Wii Birthday and Thanksgiving

Well, it was my birthday. And because Cary and I are so close in age, we are actually both the same age now for the next couple of months.

Susie bought the new Nintendo Wii for my birthday. I was told to act surprised. :) I do the finances and I saw the bill on the credit card about 3 weeks before the big day. Our solution to this is to have Becca buy it, and Susie just writes a check later.

As you can see, Simon liked playing with it too.

The Daniels came down from Utah for Cari and Nate's wedding...and to hang out with all of us during Thanksgiving.

For several days, Sam had the pool warmed up and everyone had their time in it. Here's Jordan mid-air doing a forward flip. Kind of looks like he's sitting in a chair.

This is Spencer doing a back-flip off the diving board. This shot looks like a frame from a Spider man movie dodging weapons.

Grace and Ben are here helping out with the dinner rolls. They helped Susan and Denise butter them before going into the pan.

Yes, you are correct, we had a deep fried turkey. We had a traditional turkey and breast as well. The deep fried turkey tasted good.

Nate actually started off the oil by making some tasty chicken wings as an appetizer. He actually fried the turkey neck as well. He said he and his dad would go around stealing necks to eat. He said it's like turkey-jerky.

Here's the thanksgiving lay-out. With the living room furniture moved out for the wedding, Susan decided to have thanksgiving served there too. Sam and I probably went thru 20 different configurations of tables before we settled on this one. We probably could have written a manual on how to maximize table space.

Of course, Turkey had its affect on everyone. I was a bit too noisy to catch Tay sleeping. Here's Drew sleeping with the pies in the background.

We made so many pies we were practically giving them away as door prizes.

Tay and nearly everyone else went to see the ASU vs. USC game. Here's Tay all ready to see the game better from his seat.

Susie and I stayed with Simon. We ended up staying up with Spencer and Jordan. We played a couple of rounds of Settlers of Catan. Susie won both times representing Team Ning.

We played again Friday night and Susie won again, making a 3 game winning streak.

It was really fun hanging out with all the family. Simon enjoyed seeing his cousins and being handled by everyone. He really was a champ. He did get a bit sick but we all had fun anyway.

Nate and Cari Owen

Well, congratulations to Nate and Cari. Their wedding was yesterday and it was a lot of fun. It was a purposely small crowd, although it's pretty tough to keep a small wedding party in a Mormon environment. As is the tradition amongst the Robinson weddings, the ceremony was held in the afternoon. This left us able to get nails, hair and make-up done with plenty of time in the morning.

This also left enough time for me to spend some time playing with Grace and Ben.
Here they are being silly in their wedding clothing in the trampoline. I watched them play and play and play.

Here's Simon sitting with Doug Owen, (Nate's father). Do you like his outfit? It's a pinstripe vest and pants with a body-suit button-up white shirt. He was stealing the show that night.

Here's Davis being a ham. He was watching an episode of Clifford, the big red dog for the 3-4th time since I got there.

With all the wedding stuff going on, unfortunately the Rails couldn't stay very long, and we didn't get much time to play with David and Noah. It was fun the time we did have.

Here's Susie with Grandma Robinson ("842"). In her usual fashion, she came, saw everyone, and then shortly after the ceremony, she quietly ducked out of the party.

Funny picture of Simon. You can clearly see his two teeth he's got. He still keeps us up at night because his new teeth hurt. He's eating up a storm and we don't know how to get enough calories in him so he can sleep again thru the night. We're not putting in some orajel on his gums at night to relieve the pain.

Here's Simon again showing off his smile. He loves the mirror, and he loves the camera. Really just a big flirt.

During the wedding, Nate and Cari walked out onto the back deck covered in rose petals. After the ceremony, Grace and all the other kids had a lot of fun grabbing the biggest pile they could make, and throwing it up in the air.

This picture was actually taken before the ceremony. But I really liked it. They posed on the balcony.

We wish them all the best.

If asked, I already had the perfect advise for them as a new married couple:

- Never underestimate the power of hormones.

