Sparring Sweetie

spix101124_25073, originally uploaded by eouio.

My cute little Avyrlie gets to test for her orange belt next Saturday. If/when she passes, she gets to start gearing up a couple times a week for sparring. I'm hoping she has more fighting instinct than her brother did at 6...

From Avyrlie

Avyrlie asked me to snap a couple pictures of her tonight. This is what she wanted to share with you:

(Click the pic for the rest of the gallery)

Ants in his pants

Ian is getting a bit restless with the lack of back to back physical activities he normally has lined up this time of year with football alone. Now with snow on the ground, he is just chomping at the bit to hit the slopes and is getting by with skateboarding in the cold until Snowbird opens their doors in a couple weeks.

Epic Halloween

This year the tide of Halloween seemed to ebb and flow during a week long battering from saves of candy.

Avyrlie had an event per day -

• Thursday: Church lot trunk-or-treat
• Friday: Spooky Cubicles at Aimee's work
• Saturday: Trick or Treating at Grandma's neighborhood party
• Sunday: Sunday-School sweets

By Monday she was bit burned out on the whole candy thing and would probably have loved to get a couple toothbrushes and just hang out with friends rather than gather selections of sweets from the neighborhood.

She is way more into Halloween as a social event than as a crazed cavity convention, and her Bah-Humbug brother didn't manage to leave the X-Box to answer a single trick-or-treater! Truth be told, we only answered 8 candy requests at our place. Avyrlie's angry pumpkin must have scared them away ;)

(Click the pic to view the rest of the Halloween gallery)

Fall Hike

Aimee and I did a quick hike up to the mouth of Bell's Canyon just up the road from our house and discovered there is a small, and very pretty little lake up there. Definitely a hike we will do again with the kids.

Smith Scera Summer Slam - 4XS

Had a ton of fun with a lot of Smiths for the 2nd annual Summer Slam. We kicked it up a notch with homemade rootbeer, GrillMeister K, and an endless number of cousins!

(Click the pic for the rest of the gallery)

I Don't Want to Die!

I picked up Avyrlie this afternoon and this was our conversation on the way home.

Avyrlie - "Does anyone in the world die?"

Me - "Yes, everyone dies someday."

Avyrlie after bursting into tears - "But I don't want to ever die!"

Me - "Why not?"

Avyrlie between sobs - "Because I just like this world sooo much!"

Me - "It will be a long time before you will ever die."

Avyrlie now smiling again - "Yeah, and you will die way before me too."

The Proof is in the Strawberry

Avyrlie has been gathering evidence to make her case that summer will indeed arrive this year at some point. I'm not much of a summer fan and tease her quite a bit that summer is not happening this year, but maybe when she's 12.

One of the proof's she has been looking for is the first strawberry. Her and Aimee both make a very strong association between strawberries and summertime. Every time we arrive home the first thing she has done is check the strawberry patch for signs of summer's arrival, and the other day she finally found her proof: the very first strawberry starting to grow :)

Bird Murder aka Liza's Absolution

We have arrived home on several occasions to find the above pictured 'bird murder' scene in our front yard. For whatever reason, Aimee decided that Liza had acquired a taste for quail and was sneaking out of the back yard to pounce on unsuspecting quail.
A couple problems with this theory are that quail are very suspicious little birds and Liza's stalking skills are something like a giraffe practicing yoga. Just not likely, but still the accusation stood. Until recently.

Avyrlie and I came home the other day just in time to see a hawk swoop into the front yard atop a herd of quail, land on its chosen victim, and squeeze it until it quit moving. Ian arrived home shortly after and saw the hawk take off with its meal to find a quiet place for dinner.
Sadly for Liza, Aimee witnessed none of this and still harbors some suspicions ;)

Avyrlie thinks you're cute ;)

Our Next Competitor

Avyrlie asked to play soccer this year so we signed her up and crossed our fingers that she wouldn't spend most of her time crying on the field. She has never been competitive and is usually a little sensitive about getting kicked by strangers.

