Those words that make you chortle…

I like words, I really do.  But I also really like unintentional-comedy.  Words often cause unintentional-comedy simply by, well, existing.  And we all need to laugh a bit more than we actually do.  SO… to determine the draft order of the 2nd Annual HTF Fantasy Football League each of the folks have picked “funny words” and we’re asking you to vote for your favorite or favorites.  There’s only a couple days until the draft, so do it now, please.

Even if you don’t give a skadoosh about our scrumptious shenanigans that may or may not involve phytoplankton having infarctions after eating baba-ganoush with gubernatorial candiadates debating dopplegangers and fibbertygibbets while dancing a mean jiggery-pokery – you really should vote!

And The Winner Is . . .

We have our winner!  Thanks to all of you who participated in the “random drawing contest thing for a $60 gift card to buy most anything online.”  We (no idea how “I” became “WE” but it sure sounds more impressive, right?) had lots of entries from AWESOME people – including some shout outs in other blogs and on the Facebook.  And our winner is:

REBECCA STEVENSON

This is a friend I haven’t seen in like 20 years, but recently reconnected with.  Congrats to her and may she buy fun stuff.

Special thanks to the promotions department at CSNStores for sponsoring the goodness!

Getting Blue in the Face and Holes in the Teeth

One of the cool parts about being a dad, aside from getting to roll up to the public library in a dented mini-van, is getting abbreviated reports of how the day went from the people who didn’t get to go to the office.  This usually involves cryptic half-sentences shouted towards me when I walk in the door, and at times the events are urgent enough to warrant a cell phone call during the day. 

One such “urgent event” is whenever my 4 year old suddenly remembers that the “2” button on mommy’s phone is a speed dial to daddy AND that she needs to push this button . . . a lot.  This can happen 40-50 times on a given day, and the likelihood of it increases exponentially when I’m in an important meeting.  Of course after a few times of ignoring the calls I assume that my wife actually urgently needs to talk because either she’s close to sending a child back to where they were 20 years ago OR the child has done something to another child that causes the same outcome OR something is on sale and she needs my opinion on whether to buy it or not (said opinion will then be ignored).  Instead, I find out that I’m being prank-called by a 4 year old who diffuses the situation with incredible skill by simply saying, “I called to say I miss you daddy, and I love you.”  You’d have to be a mean dude to stay mad after that.

This week I got a call from my wife, but only after a “warning text” where she let me know that the upcoming call was gonna be really unpleasant.  You see, it was “take the boys to the dentist day” and we’ve learned to always expect the worst.  And we got what we expected.  On the call I learned that the dentist had surmised that our oldest hadn’t put a toothbrush in his mouth since George Bush had decent approval ratings.  This is in spite of us nagging him constantly to brush those things and floss a bit too. His cavity has its own zip code and zoning laws.  We were told by the disapproving dentist that we actually have to brush the kid’s teeth ourselves.  (side note – try to keep a normal face while you brush someone’s teeth – WAY harder than you think…)  So we get to be super-embarrassed, terrible-parents AND give this dentist guy more money – the upside is that he’s gonna:

stick a needle in my son’s mouth. (something I’m totally good with, since it seems like a semi-legal punishment)

When I got home that day I was greeted with the strange one-liner that, “Braeden was swimming as far as he could at swim lessons and HIS HEAD TURNED BLUE.”  I wasn’t quite sure how to take this – surely his swim teacher was an evil monster that should be thrown in jail.  But then Braeden entered the conversation, smiled at me and said,

“I had my goggles on too tight… it was kinda fun.”

Gotta love those Daddy-reports….

I Voted . . . sort of

I voted last week – you probably did too.  But I did it while sitting on my bed reading stuff online about each of the candidates (and perhaps watching Youtube videos of them tripping or saying things out of context that made you think they hated children).  This is probably a little different than how it goes down in Iraq.  We’ve done absentee ballots for quite a while, but somehow it doesn't feel quite like voting.  It feels a little bit like watching church stuff on TV instead of going to church.  Kinda like my vote should be worth a little less than the guy who took the time to drive to the Junior High and stand in line so he could vote.  Still, since my vote is worth the same as that dude, I’ll keep doing it via the mailbox.

