Molly's Birthday!

It was Molly's 30th Birthday last Monday. So I knew this party had to be HUGE! Well we normally we have pizza and soda and a cake for a party so I thought I had better up the ante a bit. I bought streamers and balloons and a silvery shiny happy birthday banner to go with the pizza and soda and cake. I put up the banner before I left for work in the morning so she could see that much when she woke up. She loved it! Then she had to be in Salt Lake that afternoon for an ultrasound to verify that our baby didn't have brain problems (and luckily it didn't - which is good because it would have been a bad birthday present for her to find out otherwise). So after the ultrasound we went to her favorite restaurant, The Olive Garden, and ate lunch. It was delicious. Then we found out her parents where in town and coming to visit us in the evening so that was fun news. When I got home from work I sent her to her room so I could wrap the presents with the kids. And we got to work decorating the place. In addition to the streamers and balloons, I also bought a shiny red plastic tablecloth and pink plates and little celebration blower things. She came out when we were done and thought it was great. I know it seems dumb, but it is a lot more than we usually do for a birthday so I think it made her feel nice. Here is Luke pointing out the obvious:
We had a great time. We ate pizza and drank soda and Molly wanted cheesecake for her cake so she found a recipe online for a white-chocolate raspberry cheesecake that looked delicious so she decided she wanted to make that. It turned out great. I am not a cheesecake lover, but I loved it. Maybe she will post the recipe. And I bought candles that said "sparklers" on them so I thought that would be fun too. After I lit them they looked like sparklers. And an added bonus was that they were the kind that came back after she blew them out so Luke loved that. And he got to help blow them out. I don't think anyone minded having his spit all over the cake either. Here is a picture of the birthday girl and her cake.

Here is a picture of the Larsen grandparents and Zoe and Lila.
It was a great time. Even though there was no piñata I think it was a birthday to remember.

He can Dance if he wants to

This is video that Zoe took during dinner one night when Luke just felt like dancing. We have always taught them that when you get the urge to dance it is unhealthy to suppress it. So even though there was no music or beat going on, he felt the inner music and just stood up and danced. That's my boy.

Accepted

Well it is official. I have been accepted to the graduate program in Civil Engineering at the University of Utah. I feel like I should learn some more about structural engineering and thought school would be a good place to do that. So I start classes in January (the 12th) and I will try to take two classes a semester for the next five semesters and get my Masters degree. Seems simple enough. Hopefully I can last. When I was in school before it was pretty hectic and Molly hated it and I never saw the kids and I was always tired. But I like school and I like learning. Hopefully it won't be as bad this time. When I was in school before I was taking 4 or 5 classes a semester and trying to fit 40 hours of work in after school. So that made for late nights. Now I am going to try to only have two nights a week where I get home only about 45 minutes later than usual. And I can do my homework after the kids go to bed. So I think it will be much better. If not, I may have to scale it back to one class a semester. But I am excited to get started on it. I am signed up for Concrete Design II and Foundation Design this semester. I am hoping that now that I have done real work in these subjects that it will be easier than going into the classes cold, but I could be way off. A lot of classes in college have nothing to do with standard design practices unfortunately and only deal with the theoretical. But I will soon find out. If you see Molly alone and with a desperate look in her eye, you will know that things aren't going as well as I had hoped.

High School Musical

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This one is for my sister Shelli, who went to see High School Musical 3 on opening night and loved it.

(the real) Halloween 2008

Well Halloween was a success this year. If you call about 13 lbs of candy a success. I do. Since we only bought four pounds of candy and had at least half of that left at the end of the night, plus the 13lbs or so that the kids brought home. Maybe Lila will finally put on a little weight this year. The kids wore the same costumes that they wore for the trunk-or-treat. Zoe was a veterinarian, Lila was a witch, Leisel was a ballerina, and Luke was a turtle. Here is a couple pictures. I couldn't get them all together for one shot so I had to do two. The first is Luke, Leisel, and Lila. The second is Leisel, Zoe, and Lila.
And here are some pumpkins that the kids carved. They each got to design and carve their own which they loved. The top left is Zoe's, top right is Lila's, bottom left is Leisel's, bottom right is Luke's. I helped Luke with his but the girls mostly did their own. I even made them clean out the pumpkin innards themselves (mostly). I forgot to take a picture of them right after they were carved so this is after a few warm days and they have started to kind of slump a bit. And Luke liked to roll his around the yard so his is pretty beat up looking. Good times, good times.


Here is me. Well this is the me I always wanted to be anyway: long flowing hair and no pesky glasses. It is the non-balding, non-glasses wearing me. If I had hair I would grow it long and dye it black and wear it rocker style. Maybe. A guy can dream you know.