Back by popular demand

And by popular demand, I mean that one person asked about this a couple of months ago.

Though we don't have a true "before" picture of our backyard, here is what I took right before the cement/grass project.:

Ah, our backyard in all its glory.
I really like this next one because the kids were running around in circles when I took the two pictures that got stitched together in a panorama, so it looks like we have five kids.

 Not the best "after" shot, but the one with the garbage can and the wheelbarrow in the background instead of the foreground. The kids love their tricycle/bicycle path. You can see our vegetable garden off to the left there, but it hasn't done as well this year. We always get some peas, but have trouble with most everything else. I think the soil is terrible, and I'm going to do some serious work on it. Eventually. Hopefully before next spring.

 On the fourth of July weekend, we went to Mt. Charleston and took a little hike to Little Falls. The kids were amazed that there was still some snow. I was a little amazed too. It was a good time.

I suppose I should blog again.

I'd like to take this opportunity to update you all on our lives.

All spring, I'd been half-heartedly getting the backyard ready for grass. Our long-term plan when we bought our house was to have some grass in the backyard, and what we keep calling a tricycle path around it. This was important so the kids would be able to play outside in the safety of our own backyard. (More recently, they've enjoyed playing outside by digging in the dirt, as though our entire yard were a large sandbox. I've wanted to get the grass in so that the kids would get less dirty.)

I'd only been half-hearted about it because I decided I needed to get sprinklers in place before laying sod. I'm more than competent at installing sprinklers, but it's fairly difficult to dig trenches for sprinkler lines. So I'd occasionally get motivated and work on it, but then I'd get tired of it and wouldn't do anything for several weeks. (Or we'd get caught up in another project, like our laundry room).

So, about halfway through May, I finished with the sprinklers, and then said to Kelsea, "Now we're ready for grass," and we both laughed. Then we thought, wait, maybe we are. Could we be? Can we? So we called around and found out Lowe's and Star Nursery had plenty of sod waiting for us. A few hours of tilling and raking the next morning, and we went and picked up some sod and laid it out. (We had to get a little more a couple hours later).

Suddenly, we had grass!. The kids were amazed. The next step, of course, was the "tricycle path." I had designed the sprinkler spray pattern to coincide with where we wanted the tricycle path to be. To make this part of the story shorter than the first part of the story, and to bore you slightly less than you expected, I'll summarize. We put in the sidewalk "tricycle path" on Saturday. It was harder work preparing than actually putting it in, despite the use of wheelbarrows. So now the major part of our backyard is done, and the kids can race around on their bikes, trikes, and scooters.

That's not really the most important thing going on right now. We're actually expecting a baby in November. Mia has drawn at least one picture of the family, including a "baby in mommy's tummy." It's pretty fun to talk about changes and a new sibling with Holly and Mia. We told Jay about it, and he laughed and said "no," like we were telling a very good knock knock joke. He might start to believe it if Kelsea ever starts to show.

Other than that, and to further bury the important updates with the mundane, we got a new (to us) minivan recently. It was Kelsea's parents, and the transmission is supposedly going bad, but it's been fine so far, Kelsea likes it, and the kids enjoy the extra space when we go places. Jay generally begs to go places in the "blue car," but yesterday he realized the van was kind of blue too, and called it the blue car. That's progress.

That should do it for at least a month or so.

Good times

So, for Valentine's Day, we went to the Blue Man Group.

It was very entertaining, if not quite what I thought it would be. I recommend it, especially with a two for one deal. And the close seats aren't necessarily the best seats. We had seats just outside the "poncho zone," and I think 7 or 8 rows back would have been just as good. They would have been in a cheaper section.

The Blue Man Group Theater is currently in the Venetian, so we walked through the Grand Canal Shoppes, on the Palazzo side, and I bought a tie at Andrew's Ties. Andrew's Ties is based in Milan, and most of the ties I bought on my mission came from Andrew's Ties, except for when I was in a city that didn't have a store. The ties cost more here than in Italy, (though at $45, less than a lot of designer ties) but they are excellent ties.

Also, for Valentine's Day, Kelsea bought me a set of CDs to learn Italian with. I guess the gift is for me, even if she's the one who needs them. I got her to use them a few times, but I had forgotten how hard it is to learn a completely new language. Pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar are not easy things to pick up out of nowhere. Fortunately, we have a while for her to practice.

I got Kelsea a custom box of Ethel M Chocolates. I missed last year, but every other Valentine's Day, I have given her fancy chocolates. I have to get the hand-packed boxes due to Kelsea's nut allergies, but she gets the best chocolates that way. I actually bought it a week or so before hand, and, rather than try to hide it from her, I gave Kelsea the chocolates early. They were gone by Valentine's Day.

Big plans

For Valentine's Day this year, Kelsea and I are going to see the Blue Man Group.  It's a big step up for us.  We live in a city of entertainment, but you have to be careful what entertainment you seek.  Normally for Valentine's Day, we try to avoid the rush of going out on the evening of February 14, and that's true this year as well, but mostly we end up going out for lunch, and maybe watch a movie at home.  We got seats just outside the splash zone. It will be good.