The big mid-term elections are coming up, and from what the make-up-caked-talking-heads on the TV keep saying – there are gonna be some serious changes.  For example by the time the election is over, instead of a country run by career-politicians, we’ll have a country run by career-politicians who very recently won an election.  I’m not sure one election, especially a mid-term is going to change everything, but it makes for some good theater.  And it makes a strong case for us to KEEP OUR DVR so that we can skip all of those commercials.  (that last sentence may or may not of been directed at the Mrs. HTF)

Anyway, be sure to pay super close attention to your local races.  And then in November we can get back to watching those awesome Old Spice ads again.

Junior High Dances, Football Helmets, & Porta-Potties

With the rapid approachment (a great word I just made up) of the football season there’s anticipation in the air of NFL mini-camps.  There’s also some serious BO-stench in the air there as well, but I’m choosing not to talk about that.  Every team thinks they have a shot.  It’s kinda like the first few seconds at the junior high dance.  You think, “hey, this could be awesome if everything goes exactly the way I’ve been trying to imagine.”  If only willing it would make it so… (I’d be significantly taller and have a lot more hair if “will” was all u needed).  Well, the 2nd annual HTF Fantasy Football league is about to kick off and there are similar stakes and a massive sense of unfounded optimism.  One of our more skilled (at what? – I’ll let you decide) managers sent in this question:

Dear Amphibian Friend:

In preparation for the upcoming FF season I have been doing the following:

· Religiously watching the “Chiefs Training Camp Update” every night on my local news

· Religiously reading the bottom-of-the-screen crawl for NFL news on ESPN while my husband hogs the TV to watch the Little League World Series

· Tracking Ben Roethlisberger’s progress toward not screwing up over the past 2 months so his suspension will be reduced (it won’t), and

· Researching which players are “HELMET OFF” and “HELMET ON” because there is a direct correlation between playing ability and HELMET status

What do you think my chances are this season?

CM the GM

Let’s be clear, your name, or rather, call-sign, there are the end may well be your best FF attribute.  Thanks for the great questions.  I’ll tackle each line one by one:

• If by “religiously watching Chiefs training camp” you mean that you’re praying that they’ll win more than 3 games, then that works.  If you plan to draft an actual Chiefs player, that strategy will work perfectly, but only if you draft all Chiefs players
• I’m withholding jokes about watching children play baseball on TV out of deep respect for your husband.  I don’t get watching actual men play baseball on TV, so the kid thing confuses me.
• Ah, Big-Ben the role model… You can draft the guy, but just please avoid setting him up on dates with your friends.
• Important to remember that a key purpose of helmets is to “cover up the ugly.”  I’m not sure just wearing a helmet means a dude can play.  I proved this myself during my own adolescent football career.  But if that strategy is working for ya – you go girl!

I think your chances this season are certainly off the charts.  You’re guaranteed a victory with those keen strategies.  And since you brought up Chiefs training camp – I leave you with this training technique in which the starting running back attempts to do, uh, two things at once…

Be sure to send your questions, regardless of how random, into henrythefrog@gmail.com!

HTF Givin’ Stuff Away!! You’re gonna wanna get in on this!

For some reason for like the last week I can’t get that “I Wanna Be a Billionaire” song out of my head.  This may be because, well, I wanna be one.  But one of the biggest reasons would be to be able to give stuff away to the people.  I have this fantasy about leaving thousand dollars tips or giving the family with the rickety, old mini-van a brand new ride.  Well, it’s not exactly that, but I have the awesome chance to do a giveaway to some of my favorite people on the planet – you guys!  I’m giving away a SWEET $60 gift card to use at any one of 200 online stores to buy stuff you NEED like yoga mats, wire wisks, remote control leopards, or dining room sets .  It’s pretty much anything you could want thanks to the groovy promotions department at CSN Stores – who are apparently new HTF fans.

