Wait, what???

Before I was married I would tell people how my nieces and nephews would say the funniest things. Then I'd try to think of things they had said and would draw a blank. Now that I'm married, and have the privelage of being around Tucker and Grace on a daily basis, I can honestly say that much like my nieces and nephews, they say the FUNNIEST things.

 The difference is now I immediately pull out my phone and text myself their verbal comedy. While both Tucker and Grace make me laugh, Tucker tends to be the more "random" of the duo, which results in a moment of confusion before bursting into laughter.

So without further adieu, here are some of the things they have said over the past couple weeks. I apologize to those of you who stalk my facebook, because a few of these have been posted recetly. Let's start with the drama queen herself... Grace Eden!

** GRACE: (While falling asleep in the backseat on a late night drive home) "Momma, how do you tell if you're pregnant?
BONNIE: "Well, Grace, they give you a test."
GRACE: "I bet one of the first questions is, is your tummy getting bigger?"
BONNIE: (Holding in her laughter - I'm already cracking up) "No Grace not that kind of test. They either test your blood or your tinkle"
GRACE: "Oooh, I bet I'd be good at that. I tinkle all the time, even in my sleep!"

** GRACE: "Mom guess what? There's this girl in my class named McKenna and someone's crushin' on her!
BONNIE: (With a dreadfully confused look on her face) "What does that mean?"
GRACE: "Well, like there is a boy in class who writes her anonymous notes that say like, 'you're hot' and stuff." (Ladies and Gents... She's 8. WHAT?!?!?!)

** GRACE: "Mom I think I can hear the baby eating food inside you."

SHE'S OUR STAR!

Now for the T-man himself... Tucker Cliff! Brace yourself... these are GEMS!

** TUCKER: (As we pulled into the Dairy Queen parking lot) "Hey Scott guess what? Dairy Queen and Burger King are married."

** TUCKER: (As I dropped him off for school on a breezy 82 degree August morning) "It's cold outside. It's almost Winter. It's probably gonna snow soon."

** TUCKER: (While we were all eating out) "Scott must be having a baby too cuz his belly is getting bigger than Mommas!"

** TUCKER: (As we pulled into the Home Depot parking lot and I was flipping through radio stations) "Hey I know who sings that song."
ME: "Who"
TUCKER: "Justin Bieber"
ME: "You like Justin Bieber?"
TUCKER: "Ya"
ME: "He sings like a girl huh?"
TUCKER: "Ya"
ME: "You like guys who sing like girls?"
TUCKER: "Ya"
ME: "That's cool... I guess. But are you just saying yes to everything I say?"
TUCKER: "No!"

** TUCKER: (As he is walking around the garage carrying a saw while I build our ramp) "Hey Scott, wanna know what's free from a tree?"
ME: "What?"
TUCKER: "An Apple. But you can't take the whole tree. That would make Heavenly Father sad."

** TUCKER: (Still while we're building the ramp) "Scott, what else do people build with wood?"
ME: "Lots of stuff. Like houses, and tables."
TUCKER: "Ya, lots of people like building houses for work. No work, no money!"
Me: That's true bud, you're really smart!

** TUCKER: (Just as he found the marker I was looking all over for) "Here is the marker!"
ME: "Oh, awesome, thanks bud. You have really good eye sight!"
TUCKER: "I know, it's because I eat a lot of carrots. I eat so many carrots I can almost see outer space. But not all the way. You have to eat A LOT of carrots to see outer space!"

** TUCKER: (After running around in the front yard and returning to the garage) "I wish I was dark skinned, then I'd be happy."
ME: (Stopping everything I'm doing with a confused look on my face) "What? Why?"
TUCKER: "Then bees won't sting me."
ME: (Even more confused now) "Wait, bees don't sting dark skinned people?"
TUCKER: "Nope, they just like light skin people."

That's the T-man himself!

Who are you when I'm not lookin?

When Bonnie goes to work I'm consistently guilty of 2 things.  They're sort of related.

1) I let the kids stay up way too late.  Bonnie has the kids in bed around 730 when she's here.  On a night that she works however, the scene around the house at 730 is quite different.  Take tonight for example.  At 730 I was perusing Netflix in search of a nature documentary I HAVEN'T seen yet, Grace was playing with her dolls in her room, and Tucker was abusing the strings on his out of tune guitar while belting out random lyrics like, "Oh what a special day! Special day!  Special daaaaaaaaaaaaay! Because one plus one thousand plus one million is a special daaaaaaaaaaay!"  Feel free to be as confused as I am.

