Look Who's 12...

Remember blogging? I have a faint memory of it;)

Today is Timber's 12th birthday. I can hardly believe it has been 12 years since Rick wrote a check for $15.01 for her:)

When we got Timber we had no intention of getting a dog. Our neighbor had come home from work with a puppy and it was the cutest thing we'd ever seen. We asked if there were any more, but they were all taken. We were bummed. Lucky us, that week someone returned one of the female puppies. We said we wanted her before we even laid eyes on her. Best impulse buy we've ever made!!!

I have never known a dog to have as much personality as Timber does. She is feeling her age these days...she is slow to get up and down, her tail is balding, and she has moles, but that hasn't changed any of the things we love about her! 

 

She is always so happy to see us when we walk in the door. She won't be denied when she wants to play...she will get her "wubbie" and set it right in your lap. She always wants to be right in the middle of the action. If you are eating, she will try to hypnotize you with her mind powers so you will give her some:)

She is such a major part of our family and I can't imagine what life would be like without her.

Happy Birthday Timber!!!!

The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, 10.30.01

Hey there! Remember us? Yeah, we've been busy, sorry about that. To tide you over, here's a quick video from our trip to DC in October. We'll get the whole story up soon.

Daddy's Boy!

So this last weekend Rick was out of town attending a conference for the Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation that he serves on. Stone was so excited because Rick was in Washington DC and was going to get to see the White House, Lincoln Memorial, and some other sites. All weekend Stone would ask if we had received any texts from "daddy" and was so excited whenever Rick would call or text us.

On Saturday evening we went to pick Rick up at the airport. Stone was so excited he could hardly stand it. As soon as Stone saw Rick, he jumped out of the car and ran to him. After a long hug, Stone pulled away and was trying to discreetly wipe his eyes. Rick said "buddy are you crying"...and then the flood gates opened and the tears started flowing. He said "daddy I just missed you so much." It was the sweetest thing I have EVER seen!

Rick is an amazing father and an incredible husband. Stone not only looks just like his dad, but he shares the same sense of humor and big heart. There isn't a day that goes by that I am not grateful for this amazing little family of mine!

"The Blanket"...

Well if you ever need SHEER entertainment, come to one of Stone's games! This is Stone's first year doing Jr. Jazz Basketball. He absolutely loves it and has been having so much fun. His first practice he had no idea what he was doing but he had a huge smile on his face the entire time. It has been so much fun to watch him play.

The one concept that Stone quickly picked up on was defense...he can guard his man like no other. He quickly earned the nickname "The Blanket" and if you were to see him in a game you would understand why. It is so so funny! Even when it is offense...Stone is STILL guarding his man. We are quite sure that there are some little boys that will have nightmares about "the blanket". Last week the boy Stone was guarding actually ran into the neighboring court to escape him...of course Stone STILL followed him. Ahhh good times! You can't buy this kind of great entertainment.

Home Sweet Office...

It has been a long time since I've actually posted to our blog. Working such long hours in SLC really took it out of me! I am finally working from home again which has been SO great. I still work as many hours, BUT I now get to see Stone off to school, I get comic relief during the day from Rick who works upstairs, and I can be here when Stoney gets home from school. Not to mention the fact that I get to do it all in my jammies:)

My entire office went virtual which was quite an undertaking. Everyone is now set up in their home offices. We've had a few glitches along the way, but all in all it has gone smoothly. It is so amazing what can be accomplished with technology!

Our basement has been transformed into an office suite. My office is in the main room and there is a separate copy room which is where the huge production copy machine resides. Yes...it has a room of its own and it needs it...it is ENORMOUS! It was a miracle that they got all 964 lbs of it down the stairs without serious injury! I am absolutely loving everything about my new office and feel so spoiled...thank you Clements Group!

Happy Holidays to U!

Eight years ago today.

So, eight years ago our little boy was born. He was due in February, but he just couldn't wait. At the time, we'd decided the best way to keep everyone in the loop was to start a blog. (but we didn't call it that, the term "blog" wasn't really mainstream yet.)

Here's the first entry . . .

10/30/01 (930 grams or 2 lbs. 0.8 oz.)

