in town. Truth be told, Andrea was not immediately smitten. Perhaps she still remembered the first blind date I set her up on, six years ago: Rob was a nice guy, but he didn't bring his A game that night. I also think that Andrea never really saw "computer nerds" as serious possiblities. So they would talk on the phone when she went back to Washington, but she continued to date other men. (Occasionally this made for awkward moments when Jeremy would ask me how Andrea was doing.) Ultimately, of course, Jeremy won her heart and the rest is now history. Until Saturday, though, Rachel forbade the kids from calling Jeremy "Uncle." Just in case.

Side note: "winning" a woman's heart is EXACTLY how we men see the world. Life is a competition, and the hunt for a wife is no exception. There were other men vying for Rachel's attention when I was dating her, but I WON. HAHAHAHAHA. Rachel has told me that this is a little silly, but that is how we are. And, although we might not argue the point with our wives, deep inside we know that this is something to be proud of.