During her first game we were still a bit unsure. She came off in tear once after getting kicked in the back of the knee and seemed to spend the rest of the game practicing her ballerina soccer dance. Very cute. Not competitive.



Today, for her second game she caught on to the whole scoring and teamwork concept. I don't try to push either kid to be overly competitive, but I do hope they at least catch on to the general point of the game. Today Avyrlie caught on that it is not actually ballerina soccer dancing ;)

You know it's rugby if there's blood on the field

Ian left his share today...

Loose Tooth Fun

Yes, I think this is kinda gross too:

Snow Day

What better way to enjoy conference weekend than in the snow! Avyrlie, Liza and I headed out for snowmen, snow angels and snowballs ;)

(click the pic for the rest of the gallery)

Zombie Attack!

Learning From History

We headed to St. George over this last weekend for Ian's rugby tournament. I'll put up another post about the tournament later. They had some tough matches in terrible weather. Ian played great, but no wins :(

After the tournament, we headed up to the red rocks just north of town to walk around a bit and see the sights. Also, I wanted to show the kids the cliff their mom jumped off on our first date.

Aimee and I went down to St. George with some friends to bum around and hike a bit. After several trips to Zions and some slight exaggerating, Aimee had me convinced that she liked the out of doors. She had not yet specified that her style of outdoors was hanging out in the backyard by the pool with an unlimited supply of Diet Coke, electrical outlets and enough artificial nighttime lighting to suntan under. Turns out, the lighting was an especially important detail...

Incorrectly assuming that Aimee was as happy to be out hiking the day away as I was, we ended up straggling behind and didn't get heading back to the car until dusk. I was now unaware of two important facts: Aimee is has no depth perception in anything less than full sunlight and after hiking around aimlessly for several hours she was more likely to leave me behind for dead than listen to anything I had to say.

The first drop-off we came to was about 4 feet. Angry Aimee was not excited about going around it and insisted we just slide down. I managed to talk her around it and in doing so, used up the last tiny shred of patience she didn't have in the first place.

The second drop off, in the pic below, was slightly higher than the first. I pointed out the fact that the car was parked way down below us and that the path forward meant certain death. All she heard was, "The car is right there and if you get to it first you can leave me for dead."

Thinking I had made clear the imminent peril before her, I turned to head around and down to the car. I will never forget the 'WHOOSH, THUD' sound I heard immediately after turning around, or the absence of Aimee when I turned back around.

After a minute's panic as I ran down the hill and found that she was still alive and mostly unbroken, I decided she was probably just entertaining enough to keep dating.

Another Rugby Win, sort of...

The teams were reshuffled a bit after last weeks matches and Ian was moved to the White team. The coaches are trying to keep the teams evenly matched. I'm not sure how well it worked, but the new Lowland White won 62 to 5 this weekend. Red won as well, 17 - 5 and seemed to have a tougher match.

Ian played a great game and had one of the 9 try's. He plays an aggressive game and is really enjoying the sport. I love watching the matches and have maybe found a sport I can get into. I'm not much of a sports fanatic, but the fast paced intensity of rugby is pretty addicting.

Saturday's game was windy and cold but there were quite a few brave fans out to cheer including Grandma and Grandpa Sutliff. Next weekend they head down to St. George for some tournament play and warmer weather.

(Ian's try in Saturday's match. You can hear the cows cheering in the background ;)

TRY! from aaron smith on Vimeo.


(click the pic to see the full gallery)

First Rugby Match

Ian played in his first rugby match this afternoon and didn't fare too badly. He scored to two of the tries to help his team toward their 43 - 5 victory.

It has been a steep learning curve for him and us with this being his first year playing. The rules and terminology take a bit of getting used to, but we are all liking the game the more he plays and learns. It is much more of a coordinated team effort than football and definitely more fast paced and action packed.

