Clone Wars

While I am writing the last post, I noticed that the multi-sheet copy feed on the priter is kaddy-wampus.

"Who broke the printer?" I asked.

"You mean the cloner?" Dane replied.

Yeah, we don't get too in to Star Wars Here.

Utah in 6 Weeks

We've been in the house about six weeks now. (When we have all the boxes unpacked, we'll post a few pics, Diana).

Here are a few fun highlights of our time thus far in our new home.

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We hit the Utah State Fair this fall. It was really cool. We saw lots of great animals: Horses, cows, sheep, pigs, chickens, white tigers and fish (some of which the boys caught themselves!)






The boys wanted to ride a roller coaster, so we put them on it. I tried to get a picture of their faces as it raced by, sadly my camera speed and the coaster speed were not compatible. Suffice it to say that Tate was thrilled, and Dane literally kissed the ground when he got off the ride. Wish I'd had the camera ready for that one.


Dane got his first trip to LaVell Edwards Stadium this fall. Here's a picture of us at the home opener versus Northern Iowa. It was a fantastic time, and we have enjoyed watching our beloved Cougars defeat (NIU) Panthers, Bears (UCLA Bruins) and (Wyoming) Cowboys as he'll tell us frequently. Dane has witnessed two consecutive shutouts and some potent offense. I'll catch him whistling or singing the Cougar Fight Song while walking around the house. He was "Star of the Week" at school last week and each of his classmates made a poster of "Dane is special because..." We have picked out some good friends for him since some of his classmates listed "He likes BYU" as a reason. Good kids!

Dane has graduated from his SpongeBob SquarePants hat to a Cougar hat in recent weeks... He's all CougarFan...

with a strong affinity for the Cougar Marching Band (he got to play the drums after the game in week 1):


But if you ask him what's the best part of the game, I am not sure he wouldn't say cotton candy (which he has to pay for, making it all the sweeter), but if Cotton Candy's his answer, the close second will definitely be Cosmo!

He loves (and I mean LOVES) the video sequences of Cosmo's Quest (the dastardly minions of the BCS have stolen the Spirit of the Y and want to use it for evil purposes! Ahhh!)

Tate has a ticket as well, but regularly exercised his first right of refusal, so we've enjoyed games with Uncle Brody, Grandpa Brent, and our great friend Lanny.

Summer Things

We didn't post for most of the Summer, so here's a couple of highlights...

This spring, Cyndie's flowers showed their stuff. Blooming like champions, they were beautiful and fun to look at--kind of like Cyndie!

Dane enrolled in a music, movement, and drama class. They did lots of songs and dances... even put on a play of "Where the Wild Things Are" with the chief wild thing played by our wild thing.

He learned the Charleston, and the booty shake.

That may be a light saber, not sure exactly. But we are into Star Wars, so I'll bet Dane thought it was a Yoda, Quigon-Jinn, and Anakin (Episode II) model.

Spinning green light... power stance!

We learned that Dane will one day be a rock star. He's got it going on (look at that stance!)

(incidentally, we also learned that Bono is a "Fully Invested" Cougar fan, thanks SnarrWars for the image, you are a hero to my boys).

On the Tate front, we had our own one-man play entitled "Chin Chuckler". He spent a fair amount of the summer protesting the move, but has been doing well this fall and is integrating well into school.

You know that Visa commercial where the family goes on vacation in search of the lost smile from their teenage daughter? We have our own quest: Tate wearing his glasses... here's a shot we're not entirely sure hasn't been Photoshopped.

When the grass grows in O-Town (Omaha, not Oakland), it really grows. Sumner loved to run around in the fresh cut. It smelled so wonderful, and there were bugs jumping around... ahh, nirvana! The stained feed only lasted a couple of days (then it was time to cut the grass again!)

Our love of Star Wars carried over to the kitchen, and way beyond the obvious Princess Leia Cinnamon Buns and included such recipes as Bosq Brownies, Pit Droid Pizza, and these Galactic breadsticks:

Here's a shot of Cyndie's Guys shortly before leaving Omaha:

Back In Business: Who Wears the Pants???

