2008 Father and Sons Outing

The annual rite of passage for any LDS boy comes around each springtime with the traditional Father and Son outing. I have great memories of going to the mountains with my dad as a boy, having fun with my brother and friends, listening to my dad tell his famous stories around the campfire, waking up all night listening to my dad snoring next to me, the big pancake breakfast on Saturday morning and always getting thrown in the lake by my dad later that day. Dad doesn't sleep close by anymore, but Trev and Logan make their own "noises" all night long. So the activities haven't changed much from year to year, the only difference is now I bring ear plugs. Here's a few pics from this years outing.

Logan having a jump with some friends...



The big pancake breakfast...

Benny looking like he is getting away with something...


The famous water balloon fight after breakfast (notice the launcher)





Cruising the lake afterwards.




And of course my dad dumping someone in the lake (look at the shorts and legs going over the side on the right)...


Its comforting to know that somethings don't change.

The Great Goo-gah

Jackson has a slight fascination with his baby blanket. And when I say slight, I mean that in the most sarcastic way possible! He loves that thing. He has named it "Goo-gah". He must have his Goo-gah whenever he sleeps, whenever he plays outside and would like to have it when he eats, but mommy says no.

The Goo-gah is actually a loner blanket from Uncle Samuel. How old is Samuel, you ask? 26 years old, baby. And that's how old this blanket is. Samuel has graciously let us borrow his baby blankie for Jackson to use at his leisure. Unfortunately that blanket has seen a lot of love and it's beginning to show. That thing has been washed so many times that the fabric is almost see through. It is coming apart at the seams so part of the batting is exposed. Let's face it folks, that thing is old and worn. (This is Samuel when he was just about Jackson's age. What a cutie!)

Jackson's obsession goes a little further than just the blankie. He loves that thin worn cotton. He rubs it between his fingers while he sucks the fingers on his other hand. See picture:

Any thin nylon fabric will also appease his fettish - like my underclothes, for example. I cut up a bunch of my old slips for him that I don't wear anymore. He drags those things around till they are brown and nasty and completely unrecognizeable from the white fabric that they once were. And when he cannot find his Goo-gah or his piece of slip fabric he goes straight to mama - because mama always has what he's looking for. He tugs at my shirt hem or just dives his hand down the front of my shirt till he gets his hand on some silkies. He always seems to do this "diving for silkies" at the most opportune moments - like at church or while I'm talking to someone that does not already know about his fettish. There's nothing quite like sitting in sacrament meeting with your son's entire arm down the front of your shirt. Nice.

Well, I think that's quite enough information about Jackson's self-soothing habits. Hopefully he'll be able to look back and enjoy this post when he's older...

Strawberry Jam

This week for Family Home Evening (FHE) we decided to forgo our lesson and just have a nice family activity - making homemade strawberry freezer jam.

Jeremy grew up with homemade jam and has pushed us to keep this tradition in our family. We love the finished product and eat it year round as we store it in the freezer so it's fresh whenever we are ready for it.

I stopped at a local fruit stand and bought a whole flat of strawberries - they are $15/flat this year. Goodness! But you just can't beat a fresh picked strawberry from the field - they are so juicy and taste like summer!


Here we are prepping the berries. Can you see the 25 pound bag of sugar in the background?

This is the ingredient list. Notice the recipe requires almost twice as much sugar as fruit!

Jackson always loves to help too.



Even Jacob (a cousin) thought it looked like fun and had to get in on the action.

Daddy and Logan did a great job as they gradually stirred in the pectin.

Lizzie's job was to screw all the lids and rings onto the jars.

Daddy has the best steady hand for pouring the sticky jam into the jars.

Our finished product! I counted 22 cups of jam.

Trevor got the point of our "no lesson" FHE. Later last night he said to me,
"Mommy, I know why we didn't have a lesson tonight."
I said, "Why's that, Trevor?"
He said, "So we could have some fun family time together."
Ahhh. We are getting through to these kids after all!

We had just enough strawberries left over to have some strawberry shortcake for dessert. So, I whipped up a white cake mix and let it bake while we finished up canning our jam. FHE was good for the memories and the tastebuds! Mmmm....we love strawberry season!

I'm starting to get a little lightheaded...

I let down my tough guy vice principal persona at work for a few minutes this morning to have a little fun with helium. Students at my school took the science portion of the California standards test today. As a fun way to pump them up, me and one of our science teachers finished making the morning announcements by introducing what portion of the test they would be taking after taking a deep breathe of helium (me) and sulfur hexa flouride (Chris Fuge). The Sulfer has the opposite effect as the helium as you will see. I asked students later on what they thought and they said they had a tough time understanding me because of the high voice (This is where my brother Matt chimes in and says something like, "sounds normal to me"). The video is poor quality, but you can get the idea.



To use the helium well, you have to take a deep breathe, expel all your air, breathe the helium deeply and hold it. I started this process a little early as my principal was not quite ready to hand over the mic and ended up holding the helium a little early and way too long. As a result, my lungs started to hurt and I started to feel a little lightheaded, I can't remember the last time I sucked in helium. Oh well, It was fun while it lasted now back to being the tough guy.

Radio Parade?

No, no, no - RODEO Parade. The kids could not say the word Rodeo. So they told everyone we were going to the Radio Parade instead.