Thanks to everyone who came out to support Ian in spite of the last minute time schedule changes. He loves having fans, and all the more because it's family. He's spoiled with support and we love you all for it :)

It Snowed !!!

Liza loves the snow. We have to close her dog door after a snowstorm otherwise she practices hockey-stops around the yard until she is one giant furry snowball and will sleep outside in a snowbank at night.



(Click the pic to check out the rest of the gallery)

Shot the Dog

Liza was due this month for her annual immunization update. Her and I both get excited about going to the vet. She thinks it's a social party and I like seeing people stick her with sharp objects.



Thankfully, the rabies is only due every three years from here on out, and the rest can be done without the $45 office visit. Always like it when the mutt saves me money (which is rare :(



Of course as soon as got back home she took care of the whole 'saving my money' bit by practicing her impressive DVD disassembly technique. Next visit I'm requesting bigger needles.

I Have a Superpower !!!

I have the amazing ability to re-gift items and events to myself!

Aimee would say I just have a bad memory, but that's just calling the glass half empty. In reality, I have spent years honing my ability to completely erase memories from my mind.

For example: Today I pulled out my Nook eReader to read my latest purchase, only to find that I had forgotten to download it. Having a WiFi only Nook, I was out of luck :( Strangely though, when I tried to update my library, it succeeded! A little more checking and I found that I have a 3G Nook rather than a WiFi only! WOOT!

Without my superpower it would have been just another humdrum download, but thanks to my amazing powers of Re-Gifting, I received a brand new 3G Nook! Totally glass half full!

Conversations with Avyrlie

Me: Do you love all the holidays?

Avyrlie: No. I just don't like Christmas. It's too wintery and cold and snowy.

Me: You don't like winter?

Avyrlie: I just love Spring. Do you love spring?

Me: No.

Avyrlie with a quivering lower lip: Why not. The sun comes out, and the flowers are everywhere.

Me: I don't like the sun. It's too warm. I don't like flowers because they raise my water bill.

Avyrlie with tears in her eyes: Tell me you are just lying.

Me: I'm not lying.

Avyrlie running from the room and sobbing: You should be lying or EVERYTHING WILL BE TERRIBLE!!!

Avyrlie's Favorite Place

this is more

Fashion Forward

I give Aimee a lot of crap about her frequenty bizarre choice of sock style. Sadly, it tunrs out that most of it is undeserved because she is apparently on the cutting edge of womens fashion...


Image via TheSartoriaList @ TheSartoriaList.blogspot.com

Downhill Daredevil

Snow Bunnies

'Outdoor Aimee' strikes again! This time she felt the urge to hurl her daughter down a snow covered slope. Avyrlie seemed to enjoy herself so all is well :)

(click the pic for the rest of the gallery)

Outdoor Aimee

'Outdoor Aimee' shows up every so often although like Mr. Hyde, the conditions have to be just right. Colorful leaves, cooler temperatures, and occasionally sunsets can all trigger the transformation.

Click the pic to below for additional photographic evidence of this rare transformation:

Trained by Avyrlie

I'm pretty sure Avyrlie has been giving Liza manipulation lessons. She seems to be a quick study ;)

Glowing Facebook Fanatic

One of my favorite things to see is Aimee wandering down the hall glued to her phone (aka Facebook). It's a hoot to watch her goofy expressions and random giggling as her seemingly disembodied head makes its way towards me. Ahh, life's pleasures :)

Angry Science

Ian had a science project due this week requiring him to put together several simple machines in some type of system. I agreed to help him put it together if he would draw it out first and he did a pretty good job of diagramming what he wanted.

Due to some extreme cold conditions in my garage/workshop, we put it together as quick as possible to avoid the whole frostbite issue so it is a bit less extravagant then originally planned, but it does the job.

Here's the final product he turned in via youtube. BTW, if I'd known he just had to record the thing and turn in the video, we'd have been working with cans of beans and spaghetti rather than suffering in the garage...