Greta's 4!!!!!!!!

I can't believe she 4!!!!!

Have you thought about.........

When I was looking through Kevin & Melanie’s blog (let’s be honest, Kevin doesn’t blog), I came across an old post about a game that Kevin and Chris play. It the, “I bet you have not thought about this in 2 years….” The name says it all. Anyway, over my whirlwind trip around the Wisconsin and Minnesota, I had some time to think about the game and I came up with some sold entries, so here we go….

I bet you have not thought about this in the last 2 years……
1. Mrs. Emerson – the classic PE teacher
2. C&C Music Factory
3. Frank Dilemma’s Christmas Special
4. Andy Bumitie (sp)
5. Night Games
6. The Yogi Bear Christmas Special
7. Our cousin Mark asking us if we had McDonalds in Hawaii
8. Jeff’s gag gift to Kevin for Christmas one year
9. G & G’s fridges full of Soda & Juice
10. The movies – RAD & Gleaming the Cube
11. The TV Show Alf

There’s my list. It was really fun thinking about all of this, because most of my memories went to things that I am sure all talk about, but are classics in my mind.

1. Halloween @ G & G’s house and all the effort that she put into that night.
2. Not understanding why we had to get dressed in our best clothes to have dinner with our extended family.
3. Rett & I jumping the Hemiter building 4 Monday in a row. I hear it’s a ledged at Punahou even today. :)
4. Someone asked if we could include raspberries with the hot fudge Sundays. I took grandpa a few minutes to understand the idea. It was like someone was speaking Greek to him. Hahahaha
5. The way G & G Hallstrom’s house looked during the Christmas season – perfect.


Good time, I would love to be a kid again. Only if I don’t have to get dressed up again to see everyone…….

HAPPY B-DAY MOMMY!!!!!!!!

Wow, I would really love to come up with something witty, and try to make everyone smile, but I got nothing. All I can say is Happy Birthday Mom! A large part of who I am is because of all the lectures, seminary speeches, nagging, and long talks that you would eventually fall asleep during. You’ve always been a huge example of Christ like, unconditional love. I am indebted to Heavenly Father for many things that will never be able to repay Him for, being your son is one of them.



PS – I am sorry your picture looks more like something that you would find in an obituary and not more birthday-ish. It’s all I could find @ 32,000 feet. :) love you mom!

I'm Sorry son, but it's not all my fault.........

I don’t know about the other families in the Hallstrom clan, but there is an unfortunate gene that is being passed around the Jim Hallstrom clan gene pool. This dominate gene is found through the males of the family, but can be passed on through either gender. I have not noticed it on my father so I am assuming that it is coming from the king side of the pool. I know that this could be a little embarrassing, but it's time we get this out in the open. :)

This gene is known as “plumber’s crack.” It’s a trait that can be recognized early on in life. Some of Jim’s sons do not have hips and therefore the pants have nothing to rest on. Thus sinking to the next part of the body that they can rest on…..The butt! Axel is graciously demonstrating our dilemma.



Sorry Axel, it is a burden, which is ours to bear. But rest assured you are not alone…

Hello?

This past week Ali is in NYC with her parents, shopping their hearts out. I think in the past three days that she has been gone I have texted her a ton, but have talked to her for less than 5 minutes total. Life of a shopper I guess. Being the amazing husband that I am, I am stay home with the kids and holding down the fort. That’s right me and the 3 kids. It going great but as I am sure all of you are aware it is very labor intensive.
Ali left on Sunday, the very day that I was speaking in our ward. I am the second councilor in the Sunday School and I wish it was just a bell ringing job. We are teaching the ward how to be more effective teacher in the gospel. I love it, and fit right in line with who I am. After speaking I spent the next two hours in nursery with Axel, our youngest. Here is a video of him and how he loved nursery.

But to give him credit he soon turned in to this when he knew I was not leaving him:

Three days into all of this I realized something maybe I had forgotten. I had forgotten how much I love being a dad. Often time I get so caught up in being a provider for the family; I don’t take the time to appreciate the three wonderful blessings that the Lord blessed me with. Each one has made me laugh more than I have in a long time.

This is a picture of Greta telling me she dressed herself for preschool, someone forgot to tell her is was December.

This a video of some quality time Gabe and I had golfing a couple of days ago. I love that he loves the sport.

This is Axel sitting on his throne in his playpen. It’s really a Fisher Price “workshop” but try telling him that.

I am now very jealous of Ali. I am not saying that it is the easiest Job in the world, but I would love to spend all day with my kids and see the world through their eyes. Playing pretend with Greta, Video Games with Gabe and watching Axel discover the world for the first time. I am going to have a hard time going back to work on Monday!

Another thing that this week has brought to my attention is how much I miss family period, and how again I am a crappy friend, cousin, brother, son, and nephew. I am so consumed with my world I forget all the incredible people that made me who I am today. I am sorry that I have not been better. I wish I could say that I have a valid excuse, but I don’t.
I came across a quote the other day that really impacted me. I’ve read it and re-read it many times and I’ll end this post on it.
“Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength.”
Thank you for the role you play in my life, and know this is a sappy blog post, but ah well. I miss you guys.

