A First...

I truly believe that people aspire to be "first" in most things they do. People want to finish in first place, they want to reach great achievements first, and generally want to set a high standard. Apparently I settle for other firsts. 1-800 CONTACTS has trained management at least once a year on how to handle workplace injuries. It's always been somewhat of a joke because our job isn't exactly the most "physically straining" job around. To support their associates 1-800 has a Work Care center that they use to send associates to if an associate injures themselves while on the job. It's a good resource to have, but I've always laughed about it and wondered if they ever actually send people to it. Well, I found out today that they do... because yours truly was the 1st ever member of management to get sent to Work Care (hence the #1 below... it's a pride symbol for me, by viewing myself as #1 I'm trying to rebuild my ego.)

Today our Soda Fountain in our break room ran out of CO2 and our associates started complaining. The kitchen staff usually changes out the tanks, but they were busy so I figured I would do it, since afterall, I am pretty dang cool. (Plus my first job was in a restaraunt so I've done it before). So I got the replacement tank. I removed the empty one, and then hooked the new one up. The cabinet the tanks go in though isn't big enough to stand them upright in, so you have to push the tank through the cabinet (it doesn't have a back on it) and stand it up behind the cabinet where there's enough open space for it to stand. Well, these tanks are pretty heavy when they're full, and I was having a hard time pushing it all the way through. So, I got down in the cabinet and layed on my side in order to get a better grip on the tank and to push it through. I put all of my weight on my right leg and tried to use it to push me and the tank through to the other side of the cabinet. Well, the floor was wet, my foot slipped; it twisted around in a weird motion and boom the pain hit. I thought I had blown out my knee. Who are EARTH hurts themselves trying to change out a stupid CO2 tank? Apparently I'm the first. So my company made me go to Work Care and get it checked out so that if needed I could get Workmen's Comp coverage. Luckily the knee was fine, I just have a severely strained ACL, but my pride is suffering. Everyone in HR sat and laughed as I recited to them the story of my "on site injury". Well let me be the first to say, workplace injuries are no laughing matter... (LOL, yeah right, I'm a moron!).

The Mysterious Powers of Dooder Pooper

Sure, he looks cute enough, but Carson (a.k.a. Dooder) has a secret power that you would never suspect by looking at his cute, chubby cheeks...

Every night before he goes to bed, he smiles, and convinces his gullable, intelligence lacking father, that he is ready for sleep, and ready to give his "daddy" a few hours of "daddy" time. Deep down though (well not so deep down actually) he's always working on something, something big, something that will buy himself a few more minutes of awake time, something... stinky. You see, Dooder, is a pooper! And not just any pooper, he's an "it's almost midnight, gotta poop, pooper!" It's a good thing Grandpa Lowe isn't around when Dooder jumps into action, Grandpa Lowe's stomach couldn't take it.

On a near nightly basis Dooder buys quality awake time by awakening the dead with a stench so potent, George Bush wants to declare war on the Quarnberg's house claiming that it contains Weapons of Mass Destruction. This power hasn't failed him yet! He gets a serious kick out of hearing the groan that comes from his "daddy" when he opens the bedroom door and takes a wiff of the destruction. It's a potent power, that must be controlled, but how to control it? Dooder just laughs and knows that he rules the Quarnberg house with his power of midnight poop!

The Deer Hunt 2008

I wasn't sure if I'd even get to hunt this year with how many hours a week I end up working, but I did manage to get out this weekend and go hunting with my folks. I went straight from work down to Nephi canyon on Friday to camp with my parents. We had a great time...

Saturday morning was opening morning and my mom, dad and I went to our traditional spot up Pole Canyon off of the Nebo loop road. It wasn't cold like it usually is, so the hiking was a breeze! We probably made it up the mountain by around 7am right as the sun was rising! This is seriously my favorite moment of any deer hunt, the whole canyon is quiet, and the sun slowly comes up. It's just a relaxing, and peaceful feeling. Well, the peace didn't last long...

