It started out with the post Johanna made about James’ pronouncement that Aiden needed to “fix his attitude.” That was really cute, I will admit it. A phrase like that is almost too big for him, but I say it so often to both of the kids it was sure to come up sooner or later. That one was alright.

Just a day later, I got a call at work, and was told that Aiden had built a computer! It consisted of a large overturned clothes bucket, a pillow for the monitor, a Lego keyboard, and a toy stethoscope as a power cable. He was very excited to show me the Mythbusters game that you could play on it, but wanted me to hurry home because it was broken, and it was up to me to fix the problem. I will upload a picture of the computer later tonight, but needless to say we had a bit of fun that evening, and he continues to move his computer from room to room so he can play with it whenever he gets tired of his little brother.

Another time I was struggling to get out of bed in the morning, because I could hear the kids in the hallway and figured I needed to get the day started. For the past couple of weeks, I have been on a mission to get James to stop sucking his fingers (it’s not exactly the nicest thing when he grabs your arm and his hand is dripping with drool!) That morning, the first thing I could actually make out was Aiden saying “James, no fingers! Never, ever put your fingers in your mouth again!” Johanna told me that telling a child “never” was never a good idea. I didn’t quite know what to make of this, it was borderline cute…but I don’t want Aiden starting to think he can be policeman.

The most recent, though, came when we were getting ready to go to Game Night at my uncle Vic’s house. We were in a rush to get out the door, and what do you know, Aiden couldn’t find his shoes. Or maybe it was James wanting one last drink of water. I honestly can’t remember, but I was a little put out about it and accused someone of something, only to be proven wrong seconds after I had said it. Immediately, Johanna told Aiden and James “Ignore Daddy right now, he needs to fix his attitude.”

I guess I have a long way to go before I get my bearings in this parenting thing.

We had a wonderful time at the Hines Mansion in Provo. The penthouse suite was an awesome room that Johanna just loved to death. There was a hot tub, sparkling cider, rose petals, the works. Not bad, in my opinion, and for the right price, too.

Saturday we started out by buying some shoes for Johanna, since she forgot to bring any pair other than her dress shoes from the wedding dinner…and they are the most uncomfortable shoes in the world. Believe me, I tried them on…erm…I mean…just kidding. We also noticed as we were leaving the Hines Mansion that we didn’t have a camera. I had been migrating Johanna’s bags from her Mom’s car, and had missed the camera because it wasn’t in the back seat with the rest of ‘em. So when we bought the shoes, we bought two disposable cameras. One has already been used up, the other will soon join it.

The drive to Vegas took FOR-EV-ER! Nascar enthusiasts clogged the freeway so badly that it took over an hour to go three miles on the freeway. Once we got past the race track, it improved a bit. But since we had a dinner reservation at Excalibur at 8:30, we were in panic mode and it was not a pleasant drive.

Once we got to the hotel, we parked the car, ran to get a taxi to take us to the show, and en route saw his clock was at 6:45, not 7:45 like ours. I took out my cell phone, and sure enough, it said 6:45 as well. Stupid time zone difference had us both worked up and now we had an hour to kill instead of each other! So, we went to the M&M factory to look around, and will go back to buy stuff before we leave.

The Tournament of Kings was AMAZING and LOUD! Well worth the money spent, and we bought a nice picture to remember the time there. And we were so tired by the time the show ended, we decided that we would sleep in the next morning, and hit an 11:00 sacrament meeting instead of the 9:00 one.

After attending church, we decided to drive out Hoover Dam for a dam tour, some dam pictures, all the dam jokes I could think of telling, and the best dam excuse I could ever hope for to sound like Grandpa Dodge. There was a sign clearly posted that said no pets were allowed on the dam, and yet I saw a number of ladies carrying lap-dogs around. Johanna wouldn’t let me say “Hey Lady, didn’t you see the sign? No dam dogs!” I was rather disappointed. We had a couple good laughs about that. But enough dam talk, let’s get on with the rest of the day.

Actually, that is all we have done so far today. We will be having sandwiches for dinner soon, and later this evening we will go see some of the free stuff that is here, so we don’t break the sabbath. In a few minutes, I will let Johanna post her version of the recent events here for your enjoyment. Hearing two sides of the story is always more entertaining than hearing just one. Hers will likely be a lot shorter than mine, I ramble a bit. Anywho, we are having a grand time here. More later!