Florida

We flew into Orlando last night and drove down to Clearwater which is just south of Tampa to stay with the Burtons. Rhonda was Jon and my first grade teacher and we haven't seen her in probably 20 years but it's been so fun to reconnect. Her husband is Doug who was the worship pastor with my dad when he was the youth pastor at Redeemer so we have lots of old ties and it's been great catching up. Here we are on the beach having a good time, can't wait for the game:

Me - But Buff

uploaded from my iPhone

Joe sketched this caricature of me for my birthday, but I think he exaggerated a bit on the muscles. It's probably because I beat him in arm wrestling so he's projecting how big I must be in order to be able to overcome his massive arm strength. As you can see, he captured that I am a ripped, Rock Bandin', Cardinals lovin', Showit t-shirt wearin', computer geek that's plugged into the Matrix. Yup, that pretty much says it all.

NFC Champions!

My brother and I went to the Cardinals game today and it was insane, my throat is going to hurt for a week from all the screaming and my hands are practically bleeding from all the high fives. It was the loudest craziest event I've ever been at and it was amazing to see the Cardinals upset the Eagles and make it to their first Super Bowl ever! I got tickets on eBay and they were in the "Ring of Honor" which were amazing seats because they were at the bottom of the upper level without anyone in front or behind you so you could stand or sit without being in people's way (we stood pretty much the whole game). Here's a view of our seats before the game.

There were a ton of excited Cardinals fans with all kinds of costumes and painted faces, check out the guy that sat next to us.

The view of the game was fantastic, you could see the whole field really well and I think I liked these tickets more than some of the ones we have had in the lower levels.


My friend Josh drove down to the game with me from Flagstaff and my brother car pooled with Josh's friend Tom from East Mesa and they sat on the opposite side of the stadium.

We also had a great time meeting and celebrating with the Jeff and his dad who were the season ticket holders that sat next to us.

Flying Over Flagstaff

My friend and business partner David Jay came to Flagstaff for a little visit this week and we both keep talking about learning to fly and getting our pilot's license. I also have a friend Matt who has his license and loves to fly so we called him up and asked if he wanted to go flying. He was awesome and arranged everything and took us on a flight over Flagstaff and Sedona that was so much fun. You can see three of us below:

It was funny to see all our random connections because Matt's mom is the midwife who delivered Cooper and his brother Josh married Kristin who Dave and I were friends with in college and Dave had done one of his first modeling photo shoots with her when he was just getting into photography. Anyway, you can see more pictures and video from the day here on SmugMug.

Sledding with Luke

Luke came up to visit for a few days and caught a nice storm, so we headed out for a little more sledding on Monday. We went back to the big hill and it was looking pretty nice with one of the really steep runs ending in a big jump. I tried it out and actually landed on my feet, then Luke when full on and ended up backwards laid out horizontal mid air at least 5 feet off the ground to a solid drop on his back. He laid face down in the snow for a while not moving so I ran down the hill to check it out. He was sputtering and could barely breathe, then proceeded to blow chunks. It was a little scary and I thought we were headed to the emergency room, but he said he was fine and that he just had the wind knocked out of him. So we headed home and he's been a little sore all week but doing well, and now with that story check out the video of all our fun sledding clips:

The boys have been having a great time playing with Luke this week including rides on a towel and other fun games.

Playoffs

Yesterday the Cardinals played their first home playoff game since 1947 and to support them we even got Cooper dressed in his new Cardinals romper he got for Christmas, he kind of already looks like a football player.

My Dad, brother and I returned to Cardinal's stadium yesterday to watch their first playoff game against the Falcons.

The atmosphere was intense and we all received towels at the entrance so the entire stadium was on their feet waving them for most of the game.

We sat in the corner in the 15th row, so they were great seats when the action was on that half of the field.


The roof was closed and it was so loud, it was crazy to see that many Cardinals fans after being a season ticket holder in the 90s when opposing teams always had the home field advantage :) This game the Cardinals definitely had the home field advantage and made it really tough on the Falcons' offense. The Cardinals won 30-24 and it was definitely a fun exciting game. We're rooting for the Eagles to win the next two and the Cardinals to win their next one so we can have one more playoff game in Phoenix, and then on to Tampa for the Super Bowl. A Cardinals fan can dream ;)

Sledding

We did a bunch of sledding today in the backyard followed by sledding "the big hill" which was pretty fun. Check out the video for the action and a few of the pics below.

I piled snow down the stairs off the deck which made a great ramp and then Jon and I built a jump to make it a little more interesting.

Coop and Jace

It's been fun having Jon and family here and Cooper and Jace are getting to be so cute playing together.



Cooper still isn't liking bath time :)




Tammy and Elisa decided to start a band, so here they are practicing.