What happens in Vegas.........

First of all I wanted to apologize that I have posted in a while, I am sure that it will take a while for people even notice because I think I lost my readership. But work has been crazy and life somehow has been sped up and I feel out of control sometimes.

As some of you know last weekend I was in Las Vegas for work, and let me just say that the longer I spend in Vegas the more I don’t like it. The city is just full of crazy people, both drunk & undrunk, doing things that they would never do at home. Take a perfectly normal woman in her home town. I am sure they dress normal and somewhat modest, and probably respected. Put this same girl in Las Vegas for the weekend and she will wear hardly any clothes, drink more than she has ever drank before and top that all off, hang out with people that she would never be seen with at home. Trust me, men are no different. I know you are reading this thinking, Duh…. It’s Vegas. To that I would say, hence the reason why I don’t enjoy being there for extended periods of time.

For example, I was walking in the MGM Grand on my way to a meeting, I look over and there is a woman dressed in a string bikini that barely fit her. She was getting tons of attention from everyone and man was she soaking it in, like she was on the runway. It just bothered me to no end. Had the idea never occurred to her that maybe she should cover up??? Did she really look in the mirror and think, “oh yeah, that is the look!” Did she not know that it was a 10 minute walk to the pool? I mean honestly…

Thankfully work kept me so busy that I barely had enough time to sleep let alone walk around and “see the sights.” By the time the convention was over, I wanted out. It just blew me away the inhibition of some people. I am not a conservative, and I can get a little crazy at times, but some people have taken it and perfected it to an art form – being crazy.

Am I alone on this whole Vegas deal?

Geeks-vile, Population Me!!!

I know this may come to no surprise to any of you but deep down inside I think we all have a little geek in all of us. I know that we may not want to admit it, but if you are honest with yourself I am sure you will agree. Well my inner geek came out this past weekend.

I have a favorite author, Vince Flynn, and I have read all of his books. He is pretty much the reason that I got back into reading for pleasure. I love how he writes, the way he orchestrates the text on the pages, memories me, to where I cannot put the book down. No matter how late it is and how early I have to get up the next day. I love his books. He writes “thriller” novels, mostly about counterterrorism and government secrets. This may not be your cup of tea, but man, put a book like that in front of me and I am happy for a week or two. He does so much research that the scenarios in his books are very realistic, and make you wonder what is real and what is fiction. Man I love it.

Well he has written 9 books and his 10th came out on the 30th of October. So I was scanning his website, http://www.vinceflynn.com/ and saw that he was doing a book tour, and holy frijoles he was coming to PHX!!!!!!! So this is when the inner geek came ripping out of my chest and I moved mountains to make sure that I was in town to see him. Now in my line of work I have been fortunate to meet all kinds of celebrities, and I have to tell you, I am not a person who gets really excited to see someone famous. In my mind, they probably want their privacy and I should respect that. I appreciate all that they have done for me, entertainment wise, but after that they are normal people.
Having said all that, on the day of the Vince Flynn book signing, I was a giddy little school boy, walking around with a smile on my face that for the life of me I could not get rid of. It was all I can talk about, I am sure Ali was hoping this would be over soon, so she could get back to her life with a normal husband. She was very supportive.

So I called the Poisoned Pen, the bookstore where he would be, and I asked them when we would be signing, just so I could be on time. The lady on the other end of the phone told me that I would want to be there by 7:00pm because he would be speaking and answering questions. Holy Cow, be still my soul, I get to ask him questions. I me how often do you get a chance to sit down with the author of your favorite book and ask them why they chose to make that twist, or that ending? I mean how many of you ladies would like an opportunity to chat with Jane Austin? What would you say? What would she talk about?
Well now you know how I felt, crazy!!!!

Well we got their and man it was awesome, the anticipation was intense, I had to laugh at myself because I never really felt this way about someone outside of Ali. I was a high school teenage girl waiting for the captain of the football team to look my way.

Anyway, it was very funny and very entertaining. But outside of seeing and talking with Vince Flynn, Ali and I witnessed a truly awkward moment between husband and wife. So picture this, a group of about 100 are sitting around waiting for Vince to come out and talk to us. We had about 5 minutes to go. All of a sudden a man (who I personally think is a few fries short of a Happy Meal) gets up and pretends to be Vince and starts talking to the crowd. Here is a picture of it, and even though I was really embarrassed for this man. It quickly turned to entertainment when you see that the wife of this man is angry beyond description and is making it worse by not hiding it. Look again at the woman in the pink sweater. I know the picture is a little blurry, but I had to take the flash off so I could document her awkward anger. She was talking to herself and trying to inconspicuously kick her husband which made the enter situation worse. I swear I was watching Kristen Wiig from SNL doing a skit. Ali and I were laughing really hard, and unfortunately it was at their expense.

It was an awesome experience, and heck even Ali said it was really fun. One of the coolest things that I have done. And in the end he was even cool enough to take a pic with us.

Ah well on to the next adventure……