I made my grand entrance today at 1:14 p.m.. Dad saw my first pee, which I did just for him. Dad also caught me on video tape when mom saw me for the first time, (they rolled her right from recovery to the newborn intensive care unit where I was waiting to meet her). Mom couldn't believe how tiny I was and immediately asked if it was okay to touch me. My Apgar scores were 7 at one minute and an 8 at five minutes! (my "health" scores, out of a possible 10) I thought I should come out and impress everyone right away. Lots of family were at the hospital to welcome me including; Charlynn (Mom & Dad's neighbor and friend), Grandma Pollock, Grandpa Wells, Grandma Lay, Grandpa Wagner, Aunt Kelley, Aunt Stacie, and Aunt Marianne. Tonight, Mom and Dad's good friends, Charlynn, Kellen, Baby Samantha (she is due to arrive on January 3), Mom, and Dad all came to peek in on me. Of course they oooh'd and aahh'd over how cute and fuzzy I am. (I'm still covered in "Lanugo Hair," the hair that covers all baby's in the womb.)

12 Frames of Stone

Okay. So this is a little artsy. It was for a video editing class! a FINE ARTS video editing class! So lemme alone! There isn't a section of video more than 12 frames (less than 1/2 a second,) long. It's a little snapshot into our lives in 2004.

(BTW, I got an A and this was featured as an Experimental Video at the Utah Film & Video Center's showcase, "Works")

Enjoy.

A reason to grab the video camera.

Hey, remember us? :) Well we've been a bit busy now that Amy is the new "Associate Vice-President of Programs and Services" at the Clements Group. Way to go babe!

On Friday, Stone had to give his "Expert Report." As most of you know, I'm the photographer. I love to get my digital camera and go to town, taking lots of pictures whenever Stone is doing something.

But for this assignment, I had to grab the video camera, which is something I haven't done in months (or longer) and videotaped Stone's report. He did a great job and I will post that video soon.

But also on that videotape, I found this little gem. It's nothing spectacular, just an afternoon of Stone and I playing in the yard in August of 2006, about 2 weeks before we moved to Stansbury Park. One thing is for certain, I am definitely going to use the video camera more. :)

The Picture Says It ALL!

Okay, so I was looking through some old albums that Rick brought in from the garage today and I came across this gem...LOL! It is my new favorite picture! He is probably going to kill me for posting it...but after the horrible week that I've had, I think he may just let me get away with it.

Love you Ricky Ticky!

ah, here's a blast from the past.

Hey! It's not Amy it's Rick!! I wanted to put up my first post, but I didn't know what to write about. Today on Facebook, a friend of mine posted a link to "www.fmylife.com," (probably NSFW.) If you haven't been there or heard of it, it's a collection of horrible little anecdotes that people have experienced. Most are funny, some are sad and I think a lot are just made up. This gave me inspiration for my first Pollock Chronicles blog post!

So, I present my little moment . . .

Thursday, April 14, 2005

So Amy, Stone and I are driving home after getting a little takeout. We turn onto our road when we see this big black dog running around sniffing everything. No biggie, it was in the field far from the road, but I always get a little worried when I don’t see an owner around.

We get to the house and my new neighbor is on her driveway, yelling "Sadie! Sadie!!" I say, "Oh, she's . . ." then I realized it might not be her dog and I ask "Is she big and black?" and my neighbor looks at me like I’m absolutely crazy and says, "my daughter?"

Yeah, that’s right. She was yelling for her daughter, who I would guess is NOT big nor black.

Thank you. Thank you very much. The End.

Bribery...There's No Other Word for It!

So anyone who knows Stone knows that he DOES NOT lack energy! He is our outgoing, happy, social little boy.

His outgoing nature extends to the classroom as well...if you catch my drift. We noticed that on Stone's last two report cards, while his school work grades were very impressive, his citizenship grades weren't as high. We scheduled a meeting with his teacher to talk about what he could do to improve in this area. Afterall, we know how social and chatty he is:)

Together we created a little incentive plan. What is the plan you ask?...Each day Stone works on sitting still in his seat, not talking to the other kids at his table when he is supposed to be doing school work, and listening to Mrs. Larsen's directions. Then, after school each day, we receive an email from Mrs. Larsen letting us know how Stone did on his goals. Once Stone has five good reports in a row from Mrs. Larsen, he earns a prize. This plan has worked SO WELL! We've been doing it now for 4 weeks, and so far Stone has only had two days where he didn't get a good report. We're really proud of him and how hard he is working. Its hard to tame the chat:) We feel so lucky that Stone has such a wonderful teacher, who goes the extra mile to ensure his success. Now we have to figure out how we can afford to pay for all these prizes:)

Birthday Bash...Er, Something Like That...