Well, these OmaHecks have been in the analog world for quite some time now. The hate mail and death threats have increased to a level that makes me think that a few token posts would be appropriate and a sort of insurance policy.

here's a sample of today's Sacrament Meeting conversations:

Tate: Mom, was Joseph Smith the first person to wear pants?
Cyndie (chuckling): No.
Tate: Was Joseph Smith, Sr. the first person to wear pants?
Cyndie: No, honey. Think about George Washington. He wore pants. And the Pilgrims, they wore pants...
Tate (interrupting): Except their wives. (Big brown-eyed blinks)

Yeah, that's how it goes... a fair amount of randomness supplemented with Vulcan Logic.

For those of you who have spent time with Tate or any other Autistic children, you know the can fixate on a topic for extended periods of time.(its called perseveration). With Tate, its all about Star Wars right now. He has so many facts in his little bean, and he wants to affirm them with us ("Dad, who was the second person to die by a lightsaber in episode three?" OK, because I know that, RIGHT!!! I don't even know whether he's talking about Return of the Jedi (third movie released) or Revenge of the Sith (third episode chronologically). We have been forced to declare the Chapel "StarWars free zone". No Star Wars questions allowed. It has been difficult, especially when the Stake Presidency makes references to Jedi Mind Tricks...

In Transit

This move has put us waaaay behind in blogging.

There is a lot to do: managing a couple of households, learning a new job, acclimating to altitude and lack of humitidy.

We have received some messages expressing displeasure with our posting frequency.

I promise we'll be back and better than ever once we get a little settled. We'll even post pics of the house.

Quote of the Day - 6/16/08

There we are eating dinner when Tate looks up and asks us, "Do you want to pray to my pasta?"

Now, you might expect that we'd be used to this line of questioning, Tate being Tate and all. But it still threw us for a loop. Cyndie and I looked at each other and in unison, answered "What?!?"

Tate just looked at us and matter-of-factly said "Pray to my pasta. That's what Paganism means. "

Fortunately, parts of my Cincinnati-area upbringing have rubbed off on Tate and he prefers his pasta with chili. So when we laughed at the idea of praying to pasta, Tate offered up his beans, complete with an example: "Oh, mighty beans, ye are powerful and beany!"

Our New Addition

We are thrilled to announce that arriving this August in the Anderson home will be a little packet of joy. This is something we've waited a long time for, talked about and mulled significantly. It just hasn't been in the cards until now. No specific name yet, but under general guidelines, we'll call them "BYU football tickets" (yeah, I know, I'm awful).

Why, you might ask (and rightfully so), would a family of Omahecks be getting tickets to games played in Utah?

Is it because the home opener is against Northern Iowa and my friend and co-worker is an alum and former wide-out from NIU? No, that isn't the reason.

Is it because we are so "fully invested" that we are willing to buy tickets to support the team even though we live 1000 miles away? Nope.

OK, are we planning Friday Night Drives to Provo six times this fall? Certainly plausible, but wrong again.

We're pioneering the "Scalping Plan" to put the boys through missions and college? Uh-uh.

Scrapbooking afficianados? So not us!

We will be charging admission to our basement when we get Direct TV and can access the Cougar games, and needed a template for the tickets? Great idea... but no.

Then why, you ask.

Let us tell you...

Union Pacific has offered me a very attractive position in our SLC office. I'll still be in the Marketing & Sales group, but with a group of Utah, Idaho and Nevada customers. We are moving this summer.

It is with mixed emotions that we leave Omaha, even though the intention is to return to Omaha in a few years after gaining this valuable experience. We have come to consider this place our home, and are glad to know that, in my department at least, all roads lead back to Omaha. And that's why this blog address will remain the same.

There's more to the story (some pretty good, some pretty hard). Which we'll be glad to share at a later date.