Immediately after getting up on the mountain we saw 2 deer on the top of the ridge across the canyon from us, they were both does. We sat down to watch them for a while, and six more deer came out of a draw and headed up the mountain. All six of them were does. So we hung tight a little while longer, just keeping an eye on the hillside. My dad decided to take a little hike to look in some other draws, so he left my mom and I to watch. We sat there for a while, but I just kept getting the urge to hike around the top of the canyon and get closer to where we had seen the 8 does earlier in the morning. So I meandered along the top of the canyon, and hiked over onto the other side of the mountain. I had taken maybe 10 steps onto the other side when 3 deer jumped out of the oak and started running like mad away from me. The first one was a doe, the 2nd one was a 4 point buck and the 3rd was another doe. I sprinted like crazy across the top of the hillside and got a shot off at the buck before it went down into a draw, I shot high and missed. I kept running towards the draw they went into, and they jumped out again heading into another draw at a full out sprint, I took 2 more shots but by this time they were a good 100 + yards away and were running like crazy. I missed with both shots. I settled down, reloaded and hiked back over to where my mom was on the side we were originally on because I knew I could get a better view into the draws from there.

While we were sitting there we decided to split up and have my mom "bird dog" for us by hiking into the draw where we had last seen the deer. (She's the best bird dog on the planet by the way :) ). She hiked across and started chucking rocks and doing everything to scare them out. It worked! A doe and the 4 point jumped out and started running like mad towards the bottom of the canyon. I fired again at the buck and my shot was behind him, then fired again, still behind him, I could see my shots kicking up dust. I finally settled in and aimed ahead of him and fired, bringing him down right at the bottom of the canyon near the mouth of an old river bed. He was a challenge! It's really hard to bring down a deer when they're in an all out sprint like that, so I was excited that I was able to get him.

We then spent a good chunk of the day dragging him out. It was a team effort with my mom, dad and I all working together to bring him from the bottom of the canyon up to the top where our vehicle was parked. It was slow going, and I'm still sore from it, but was a great experience. A lot of what makes the deer hunt great is just working together and enjoying the challenge. It was hard work, but a fun day, and who knows with how hard it is to draw out sometimes this may be the last deer we get for a while, so I really savored the day. Deer hunting always brings back a lot of memories...

On Sunday since we had gotten our deer (I was the only one with a tag this year, my dad didn't draw out) so we just took it easy and hung out at camp with my parents. Brooklyn loves camping! She and I went through a tunnel in a dried up river bed and she had a blast. She kept making "spooky" noises and got a kick out of throwing rocks and hearing them echo. She's my sweetie, I love spending time with her.

It was a fun weekend! But dang, deer hunting is a lot of hard work as well!

The "Dark Side" of Having a Potty Trained Toddler

I had to laugh when I saw this book titled "Potty Train Your Child in 5 Hours" yeah right! We have spent a lot of time getting Brooklyn potty trained (months) and we're finally 99.9% there! But we've discovered a "dark side" to having a potty trained toddler, it's the called "I need to go pee pee blues." Seriously! I never realized how convenient it was just to have a kid pee in their diaper until the diaper was no longer in the picture. Now, it seems like whenever I sit down and just start to feed Carson, work on a project for work or do something else, I hear the words "I need to go pee pee daddy!" The other night was a prime example of this. I asked Brooklyn if she needed to go potty right before I sat down to feed Carson and her answer was a definite "No!" So, I made the bottle, got him all comfortable and started feeding him. No more than 2 minutes into the bottle I hear the words "I need to go pee pee daddy!" I grimaced, because Carson pulls a Dr. Jekyll / Mr. Hyde routine whenever we have to stop feeding him in the middle of a bottle. But I did anyways. So I had an angry 6 month old in one arm, while I was trying to help Brooklyn get on the potty with the other arm. Not fun! After she was done, I sat back down and started feeding Carson again. 2 minutes into that feeding I hear the words "I need to go poo poo daddy!" So, I had to stop Carson again and experience another angry moment with him, while I helped her go potty. After she was done, I sat down for a third time, and then the phone rang... Dr. Jekyll / Mr. Hyde all over again. I had to laugh, and feel sorry for Carson at the same time, but geesh, a potty trained toddler can add stress! Seriously, the moment I hear the words "I need to go pee pee daddy" I panic because I know that if I don't help her quickly, the house will become her potty! So it's always a mad rush against the clock to get her back to the bathroom, get the pants down and get her on the potty before the dam breaks. Uggggg... seriously, potty training has really made me think that 2 kids may be enough. Don't get me wrong, we're really proud of Brooklyn, and she's doing fantastic, but sometimes, the words "I need to go pee pee daddy" cause more fear than any horror movie I've ever seen.