Trust me – you’ll have zero trouble using the $60 gift card.  There’s no catch.  Here’s how you enter:

• Post a comment on this post or send me an email – the comment must include your email address.  You can only enter your e-mail address once, so spammage isn’t gonna help!
• If you post a link back to this post on your blog, let me know and you’ll get an additional entry!
• AND if people enter the contest and tell me in the comment/email that they came here from your blog – you’ll get an additional entry, plus they’ll get their entry.
• Remember – your email address is your entry!  If you don’t want the world (which may be a bit of an overstatement) to see your email address in your comment, then just send me the email.

I’ll take entries up until the end of the day on Aug 25th – then will select a random winner.  (by “random winner” I’m not calling the winner RANDOM per se, but if you read the blog you probably are a bit random)  Good luck!!

Leisurely Evening At The Pool

There’s nothing quite like finishing off a long day in the office by being mauled by gaggles of small children in a public swimming pool.  Which is precisely what I did last night because that’s what you do when your wife has been home with the little people on a hot day without air conditioning.

Public pools are an awesome scene, but not for the faint of heart.  Easily the scariest place is the bathroom/locker room.  If there was ever a room where you shouldn’t roll around in bare feet – this is probably it.  Let’s just say, toddlers trying to navigate wet swimsuits while taking care of urinal business can result in some, uh, “liquid outside of the pool.”  I think the assumption is that the actual pool water has enough cleaning effects to cancel out the nasty – this is an assumption I challenge.

Also in the locker room is the unavoidable “nudity with strangers” thing.  Not typically a big deal, but, well, I’ll leave out a few stories.  Last night I was doing the swimsuit change and was just about the drop my drawers when a 2 year old GIRL came flying around the corner and almost ran into me.  Luckily I had time to, well, not flash her.  Her father was right behind her and quickly realized the awkward moment that had happened.  He quickly took care of her and whisked her away.  A few seconds later the SAME THING HAPPENED.  At this point I resolved to become swimsuit-man from inside the biological weapon that is the public toilet stall.  At no point did bare feet touch floor, but I did successfully get dressed.

Once in the water I instantly became the juggle-gym/punching bag/drowning victim of my kids and their friends.  This was expected, but the onslaught was particularly ferocious yesterday.  I judge this by the claw marks, bruises, and time spent laying on the bottom of the pool with multiple kids standing on me.  After a while I escaped to what I expected was the relative calm of the toddler pool, only to be clocked in the eye by my daughter wielding a plastic dump-truck.  This caused actual bleeding.  But her friend made it better by slamming a plastic bucket on my head.

The part I left out . . .

I had a ton of fun last night!!  (but may wear a helmet next time)

Struggling with complex math…

Friends, there are still a few more slots left in the always-um-special HTF Fantasy Football League.  We want to have 10 teams and have 8 awesome (brave) readers who are in: 

- Tiffany, Christy, Dave, Aubri, Aaron, Matt, Jerianne & me

So that leaves like 13 or 17 spots open.

Right?

Ok, maybe it’s less than that

Anyway, this is your big chance to be part of the fun and be featured on the blog for being dominating and/or getting crushed.

As an extra incentive there will be a prize for the winner!

And it won’t be this:

It’ll be even better!  So drop me an email and get in on the fun!!!

Teen Frog

A couple nights ago the Mrs HTF was out on one of her female-only adventures.  After I put the little people to bed I found myself doing what I usually do when I’m alone – just kinda walking around the house, slowly, and sitting down in random places thinking of what I should do with the alone/free time.  Then I go sit in another place and do the same bit of thinking.  Well, that night I turned on the TV and, for reasons I describe later, watched the entirety of the “Teen Choice Awards.” 

I thought it would be a less-serious, more appropriate version of the adult award shows.  But the opening song was Katy Perry singing something about “Let’s go all the way tonight…”  So right off I was hit with the fact that “teen shows” meant something a little different than I thought.  Still, with the help of the fast-forward button on the DVR, I endured the rest of the show, including way more of Taylor Lautner’s chest than in all the Vampire movies combined.  Now I should tell you why I turned it on in the first place… (actually, I shouldn’t tell you, but I’m going to anyway)

Recently Traci made an observation that at first I scoffed at, but then realized was awfully correct.  (most of my observations get scoffed at and then scoffed at again . . . and again – appropriately)  She said:

“You’re a closet teenager.”

This is factually correct, and pretty embarrassing.  Without knowing it I try really hard to like the same music teenagers do (loudly), to like the same TV shows, to stay up late without fearing consequences the next day, dancing badly, stuff like that.  Only I get to do it without the zits or the fear of my Biology mid-term.  I guess I channel the inner-teen because, well, those years pretty much rocked (and I had hair then).  It’s also a self-played-mind-game that I do to avoid the really apparent fact that I’m getting ancient.  I know that “happy teenage years” is a phrase some of you think makes as much sense as “common-sense-government.”  And I’m sorry about that.  But for me that was a good time.

So if I call you randomly at 2 AM asking if you wanna come over for Pizza and a Fletch Marathon – just roll your eyes and remind me that I have a budget meeting at 8 AM and that I haven’t had hair since Bill Clinton won an election.

Picture story…

Not feeling a lot of words right now, so I think I’ll just throw out some photos to ponder.  But first, we still need 4-5 folks for HTF Fantasy Football.  Please let me know ASAP if you’re interested!

And now the picture stuff:

You know this guy:

For Father’s Day I got this:

And just a few weeks ago this happened:

So you should be pondering just how awesome our family dance parties are AND how awesome we smell.

Family Camp Recap Part 2: Celebrities/Apostles, Super-Athletes, and Scum

A couple posts ago I threw down the always-awesome “To Be Continued.”  (I guess it’s not awesome when dental surgery is involved, but generally it’s a good thing)  So, I give you part two of “Family Camp Recap” where I drop nuggets of interesting goodness on you about our adventures at Aspen Grove:

• On the first night when we walked into the Dining Hall I glanced around and quickly noticed a serious Mormon celebrity in the room.  Jeffrey R Holland (the Apostle) was with us the entire camp – which was really awesome, particularly his sweet fireside on Sunday night and passing him on the trail to the waterfall where he asked me, “is it much farther?”  Love that guy.
• As the kids were away doing whatever it was they were doing (again, I didn’t really care deeply) – the Mrs HTF and I played some big-time swimming pool basketball.  I eeked out some wins, but not without suffering claw marks and sharp elbows.  It was a battle-royal.
• While at the pool the life-guard, who I chatted with a few times that week, interrupted our game by asking me, “I’m sure everyone says this, but did you know you look like the guy from the Princess Bride?”  Traci and I pondered…  She said, “Wesley?”

  to which the lifeguard girl said, “no, the other guy.”  Which I quickly realized meant this guy:

  Ouch, I thought.  That one hurt a bit…

• We joined a softball game in progress and were greeted kindly by a large family of super-athletes.  Seriously, I’m quite sure any one of the women in that group could’ve thrown me up in the air and run a mile before I hit the ground.
• Each evening we got together with our adult friends and played SCUM and/or Trivial Pursuit.  We stayed up way later than we should’ve and I think that was just to pretend like we still can.  The way we stumbled around at breakfast in the morning though proved that wasn’t quite accurate.
• Our 11-year-old, Ethan was at the camp, we think.  We didn’t see him much, though they renamed the pool after him for some reason.
• Allison, (4 year old) deserted our family during the week and formally joined another family with a girl her age.  She quit eating with us and towards the end of camp I had to sign a form so the parents could include her as a dependent on their tax returns.

