japawo

Here are a couple of videos with excerpts from a Christmas concert at Stanley and Vyktoria's school to brighten your Holidays.

Vyktoria joined a singing and dancing group called Melody Makers this fall. She has had a lot of fun and the teacher has made a couple comments about how good she is doing. Their first show was on Dec. 13th and was called Snow Biz. Unfortunately we had a big storm that day so not very many people attended. Tori was part of 6 or 7 numbers and had a couple short solos.

Here are a couple pictures:



They will also have another show in the spring.

I hope everyone has a great holiday season, and...


My wonderful wife thought it would be fun to put that above our front door. She's awesome!

So every year I think we get busier and busier. Now that all the kids are in school it seems like it is just one project after another. Last week we spent several nights helping Stanley with his Saltwater Biome Diorama. He put a lot of work into it and I think it turned out pretty good, but that was after a few adventures.


The first problem was when we pulled out the package of modeling clay from last years school projects and realized it had dried out. We now had a nice hard grayish white cube instead of malleable clay. We gave it to Walker to keep him entertained. It worked. He spent probably 2 hours chiseling and carving on that cube.


Here is his finished product. I'm not sure what it is.... but he's sure proud of it!


While he was busy with that we got some other clay for Stanley and he spent an hour or two making a shark, a whale, and few other things. We waited a day to let them dry, but they were still to soft so we tried putting them in the oven to dry it out faster. It didn't work. I guess there are certain kinds of clay that are oven dry and others that are not. It "melted" his animals into puddles and smoked up the kitchen.

So, on to plan C. We used some plastic bead kit things that you melt together with an iron. You use a peg board to arrange these plastic beads into a design or a picture. Then you put some special paper over it and then using an iron you heat up the plastic till it melts and the beads fuse together. You can see the end result in the picture above. The 2 sharks and the whale were made this way.

Stanley managed to finish the rest of his project without any more trouble.

That brings us to today's project. Making sugar cookies for a bake sale in Vyktoria's class. Here is a picture of everyone frosting cookies. David's friend Andy even decided to help.


Evidently it is impossible to frost sugar cookies without getting most of the frosting on your hands. Some of the kids seemed to enjoy that part, but I don't think Vyktoria feels that way.


Stanley doesn't seem to mind.


I think Walker would have bathed in the frosting if we hadn't stopped him.


Somewhere in the middle of this production -- and believe me when you try to make 2 batches of sugar cookies with the help of 5 children it becomes a production -- David and Andy decided to start singing their original parody of Roxette's "Listen to your Heart".



Sometimes I don't know what planet my children are from.

We finally finished all the cookies and that is when Vyktoria said something like "I don't think they'll all fit on my desk"


That's about the same time she realized that 2 batches of sugar cookies was way too many. You should have seen Toni. I think her head spun a full 360 just like the girl on Poltergeist. :-D

Anyway, the kids had fun and we decided to give the extra cookies to neighbors.

Weighing in at 134 lbs, standing 5 feet 10 inches tall, with a wingspan of 6 feet 2 inches, wearing size 12 shoes, with an overall record of 13 wins - 6 losses, and sprouting a mop of wild hair...

He's faster than texting, stronger than teenage boy BO, and can jump at least 3.9 inches off the ground...

He's the master of disaster, the human blender, and the mushroom hair monster...

Let's hear it for your 2nd place finisher in the District wrestling tournament...

DAAAAAAVIIIIIIIID WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!



Notice the "My dad is crazy" grin on his face? I wanted him to do some silly pose like kissing the medal or crouching in a wrestling stance but he wouldn't.

I finally remembered the camera! David had another wrestling meet today. He wrestled 4 times winning 3 (all by pins) and took 3rd place in his weight class. Here are some pics and a vid.

David's first match.


Video of David winning the first match.


David is going for the pin in his final match. You can see Grandma Wyatt, Grandpa and Grandma Wood, and Toni in the background.

