Watch out...

Sam might be calling you next. Apparently he has seen his mommy and daddy on the cell phone enough to know how to use it. We caught him the other day with a cell phone up to his ear trying to talk to someone. If you notice on the screen he has actually dialed 411 (I guess he needed some information). Luckily it is a non-working phone! For some reason he enjoys our real phones, not the 4 toy phones we have tried to get him to play with. I guess he really does notice what we do, hopefully he doesn't pick up our crack habit now...

The Merry-go-round is the Winner!

Since Sam can get around a little more, we thought he might enjoy the playground more than last year, so we enjoyed the nice weather as we let him decide on his favorite playground equipment. The fire truck was cool!The rock wall, different and little crazy and silly with dad's head popping out from every where.

The swing, quite relaxing.

The merry-go-round was the winner! I made several attempts to gently pry his hands off the bars when it was time to go, but as far as Sam was concerned he was not leaving!

Rocky Balboa/Philly

After eating Geno's Cheese Steaks, we felt we needed a bit of a work out so we made an effort to conquer the same steps that Rocky Balboa climbed. Sam did well with once again a little help on daddy's shoulders as he ran up the stairs. Sam seemed to think our silliness was fun, I believe the smile on Sam's face said it all as I congratulated him for making it to the top!
After the steps we played on the lawn and as we did we discovered that this was Sam's first attempt to walk on this green prickly stuff we call grass, so we gave him a little extra help.

D.C. Escapades with Aunt Ashley

We're still alive! We've been having fun with Aunt Ashley, then Danno went on a week trip to the Caribbean Islands and lastly we've been mending Sam's war wounds from falling on the driveway.
At Ashley's request we visited Washington D.C. and began with capital hill. Trying to keep Danno from his constant teasing of Ashley proved to be difficult.
Next we visited the Air and Space Museum, I think Sam is the one who made out on this one, walking out with a bag full of toys that mom and dad couldn't resist buying for our Little Red!
We think Sam's got it made, not only being carried on dad's back all day seeing the sights but sleeping when he feels like he's had enough. Do you think he is overdue for a haircut? We do, future blog coming.
Day two of our trip to D.C. with Ashley started with a trip to the National Zoo. Our favorite highlights were Mei Xiang, and his father, Tian Tian (panda bears).

Taking a break while eating our animal crackers.
On the way home we showed Ashley the Washington D.C. Temple. We were also able to get a family picture outside, something we've wanted to do for a long time.

Sam's latest...

We were playing with some video editing software and decided it might be fun to show you Sam's latest exploits. Enjoy the cheesiness, we thought it was pretty funny.

We thought both of these songs were appropriate for the videos.

Peter Cottontail visits Sam

Even though this was Sam's second Easter, it felt like his first. Last year at this time our heads were swimming with all that came from being rookie parents. As such, we decided to spoil Sam yet again with toys and the like. Maybe next year we can really focus on what Easter is all about, the spiritual side of things. Until then, happy playing Sam!

Dan decided to play with Sam, and dumped grass all over him, what a pair of goofballs. Even with all the toys Peter Cottontail brought, Sam found interest in only one thing: plastic eggs. He rolled them all over the house just for fun. However, if he spotted us with chocolate he was more than able to let us know he wanted some. Nope, too bad, none for you little boy, maybe next year.
The traditional family Easter photo. Honestly, the matching outfits were not intended. One of Sam's toys was a goofy little life-like duck that squawks and moves when you feed it a bottle. The movie shows how Sam reacted to it. Maybe we'll hold off on any real ducks for a while.

The last 10 years of my life...

In my ongoing preparations for leaving military flying and getting on with my civilian career, I input all of my flying into a computerized logbook so it is neater, more organized, and easier to maintain. A great benefit to this is a visual depiction of the flights I have flown. So family, you always ask what I am up to, here it is. It all adds up to about 989,336 miles straight line distance/3400 hours. Of course, we rarely fly straight line, so I would add several thousand miles if I were to guess accurate distances. Don't mind the lines from Hawaii to Australia or Alaska to Japan, we really did not fly the long way around the world. This is just a limitation of the program. The rest, however, are legit.

My favorite. 95% of my time has been in the C-17, I will miss flying it full time (but I won't miss the deployments).

Party at the Stromberg's again!

This time we celebrated Dan's 35th Birthday!

I don't think Sam could really care what is inside the box, but if he can manage to tear apart the paper into as many pieces as possible he is a happy little boy.

Sam does manage to find one present he likes of Dan's, $$$ of course! This became a difficult one to take away without having him tear this apart as well.

Per Dan's request, he wanted me to surprise him with his birthday cake. Normally it's the standard yellow cake, chocolate frosting with sprinkles. So for his surprise I made a Ghiradelli Chocolate chip Cheesecake, with whip cream frosting! I wasn't too sure how it would work on the first attempt, but luckily it was delicious! Dan was extremely pleased, it tasted great!

Happy Birthday to my Danno! Thanks for being such a good daddy and the best husband! Now stop teasing me about being older than you, old man.

Year One = Party!

Saturday March 8th Sam turned 1! We wanted to celebrate, but at the same time we didn't want to make it too big of a deal. So we decided to keep it a smaller, family affair. We started off by inundating him with presents. In our feeble minds we associate love with presents, so we basically dumped a ton of gifts on him. The main present was a Radio Flyer wagon, so we built the entire day around that. Not only was it a classic wagon like I had, Laura got the all-terrain version with huge off-road tires. Super cool and definitely a fit for Sam. He also got a bouncing pony, retro rocket scooter, several books, cars, clothes, and shoes. Pics below are of our little party.

Sam finds protection from the overwhelming amount of stuff behind daddy's back. At first he wasn't sure what to think of it all. He quickly warmed up and had a great time destroying wrapped presents and playing with his balloons.

That night we had my parents meet at the Bean house to do a video chat. While online we had Sam open presents from our families and then we did the obligatory cake thing. Laura made an awesome wagon cake with cupcakes but unfortunately (or fortunately, however you count it) Sam didn't really get messy at all. He wanted nothing to do with the cupcake, not because of the taste which I can attest to, but probably due to the fact that he hates touching things that are sticky or messy. The other half of Sam's party at the Bean household in Orem. The next day Sam sported some of his new clothes, including his bean sprout shirt designed by uncle Andy and nice black Chuck Taylor Converse high tops from G/G Bean. He also played with his "action figure/not a doll" that Laura so kindly made for him.

I'm a punk rocker yes I am...

Forgive the reference to The Teddybears/Iggy Pop, I had to do it. Laura and I were getting Sam ready for a bath the other day and I decided to have some fun with his hair. I noticed it was getting a bit longer on top, so I wanted to see how much fun we could have with it. My friend Bryan warned me that this may come back to haunt me when I am old and senile and Sam is in charge of my well being. Oh well, for now I will have some fun. These are the results: