3 of the longest hours of my life...

Question: When is a trip to Ogden really like 2 trips to Ogden?
Answer: When you're riding UTA FrontRunner.


Last night Lauralee, Emma and I decided to take a ride on the new commuter rail. I guess we feel an affinity for it since it runs within several feet of our backyard, shakes our house slightly, and makes it impossible to hear the television when it honks its horn. Plus it was free.

We headed down to the Woods Cross station at about 6 o'clock; a Northbound train pulled up just as we got there, so we hopped on and headed toward "The Land of Og." (I actually heard that phrase on the train and thought it was hilarious.) Lauralee, a native of "O-Town," was interested to see how the train wound its way into Union Station there.

We boarded the train and headed upstairs; the car was pretty full. There was only one obviously available seat, next to a lady with two special needs teenagers. I let Laura sit there (she had the baby) and she became fast friends with one of the boys, who apparently referred to himself as "Willy Wonka." I actually spotted a friend of mine and stood in the aisleway talking to him. He was coming home from work. I asked him how his commuter rail experience had been. He said he wouldn't ever ride it to work again, but was glad that it was at least taking cars off the road so he could drive home faster.

After our stop in Farmington, some more seats opened up and Lauralee and I got to sit together. Let me tell you this: it has been highly touted that these trains can go up to 79 miles per hour, but we didn't get anywhere near that. In fact for most of the trip we were going slower than the cars on the freeway.

We finally arrived in Ogden at about 7:30. That's right; it took us an hour and a half to make a 40 minute drive. There were obviously some bugs in the system: most obviously was the fact that we sat for a very long time at each station rather than just long enough to load/unload.


We had initially planned on walking around at least for a little while in Ogden. However, we were concerned that it would take us just as long to get home, so we hopped off the Northbound train and were going to hop right on the Southbound train on the other track. Just after we got off our train, and much to our surprise, it started going backwards. It turned out that the train that was 'pointed' South wasn't really going anywhere. The train we had just gotten off was about to go back South in reverse! By the time we realized that, it was already gone.

After a few minutes of waiting (and dodging teenage smokers who seemed to have a knack for following us around), a new train came for us to board. Up to this point, Emma had been fantastic, with the exception of a squealing outburst just before we got to Ogden.

We got back on the train and found two seats together toward the front of the car. In front of us was a partition with a window in it, then two more seats, then the front of the car. A family with 3 young kids sat there in front of us and we chatted for a few minutes. They were really nice, and it was fun to have a 4-year-old and 3-year-old pressing their faces against the window and making funny faces at us. It entertained me, anyway.

We finally started back for Woods Cross. The return trip was faster; there were fewer people getting on and off at each stop. Emma got a little upset but eventually fell asleep in Laura's arms. As we got closer to 8:30, we knew that Emma would be hungry. Around 8:00 she woke up and was obviously starting to get hungry. My saint of a wife played "Patty Cake" and "The Wheels on the Bus" with her something like 78 times just to keep her distracted.

Some time between 8:30 and 8:45 we finally pulled in to Woods Cross, ran for the car, and jetted home. We had been gone for almost 3 hours.

Final thoughts on FrontRunner:
I'm glad we rode on it, but in the end it wasn't a very pleasing experience. It didn't seem practical at all as a form of commuter transportation. It was slow and there were long periods of just waiting on the track. The cars were nice, but track actually goes through some of the seedier parts of town -- hey, North Davis and Weber Counties: ever hear of a Weed Eater and lawn fertilizer? I did feel bad for a couple of trailer park residents, though: the track when within just a few feet of their trailers. You could actually see what they were watching on TV.

Riding FrontRunner was not as fun as Riding Trax, but more fun than riding a bicycle with no seat.

6 things about me - Lauralee

I have been challenged by Challene Green to list 6 things that people may not know about me. Challene was challenged by someone else and she did this on her blog, she had so much fun that she posted a second list of 101 things about herself. I won't subject you to that but I will list 6 things so here goes:

1. While everyone in Utah played soccer growing up (Quinn included) I was a softball girl. I was not a soccer fan and still find it boring. I loved softball and wished I could have played more than one year in high school.




2. While in school I was the youngest person in my class. I started kindergarten in Idaho where the due date there is in October. When we moved back to Utah where the due date is September 1st it put me as the youngest in my grade because my birthday is Sept. 4th. I never minded until I was the last one to get my drivers license and to start dating. I'm glad though or I wouldn't have the great friends that I do today. I love my friends, here we are in our wedding dresses in 2007 just having fun. The Gang: Jessica, Brooke, Me and Melissa.