I'm so behind on my blogging...or I guess I'm more "out of order" than anything:)

Rick turned 36 on January 10th. To celebrate we went with a group of friends from our old neighborhood to El Matador in Bountiful. It is Rick's all time favorite restaurant. We ate, we chatted, we laughed, we gossiped (oh no, just kidding we DID NOT GOSSIP!:)

Of course, if you go to El Matador, you have to go to Baskin Robbins (or 13 flavors as Stone calls it...lol) right next door! It was a fun night spent with great friends!

I just want to say how lucky I am to be married to Rick. He is truly one of the funniest people I've ever met. He keeps life fun and he never lets the little things bother him. Well...let me qualify that, UNLESS those little things are politcal that is:) I couldn't ask for a better father for our son. I hope Stone knows how lucky he is to have a dad who gets to be home with him. I see Rick in Stone and am so grateful that they are so much alike. The world will be lucky to get a little Rick clone:) I love you Rick!!!!

Okay okay...you can't blame me...I haven't embarrassed Rick ONCE on this blog yet....that is until now:)

What a Kid!

Stone is such an awesome little boy! We've been having family discussions about saving money and being more frugal. Anyone who knows us knows this is not an area we excel in:) We are spenders...a bad habit we are trying to curb.

This morning Stone came into my office and asked "Mommy, what are we saving our money for right now?" I told him that we are going to Disneyland later this year and that we are saving our money for that trip. He got thoughtful for a minute and then left the room. He came back with his piggy bank and said "You can have all the money in my piggy bank.":) He is constantly surprising us with his thoughtfulness.

Stone is also obsessed with watching the news. It is his TV program of choice...he even has a preference of which newscast he likes to watch. At first we had a hard time letting him watch the news...it is always so somber and sad and we weren't sure we wanted him exposed to so much "real life." But we decided that it is okay as long as we watch with him and can discuss it afterwards. Needless to say we've had some really funny and interesting conversations. Its amazing how much "he gets it."  

The other day when I was driving Stone to school he said "Mommy, there is a horrible crisis in the world today." Of course, I was intrigued and asked him to explain. He went on to tell me about the high price of gas and how it is hard for the farmers to farm their land because they can't afford gas. He said that he would try to eat more fruits and vegetables to help the farmers. I got such a kick out of his little sense of responsibility to the world! I can't say that we've been consuming more fruits and veggies at our house, but afterall, isn't it the thought that counts???? :)

I'm a Digital Scrapbooker...WHAT?!?!?!

Yay! My first digital scrapbook page. I'm so excited! I'm still figuring all the ins and outs of how it works, but I think I've got the basics down.

My friend Tracy showed me the digital scrapbooks that she had put together and they were SO cute! It convinced me that I had to give it a try.

I will continue to do Stone's books the old fashioned and expensive way (ha ha)...but am going to do a yearly family scrapbook digitally. Atleast that is the plan:)

Thanks Trac...for all your help in getting me started!

Picture Perfect...

So each year around Christmas, Rick takes family pictures for several of our family and friends. We have several different locations where we do the pictures, and each family is rotated to a different location each year. It is quite a system we have going! My job is to "pose the family" and "hold the reflector..." very important duties Rick assures me:)

Anyway, this year we were cursed...or the people we took pictures of were cursed. We had some funny mishaps (let me qualify that as funny AFTER THE FACT)!

In our quest for a second location to take their family picture, we got our friends the Brondum's stuck in the sand. Of course, their picture turned out so cute that they couldn't possibly be mad at us. GET OVER IT ERIK! (ha ha).

