I'm back from Vacation....

And here's the proof that I relaxed. Karli and the kids are still relaxin...

Dallin's new hair, There's only one Lagoon and man do I love a parade

A couple of weeks ago we decided to honor Dustin's largest wish of the year - to go to Grandma and Grandpa Orton's house without us. You see, Dustin is a cowboy and loves EVERYTHING about their farm in LaGrande, Oregon.

This place has horses, goats, donkeys, mules, rabbits, dogs, snakes, raccoons, and cats. Keep in mind that none of these things reside at our palatial estate in Lehi.

This year we threw Dustin a curve ball. We told him he could go, but he had to fly there by himself. We thought this would cause him some trepidation. Man, were we wrong. Karli expected to see crocodile tears from the little guy, but when they told him it was time to board he looked Karli squarely in the eye and said "I gotta go now Mom," and happily walked on the plane all by himself.

Apparently he did fine on the flight -- Julie Thueson, who picked him up, said that he deplaned with no problem, went up to his aunt and told her that he needed to fetch his checked bag.

Huh. This kid is good. It did make us feel a little better to find out that he missed us for a few days at least.

Dallin Poyfair - Teen Tennis phenom -- About two years ago Darrin and Clarissa got our whole family playing tennis... even Kristen and Dallin. Since this time all of us except Dallin has slackened in our tennis playing consistency. Dallin just keeps getting better and better.

Last year he played for the middle school and did quite well. This summer we signed Dallin up for a intense camp put on by Lehi High School. The captain of the tennis team is an old family neighbor who used to babysit Dallin and has taken a liking to Dallin, even though he'll only be a Freshman this year. Dallin has also caught the eye of the coach. He's still a little rough around the edges and could work on his quickness and serves -- but he's pretty darn good.

Maybe it's time to introduce him to Uncle Doug for some more 'seasoning.'

Sometimes, you want to be blonde. Sometimes you do something about it. If you're Dallin, you take matters into your own hands.

Equipped with a $10 bottle of hair bleach, a friend who also wanted bleached hair and 'permission' from his parents, Dallin embarked on a venture of epic proportion. There's nothing like swapping sandy brown hair for sandy red hair no matter which way you cut it - at least that's what he keeps telling us. And apparently the chicks love it. Bonus.

OC Tanner Lagoon Day -- Once a year you are subjected to pictures of our family at Lagoon. Well, this year is no different! I find that Lagoon is a great park when taken in extremely small doses. When the kids were smaller they loved the place. Since then we've introduced them to the wonders of Disneyland, Disneyworld, Magic Mountain, Universal Studies Hollywood and Orlando and Knotts Berry Farm.

But they still get so excited to go to silly Lagoon. Thank goodness Uncle Obert (OC Tanner) sees fit to send us there once a year for free and then pay for my day off to boot. It's a nice little perk.

So this year we finally allowed Dallin and Katelyn (and their friend Oakley) go off by themselves.

Here's a picture of them on the craziest ride I've ever seen -- the Samurai. Apparently 'Samurai' means 'spin kids around upside down until the barf' in Japanese.

Katelyn was too small to sit on the outside. Maybe someday, Kate.

Karli and I had a great time hanging out with Krissy. Yes, I am as happy as the picture illustrates.
And here are our three Lagoon crazies...

Aren't they cute?

I've decided to coach Krissy's Double A, U-11 soccer team. We're called the Arsenal Strikers. It's a club team, so parents are pretty into it and demand that their girls work hard. I love that.

I'm having a blast doing it, reliving my soccer playing glory days while combining it with my love for working and teaching youth. I'll keep you updated as our season progresses.

Kate the flutist -- When we lived in Arizona, Katelyn decided to play the flute in her school band. When we moved back to Utah she had to drop it because the Alpine School District didn't have that as part of the curriculum for her grade.

Now that she's entering middle school this year, she's picked it back up and spent the past three weeks at a pre-middle school band camp. Her previous flute experience put her way ahead of everyone else and I think she liked being the best one in the class. It all culminated in a cool concert last Friday at Timberline Middle School in which she played two songs very well.

The girls got an amazing opportunity to dance their hearts out in the Lehi Days Parade last Saturday. The only problem is they didn't really dance... unless you call walking and drinking water dancing. They sure were cute anyway...


Last week Dallin went with the scouts on a float trip down the Colorado River for three days - from Thursday until Saturday. He had many adventures during his sojourn (including 'almost dying' 5-6 times -- his words, not mine) and learned alot of water safety and the importance of applying sunblock several times a day.

When he returned home on Saturday he was amazed to see that all the top songs, albums and videos on Itunes were for Michael Jackson.

"This is really weird, Dad. I think Itune must be broken or something. Everything on here is about Michael Jackson."

So we got to break the now quite old news to him that Michael Jackson had died two days earlier. To Dallin's credit, he recognized that the world had lost a truly great musical artist. In fact, Dallin got to play 'Thriller' in his first Jazz Band concert of last year.

MJ part two -- Michael Jackson may have been a sad, confused freak of a person but there was no denying his talent. About two months ago we bought his greatest hits for fun and have been enjoying them with the kids. That guy could sing. And dance.

I think that Karli is finally getting better -- After close to two months of pneumonia, flu, coughing, aching, stuffy head, fevers, chills and overall nastiness, Karli is starting to get back to normal. Finally. I've missed having the healthy Karli around. It's hard to be lazy when she's sick all the time. Sheesh.

If you haven't already, go to www.pandora.com right now and register. It's quite possibly the coolest website out there. The gist is that you get to create 'radio stations' based on your specific musical tastes. It's very addicting... especially given that you can have it work on your iphone and now blackberry.