3. When I was about 10 or 11 I was able to visit Sea World for the first time. After that I decided I wanted to be a dolphin trainer. Well, as you know that didn't happen. But on my second trip to Sea World a few years ago I got to pet my first dolphin and loved it. It was my favorite thing of that trip.










4. I love to water-ski, that fact it known about be. For the last few years I have tried to get up on one ski and slalom. I was just never strong enough in my arms and hands to hang on. But the summer of 2006, during our last trip to Bear Lake of the year I did it. I got up. Unfortunately I don't know if I can still do it because the next summer I was pregnant and not able to ski at all.


5. I love to take pictures and wish I was a better photographer and had money to buy the best equipment. But I'm just an amateur. I did take a photography class at Weber State but the class focused on the developing part and not the taking picture part which is what I wanted. I don't plan on having a dark room in my house. It was still fun though.


6. Last of all, I am very proud to say that I was not sick one day while I was pregnant with Emma. I did not miss one day of work which is kind of a bummer, because when will I ever have a better excuse. I don't know what it feels like to nauseated or to throw up just from smelling something. I hope I will be this lucky with every pregnancy.

Daddy/Daughter Days VII, VIII, IX and X

Geez, I've really been slacking on my posts here. I'm not sure if anybody reads these or not, but at least I'm providing documented evidence that I'm not a deadbeat dad.

Daddy/Daughter Day VII:
This was Monday, April 7th. It was a pretty non-eventful day and really shouldn't even count as an official Daddy/Daughter Day because Lauralee came home from work really early that day (like at noon). She wasn't feeling very well -- she and Emma shared a cold that week. It is a tribute to her motherly love, though, that she came home from work and still wanted to be with and take care of Emma. If I came home early from work, it wouldn't be to do anything other than sip on a Sprite (the official drink of sick days), hop in bed, and watch Pee Wee's Big Adventure.

Daddy/Daughter Day VIII:
Due to some work scheduling issues, I also got Wednesday, April 9th off of work. Lauralee was working that day and I didn't think it would be appropriate to have mom come on her regularly-scheduled babysitting day while I hung out in my jammies, so I told her not to come and I would take care of Emma that day. She was a wonderful baby that day. We even went up to see Lauralee at work and have lunch with her. All the ladies at Laura's work get so excited to see Emma. It was a fun day.

Daddy/Daughter Day IX:
Two words: constipated baby.

Daddy/Daughter Day X:
Yesterday was a frustrating day. Emma had been having 'digestive issues' all during the previous week. We gave her some pear juice at the nurse's behest, and it seemed to work, at least on the first day. But Emma was still having problems by the end of the week, which culminated in a really bad Sunday where she grunted and strained a lot (not exactly the best way to enjoy church meetings) and didn't sleep well. Yesterday, she actually slept in until 8:45, which led me to believe that all would be well that day. But alas, it wasn't. It went something like this:
Emma: {grunt} {scream} {cry}
Quinn: "What's wrong?"
Emma: {smile} {grunt} {cry} {more grunting} {more crying} {smile}
Quinn: "Here, play with Mr. Giraffe"
Emma: {cry}
Quinn: "Let me hold and rock you."
Emma: {scream}
Quinn: "Your diaper must be wet. Let me change it."
Emma: {momentary silence}
Quinn: "Phew! She's finally settling dow..."
Emma: "Wah!"

Man, she just got mad at whatever I tried to do: play with her, leave her alone, hold her, lay her down. She slept for a few minutes in the morning and a few in the afternoon. The only time she was really quiet was when she was eating. I took her for two stroller walks since that also seemed to help. Also amusing was my first attempt to put sunscreen on her. Gosh, I thought she was wiggly before but the second I tried to rub that stuff on her she went into hyperdrive. By the end of it all I did get the sunscreen on her arms and cheeks, as well as her forehead, hat, shirt, pants, blanket, and all over the inside of the stroller. I think it would have been less messy to fill a balloon with sunblock and throw it at the stroller. Next time. Anyway, by the time I fed her at 5 PM, she was so tired and cranky but just could not sleep. Lauralee got home shortly after that and saved the day like she always does. I sulked in the kitchen and listened to the two of them play together and rock together. Laura took care of her for the rest of the night while I tried to relax by watching a Philadelphia Flyers game -- which turned out not to be on TV. And they lost anyway. Hrumph.