2) I don't pay enough attention to what the kids are doing.  I will probably be guilty of this for years to come.  I feel like this habit developed way back in my teenage years when a few brave mom's in my home ward would ask me to babysit their kids.  As long as it didn't sound like they were fighting I would give them the benefit of the doubt that they were NOT doing anything wrong.  Probably every mom reading this right now is shaking their head saying, "No... NO Scott!  When they're too quiet you KNOW they're doing something wrong!"  This has turned out to be true in more than one babysitting experience.  I remember one occasion, while babysitting 2 boys that I told them both to go play quietly upstairs.  Eventually the older one fell asleep in his room on his own, but the younger one was happily playing with an unhealthy collection of Barbie Dolls on the stairs.  To this day I'm trying to figure out why a home with two boys possessed ANY, much less, multiple Barbies?!?!

Ok, so maybe a boy playing with Barbie's didn't really illustrate my point, but I guess what I'm trying to say is when it's "too quiet" it MIGHT be a bad thing. However, it might NOT be a bad thing either.

For instance... tonight, while I piddled away with a couple different games on my phone the kids played quietly in their rooms. By quiet I mean you could've heard a mouse pee on cotton.  I thought to myself a couple times, "I should probably go check on them," but brick breaker was getting intense.  Eventually I wandered back towards their rooms just in time to see Grace putting Bonnie's camera back on her shelf.  The following conversation ensued:

Me: Grace what were you doing with Mom's Camera?
Grace: Taking pictures
Me: Oh really, that sounds like fun
Tucker (Who appears out of nowhere laughing hysterically): It was lots of fun! We took some good ones!
Me: I'll bet you did, I think it's time for bed.

Well ladies and gentleman... I present to you 10 reasons why you should NOT investigate when it's "too quiet." Rather... just keep doing what you're doing and if your kids are anything like Grace and Tucker you might end up with some gems like these... Enjoy...

Just curious. What's the over/under Tucker was about to pee his pants when this pic was taken?

I rest my case...

21-30

At last... The final saga in the "30 in 30 in 3 series." 30 random memories, told in 30 run on sentences.

**Warning** While the events in this post are true, the visuals that follow them are for dramtic illustration purposes only, and were not actually taken during the events. With one epic exception... the family photo from Yellowstone! So without further procrastination... here's 21-30!

21) I remember being just shy of 6 feet tall in 6th grade and absolutely owning kids in tether ball before, during, and after school, and winning so much that the people in line waiting to play began making up rules to get me out and then they would all vote against me when I challenged the rule so I would ALWAYS lose!



22) I vividly remember having hour, sometimes day long wannabe ninja turtle battles with my little brother using vacuum cleaner extension poles and pretending to be either raphael with 2 seperate poles or combing the poles and fighting as Donatello!




23) I remember growing up, before Sunday dinners, my older sister Kerri would always need woken up from her sunday nap to eat, and nobody ever wanted to do it for risk of being verbally or physically abused, so my dad decided that because everyone was so afraid to do it that we would draw straws to determine the "lucky" winner!



24) I remember being at my grandmas and my dad asking my little sister Amy to get the wheat thins from the car and after 10 minutes he sent me out to see why she had not returned with said wheat thins and when I went outside I found Amy scared to death, still in the van, near tears, and when I asked her what was wrong she pointed at all the big black birds in the front yard and said she didn't want to get out of the van because she thought the birds were going to attack her!



25) I remember when I was younger my oldest brother Dan was babysitting me and my little brother and sister and after we refused to do a few simple chores that he asked us to do he uncharacteristically slammed a cup down on the coffee table in front of him, SHATTERED THE GLASS, and sent us running away in fear!



26) I remember being at home one night with my 2 younger siblings and my older brother Clint, and receiving a call from my neighbor informing us that a suspicious looking man was snooping around our front yard, so we called the cops and then the 4 of us hid in Clint's room in the basement while we waited for the police, and I was so scared I started to cry and Clint yelled at me, "Bucky! Stop crying! I have a baseball bat! I'll protect you guys from anything!" and thinking my brother was insane and then learning later that the person my neighbor saw was actually my dad looking at some of our trees while waiting for someone to pick him up out front.



27) I remember taking long family road trips to places like Yellowstone and being forced to take awkward family photos like this gem here!



28) I remember when I was in about 6th grade my dad brought home a box of telephones from his office and I took the box down to the basement and over the next couple of days I dismantled nearly every phone in the box and when my dad found out and got ticked off I said "Dad, I thought they didn't work anymore so I got curious and took them apart to see what was on the inside!"



29) I remember getting a techinical foul in a boys and girls club basketball game for arguing with a referee and then getting a second technical foul and being kicked out of the game for taking my jeresy off and then walking 3 and a half miles home because I refused to get in the car with my mom after she took the ref's side!



30) I remember when my brother Clint shot a monster bull elk and my dad built a sweet looking base for the mount and Marc Plunkett of Wildlife Safari Art in Camp Verde, Arizona polished off the base and finished one of the sickest looking elk mounts I have ever seen and all 9 feet of it now stands proudly in Clint's family room!



