Renaissance Festival

uploaded from my iPhone

We came down to the valley for the Renaissance Festival today and
Kiefer loves all the knights and swords, but for some reason the tree
guy is his favorite and the one he remembers from last time.

WPPI

This last week was a little crazy and I realized I haven't updated the blog, so in case anyone is wondering, Cooper is doing really well, the antibiotics, IV and oxygen did wonders did get him back to his full self and he was able to come home Sunday morning. Here he is on the recovery path as he had fun playing in the play room at the hospital.

I had planned on going to WPPI in Las Vegas and it was a little up in the air with how Cooper was doing, but once he was recovering well I decided to go ahead and go on the trip. It's a photography convention and we had planned to have all of our full time Showit crew come which is rare for all of us to be together since we all work remote. This meant we had people coming in from LA, Santa Barbara, Fresno, Mesa, Flagstaff, and Chicago.

It was great to have everyone in the same room and have a chance to go out to dinner and get to know each other outside of work. We had a couple suites in the MGM Signature and had set times throughout the day where we were meeting with customers and getting feedback and providing training. A couple of us even ventured to the top of the Stratosphere to try out their new rides. Jason did the X-Scream twice and here he is on the front of the ride while we were watching, it was crazy how they have this cart that hangs you off the building at almost 900 feet up and keeps sliding you forward and tilting you down.

We also did the Insanity which hangs you out over the edge and spins in circles until you are facing down while spinning, it was definitely insane.

We had a great time and even went and saw The Blue Man Group which was a great show and pretty entertaining. Another fun part was having Matt come along from Flagstaff as we had been talking to him about working for us managing some of the business operations and some sales for our company, so it was a good chance for him to meet the crew and see what we are all about (mainly having a good time). He plays the guitar and stole this one from one of the wandering mariachi players to show him how he's got better skills, I don't think the guy was too happy about that :)

Pneumonia

uploaded from my iPhone

Cooper hasn't been feeling well so Elisa took him to the doctor and
they said he has an ear infection and pneumonia. We're in the ER now
and waiting for a room to open in the hospital so pray for the little
guy, isn't he so cute :)

More Snow

uploaded from my iPhone

We woke up to about a half foot of fresh snow but rather than take
pictures of it, I think Cooper's expression while looking at it is
better!

Super Bowl Recap

Well, we made it back to AZ after a long travel day on Monday. If you were watching the game and wondered if you saw us, in HD you could barely see us on field goals :)

It was such an exciting game and we had a great time cheering for the Cardinals, they almost pulled it off! I even got interviewed by Biff from Letterman, but it didn't make the final cut, oh well :(

The NFL Experience was pretty fun and Jon is definitely the one with the quarterback arm, but after knee surgery he couldn't kick so I was the winner in the field goal kick :)

Although Dad still throws a nice accurate spiral:

You can see more pictures from the weekend over on Flickr.

End Zone

uploaded from my iPhone

We just walked into the stadium and our seats are awesome! We are
sitting 17 rows behind the "R" in Steelers and we are totally
excited! Notice Dad is down meeting people :)

Super Bowl Day

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.