We Durans are parade people. We love parades. We live for parades. We THRIVE on parades! The Wards, on the other hand, are not parade people. So, Jeremy had to work on Saturday morning and I got to take the kids to the parade! Woo hoo!

Dad always gets us a great parking spot and we always come running in at the last minute - late as usual.

Jordan was our Rock Star as he yelled to all the people passing out the free stuff. We love the free stuff! We came home with a bag full of candy, stickers, flags, pencils, magnets, crayons and tons of coupons. Notice he's holding the free GEEK SQUAD t-shirt. Awesome.

Here's Jackson enjoying some of those free handouts. Could there be a happier kid? 2 suckers instead of just one!

Here were some of our favorites...

The clowns really were funny this year. They had the whole crowd laughing at their antics. The bands and flag girls were great - all decked out in denim and cowboy hats. (Yay, Kaleigh! Goooooo Reyburn!) We had a fun morning of people watching, yummy snacks and had a nice visit with my Mom, Uncle Jordan, Dad and Mom's friend Anne. Good times, good times.

Lizzie's photography debut

Lizzie thought the new flowers I planted along the front of our house were so pretty. She loves anything beautiful - she is a girly girl after all! She picked up the camera the morning after I'd planted this new border and went outside to snap a few pics. The last one - the light pink one - is my favorite. She focused in really good so the image is nice and sharp. These pictures turned out pretty good for her first try. Robb, what do you think?

My first Tag

MAREE NICKEL I do read your blog!

This is what you do:
1. Pick up the nearest book (at least 123 pages).
2. Turn to page 123.
3. Find the 5th sentence
4. Post the 5th sentence on your blog.

Ok. So the nearest book did have a pg. 123, but it did not have a 5th sentence. I'll just post the last line:

"and ordinances of the Gos-pel."

Any guesses what book that came from??

Now I tag Caralee and Kelly Laing.

Death by Triathlon

So two weeks ago Matt says to me, "Hey, they moved the Millerton Lake Triathlon back to Saturday this year, do you want to do it with me?" Never being one to overestimate my ability, (ya right) I responded, "Umm OK". Thus began a rigorous two week training schedule for Matt and I of early mornings at his school's pool and riding the bike on the trainer in an attempt to not embarrass ourselves too much come the big day of the event. Both of us have done this triathlon before, but it has been five years since I last did one. In fact, I really haven't swam (besides in the backyard) or rode a bike much since the the last time I did one. Fortunately, this was a "sprint" distance triathlon, which is around a 400 yard swim, 12 mile bike and 3 mile run.

I have had some interesting experiences previously at this traithlon. The first time I ever participated in the event was around 6-7 years ago. I was then teaching and a colleague of mine asked me, because he knew I swam in high school, if I wanted to be on a team with him and another fellow teacher for the Millerton Lake Triathlon with me completing the swim portion. I trained (somewhat) and the day of the event I showed up thinking I was ready to go. I had learned during training that I needed to add a little protection under my arms, or they would get chaffed during long swims (I was a good 20-30 pounds heavier then), and as I was about to swim a mile, I lathered up my armpits and adjacent regions with a big ol' gobs of Vaseline. As I was walking down the boat ramp to the water preparing to swim, I noticed that I was the only person without a full body wet suit, and, as I was wearing one of my old speedos, (that's right I kept em), that made me feel a little awkward. Picture the scene, there I was, standing in the water waist deep, big hairy gut hanging over my speedo and armpits glistening with the morning sunrise causing fellow racers to shield their eyes from the bright glare off of the Vaseline...

I have since recovered from the mental scars of that humbling experience. Because I am lighter and in somewhat better shape, this years triathlon went much better. The cool weather lately made us fear stepping into that cold water at 7:45 in the morning, but Matt and I were surprised at how good it felt. There was a decent size crowd this year causing for some serious congestion at the start of the race.
Swimming with over one hundred people all going in the same direction in a confined space causes for some good punches and kicks to the face at the start of the race until the crowd begins to thin out.
Matt was tempted to resort to some of our old water polo moves of pull, punch and swim that we once perfected to make some space but decided against it.

The run up the ramp after the swim is perhaps the worst part of the whole ordeal. You come up out of the water already winded and then you have to run a couple hundred yards uphill over corrugated cement.
Once on the bike, I began to feel just how out of shape I currently am

and how much I need to ride a bike more as people that I passed during the swim began to return the favor.
While on the bike, there were a few thoughts that kept running through my mind. I thought that I would list a few of them for you:

1. I can't believe I paid for this!
2. What was I thinking?
3. I am a big fat hairy guerrilla-monkey.
4. I can't believe I just got passed by a 65 year old granny.

The hardest part of the bike ride was mile-plus ride up heartbreak hill. Even more difficult it dealing with the thought that once I go down this hill I have to turn around and do it again. Thankfully, the run was not as bad. I finished with a time of 1:17, a little slower then the last one I did.
A little slower then last time, but considering how long we prepared for it, I was happy. Jennifer, who was a good sport of waking herself and the kids up early to be there, was very happy to give me a at the finish line sweaty kiss.



Here's Matt at the finish line
Post race, Matt and I enjoyed sharing the experience with each other and others and talking about how good the next one is going to be

as well as having some fun with the kids.



Hopefully we'll be a little more prepared for the next one. Man I'm gonna feel it tomorrow...