Right now, all the energy is focused on selling the house and finding the right school for Tate in Salt Lake.

Be good,

-Omahecks

Quote of the Day

Today Dane was singing around the house and Cyndie told him that she loved to hear him sing. He smiled proudly and replied, "Thank you... I just had a little music in my throat."

Yeah, that's it!

So I decided that I needed to reassert my prowess in the kitchen. Cyndie rocks the kitchen, and loves it so much, and with our schedules, responsibilities, Church Callings, Work requirements, I cook rarely, if ever. In fact, Cyndie is reminding me that the word I am looking for may in fact be spelled P-O-W-E-R-L-E-S-S-N-E-S-S.

The idea was that I could do something with the boys, teach them a skill, spend time together, and make sure they know that food doesn't just magically appear. Not to mention that since I don't cook too much, I don't want them to get any crazy stereotypes about dads not being in the kitchen.

When Sunday arrived, I committed that this was going to be the day. To use a good Argentine phrase, we were going to make bread "sí ó sí"(literally "yes or yes" meaning no other options, roughly equivalent to American English's "come he## or high-water", edited-this being a family blog). After being in meetings all morning, having Church from 1-4, ending up on the stand during Sacrament Meeting (the Bishop and Second Counselor were away, and the First Counselor asked me to join him, making me "the substitute Bishop" according to Tate"), eating dinner, and cleaning up, I was ready.

The boys and I got the ingredients, some mixing and measuring tools, and got to work. The yeast performed remarkably. The flour mixed perfectly. The sugar and eggs blended exquisitely. It was everything I had hoped for. We were all excited until we realized it was about 7 pm and read that the directions called for letting the dough raise for 3 hours, pounding it (Tate and Dane's favorite part), splitting it, putting it in pans, and letting it raise for another 90 minutes. I did the quick math and realized that we'd be up until midnight if we followed those plans. Time to call in the reinforcements!

"Mom, we need your heelllp! Dad really screwed up this time!" the boys called out. Laughing, Cyndie sauntered in to the kitchen and proceeded to save the day. We let the dough raise until we went to bed, then let it continue to raise in the fridge overnight. Next day, she and the boys cooked it up. It baked wonderfully!

Prologue

It would seem that Cyndie was right at the beginning at this post: she can spell and and has a better vocabulary than me. But I have to tell you that last night, while Cyndie and I were out on the town, I said that I wanted to make more bread with the boys, and she confessed that when we ate the last of the bread, she was disappointed. So maybe I didn't screw up too badly.

What Happens If That Runs Out?

Tate is an avid reader and loves to learn new things. He has discovered the world of minerals, plants and resources.

Whether through lessons in school, or his own reading regimen (we truly aren't sure), he has become concerned about depleted resources and species of plants--and animals, for that matter--becoming extinct.

The "perseveration" aspect of Autism comes in to play here as Cyndie and I get to answer the same questions about non-renewable resources running out, so we can't have gas, electricity or other items he considers critical.

Daily, he includes in his prayers a plea to Father in Heaven that "non-renewable resources won't run out, and that endangered species will not become extinct." It is quite a show of faith. Recently, we were talking and I could tell he was in a bit of a funk. It's often hard to get him to open up about emotions, but I probed a little and he told me how concerned he was about non-renewable resources going away (he had asked me not to stop for gas only a few days earlier when we were out together for some one-on-one time).

I wasn't sure what more I could tell him, so I went to a higher source. I shared with him what a college professor used in a class as "The Lord's view of economics" (remember, I was an Econ major at BYU). The message comes from Doctrine & Covenants 104:13-18 and teaches us that the responsibility of those with resources have a responsibility to take care of those without. The Lord also teaches us in verse 17 that "the earth is full, and there is enough and to spare" for he "prepared all things". We talked about how we could waste and mis-use the things God has given us, but that if we take care of them, God will take care of us, and we should take care of each other. He chippered up, and though still concerned, he's pretty conviced that God will see us through. Good kid.