From Fail to Win

My day started off with the start of a new semester at school. My final semester! I had one morning class, and then I'd be off to a second interview in Universal City for an internship with Law and Order.
The first interview had gone really well, so I was looking forward to going back and hopefully hitting it off again with the next person in the line, and securing the internship.

As the title and attitude of this post might foretell, it wasn't meant to be. This interview just didn't feel good at all, and I struggle now to see where it went wrong. I wasn't getting positive vibes the way I was the last time, and the interviewer all but told me to have fun looking elsewhere. He did have some useful things to say about the industry and internships in general, but overall it was just not feeling like a win.

Sure enough, later that day I got a call saying the choice had been tough, but they'd gon with someone else for the internship. I was crushed. My prospects right now are nil, and here we are with the semester already started. I need this to graduate. Looks like I've got some work ahead of me.

As the title belies, there's a happy ending to this post. But not in the internship department...

Back in October we blogged about Brickcon, and our part in coordinating the big Lego Battlestar Galactica display there.

The Battlestar Galactica display at Brickcon got some major attention today, and it's all due to the Brothers Brick.


Click to see the fullsize image!
That's our Lego display on the bottom left!
The Battlestar page on SciFi.com (the SciFi Channel homepage) links to a post on geek site dvice about the display, which links to an article Gizmodo, another geeky/tech blog who got the original story from Brothers-Brick, a well-known and respected blog followed by fans of Lego around the world.

This was the most awesome way to end my supremely crushing day. I'm prouder than ever of everyone in the band of friends who helped make the Battlestar display shine, and Katie for not only putting up with a 7-foot hangar in our living room, and Lego all over the house, but for her mosaic contribution. Thanks honey! You are awesome!

Phantom

When I was growing up, my family would periodically do this thing for Family Home Evening or other occasions where we make/bake.buy some goodies for a family, leave it on their doorstep, and then ring the doorbell before taking off running, then speeding away in the getaway car. We called it Phantom, I'm sure other people call it something else, but you get the general concept. It's "Ding-Dong-Ditch," but with treats for the victim instead of just annoying them.

So anyways, we were driving home this past Saturday night from a day spent in San Diego, and I felt like we had to do something for my sister Denise and her family, who have been in the midst of a frenzied effort to clean up and make their house ready for sale. We got some treats at a store near their place, and when we got to their neighborhood I couldn't decide if we should leave it and run, or drop in to say hi and see how things were going. We drove back and forth past their house no less than 4 times before I finally decided to go in. Mind you, it's about 9:30 at night, and I wasn't sure if kids would be up, if Denise would be up, or if we'd be welcome.

There were lights on in the house as Katie and I took the cookies up to the door, knocked, and covered the peephole. After a minute or two of silence, we debated ringing the doorbell or knocking again. Someone must be home, right? There were lights on...

We finally decided to go with the original ding-dong-ditch plan, so I jumped back into the car while Katie got ready to hit the doorbell. She set the cookies down, hit the bell, and started leaping for the car. As we barely started to pull away from the driveway a car was flashing its light at us as it came down the street, and as I looked in the rearview mirror Katie exclaimed that it was Denise and Derek!

We were laughing so hard as we pulled over, caught red-handed, as Derek and Denise came up and their daughters came out of the front door wondering who had been covering their peephole.

It was a riot, and proved how terrible Katie and I are at this game. Maybe we'll have to practice a little bit more.

Awesome Vacation Day 7: Happy New Year!

Spending the holidays with my family was a blessing I really appreciated. If only it hadn't gone by so fast! I enjoyed getting to spend quality time with my parents and siblings, and especially for Carter to have a chance to be with all of them.

Ringing in the new year was one of the highlights of the trip, and here we have plenty of pics of the fun!

My beautiful wife (of 2 years!)


Carter and Auntie Lolo having fun together. Okay, maybe Lauren isn't having fun after all...


Playing Guitar Hero


Fetti fun!


Garin making confetti angels on the floor.

Happy Anniversary!

Ryan and I celebrated our second anniversary while we were in Utah. His parents are so nice that they agreed to watch Carter for us so we could enjoy a night out. We had dinner at a great steakhouse called Goodwood, saw the movie Bedtime Stories, got shakes and fries (with fry sauce of course) at Iceberg, and stayed at Somewhere Inn Time, a wonderful bed and breakfast in Orem. It was an awesome anniversary!