I keep putting off posting because I'm hoping I remember to take a camera to David's wrestling matches. I am currently experiencing delayed success with that goal. Anyway, David is wrestling right now, and is doing quiet well. He has had 3 or 4 meets and his record is 6 wins 2 losses. He has pinned the last three opponents in less than a minute! Hopefully he will continue to win. He has 3 more meets before Districts. If anyone is interested in going the next meets are:

Tuesday 11/11 in Sugar City at 4:00 pm
Friday 11/14 in Sugar City at 1:00 pm ** UPDATED TIME **
Tuesday 11/18 in Shelley at 4:00 pm
Friday 11/21 in Salmon at 10:00 am (Districts)

Hopefully I will remember the camera tomorrow and can post some wrestling pics and possibly vids for your entertainment.


Soccer Update
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For all you soccer fans out there be sure to tune in to Fox Soccer Channel this Saturday @ 7:30 pm. RSL has beaten Chivas USA in the semifinals and will be playing for the Western Conference championship in Salt Lake. If you look really close up in the upper deck you may even catch a glimpse of some crazy Eastern Idaho fans. Adam, David, Stanley, and I will be in attendance and hopefully RSL will defeat the New York Red Bulls and move on to the MLS Cup. I would like to thank my wonderful wife Toni for letting me take myself to the game for my birthday!
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Lastly, here are some pictures to make you laugh or smile:

A Wood pile in Grandma and Grandpa's closet


Walker eating nachos.. Om, nom, nom, nom

Halloween. Does anyone else think it's weird to encourage your kids to disguise themselves and go beg strangers for candy? Oh well, here is a picture of our kids costumes this year.



On Saturday David and I drove down to SLC for the RSL playoff game against Chivas USA. We picked Micah up from Ben and Danielle's. It was a fun game, and RSL managed to win 1-0 even though the ref was HORRIBLE. He called 17 fouls on RSL and only 9 against Chivas. Even with Chivas having the 12th man advantage RSL dominated with 21 total shots (8 on goal) compared to only 3 total (1 on goal) for Chivas. They also had 6 corners while Chivas had 0. It was only through sheer luck that Chivas kept them from scoring until the 90th minute.




Toward the end of the game some of the Chivas fans started setting off firecrackers and smoke bombs. It was crazy! RSL plays again on Saturday (in California) and if they win or tie they will advance to the next round. GO RSL!

It's time for the Major League Soccer Playoffs and RSL (Real Salt Lake) made it in for the first time ever. GO RSL! They needed a win or a tie in the last game to make the playoffs. They trailed for most of the game but managed to score a goal right at the end to tie it and advance to the playoffs. They will be playing against Chivas USA in Salt Lake on Saturday. Adam is taking Joe and John, and I will be going with Micah and David. We plan on yelling loud and hopefully cheering RSL to a win.

It's fall in Idaho, and that means NO SCHOOL! The kids were out of school from Sep 27th - Oct 13th for Harvest Break. Usually it is a huge hassle because it comes just when the kids are starting to get back into the habit of school. Then they get 2 weeks off which screws that up and you have to start over. This year it worked out really nice for a different reason. I had to go to Las Vegas for training Oct 7-10 so we begged people to watch our kids for a week and I took Toni with me (a big THANKS to Ben, Danielle, and Shelly).

We flew out of Salt Lake on the 6th. The first night we went to Marriage can be Murder. It is a dinner murder mystery thing. It was very entertaining, and the best part was that Toni won! She figured out who the killers were by the end of dinner. It turned out to be the couple that sat across the table from us (probably helped a little). The weirdest part (and one of the main reasons she suspected them) was how much they had in common with us. The guy had gone to BYU-I around the same time as us, had lived in the same appartment complex as me, and knew some people that I went to high school with. The girl was from Michigan and had graduated from Otsego high school the year after Toni's brother Mike. Anyway, for winning Toni got a plaque and 2 tickets for another show (Defending the Caveman).