Our Trip to Las Vegas!

In September we decided to finally take a trip together as a family! We hadn't been on a "real trip" since Britney and I went to Disneyland before we had Brooklyn, so we were definitely overdue, but nervous. We have planned other trips, but each time we actually decided to book a hotel and go somewhere kids got sick or something else happened that made us need to postpone, so we thought the same thing would happen with this trip, but we got lucky! Everything went great! We traveled to Vegas with Britney's parents and shared a hotel room with them at the Cancun Resort just south of the strip. It was the NICEST hotel I've stayed at in Vegas! The pool was AMAZING and the rooms were huge, with plenty of space for our family of 4 and Dennis and Cindy. Brooklyn liked to swim, but wouldn't go much further into the pool than on the steps leading into the water, she was funny about it. Dennis and I spent a lot of our time going down the 2 water slides at the pool, we both were trying to see how fast we could get going. I got going so fast one time that I hit a turn, flipped from my back all the way over on to my stomach. That wasn't exactly what I had hoped for, but it was a lot of fun.

Whle in Vegas, Brit and I decided to see Phantom of the Opera at the Venetian, while Dennis and Cindy were nice enough to watch the kids for us. It was a fantastic production! Brit and I had seen Phantom already at the Capital Theater a few years ago, but it was nothing compared to this production! If you ever get a chance, go to Vegas and see Phantom! The theater IS the Opera House, so you really feel like you're part of the production! The special effects were out of this world and the entire production was seriously unlike anything we had seen before. We loved every minute of it!

We spent our last day in Vegas going up and down the strip with the kids. Brooklyn wanted to go into the "Princess Castle" (aka Excalibur) so we took a quick trip inside and then came back out. Casinos really aren't too "3 year old" friendly. We also took the kids to the Coca Cola store where she fell in love with the Coke Bear (see slide show below), and to the M&M store. Our last stop on the strip was the Bellagio where we told Brooklyn she could visit "Breezy Blossoms" (a place from the My Little Pony cartoons). Our version of Breezy Blossoms was the Bellagio gardens, but she loved it! She didn't like the Bellagio fountains though, the loud water noises scared her. Carson was great the entire time, just chilling in his stroller.

It was a fun trip, but went by too fast. Check out the slide show below to see all of the pics we took on our trip!

Pics from our Vegas Trip!

Carson Love Carrots!

Carson sure loves his carrots! Getting this little guy to eat at night can be rough sometimes because he's always too impatient for solids, and wants his bottle instead. But tonight, he didn't mind eating carrots, especially because I let him get messy... LOL

Hobble Creek Canyon 2008

Welcome the the Quarnberg Family Blog!

Carson and Brooklyn are so excited to show off their cute pics!

Hobble Creek Canyon

We promised Brooklyn that we'd take her up the canyon to see some "pretty leaves" so we took her up Hobble Creek Canyon by Springville. It was gorgeous! The autumn colors were out and we had a lot of fun. It was a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon together as a family!