The Rock Star

As seems to happen every year around Thanksgiving, Ryan had another birthday. He is now seven years old. A lot of elementry school classes have a student of the week for the kids with birthdays that week. In Ryan's class, they have a funner title - Rock Star (teacher's maiden name was Rock.) Ryan talked about this for weeks leading up to the day. He got to make a poster of himself and things he likes to present to the class. Here are some pictures of Rock Star Day.

Ryan presenting his rock star poster

Ryan with his teacher Mrs. Sylva

Ryan has already had two birthday parties and is gunning for a third. Grandpa and Grandma Sorenson and Aunt Christine were in town for Thanksgiving. We had a party with them before they left.



Ryan loves pumpkin pie, so we always have to have a pumpkin pie cake.



Opening presents from the grandparents

 Ryan's second party was on his actual birthday (11/27.) The Meyers were in town for Thanksgiving as well. They were here to help celebrate on his actual birthday.



Ryan with the traditional birthday pancakes



Someone is excited about the Legos he got



Cute kid



Cupcakes that night

 We are glad you came to our family, Ryan. You are our rock star, too. Happy Birthday!

Crazy Stories

There is a creative writing exercise that we have turned into a game that we like to play with the older kids in our family. We have played this with some of you before. The rules are simple. Everyone starts with a blank piece of paper. Everyone writes one sentence as the beginning of a story and passes the paper clockwise one person. The next person writes the next sentence of the story, folds the first sentence down so the next person can only see the last sentence and passes the paper on. This continues until there is no more room on the paper (one side only is usually long enough.)

We have had some really entertaining stories. Here is a sampling from tonight. Enjoy the bizarre from the Lindseys.

Story 1: Universal Language

Once there was a man that was in desparate need of a potholder, but he didn't have one. So he ran all over the whole universe trying to desperately find one single potholder. He was able to find just the right one at Bed Bath and Beyond and he just happened to have a 20% off coupon.

"Now I can hatch my evil plan!" he shouted at the surprised checker. The checker just said "King Me," earning himself strange glares and stares from passers-by. Finally one passer-by said, "Man, what the heck are you talking about?"

The man said he was just practicing some new phrases he had learned in Klingon and switched back to speaking English. "I knew I could be bilingual!" he shrieked as he flashed the "live long and prosper sign" to his mother. His mother glared at him and said, grudgingly, "You'd never be able to learn Zulu!"

Story 2: Celebration of Cheese

One day som mice stumbled upon some cheese bearing the label, "Made in China." Everyone felt bad that the mice had eaten the cheese because they would surely die. They only felt bad for a moment before a wild celebration of cheese broke out. The small cluster of lactose intolerant celebrators looked stunned as the cheese was consumed by young and old alike.

"How can they eat so much, these amazingly adapted creatures from the distant future?" the intolerants said in shock and awe. "Well, I think they can eat so much 'cause they each have 36 stomachs," a stranger burst in. Everyone stared blankly at such outlandish news and said, "No wonder you are a stranger - you are strange!" With truth staring at them in the face, they sat down and composed the first sonota that had the devil's tritone in every measure.

Rockets and Recitals

Yesterday we had our second annual pilgrimage to Ogden. For the second year Mark was invited to play in the state UMTA Honors Recital. Last year we tried to go up early to go to the Hill Air Force Base Museum. It just so happened that the day before, they were practicing bombing runs just outside of the museum and one of the jets had to release one of its bombs that implanted itself 12 feet into the ground. They closed the museum so they could detonate the bomb. We ended up going to the Roy Historical Museum instead. It is a crazy little museum right by the HAFB museum that has some Utah historical artifacts along with some crazy stuff like Donny and Marie dolls, Russian army uniforms, butterflys and decorative eggs.

Anyway, this year we were successful in going to the HAFB museum. We also went next door to the Roy Historical Museum for nostalgia's sake.

Here are some pictures from the HAFB museum. We didn't get any at the RHM.

Ryan and Joesph under a big cargo jet

Joseph, Ryan and Lauren by wheels of big cargo jet

Not sure why we picked a Cessna for this picture, but it turned out well

Derek, Ryan and Joseph by a missle

Mark hand starting the propeller

Lauren didn't know I was taking this picture until too late

Ryan and Joseph by a fighter

Commander Ryan ready for his shuttle misison

A very happy Commander Joseph ready for his mission



Two brave fighter pilots in the cockpit

  Mark's piano recital was at Weber State University in Ogden. He played Ballade in G Minor, Op. 23 by Frederic Chopin. I mistakenly had the camera on photo mode rather than video mode, so I took a picture of the first note rather than recording it. Brilliant! I did record everything but the first note. I have imbedded the video below.

Please be aware that this is nearly a nine-minute piece. Also due to the outstanding microphone on our camera, Mark says it sounds like the glockenspiel version of the song (i.e. music box rather than grand piano.) He played very well.


Mark Honors Recital Chopin from Derek Lindsey on Vimeo.

After the recital, we headed to Sweet Tomatoes for dinner. It was a really fun day.