Let's face it... This one's worth 2 pictures!

PART 2 -- 10 MORE!

Here's round 2. Spoiler alert: Da grammar doesn't get no betta!

1) I remember when I was younger I was watching Unsolved Mysteries by myself with all the lights off and during a commercial break I put a frozen capri sun in the microwave to defrost it and then ran back to the couch just in time to see giant blue flashes coming from the microwave.

2) I remember when I was about 12 I found a massive stash of silver dollars amd half dollars in my dad's closet and I spent close to every one of them buying stuff from the ice cream man for me and my friends.

3) I remember dressing up like a complete fool with my buddy Devin to win lower level seats to a suns game and being told by the judges 10 min. before the contest ended "we've never seen anyone dress this crazy, you guys have this on lock" and then losing the contest minutes later to a pair of Scottsdale skanks in mini skirts and skin tight tank tops who simply rolled paint onto their entire bodies.



4) I remember when I was in middle school I covered every square inch of the walls in my room with cut-outs from Sports Illustrated and miscellaneous posters and then one day I came home and saw that every one of them had been cut into tiny pieces by my little brother Russ and my cousin Nick.

5) I remember when I worked with Devin.



6) I remember when Dwight Howard took 6 steps without dribbling and was not called for travel.



7) I remember when I showed my camping buddies the "flamability" of non-dairy coffee creamer.



8) I remember when I saw the remains of a lizard that chose the wrong time to hang out in a door jam.



9) I remember when I attempted to coach a girls volleyball team and every one of the girls knew twice as much as I did about the sport of volleyball.



10) I remember when I was the most sick I've ever been in my life and my incredible fiance came over, cleaned my house, brought me brownies, and made me soup. I love you more all the time Bonnie!

Round 3 coming soon, to a monitor near you!

30 IN 30 IN 3

From time to time I see, smell, hear, touch, taste, or do something that leads me to say, "I remember when... yada-yada-yada" More often than not, that "yada-yada-yada" is some long, drawn-out story that, if I'm lucky, leaves others laughing as hard as myself. So in an effort to simplify my stories, here's 30 RANDOM memories, told in 30 run-on sentences, delivered 10 at a time! Grammar gurus... close your eyes.... these are gonna burn!

1) I remember when I was about 12 and I was searcing through a tub of 5-cent pogs at Walgreens and a kid my age walked in and took 2 handfuls of pogs and ran straight out the front door screaming "I love pogs #%*(&#$!"



2) I remember when I watched The Mighty Ducks and it inspired me to grab an old purse from my sister's closet and fill it with dog poop and hang a dollar bill out of it and put it on the side of the road and sit in my neighbors backyard with my buddies and watch the magic of the movie unfold in real time, right before our eyes!

3) I remember when I was younger I walked by a neighbors open garage door and saw those hand held velcro nerf ball catcher things and I took them because I was going to san diego the next day and then I returned them to the same neigbors garage the next time I saw it open!



4) I remember riding my bike to the mall and buying the soundtrack to the movie "Selena" on audio cassette and then staying up late at night hitting rewind-play over and over until I memorized every word to the song "Dreaming of You!"

5) I remember when I was in middle school I saved my money from doing chores so I could buy a book of "your mama" jokes called SNAPS!



6) I remember when there was a nickelcade/indoor mini-golf joint in Phoenix, and I wemt with my older brothers and I spent every nickel I was given playing Street Fighter II!

7) I remember sleeping over at a friends house and being woken up by his mom at 8am on a saturday and being told "We don't sleep in on saturday's in this house, we clean" and then immediately grabbbing my sleeping bag and walking out the front door laughing out loud and thinking, "Woman, I'm not cleaning your house on a saturday morning!"

8) I remember going through a break dancing phase where I would come home every day from school and put on a pair of "And 1" warm up pants and an ugly warm-up jacket and practice break dancing in my basement for hours on end!

9) I remember renting the movie "3 Ninjas" no less than 25 times growing up and with the help of my little brother, reenacting as many epic fight scenes as we could!



10) I remember chasing a girl down the halls of church nearly 3 years ago and then inviting her to my house 2 nights later and telling her she looked "so hot" and then drooling over her for the next 30 MONTHS and then FINALLY putting a ring on it! I LOVE YOU BONNIE!!!!




Part 2 coming soon!

Hmmm... About that...

Wow, it sure feels great to be back on the keyboard! To my faithful readers and occasional blog-stalkers, I offer my sincere apologies. To my new readers I say simply, reading my blog is like brushing your teeth at night... It's optional, but if you choose not to do it you'll probably regret it in the morning.

So with that said, allow me to get back to my roots with another true moment of comedy from my days in Idaho. This December will actually mark the 10 year anniversary of this epic financial fail!

