The Tempest

Last night Britnee, the kids and I went to see Shakespeare's 'The Tempest' performed by Roy High. It was lots of fun, even for Ben and Naomee. Brianne is on the production crew and is very proud of the show.

Original dialog, classic costumes, modern music and an intimate setting (60 seats on stage) made for a great show. The story started with a huge storm, call it... say, a tempest, created by a sorceress which shipwrecks a queen and her crew upon the sorceress' island, all according to her design we find out.

Bri's new color

I was skeptical about the claim, but being the engineer type, I had to run the calculations and verify it. Six tons of sand (about 4.4 cubic yards) were deposited on stage, bounded by small railroad ties to create the island beach and bulk of the stage for the lively action.

My favorite actors were the sorceress, Prospero; her aide-de-camp in spirit form Airel, which was played by two girls; both excellent dancers, singers and violinists, which shared dialog fluidly speaking at times every-other-line, every-other-word or in total unison; and Caliban, the at once fearsome, later comically drunk monster.

I high recommend seeing the show that continues its run at 7 pm Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.

Kids are so funny!

I get ready early each weekday morning usually by myself in silence (as near as I can muster) in the bathroom.

So my 5-year-old, Ben, comes in today about 10 minutes before I have to leave to use the toilet. As he is going, very groggily he says, "I didn't get any sleep last night," just as grown up as you could imagine.

I smiled, but tried to keep the humor I saw in the situation out of my voice. "I'm sorry. Why didn't you get any sleep?"

In his most serious deadpan he says, "Because I didn't have my pillow pet." I consoled him the best I could and left the house with a big smile on my face.

I usually don't get cool interactions with the kids like that. I often come home to a wife and children that are either sick of being cooped up in the house (hasn't this seemed like the longest winter ever?) or they are just sick of each other.

I hope you all have a brighter day!

Slide - thud - slide - thud

Naomee can go down the stairs by herself! And that is the sound, slide - thud, as she has chosen she prefers the backside slide method rather than the crawling backwards style we were trying to teach her. She really doesn't like going backwards or not seeing where she's headed.

She did it completely by herself earlier this week while Britnee coached her. That night I monitored her do the same. By last night she would head out the kitchen door and a minute later, when I thought I better check on her, she was gone, downstairs with her brother.

If you can't tell, we are pretty excited about this development! Of course, then we started thinking about how she is even more mobile now and we have to make sure downstairs is toddler safe before we leave it each night.

Tonight we are taking the kids to another free event sponsored by Layton City. A Wild West night at the library with treats, crafts and entertainment for the kids. Layton does cool things like this about once a month. In February they held their annual Valentine's dance and in January they paid for us all to go ice skating at Ogden's Ice Sheet.

If you're in the area, stop by the party tonight and hang out with us:
http://www.laytoncity.org/public/CityEvent.aspx?event=486

Utah search and rescue team put on alert following Japan quake - ksl.com

Utah search and rescue team put on alert following Japan quake - ksl.com

This brings to mind the Community Emergency Response Team training that Britnee and I completed a few years ago. Our city sponsored a fire department led 9 week training course on emergency actions we can perform as pseudo deputized volunteers.

It was eye opening to discuss candidly the action we would need to take should a major disaster hit our community. We had light training in search and rescue, crowd control, triage and most of all safety of survivors. The last week was a mock disaster, complete with actors with various injuries and states of mind. During the staged disaster, Britnee helped with the medical triage team and I was placed in charge of the building entrance. No one in or out without checking in with me. Like a bouncer complete with clipboard including time in and time out, to make sure we didn't track of someone for too long.

I hope we never have to use our training, but it sure makes me feel a little more at ease that we will have a few tools to work with should we ever need them.

House narrowly OKs bill making it illegal to smoke in cars with kids - ksl.com

Something worth celebrating. Great job Representatives!

House narrowly OKs bill making it illegal to smoke in cars with kids - ksl.com

Fair Pictures

Safe Kids Fair pictures have been loaded into the Gallery at AlineGarrison.com.

Here is my favorite so far:

Jango (Chris), ATST Pilot (Bri), and Iron Man

Busy Saturday

That's not very descriptive, I guess.  It seems every Saturday is busy for us lately.  Well, just since we started having kids (18.5 years ago).

This past weekend however, we got up at 6 am and didn't really take a break until 7:30 pm when we stopped for dinner.

Britnee and I went to the Ogden Temple, thanks in large part to Brianne watching Naomee and my sister-in-law Sandy inviting Ben over for a sleep-over with his cousin.
Then we picked up Ben and his cousin from Brigham City and raced to the Safe Kids Fair in Sandy City.  I dressed in my battle blues and entertained the thronging horde for the next 3.5 hours.

Brianne donned her AT-ST Pilot for the event.  That was the first time for both of us this year.  We only had a couple events between us last year.  Hopefully we will have more time (and gas money) to enjoy our hobby this year.

Britnee and I waited in line for Ben & his cousin to get their faces painted.  After 45 minutes in line, we gave up and went on to other booths.  When we left 20 minutes later, the line was to the point where they would have been next, with 5 minutes to go before they closed the fair.  Oh well, they would have had to wash it off in 3 hours anyway.

Well, we dropped off the cousin and Brianne and headed home for dinner.  The little ones were in bed by 8:00 (miracle of miracles) because they were worn out.  And the wife and I were passed out by 9:45.  Old fogies, ehe?

More pictures of the Kids Fair should be available shortly on AlpineGarrison.com in the gallery, plus there are a few more of Brianne and I on Facebook.