Then on the way to the location where we were doing our friends the Johnson's picture, they hit a huge pothole and got a flat...not just any old flat...the $300 kind of flat. We were in such a hurry because the lighting was PERFECT! Rick is such a great photographer...its fun to see him in action. One day I will perfect my VERY IMPORTANT "photagrapher's side kick" duties:)

Here are just a few more of the pics that Rick has done.

Trail of Stone...

When I was growing up my Mom would always tell me that she could tell exactly where I had been and what I had been doing in our house. She said I would leave a "trail." I now know exactly what she was talking about! Stone leaves a perfect trail of destruction through our house. Anyone could walk in our house and be able to tell exactly what Stone has been up to. Today he was out in the snow playing...you can see from the pictures that he shed his snow clothes by the garage door, shed his jammies (which he was wearing under his snow clothes) at the bottom of the stairs, then got in the bath tub upstairs. So funny! Stone definitely didn't get his looks from me as he looks JUST LIKE Rick...but he did get my "trail" making skills:) That's something right:)

Dear Santa...

There is nothing we love more than Stone's yearly letter to Santa:) At "Tingle and Jingle's" prompting Stone got right on his letter to Santa. It went something like this...

Dear Santa:
I've been a very good boy this year. For Christmas I'd like big blocks so I can build a fort, airplane geotrax, a remote control dinosaur, legos, the Eye Clops, a v-pocket, and a guitar. There are more things I'd like but I just can't think of them now. I know this is alot to ask, so just do what you can. Thanks Santa...I love you!

We got such a chuckle out of the fact that he acknowledged that he was asking for a lot but that he would "let Santa off the hook" by saying "just do what you can." So funny! I love Christmas and all that comes along with it! I can't believe it is only a week away! It goes by WAY too fast!

Tingle & Jingle...

We borrowed a fun Christmas tradition from our friends, the Johnson's. This is our 3rd year having "Tingle and Jingle" our family Christmas Elves visit. They come during the night sometime during the Christmas season and leave a little note for Stone to give him a "status report" on how he's doing on the "naughty & nice lists". They also leave him a little Christmas present.

Stone has been so excited for "Tingle and Jingle" to visit that he hasn't been sleeping through the night. He will come in to our room at 3 am to let us know that "Tingle and Jingle" didn't visit yet, but that he would try to go back to sleep to see if they would come:) Finally, "Tingle and Jingle" visited this week! They left Stone a cool marble toy and a note that went something like this...

"We’ve been watching and waiting for the right time to come and visit you. We were so excited that you didn’t have to pull a card in Mrs. Larsen’s class yesterday that we thought it was the perfect time to visit."

"Keep up the good work Stone. Nothing makes Santa more happy than when you are listening to your parents and are doing well in school. Santa is so very proud of the way you’ve been working on your spelling words and doing so well on your tests."

"Santa said to remind you to send him your list soon…he is busy packing up his sleigh for Christmas. Also, keep working hard in school! Work on your handwriting, and especially work on paying attention so you don’t have to pull cards. Good work Stone! Merry Christmas!"

I know what your thinking...we've added to the "Santa" threat and you would be right! Stone not only aced his spelling test this week, but he didn't have to pull one card! Thanks "Tingle and Jingle!"

Family Night Gone OH SO WRONG...

We love Monday nights! Every Monday we have family night with our friends Cindy and Kallie Jo Stewart. They endure some new recipe I'm experimenting with for dinner, we go on fun outings, we play games, we do all sorts of goofy things. But tonight we had the family night of all family nights! I know what you are thinking...you are thinking we invited Keith Urban to dinner...but NO that is Rick...lol. Or as we now call him, "Kevin Urban"...Keith's long lost brother:)

Since Rick started his own company earlier this year, he decided that he would not get a haircut until January 2009. I think this is his rebellion from having to travel and do so many tradeshows at his last job. So he has been growing his hair since around May. His hair has grown bigger and bigger with each passing day and don't be fooled, he LOVES IT! He is very proud of his hair and we have more fun teasing him about it than you can imagine. Of course he wakes up first thing and in his fake suave voice says things like..."I wake up with my hair looking this good...jealous?" Ahhh, have I mentioned how much fun it is to be married to my husband? There is never a dull moment or a day without some serious laughter. Sorry Ladies...he's taken!!! :)