The next couple nights we went to Carrot Top and the Tournament of Kings. I can't remember which was when. On Friday we went to Defending the Caveman which was VERY good. It was funny, but somewhat educational too. It is about some of the differences between men and women and how they could have been due to the lifestyle of the caveman. Or something like that anyway. We flew back to Salt Lake on the 12th picked up the kids and drove home.

And that brings us to last week. Toni spent most of the week trying to get everything ready for a wedding and reception she was doing. It was the first one she has done, and I think she was very stressed. She then spent all day Saturday decorating, setting up, rearranging, decorating again, cleaning up. She did a great job and got several compliments.

Wow, has it really been a whole month since I last posted? I appologize to all those people out there for whom reading my blog is their only source of entertainment. I know how hard it is for you to survive without knowing about all the exciting things happening at the Wood house. ;D

Ok, enough kidding around. I'll try to catch up in the next few days. Way back in September I took the kids up to Mesa Falls. Toni was doing work for a wedding so she didn't go. It was a very nice day and the fall colors were bright. We stopped at the lookouts for both of the falls and then hiked a little over a mile down to the top of the Lower Mesa Falls.

Here is the Upper Falls.


This is the river next to the trail between Upper and Lower Mesa Falls.


This is a little creek in Sawtelle Estates by Grandpa and Grandma's cabin.


And this is Walker stuffing 1/4 of a Double Big Jud (the only hamburger he will eat) in his mouth.

We decided to pull Walker out of public school this year. He is very excited about being home schooled and is doing a great job so far. He's in his second week and his new computer finally arrived. He's been checking the mail and asking about it every day. Here is a picture of him at his desk with his computer and books.



And here is David hard at work making a video game. I got him the book The Game Maker's Apprentice (http://www.amazon.com/Game-Makers-Apprentice-Development-Technology/dp/1590596153) and he's loving it. It comes with software that makes it easy to create some simple games.

I had a work sponsored golf outing this past weekend in Star Valley so we decided to stay with our friends the Hokums for the weekend. The kids had a lot of fun jumping on the trampoline and playing games. We also thought it would be a great time to do our almost annual hike to the Intermittent Spring. It is a short 1.5 mile hike (round trip) up to the spring that provides most of the water for the city of Afton. It is a periodic spring which means it stops flowing for 12-18 minutes and then starts again. It is considered a cold water geyser although it isn't nearly as explosive as the normal hot water and steam kind. The area that you hike through is gorgeous, especially when the leaves start to change colors. Unfortunately I forgot to take our camera out of my work truck so we only got some pictures with Toni's cell phone and also a few that our friends took with their camera.


Stanley showing us the sign that explains about the spring:


David at the top of the spring contemplating the meaning of life:


Toni and Tori relaxing at the top:


The beautiful fall colors along the trail:


And finally here is a picture of the whole family:

A few months ago I was talking to David about computers and trying to explain what exactly binary was. He had heard me mention that computers used 1's and 0's to store and send information but he didn't understand how they could. So I started trying to teach him how we use base10 numbering (probably because we have 10 fingers) and that binary (base2) is just a different way to show the same numbers. After several minutes and many questions I think he almost understood it because then he asked if there were other numbering systems, specifically he wanted to know if there was one based on 3. I told him that you could have a number system based on any number you wanted and that another system used by computers was called hexidecimal which is just a different name for base16. Well, I hadn't heard anything about it since that day so I thought he had forgotten.

This summer we have been talking more with David about what kind of job he wants to get when he grows up and the career he has decided to try for right now is Video Game Programmer. We have talked with him and tried to get him to think about what things he would need to start learning if he really wanted to do that. One of the things we mentioned was that he should try doing some computer programming to see if he really liked it. They don't offer that at his school so he asked if I would teach him. This week I have started teaching him some basic programming skills using Pascal and we will then move on to C in a week or two (once we receive some books I ordered).

