Life in the Kid Lane

Christmas Morning 2008

Best Present Ever

Sofie in the Snow

Fun Sledding in UT

Get Ready, Get Set . . . Go!

Olivia at the Zoo

Olivia’s Happy B-day Breakfast

Olivia Gets the Wise Owl Award

Elmo Rides a Fish

Strawberry Blonde

Daddy-Daughters-Date: WICKED!

Three of the Four

Singing in the AZ Rain

Sisters at D-Land

Tae Kwan Do JJ

Targeting the Prize

A recent episode of The Office reminded me of a corporate leadership conference I had to attend several years ago – you know, the kind where various gurus take the stage and give the be-all-you-can-be spiels meant to motivate and “maximize potential” and such. 

In starting things off, the keynote guru defined the most important step to achieving career goals: “Targeting the PRIZE”.  Or in other words, to “succeed”, we need to openly declare where we want to end up.  Sorta like Covey’s ‘begin with the end in mind’, except this particular guru was quite sure he invented the idea from scratch.  Nice.

And so, with his whiter-than-white Fortune-100 smile, he cajoled each member of the audience into stating his or her most sought-after title, position, or role.  Then one-by-one, the obvious answers came out with way too much enthusiasm: “CEO!”, “Company President!”, “Chairman of the Board!”, “Chief Counsel!”, Woohoo!”, etc, yada, yada, blah, blah, blah.

Though stated with much less fanfare, I felt my answer was also obvious: “Dad”. 

Back to School

Fall is here, hear the yell, back to school, ring the bell
Brand new shoes, walking blues, climb the fence, books and pens
I can tell that we are going to be friends

Walk with me, Suzy Lee through the park and by the tree
We will rest upon the ground and look at all the bugs we found
then safely walk to school without a sound

Here we are, no one else, we walked to school all by ourselves
There’s dirt on our uniforms, from chasing all the ants and worms
We clean up and now its time to learn

Numbers, letters, learn to spell, nouns, books, show and tell
At playtime we will throw the ball, back to class, through the hall
Teacher marks our height, against the wall

And we don’t notice any time pass, we don’t notice anything
We sit side by side in every class, teacher thinks I sound funny
But she likes the way we sing

Tonight I’ll dream in my bed, when silly thoughts go to my head
About the bugs and alphabet, and when I wake tomorrow I’ll bet
That you and I will walk together again

Cause I can tell that we are going to be friends

A Gr8 8/8/08 for Four

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, Johnny Quatro had himself a great birthday.  Even Darth Vader had a fun time. . .

 

Many thanks go out to those who participated near and far, and may the force be with you, always.

Olivia Takes a Look at Bolivia

A recent exploration of the Bloggernacle* brought me to a site called LDS Cooperative, and one of the posts there caught my eye: “Can you be a Mormon and Wealthy?” by Kate Kelly. 

The principles recounted in this essay truly inspired me, and after reading it several times, I resolved to giving more and giving more often.  I would encourage everyone to give it a read and think about ways to help those in need.  (Hey that rhymes.  Sweet.)

Continuing my exploration, I also found at LDS Cooperative a link to Kiva.org, an excellent non-profit, person-to-person microcredit organization.  With my desire to help others rekindled, I signed up (for free of course) and began looking over all of the profiles of people who are looking for a leg up.  I found the experience both humbling and invigorating.

Kiva is a very bare-bones website.  There’s no-over-the-top marketing compelling people to lend, Sally Struthers doesn’t jump out of the screen and cry all over you until you pull your wallet out.  It’s really just a basic interface that lets you make loans from your Paypal account to people all over the world who are trying to build up their businesses – farmers, tailors, merchants, construction workers, mechanics, etc. – each with a very basic profile of their situation and needs.  There’s no return on investment at Kiva, and there’s no guarantee of repayment either (although repayment rates are generally above 99%).  But read Kate’s essay and you will understand that ROI should not be the goal, and that’s fine by me.

So, for family night last week, we sat down with the kids and looked over a huge map of the world.  We talked about living conditions in various places and some of the basic reasons why some countries are very poor.  We then dialed up Kiva and looked over some of the profiles from South America, Africa, East Asia, Middle East, Eastern Europe, etc..  And when the kids made their choices we marked on the map the countries where our loans were going.  Olivia chose a tailor in Bolivia who needed money to buy a new sewing machine to keep her business running and Audrey chose some ladies in Uganda who want to open a clothing store. 

The lesson was very simple: we should always be looking for opportunities to help others, be they across the world or right next door.  This was a very good experience for all of us and I am looking forward to continuing it for years to come. 

jph3

* FYI – ‘Bloggernacle’ is a term that refers to the many LDS-themed bloggs out there.  But beware, some are good, some are not.

A Public Service Annoucement From All of Us at the JPH3 House

We had a fantastic time kayaking down the Provo river on Saturday.  Good family & friends, good food, good fun.

A big thanks goes out to the Kellys for such a great time!

And though my children were all soaked to the bone (due to our turbulent run-ins with those darn bridges), I was fortified with the knowledge that these “public-service instructions” have imparted upon me. 

So, you will all be relieved to know that I resisted the urge to toss my kids in the dryer before we headed off to see WALL•E (which was awesome, BTW).   Phew, that was close.   Thank goodness for good parenting instructions.

Oh, and guess what, despite what you may have heard, it actually is OK to dunk your Blackberry in the Provo river several times.  I tried it on Saturday, and it was only broken for a couple of days – now it works just fine.  Must be that fine Chinese construction.

Sweet!

PS: I’ve added the full set of these funny little signs to the Funny Fotos section as a public service to anyone looking for good parenting advice. 