New York and Phoenix

Well, the long awaited family trip to NYC and Phoenix took a little turn. About 4 months ago, the original idea was for the family to go out to NYC for a week while I stayed at Sheraton for work. Afterwards, we were going to fly out to Phoenix for Thanksgiving; Susie had intended to go to her 10 year high school reunion the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

So, first of all, my trip to NYC got cut short and then was extended to include to work with a company out in Long Island. This was a big discouraging for Susie since my hotel in Manhattan would only last until Wednesday mid-afternoon.

Then, Susie's sister, Cari, decided to choose November 17th as her wedding day. Susie felt that her week off would be best spent helping Cari get ready. So below are some of the pictures that I took with the family on Friday before the wedding.

Grace and Ben Cason enjoying the swings out in the front. Quite frankly, I'm her favorite Uncle, really!!

The pool was heated up to 80 degrees and Simon thought it was like a big bath. He loves taking baths and he loves being out in the pool.

Susie loves taking Simon in the pool. He had a mild ear infection for which he's taking antiobiotics. So he couldn't get his head in the water. It's actually pretty funny to watch him go under. Susie wanted me to point out that Simon's left eyebrow goes up higher than his right. She claims that's the "Robinson Mark"... more specifically, she said that look reminds her of her father Sam.

Cities & Knights Victor

For those that are in the know, about 40 minutes ago, I, Kelvin, won Cities and Knights for the first time in the year 2007.

The first place loser was Jared Peterson with 12 points. And pulling up the rear was David Parker with 8 points.

For those that were keeping track, we've played quite a bit this year (almost weekly) and taught a lot of people and showed them how to win. Before this day, the last time I won a game was in Mallorca, Spain, playing against Jared and Kelli Salter just before Christmas.

I would like to thank Jared and David, who recognized I was winning, and put up a huge fight to make sure I wouldn't win it by a landslide. For about the last 6 rounds, no one would trade with me, and they did all that they could to thwart what was to be my day. At least, it was not won uncontested.

All Hail Lord Kelvin of Catan...

San Francisco Wave Organ

So today we did a family walk out to the San Francisco Wave Organ. If you walk out from the exploratorium to the beach and take Baker out to the ocean, there's a little finger of land that stretched out into the ocean. There are a bunch of pipes that play different notes as the waves hit along them so they change at different water levels.

I actually used the timer on my camera for the first time and took this one. We'll need to do this more often, or else, only Susie and Simon end up in the photos.

Jared Salter would like this shot because we were able to get the sailboat in the background. Yes, that's also Alcatraz island in the back.

Simon with the Golden Gate Bridge in the back.

My two favorite people.

Ward Halloween Party

As you can see, we had a theme with our costumes. Simon was a shark, Susie was a mermaid, and Kelvin was a surfer (the surf board didn't quite get finished before it was thrown away). The ward Halloween party was excellent. We had on the menu:
- Brains, with eyeballs served in a blood sauce (spaghetti and meatballs in a meat sauce)
- Bread with Vampire Repellent (garlic bread)
- Battered, deep-fried fingers on a stick (corn dogs)

A little over 200 people attended and we had all sorts of games. A spook alley was constructed with the help of the youth. The Bishop had his spider room which was good for the little kids. Thomas Glenn was the "mad scientist" in the spook alley. He had to tone it down a bit after a couple of kids. This section lasted only from 5:30 to 6:00pm. We had a scavenger hunt for the kids which involved them looking for certain characters in the cultural hall and getting a sticker from them. If they got all the stickers, we would give them a bag of candy in the end (everyone got a bag regardless). There was a "toy-walk" and a pumpkin pie eating contest.

Honestly, this was our first Sunset Ward Halloween party, and we liked it. We'll have to dress Simon back-up in his shark outfit again to take more pictures.

Simon has Teeth

As of October 29th, Simon woke up with a tooth on the lower jaw, front left. On the 31st, the one next to it came out also.

This explains why he's been sleeping so poorly, and feeling a little warm. As you can tell, he's now learned to stick-out his tongue. Since this occured for the first time, the morning his tooth showed up, we think the two are related.

The latest theory is that he likes to feel the tooth under his tongue, so he's really not sticking his tongue out, but just rather, feeling his tooth with his tongue.