Our room at Somewhere Inn Time.


Our room with the hot tub.

Thank you for an amazing two years, honey! You're such a wonderful husband and father, and I'm so blessed to have you in my life. I love you!!!

More Awesome Vacation

The day after Christmas we had family pictures taken since all of Ryan's family was together. Carter was pretty sick with a cold, but the photographer did a great job with him and he was a happy baby. We can't wait to see how the pictures turned out!
That Saturday the Baker family headed back home, which made things pretty quiet. We did some after Christmas shopping and went to Lauren and Brett's for dinner and a movie.
Sunday we went to church and then drove to Syracuse, UT to see my brother, Kevin, and his family. They had flown in from England to spend Christmas with Jen's (my sister-in-law) family and attend her sister's wedding. We're so glad that we were able to see them and that Carter was able to meet more cousins. We hope they get sent back to the States soon!

Our families. From left to right: Jacob, Jen, Bryan, Kevin, Katie, Carter, Ryan


Pacifier cousins. Carter is only 3 months older than Jacob, so they had fun together.


Carter and Jacob


Jacob is soooo cute!


Jacob and his daddy.


My brother and I with Carter and Jacob.


Bryan had fun with Carter, too.


Bryan was having so much fun with his grandpa that Carter decided to join them.

Our Early Christmas

Since we were heading to Utah on Christmas Eve, we opened our Christmas presents to each other before we left. It's probably a good thing Carter is too young to remember this Christmas experience, otherwise he'd be expecting several days of opening presents.

Presintz!


Carter opening his first present.


It's a walker!


The assembled walker.


Carter was excited about the ball popper from Uncle Kenny and Aunt Karen.


An activity table from Papa. Carter decided he didn't need to finish unwrapping it.


The assembled activity table.



My pretty boys

Birthdays and Christmas with the Bradleys

My parents decided to take a two week cruise to Mexico for Christmas, so we celebrated my Dad's birthday (12/21), my birthday (12/22), and Christmas the Friday before Christmas.

My dad opening his birthday present from Kevin and Jen.


Carter playing with my dad's birthday present from Kevin and Jen. He was really just trying to get inside since he saw it had food.


Carter playing with my dad's birthday present from us. It plays music and the animals dance, so he loved it.


My awesome birthday present from my parents. This is the newest book by the author of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. I have all of the books and I didn't even know there was a new one, so I was very surprised.


Carter's excited for his presents!


He got distracted by the shiny bow.


Carter loves his "Baby's First Christmas" ornament because it's Precious Moments!


Carter decided to play with the bag instead of checking out all of his nice new clothes.


Carter's new stroller. He doesn't seem that excited, but we sure are because it's easy to get in the trunk and still have room!


The tradition continues! Lost is always on Ryan's Christmas list and my parents have gotten it for him the past three Christmases, but I still try to trick him and so did my mom...the gold box to the right is what she put it in.

Awesome Vacation Day Two: Christmas!

After the reenactment of the birth of Christ from the night before, we woke up Thursday morning to a snow-covered world. This was my (and Carter's!) first white Christmas, and it was wonderful.




Carter was excited to open his presents!


He got this dancing monster named Brobee (from "Yo Gabba Gabba," a kids TV show) from the Bakers. It sings and dances. A lot:




Lauren and Brett with the SpongeBob mosaic we built for them.


Our nephew Luke with the wizard wand my little bro Garin handmade for him.


We got Wall-E! Yay!

It was a blast being together with my entire family for Christmas. That hasn't happened in over a decade, and there weren't many of the little kids around then. We made my mom cry at least once. ;)

Awesome Vacation: Day 1

We flew to Utah the morning of Christmas Eve. It was Carter's first plane ride and he did great. He slept for a little while and was happy during the whole flight. He was very excited to see grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.
We went to Temple Square to see the lights and it was so beautiful, but we are definitely not used to such cold weather! I'm very glad we were able to go because I didn't get a chance to see Temple Square at Christmas time during my mission since I was serving in Arizona at the time.

Outside Assembly Hall. Carter looked so cute in his snowsuit that Grandma Wood got him and he seemed to be much warmer than the rest of us!


Pretty lights.




We all went inside the Joseph Smith building to get warm with some hot chocolate.


Carter being silly.


Kisses for Carter!