You see, every Sunday when I was away at school I would call home to chat it up with my mom. I specifically say my mom because a typical conversation with my dad went something like this:

Me: "Hi Dad!"
Dad: "You got a job?"
Me: "Yup"
Dad "You need money?"
Me: "Nope"
Dad: "Ok, here's your mother."

On one particular Sunday however, with only a few weeks remaining in the semester, the conversation did not go as planned. It started off routine as I assured my dad for the 10th time in as many weeks that yes, I indeed had a job. However, I answered his inquiry about needing money with a hesitant yes! He cautiously inquired as to who-what-when-where-why and how I would be spending his hard earned cash. I explained to him that all my friends snowboarded, I wanted to try snowboarding for the first time, but the less than $60 in my checking account wasn't nearly enough to cover the cost of going.

Within 24 hours, being the loving dad he's always been, he transferred $250 into my checking account and sent me a short e-mail that went something like this... "Bucky, I put $250 in your account to go snowboarding. That should cover board and binding rentals, a 2-day pass because you'll spend the first day on your butt, and gas money for somebody to drive you there."

So there I was, 3 weeks left in the semester, the $57 and change in my checking account had just been quadrupled, and I could hardly wait to spend my well-begged-for money on..... WENDY'S AND TACO BELL?!?!?! Yup, you heard that right! Rather than rent a snowboard and dish out some cash for a 2-day pass... I woofed down bean burritos and junior bacon cheeseburgers EVERY DAY for the next three weeks!

Now fast forward about a month. I was home for Christmas break and my good buddy Devin was hanging out with my dad and I, watching the Suns game. At some point during the game Devin casually mentioned that he was headed to Flagstaff that weekend to go snowboarding. I casually, and very regrettably, said in response to his statement, "Dang! Lucky! I wish I had the money to go snowboarding! I've never been before!"

All I can remember from that moment on is the hybrid look of confusion and anger on my dad's face as he stared me straight in the eyes and said, "Wait a second son! If you didn't go snowboarding than what'd you do with the $250 I gave you last month?"

Hmmmm.... About that....

The moral of this story??? If I you ever hear me say I want to go snowbaording for the first time, cash out your 401K and start buying stock in Wendy's and Taco Bell!

Rather AMAZING!

Anyone who knows me better than a midget knows kids' sizes KNOWS I LOVE camping! Last night I rounded up my roommate Waldo, a couple buddies, my girlfriend, and her two kids and headed up North for the night. Steaks, smores, hot dogs, pickles, hiking, spot lighting, diggin holes, and drinking silly amounts of exotic gourmet soda all contributed to a GREAT TIME!

Here's some pics from our enjoyable get away, followed by one SERIOUSLY AMAZING video I took during our spotlighting adventure! Outside of the time I saw 2 mountain lions running together, it's by far the coolest thing I've ever seen with a spotlight. Especially because it stood there while I tooks pictures and videos of it...

Waldo, Destiny, and John... Waldo appears to be the most relaxed. haha.

Bonnie and I... How's that for some proper grammer!

Bonnie's daughter Grace and her ever-loving "dolly"...

Bonnie's son Tucker with his, "It's 2 hours past my bedtime but I can't stop staring at the AWESOME fire" look on his face...

I told you, the kid wouldn't stop looking at the fire...

Tucker preferred star gazing over eating his hot dog...

Probably the only candid shot of Bonnie from the trip...

If he wasn't staring at the fire he was staring at the dirt! Oh to be a kid again...

Waldo enjoying his last bite of steak...

Apparently John missed the "We're camping in the mountains, not Hawaii memo"...

Just enjoyin myself...

Tucker had marshmallows for breakfast! CLASSIC...

We took a small hike this morning, and naturally it broke into a quick game of hide and seek...

The kids starting to fall behind...

I LOVE this picture! HA HA! Grace didn't last very long on the hike...

Nothing like a cold pop and a cool mountain breeze...


Ok, this is a video I took last night when we were spotlighting. Excuse my child-like excitement throughout...

Ok, so now for the second post...

I recently lost a "friendly" wager about losing 20 pounds in 6 weeks. Admittedly I didn't try very hard, and will make no further excuses. However, it aggravates me to know that I weigh more now than I ever have in my life. There is also something else that aggravates me... SHAVING! So I figured why not combine my dislike for weight gain and shaving and make it a publicized ordeal.

Tonight I will purchase a scale and weigh myself. I will also shave. Then, if I can lose 2 and a half pounds a week, for 6 weeks, I get to keep my beard. In other words, my goal is 15 pounds in 6 weeks. However, I will weigh myself every saturday night and if I don't weigh in 2.5 pounds lighter than the previous week, I have to shave! GAME ON!