Giggles, the Park and a Night Out

I am finally able to get Emma to giggle when we play. It is so cute. I wish I could post a video of it but with dial up Internet it just won't work and when ever we whip out the video camera she stops whatever she was doing and just stares at it.

We finally made it to the park to swing and she loved it. I think she would have like to stay all day. She also enjoyed watching all the other kids at the park. Emma and I went down the slide together but I don't think she really knew what was going on, so we'll stick with the swing.

Giggling!

Our Chubby Girl!

Swinging!

Reading with Dad.

We've taken our first step toward eating solids. I bought a high chair and we are just playing in it for now.

This past weekend we had dinner with our friends in Ogden. Life sure has changed, everyone is married and has children or is expecting. So that is all we talk about now. But we still have fun together.

Our men changing diapers!!

Danny and Melissa are expecting their second.

Tom and Jessica are expecting their first.

Dustin and Brooke were able to leave their two kids with Grandma.

Our first cold

This past week Emma and I have both had a cold. I don't think it has bothered Emma as much as it bothers me. She is just a little stuffy and isn't napping as well. But she is still sleeping through the night and is a little more cuddley than usual. I actually took her to the Doctors last Friday because I was worried she had a ear infections but her ears were fine and her teeth weren't swollen. It was later that day that her nose started to run so I guess that was the cause of all the fussiness earlier in the week.

She still has no interest in rolling over but smiles like crazy. She finally giggled out loud once, last Thursday. I haven't gotten her to do it again. I'm starting to think maybe I didn't hear it after all. We can't wait for the warmer weather later this week so we can go to the park and swing. I put her on our bench swing in our backyard for a minute the other day and just barely moved it and she got a huge smile on her face.

Our sick baby fell asleep playing. It is so nice that she can comfort herself with her thumb, but I know we might regret that later. Oh well.

Emma loves to be naked!

On the swing in the back yard.

Whatcha Watchin?

I like TV a lot. Yep, I'm a big fan.

TV has always been there for me.

TV has made me laugh, it's there for me on rainy days and sunny ones, TV has kept me company, and turned me into a formidable Trivial Pursuit opponent (How do I know that Lombard Street is the crookedest street in the world? Not by reading a book! By watching The Real World: San Francisco!)


TV has been so good to me, in fact, that I felt like I wanted to give back. So when the Nielsen TV Ratings company called us a little over a year ago to see if we would participate in their program, I enthusiastically said yes. I didn't know much about how the Nielsen data were collected; I thought maybe we were in for some paper surveys or telephone surveys. But I was wrong. Shortly after we signed up, three Nielsen tech geeks stormed our home ala the movie E.T. and tore apart all our televisions. They jammed some sort of homing beacon into all of them and then added some device for communicating to our family room TV -- the "Mother Ship" -- which would then hijack our phone line once a day and spew forth the TV data back to guys in labcoats at Nielsen HQ. It might not have been that dramatic -- I have been watching Alias a lot lately.

Despite the technological intrusion, I felt pretty special that my TV viewing habits counted towards something. When I was watching a Magic Bullet infomercial, it meant 60,000 other Utahns were too. Sometimes I’d leave the TV on C-Span all day, just to try to make us Utahns seem smarter.

Shortly after the installation, however, the honeymoon was over. Our downstairs TV started doing some crazy things, like the picture not coming on. The reception on the upstairs TV got really bad, despite the fact that we were watching cable and not off of an antenna. The phone calls began, too. We’d get phone calls from Nielsen's for everything. “Please turn your TV to Channel 3 for 2 minutes, then switch channels, and leave it on for another 2 minutes. We’re running diagnostics on your system because something isn’t right…” They would call and ask us if we had the volume on our TV up really loud (no). They would call and ask if we’d left our TV on for 3 weeks (no). They would call and ask if we’d purchased a new VCR or DVD player (no).

We have a TV downstairs that is used solely for video games. It’s an old, beat up TV that is not connected to cable or an antenna and therefore doesn’t get reception. During the installation, Nielsen’s insisted that they hook their equipment up to this TV because the TV picked up the sound on one of the Spanish channels. The sound! No picture! Just the sound! On the Spanish channel! So in addition to all of the above calls, Nielsen’s actually called once because I hadn’t played the Playstation for 3 weeks and they were wondering if everything was okay.

