Ted's New Blog...

What? Dad's got a new blog?!

aghhhhhhhhhhhh!

With the announcement of Ted's new blog, I would like to give a special tribute (Late Father's Day Glory) to his talents, personality, spirit, and wit with these photos and captions.

These are some of the many reasons we love and appreciate our dad and husband:

Ted LOVES to swim with the kids. Shark time! He has a blast at water slide parks and the local pools. He created the "water baseball" games in our backyard with small, plastic or blow-up pools using soft water balls and bats. The kids (and neighborhood kids) totally enjoy it!

He loves to take the kids to sporting events: hockey (in NH), basketball, baseball, and football (in TX), especially BYU or TCU games. He even likes to go to the local city and school games. The kids love it. I love not having to go; I never went as a kid and I just get too bored. There's about 20 things I'd rather do than watch a sporting event. Unless it's BYU playing. :)

NICK insisted on taking this photo of Ted doing his favorite thing to unwind; due to his love and obsession with reading newspapers (yes, he skims/reads the UT newspapers online) as well as the Wall Street Journal which his job gets for him, he is VERY up-to-date on what is happening, what has happened, and what might happen. Trivia from 10 years ago is still lodged in his cavernous brain; people, places, and events from before his birth are there, too; if he's read it anywhere, anytime, it's in there and he can still pick it out, though, when I complimented him on this amazing talent, in front of recent company, he said, "Yea, I can remember all the things that no one cares about." But we could win a million dollars on some game show--if he would just sign up!
He is a hard worker in the snow (that is a Texas photo and not a New England photo by the way), mowing the grass, taking out the trash and making sure the cars and lubed and oiled right on time. Plus he cooks the Sunday morning pancakes and the kids prefer his to mine!

Need to mention this photo-allusion to Nacho Libre when he is in baby blue pant-suit outfit...

He loves to play, wrestle ("tackle time"), tickle, and tease the kids. He loves to have movie nights with them on Fridays and he loves to take them to get donuts or pancakes on Saturday mornings, which he has done since they were tiny. I have LOVED the Saturday morning sleep-ins!! Thanks, mi amor!

Ted loves to take the kids to the beach, the lake, the mountains; to explore, hike, and find things. He will still carry Nick on his shoulders. Nothing does a wife love more than to see her husband loving their kids. Truism or what?

Ted loves to coach or assistant coach the kids' sports' teams. He has been one the baseball coaches for 3 years now for Nick and was also Maddie's basketball asst. coach this year.

Both of these represent Ted's love of being crazy and dressing up with the kids.

ELVIS: Fan of the Fans

"the fan of the fans of Elvis"

When we were in Chile last year, I was trying to explain to some excellent new friends that we met that Ted is not an Elvis lover or Elvis fan, yet he collects Elvis paraphenalia, he dresses up as Elvis for most Halloweens, and he reads books about the fans of Elvis; I finally came up with this phrase in Spanish, which is similar enough to the English that I think you'll catch the drift: "Ted es un fanatico de los fanaticos de Elvis" = Ted is a fanatic of the Fanatics of Elvis.

Viola!

Once in awhile he can be dramatic (for the kids sake I'm sure), like when we opened these super soft socks for his birthday last December and he made this funny face and cried, "Ahhhhhhhhh!"

Yes, he can dance (but not like on the TV show...I wish!) and more importantly, is WILLING to dance with me (here, in Chile, to my favorite type of music) and even at church dances for the 'grown-ups' which we have yearly. This is my favorite thing to go do and he is even willing to go for some lessons to improve our grooves. ¡Que hombre! (what a man!)

His blog can be found at:
http://www.tedsessentialist.blogspot.com/

This is where you can really see what's going on in that amazing mind that is constantly full of facts, trivia, songs, puns, news, editorials, etc. The titles he came up with for his blog are a riot! You can vote on them when you go to his blog. I love his wit and wisdom, which he uses to either make me laugh, or conversely, to make me get real and scratch off some of the too many things to do on my list or on my calendar. Both are a blessing!
Be on the lookout for future postings of the (in)famous musical re-writes of some classic Sinatra tunes that reflected some of what trials were going on in our lives (as a way to imbue some humor into the situation)
Maddie & mom's Lice: "That's Lice" (from "That's Life"--Sinatra)
Ted's Tic: "I Get a Tick Out of You" ("I Get a Kick Out of You" --Sinatra)
Spiders (all over the house): "Spiders In the Night" ("Strangers In The Night" --Sinatra)

And he came up with all the word changes and rhymes in about 20 minutes, maybe less. He definitely has the linguistic knack for pulling pop culture, current events, songs, and movie lines into one setting or one conversation. It's crazy. and fun. and we love you, man!