That brings me back to the base3 numbering system. I asked him what kind of program he wanted to write and gave him examples of simple games like Rock, Paper, Scissors or Guess a Number Between 1 and 10. He asked if we could make a program to convert a base10 number to base3. So that's what we did. Here is the program:


program base3 (input, output);

label user_input;

var x,y,z,a,b,c,d : integer;
begin
user_input:
writeln('Enter a number between 0 and 80:');
readln(x);
write('You entered ');
writeln(x);
if x > 80 then begin
writeln('Invalid number entered.');
writeln();
goto user_input;
end else if x < 0 then begin
writeln('Invalid number entered.');
writeln();
goto user_input;
end;
a := x div 27;
y := x mod 27;
b := y div 9;
z := y mod 9;
c := z div 3;
d := z mod 3;
write(x);
write(' in base3 is ');
writeln(a,b,c,d)
end.

It will convert a number from 0 to 80 to base3. For example if you enter 26 it would return 0222. Daivd was very excited that it worked and I hope to keep him interested in programming. If anyone has any suggestions please post a comment.

We decided to go to a Real Salt Lake (pronounced Ray-al) soccer game this year with Adam. After a couple of failed attempts we finally managed to do it. Jacob, David, and Stanley went with Adam, Joe, and Jon to see RSL beat the Colorado Rapids 2-0. It was a great game and we definitely will be going to another game (probably next year). Since it was Labor Day weekend we decided to stay in Layton and do some shopping and let the kids have a mini-vacation. We played in the pool at the hotel, went to Antelope Island, and also visited Paul and Rachel.

David and Stanley at the RSL game.



Sunset at the RSL game.



Pictures of kids swimming.








Lastly, here is a video of Walker performing a difficult forward front flip to cannon-ball from the .1 meter platform.

I've wanted to go hiking up at Harriman State Park ever since the Wood Reunion. I finally found a free weekend and convinced the rest of the family to go with me. We hiked 5 miles, saw both lakes, and even saw a moose. Here are some pictures from the hike.


Toni, David, Vyktoria, and Walker walking past Golden Lake.



David, Stanley, Vyktoria, and Walker on the bridge by Silver Lake.



Stanley in front of Silver Lake.



Silver Lake.



Momma moose. Her baby is further into the trees and not visible in the photo.

School has started for us and one of Stanley's classes this year is Orchestra. We thought he was going to play the violin, but he decided to play the cello. Here is a video of one of his first practices after school.



When the rest of the kids saw me record Stanley they decided to show off their musical talent too. Here is Walker playing the piano.



Here is Vyktoria playing the piano.



And finaly here is David playing the piano.



Let me know if the videos work ok. This is my first video post, and the files were kinda big so I'm not sure if they will stream very well.

Grandma and Grandpa Wood are putting aluminum siding on the cabin in Island Park this year so we headed up for a weekend to help them get it ready.

Here is Stanley trimming the dead branches from some trees around the cabin.



Here is David helping us pull this corner of the roof lower so that it was level with the rest.



Here is Adam getting ready to snap a chalk line on the scalloped trim so that we could "trim" it off. We were all a little bummed about losing the alpine look.



Here is Josh looking like a mad scientist carpenter.



Here are the kids enjoying wild strawberry milkshakes.... Well most of them are enjoying them. I'll bet you can figure out who isn't.



On Sunday we took a drive up Sawtell and walked through some wild flower meadows. We thought it would be a good chance to get a family picture.



We also got a picture of four generations of Wood men... in the woods.



It was a really nice weekend. I'm glad we could help with the work on the cabin and the kids had a lot of fun playing with cousins.

On Saturday August 2, 2008 we baptized Walker Wyatt Wood. He is our last kid to be baptized and it is very odd to think that the next baptism in our immediate family will be one of our grandkids (Yikes!).



Afterwards we had a little lunch party with family. Grandma Wood made root beer, kids played tetherball, Cindy and Josh rode a ripstik (seriously, I'm not kidding), and Ellie tried skateboarding (with a little help).