 

TGIF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

With Kristina and the kids vacationing in Utah, it’s been pretty lonely around the ol’ Santa Clarita hacienda.  So, all I can say is, thank goodness it’s FRIDAY!  I’ve never looked forward to a weekend more than this one.  And I’ve never missed 5 humans more than I have missed them this past 2 weeks.  I can’t wait to see them tomorrow.  PHEW, glad that’s over with . . . this ‘bachelor’ stuff is for the birds. 

PS: WALL•E opens today!!!  It’s received fantastic reviews . . . can’t wait to see it.

 

Happy Earth Day

Whenever I hear the song of a bird
Or look at the blue, blue sky,
Whenever I feel the rain on my face
Or the wind as it rushes by,
Whenever I touch a velvet rose
Or walk by a lilac tree,
I’m glad that I live in this beautiful world
Heavenly Father created for me.

He gave me my eyes that I might see
The color of butterfly wings.
He gave my ears that I might hear
The magical sound of things.
He gave me my life, my mind, my heart;
I thank Him rev’rently
For all his creations, of which I’m a part.
Yes, I know Heavenly Father loves me.

Oftentimes it’s the simplest things that make life beautiful.

 

Introducing Finnley

We have a new addition to the family!!  His name is Finnley (a name somehow derived from Huckleberry Finn, I think), and he is a Havanese pup of about 10 weeks.  Weighing in at a whopping 4 pounds, the approximate breakdown is: .5 pounds of pup, and 3.5 pounds of fluff.    So, yes, he is a total fluffball, but so far he seems to be a really sweet little guy.    

Anyway, come by and see him sometime. 

Cheers.

Happy Obligation-Chocolate Day!!!

Anyone who knows me knows that I love Japan.  I’m going back there in a couple of weeks, and in preparation for the trip I have spent some time brushing up on the language, customs, prior memories from living there, etc.  In doing so, one interesting aspect of Japanese culture that came back to me was ‘Choko-day’, which is their equivalent of Valentine’s Day, also celebrated on Feb. 14. 

Yup, you guessed it, the word ‘Choko’ means chocolate.  So for them, this is the day for giving chocolate to friends, family, co-workers, strangers, missionaries (score!), etc.  And of course it is also a day for giving large sums of casholla to ‘choko-ya’ (chocolate makers).  But what’s interesting to me is that Japanese folks are very upfront about labeling the relationships behind the giving on choko-day.  For example:

• Tomo-choko (友チョコ) is the chocolate that one gives to a friend (tomo).  Usually kids give tomo-choko.
• Taku-choko (宅チョコ) is the chocolate that a member of a home/house (taku) gives to the home itself (it is then usually gobbled up by the kids in the home, since houses don’t actually eat chocolate, FYI).
• Koi-choko (恋チョコ) is the chocolate given by a girl to a secret crush (koi). 
• Giri-choko (義理チョコ) is obligation chocolate, or chocolate that is given out of duty born of professional or societal roles.   E.g. workers are ‘obligated’ (giri) to give giri-choko to their bosses and sometimes students give giri-choko to their teachers.
• Honmei-choko (本命チョコ) is the chocolate given to the most honored of loved ones, truly and sincerely, from the heart of hearts (the honmei). 

I have no market data to support this, but my guess is that the largest amount of chocolate given on Feb. 14 in Japan is giri-choko, and at first blush, this might sound like a bad thing.  But please note, the notion of ‘obligation’ in Japan means something a little different to a traditional Japanese person.   

The components that make up the word ‘giri’ are ‘gi’ (justice, righteousness, morality, honor) and ‘ri’ (reason, principle, right, truth).  So, adding a little of my own understanding of Japanese culture, I believe a more complete translation for a gift given of ‘giri’ would be ‘a demonstration of service to one’s superiors with a sense of self-sacrificing devotion’.  This, in my book, is a very good thing – assuming your superiors are honorable, of course. 

But as with all giving, regardless of terms, definitions, semantics, and what-not, obviously the true value of the gift comes from the intentions of the giver.  Even in Japan, duty and obligation can be, and often is, automated and void of traditional intentions. But still, to many over there, devoted service is a way of life. 

So, to make a very long story only slightly longer, to my friends and colleagues wherever you may be, I wish you a happy ‘Obligation-Chocolate day’, along with my sincerest hope that I might have the opportunity to serve you well in the coming year.  

But lastly, and definitely most importantly, to my beloved wife: only you will receive my gift of honmei-choko.  From my heart of hearts, and with everything that I have inside, there is nothing more important to me than you.  

Cheers,
jph3

Fun in the SoCal . . . SNOW?!?!?

Please, please say it isn’t s(n)o(w)!

Ok, well it’s not really snow, at least by Utah standards anyway.  But, with the rains we’ve been having the past few days, we decided to hop in the car and drive about 20 miles north of us - just past the ”LA National Forest” – we found ourselves in this wacky winter wonderland.  I couldn’t believe my eyes, so I promptly pulled out my micrometer and measured – it’s official, approximately 3 billionths of an inch of snow for us to play in!  My flip flops were so confused!

So, snow shoes, surf boards, whatever.  It’s all good out here.   

 (Warning: Cell phone photos ahead!)

Fun in the SoCal Sun

Just thought I would post a few pictures of the fam.  We went to Ventura beach yesterday and had a great time.  I really can’t complain about 70 degrees and sunny in the middle of winter.  And, on the way there we found a local orchard that sells oranges fresh off the tree - 35 pounds for 5 bucks!  Sweet!

A few shots from a recent trip to the Magic Kingdom:

And last, but not least, a couple of random Sofi shots:

Happy Birthday Mom!