In high school, I remember the big thing for school dances was to go to a show on the strip.  I don't remember if Blue Man Group was around then, but that was the type of show that was popular.  A family-friendly show that was popular with multiple groups of people.  I never went to one.  They always seemed too expensive, and I didn't drive in high school.  Kelsea and I went to a magic show a year or so ago with free tickets I got for donating blood (I gave blood last month and only got a coupon for a free donut).  So this will be the first time we're going out to a nice show on Valentine's Day.  We're very excited.

Other big plans include a trip to Italy.  This plan is less concrete at the moment.
I actually renewed my passport a couple of years ago (just before it expired), and tried to get Kelsea to get one. She didn't want to pay the fee at the time, especially without any real plans to use the passport itself.  So it didn't happen despite my loving encouragement, and the fact that I actually got her to have a passport photo taken.

The church recently announced that a temple would be built in Rome Italy.  The announcement was actually in 2008, but then there wasn't really any news about it.  In October of 2010, though, the groundbreaking ceremony took place.  I found out then that any building project in Rome requires a serious site survey for Roman ruins.  If any were found, the temple project might have been delayed or rejected.  Fortunately, no ruins were found on the site.  As part of the news story, no completion date was given, but it was expected to be complete in 2012 (now expected to be 2013, still nothing official).  That's when I got the idea to go.

I mean, I always wanted to go back to Italy.  Of course.  It's an expensive trip, and with three kids now, the logistics are difficult.  But with the temple opening, I figured it would be a perfect opportunity to link our travel plans with a major event, some time in the future to allow us to figure out all those issues.  I'm excited to go see some of the areas I lived in, and to see Rome as well.  It will be fun to take Kelsea to some of the amazing places in Italy.  I don't think we'll be taking the kids.  Holly might be old enough to appreciate it (Mia maybe too), but I don't know if we'll be able to afford that.  Without the kids, it will be like a second honeymoon, too.  Awesome.

A basketball game. (Warning: this is a sports post.)

Tomorrow night, BYU and UNLV will play each other in men's basketball.

I got my B.A. from BYU, and my J.D. from UNLV.

I grew up a mild UNLV fan.  I enjoyed their basketball team.  I always thought I would go to college there.  I remember going to a few UNLV games as a kid.  I have a vague memory of a football game, and I have clear memories of going to UNLV basketball games, including the one in UNLV's championship season where Greg Anthony broke his nose or cheekbone, or whatever it was, and had to wear that clear mask the rest of the season.  In a biography I wrote about myself in fifth grade, I even mentioned how proud I was of the championship team (Kelsea has made fun of me for this.)

I grew up hating BYU.  My cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents in Utah were all BYU fans, which was fine with me, but it bothered me that they just assumed I was a BYU fan too.  I didn't have any particular problem with BYU, I just didn't see why I would be a fan of a school in another state that I had no desire to attend.  I looked into it my senior year of high school when I decided I wanted to leave home for college, and it had the lowest tuition, some of my friends were going there.  I figured that if I had a terrible time, I would at least know somebody on campus I might possibly hang out with.

I really enjoyed BYU.  I had great roommates, and met some really amazing and fun people there (as well as some crazies and nuts).  I wasn't much of a sports fan, but bought into the excitement of going to the games.  I remember going to the homecoming game against UNLV with conflicting loyalties.  I had never been a UNLV football fan, but it was those comments about BYU football that had so irked me earlier in my life.  (I remember some comments about Ty Detmer in particular, and in my memory, I picture my cousin saying "Isn't he so dreamy?")  Anyway, I also went to a BYU-UNLV basketball game my freshman year, and cheered for UNLV (though fairly quietly, as I was in the student section).  It was easy then: UNLV was bad at football; and BYU was bad at basketball.

By the time I graduated, however, BYU had started doing a bit better in basketball, and my loyalty to BYU sports, and to BYU, had grown.  On the other hand, I was tired of the college town feel of Provo.  I was a little tired of the Mormon (over-)saturation of the culture, but I could deal with that.  It was the fact that it was a small town with a big school in it that was getting to me.  So I chose to move on to UNLV Law School.

UNLV students got in free to UNLV football and basketball games, so I went to a few.  They were fun.  Being a married law student at a football game is very different from being a crazy freshman at a football game.  But I became a UNLV football fan, to a degree (I can only pay attention to so many terrible games a season).  They're still bad, but I am a fan.  I am remained a fan of UNLV basketball.  Those are fun games to go to.  I love yelling things at the refs, talking to the players and coaches like they can hear me, and getting into the game.

When BYU and UNLV play in football, I expect BYU to win, but I don't cheer much.  When UNLV and BYU play in basketball, I generally expect the home team to win, but I can barely watch.

Now, BYU and UNLV are both ranked in the top 25, and I want them both to win.  Since that's impossible, I hope they both beat San Diego State, and everyone else in the conference.  While it will be a relief that they won't play each other as much after this year, it's also disappointing, as the MWC was just getting to be a really good conference.

UNLV is favored by 3, and I think they'll cover.  But I'll be disappointed either way.