I could go on, but I’ll end it there.  Suffice it to say it was an AWESOME week.  One of the best ever.  Our kids have asked if we can move there.  And I’m pretty sure they’ll figure out how to make it so…

 

Huge Announcement – The 2nd Annual Something…

One of the highlights/lowlights of last year for some of you was the inaugural HTF Fantasy Football League.  We laughed, we cried, we made fun of each other’s kickers and I think it was a good time all around.  It even introduced several marvelous HTF readers to the wiles of Fantasy Football, which may explain why some may never do it again.  Still, back by popular demand I’m excited to announce the aptly-named:

2nd Annual HTF Fantasy Football League

So bring along your blog-reading friends OR those who read anything else, and drop me an e-mail.  It’s gonna be awesome!!

Family Camp Recap (Part 1: Ping-Pong, Panic Attacks, & Pottery)

We spent the last week at the Aspen Grove Family Camp in Provo Canyon, just above Sundance.  (it wasn’t really “above” Sundance, it was just up the road a few miles, but it would’ve been even cooler if it was literally “above” I suppose)  It was an awesome time filled with adventure, hilariousness, smallish animals, dancing, firearms, flying axes, singing, face painting, and, well, scum.  So here are a few things I learned or thought you needed to know:

• Climbing 70 feet in the air up a log/wall and THEN remembering my stupid fear of heights wasn’t my best decision ever.  I actually had a real-life panic attack while straddling a log on the aptly-named “HIGH Ropes Course.”  Oh, I finished the thing (mostly because I was being watched by a bunch of people I knew and because I had a rope around me so I didn’t die when I freaked out and let go of wall), but in a pretty humiliating fashion and gasping for air while having to immediately sit down.
• On the last night there we (like 400 of us) gathered for the final “show.”  The Mrs. HTF asked the announcer guy to announce that my son had lost his backpack, but that it has his name on it.  When the announcer asked if anyone had seen the missing item with Ethan’s name on it, my son, seated a few rows in front of us, quickly raised his hand, because he’d heard his name – to which the announcer smiled and told him to talk to the “lady in blue” (my wife).  The crowd cheered this development, but we just rolled our eyes.
• Kids singing/dancing on stage is always cute, until they turn like 11 or something, then they better actually know what they’re doing.
• The camp counselors, and there were lots of ‘em, took our kids for the vast majority of the day time.  They provided a detailed schedule of the activities they were doing so that the parents would be acutely aware.  I was surprised at how little I cared about those little schedules – except for the dropoff/pick-up times.
• One night we sent Allison (age 4) with our unsuspecting, too-kind friend to do Arts & Crafts.  She proceeded to convince our friend that she needed 5 different plaster figurines to paint (which cost $$).  The good news is that we came home with a colorful caterpillar, hat, shoe, unicorn and of course, a butterfly.
• Traci and I won the camp Mixed-Doubles Ping Pong Tournament.  But this was mostly because the semifinals were a forfeit and the finals ended up that way too because the guy tore his ACL the day before.  I like to say that everyone was too scared to play us.  Yep, Traci is that good.
• When we met the couple in our first round Ping Pong game I told the opposing wife that she looked really familiar to me, but I couldn’t place her.  I asked her name, maiden name, social security number and stuff that like.  She closed things down by saying that she probably just had “one of those faces.”  Well, several days later Traci ran into the lady at the BYU Bookstore and she told Traci that after the match she remembered that she’d gone on a date with me my freshman year.  I felt strangely vindicated and embarrassed at the same time…
• Pottery – WAY more fun than I expected.  Also, kinda cathartic, until the candy dish I was creating collapsed for the 4th time, then it wasn’t quite so calming.

As I was writing this I realized there’s way more to add, but this is already pretty long so….

To Be Continued…

There, wasn’t that awesomely dramatic?!