If it had only been the phone calls, we might have survived. But it wasn’t: the technicians had to come to our house several times over the year – 5 or 6 times as a matter of fact. Their visits lasted anywhere from 1 ½ hours to 4 or 5 hours. Most of the technicians were nice, but there were a few issues: one would leave a lingering cigarette odor in the house, one would do a ‘diagnosis’ on our gaming equipment by playing up to 3 levels of Super Mario Brothers on our NES, one stunk up our bathroom. In the end, it wasn’t the technicians but the large amount of time they spent at our house – keeping up from running errands or pretty much doing anything – that got super annoying.

We did make a cool $90 or so for our time in the survey. They pay $30 every 6 months to offset any higher electrical bills you may experience from their equipment.

All of the phone calls and visits finally put us over the edge. They came on Monday (Daddy/Daughter Day VI) to remove all of their equipment. Interestingly, the removal process was quite easy.

All in all, it was fun to participate in a nationwide survey that appears weekly in the newspaper, but the cost was not worth the benefit. Even for TV’s sake.

Daddy/Daughter Day VI: The Day Daddy Blew It All

I guess I should have known that I'd blow it sooner or later.

Months of Laura's tireless efforts to get our baby 'on a schedule' blown in one day.

The day started with a bad decision, followed by some poor math, extenuating circumstances, and general unpreparedness. By the end of the day, I'm surprised our girl wasn't beating her chest and howling at the moon.

Emma was in a great mood when I got her up on Monday. She didn't seem immediately hungry like she usually does, so I decided to eat breakfast before I fed her, rather than after feeding her. There was mistake number one. By the time I finished my Marshmallow Mateys, she was starting to drift off to sleep. Now I've not only delayed her first feeding, but somehow managed to move her morning nap time up several hours. I went ahead and fed her, then put her down for a nap. "Crisis averted," I thought. In truth, it was "Crisis just beginning."

Rather than a nice 2 or 2 1/2 hour nap, Emma woke up after just an hour. Now I had to entertain her for a few hours prior to her next feeding, followed by a few hour after her feeding. Could I possibly entertain her that long? The answer was an irrefutable NO. I sure couldn't. We read quite a few books together, but after that she started getting pretty upset with me. In past weeks I have run errands during the day which has entertained Emma as she takes in the new surroundings. However, Monday I was stuck at the house while a repairman worked (future blog entry.) I anxiously glanced at the clock, trying to make time go faster using a Jedi mind trick or at least that "Baby Step" method from What About Bob. Finally I figured that it was close enough to four hours to give her her next bottle. Mistake number two: I don't know how to add. Four hours from her first feeding -- 8:40 AM -- would have been 12:40 PM. But since math is hard for me (including simple addition, apparently), I tried to feed Emma at around 11:30. She only drank a little over a fourth of a bottle. I couldn't figure out what this baby's problem was! Now she's off schedule on naps and on feedings.

We played on the floor for an hour or so and then I went in the other room to make some lunch. When I came back, Emma was nodding off again. Great! I'll get her a nice long afternoon nap to make up for her short morning nap. I picked her up and put her in her swing and she just stared at me. Nope, not gonna sleep. She was content at least; long enough for me to finish my lunch. We played for a little while longer then I went to the computer to check me e-mail and came back to find her dozing again under her little gym. Perfect -- now she's going to get that nap she needs. A few minutes later the telephone rang. It was my father-in-law. He was in the process of replacing the cooling fan in my car and needed me to run to Salt Lake and pick up a part. It was about 3 o'clock and I needed to get back by 4:30, so I broke the cardinal rule and woke a sleeping baby. I took her to the auto parts store with me. She was good for the whole trip.

When I got back at about 4 PM it was time for her to eat again. I figured she wouldn't take a full bottle since she had eaten more recently than 4 hours, so I made her half a bottle instead. Mistake number 3. She downed that half of the bottle and freaked out when there wasn't any more. I ran into the kitchen and made another 4 ounces as fast as I could and came back out to find her starting to doze off already. Poor kid. Underfed and sleep deprived. She wasn't interested in the extra 4 ounces anymore.

At about 4:30, Lauralee came home and I sheepishly admitted that I'd screwed everything up. She was a good sport about it. We went up to the Van Bibber's that night to have dinner and finish fixing my car. When Lauralee tried to give her a whole bottle, Emma only drank a portion of it. And she could barely keep her eyes open by the time we left.

Emma's last feeding of the night (administered by Laura) was close to a full feeding, and Laura got her to sleep at roughly her bed time. I'm pretty sure that today, with Laura in charge, will be a normal day with regular feedings and naps. Thank heavens for mothers who fix all the screwups that we dads create.

Quinn

No monkey pictures today; here's a picture of a waterskiing squirrel, though: