Cameron's Big Number One!

As freaky Friday the 13th rolled around, Cameron's first birthday bash began. It was to be a magnificent party, with a huge number of fans and friends attending. Okay, so the only person there besides his family was his uncle Eric, visiting from Colorado. But it was a great day, one of the first sunny and warm days in a while, so we spent the afternoon at our favorite park. We've experimented with a photo slideshow to give some highlights of the day. At any rate, the best part of Cameron's birthday for his parents was watching him pounce on his slice of cake and messily devour it. Good thing we were at the ready with the camera. A pack of wild hyenas has nothing on Cameron, he snarfed the cake in about 20 seconds. Give or take.

Happy Birthday (a little late on here) Cameron!

A Few Random, but Good, Pictures

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Cameron -- oh yes, this will come back to haunt him.




This is Dylan, when once upon an Easter morn, he got hold of the dye tablets for our eggs. Once he realized it wasn't candy, of course he was quite upset.



Cameron had the right idea for how to spend a warm afternoon on the beach - kicked back, chillin' in the shade, with a bottle. Of choice beverage. Appropriate for his age.




Nate: "Hey, don't blame me! I go to work all day while these impressionable boys stay home with their mother."






Yes, Brenda did get Nate to wear purple. He makes purple look good.







The newest addition to the family. Dylan: "Hey! It's our blue van!"




... permanent press... delicates... "cutest boys" setting...









Nate after trimming the verge at the neighbor's house. No, that's not his leg hair sticking through his socks.




Brenda is very adept at avoiding the camera's lens side, but Nate vows he will work to fix that in the near future.

Light-speed travel is possible--- but only with children

Nate has decided that all theories about light-speed travel are trash. Only two have merit: The first, create an enormous self-serve line, i.e. at the "self checkout" counter at the grocery store, or at an ATM. The reason this theory holds water is based on the space-time anomaly that the person just in front of you is always slower than you. Since this is true for every person in line, by the time the last person in line makes it through, they should be traveling at the speed of light.

The second involves a room of two- and three-year olds, all running around in a circle. The combined energy (sound, motion, heat, and stress energy radiating from their parents) will accelerate all of the toys randomly thrown around the room to faster-than-light speed. The downside would be that all people, structures, and toys within a city block radius would be annihilated. In the name of scientific progress, we'll step up to the plate for this.

On a lighter note, Nate finally broke his personal best 1.5 mile run time today, with 9 minutes and 30 seconds. All he needs to max out the PRT scale for the Air Force is three more pushups in 60 seconds.

Dylan and Cameron are going as strong as ever. They feed off each other, but not in a cannibalistic Amazon jungle way. Cameron imitates some of the screaming noises that Dylan makes, and Dylan tries to copy everything Cameron does. That makes Cameron really happy, so he gets even louder! It's great for a laugh now and again, as long as it's not at 9:00 at night, when Dylan has broken into Cameron's room and is making sleep time impossible.

Brenda is planning a girls night out with some friends from the ward here. Nate was surprised to hear they want to go to a Greek restaurant in Monterey. (Brenda? Trying strange, new foods?) At Nate's class picnic she was able to sample several traditional Arabic dishes, like hummus, falafal, and some salads. (Don't forget the baklava!) Nate was too sick to enjoy any of them, he actually went home early, which was an ordeal of itself. Nothing in the military happens easily.