Anyone who knows me knows that I thrive on recognition of my great work. And while this might sound super corny -- if you like my silly blog writing, let me know. I'm pretty sure that if you do so, then you might see more frequent posts.

Just sayin....

Sick and injured Poyfairs. Read all about it here.

Whether you like it or not you're getting another excuse for why the blog postings have trickled to a monthly event. I mean, there for a while I was a blogging fool... now you're lucky to get a picture or two and some trite headline that perks your attention... right? Well, I hate to blame it on our Mac again... but I'm going to. About three months ago our hard drive crashed... again. Last time, we preserved all of our pictures. This time... not so much. So, we had to get it diagnosed, fixed and I've spent the last while updating the system to where it's just about back to where it should be... without the pictures, of course.

:(

So, if anyone knows of someone who can retrieve burned up data on a hard drive, let me know.

In the meantime, we're back up and running... blogs should resume.... maybe....

Converting to the Poyfairs to Trekker status: I took the boys to see the new Star Trek movie, they loved it -- but I realized that I'd shirked my Fatherly duties of turning all children that bear my name into big Trek nerds like me. I'd done ok on Star Wars and Lord of the Rings... so the neglect of Star Trek! How could I?

So, a week ago I forced everyone to watch 'The Wrath of Khan' and last night we watched 'The Voyage Home.' The movies were recieved with mixed reviews... Dustin and Krissy liked everything except for the scary bug in Wrath of Khan and have rewarded me with nightmares ever since.

But Dustin now owns a Spock glass he purchased from Burger King. He is also saving his pennies to buy a Captain Kirk (he calls him Jim). So.. we're getting a little progress.

Cooking KK:

Katelyn continues to amaze us with her cooking abilities. Here she made a cake that has a marshmallow type frosting for her friend.

Katelyn also updated her blog ... read it here....

www.kkpoyfair.blogspot.com

Kate, Krissy Dancers: It was recital time last week for the two dancers in our family.


Here's Krissy striking a pose.


Here's KK having fun with the other ballerinas.

Sick Karli: About the same time as the recital, Karli, who had already spent a week with what we were all sure was swine flu, started coughing.


and coughing. and coughing.

Since Karli thinks that doctors have much better things to do than see if she's sick, she resisted going. Then a week ago she started coughing real bad. So bad that she didn't go to Church. Karli never misses Church. Later that night, Brother Rockwood and I gave her a blessing, then I drug her into a doctors office -- kicking and screaming -- on Monday morning.

The doctor checked her lungs and said... 'You've got Pneumonia. In fact, if you wouldn't have come in today, we'd probably have to admit you to the hospital.' He then gave her an antibiotic shot, a prescription for more antibiotics and told her to get some rest.

So Karli has been attempting rest... she did stay home most of last week. She's also developed this cool new trick of hacking up the most grosteque loogies I've ever seen. Yuk.

And she's getting better. Slowly....

Dustin Poyfair, Soccer player: Dust-man has started up Lehi Rec-league soccer and he's having a great time. In three games so far he's scored four goals and has discovered he's a pretty good ball handler.


He was also invited to play for a club team in the fall made up of kids in the area. He's excited for that.


But you should have seen the other guy... The most exciting part of our past week has been Krissy's cool black eye. On Wednesday, she tried out for Lehi's AAA soccer team for her age group. There was close to 100 girls there for the first try out and they only called 14 back to compete for two spots. Kristen was one of those to get a call back.

So she worked hard to get noticed. So hard that during a sprint drill she ran right into another little girl's head with her eye. She went to the sideline for a few minutes but got right back into the action, doing everything she could to make the team.

Well, unfortunately, she didn't make the AAA team, but will start for the AA team, which is still pretty good.

When we brought her home Thursday night, she looked like this...

Of course she didn't like this at all. I told her to wait until the morning....

and sure enough, he had quite the shiner developing. She went to school anyway.


On Friday morning she was at least able to open her eye again.

And on Saturday Morning she was ready to play soccer again.

Which she did wonderfully, scoring two goals and while matching her uniform to her eye coloration.

Here's the latest, taken just moments ago. The swelling is gone, but the purple is still there....



Gretchen, Tasha, Eric, Tracey -- Friday night we had an awesome visit from Tasha, Gretchen, Eric and Gretchen's friend Tracey. For those of you who might not know, Tasha and Eric are all engaged and stuff.. they'll be getting married in Salt Lake in December.

It's always a blast to have them there. Especially when they make me crepes! With Nutella!


So there you have it! Feel free to post a comment!

D-world -- pictures only.... words coming later...

Here are a few photos of our amazing trip to Disneyworld. We'll post more later, along with many funny and entertaining stories.

But for now, here's something to whet your appetite. Enjoy!

Dustin and Krissy with Pluto. Sadly, this is the closest they'll get to a real dog for a long time.

This is the only picture we have of all of us together. Gotta love the orange. Even Mr. Potato Head posed.

This was taken the morning of the first day before we went to Universal. You can cut the excitement with a knife!


Never turn down a photo op with Mike Wazowski.

This is me. Getting wet.


It's the cool twins. In front of the coolest coaster ever. What could be cooler?

Cinderella's castle. Poyfair kids.

Taken right before we took off on Big Thunder Mountain. Yee haw.

All of us in Epcot, wondering when I was going to make my mind up about where were going to eat.

Here are the kids with Grandma and Grandpa. Dustin is hiding behind Grandpa, being a stinker.

Awwwww.

You gotta hand it to Dad. He looks like he's excited for the magic carpets. Or maybe he's excited for lunch. Dustin and Dad had a great time together.

More kids in front of the Epcot Ball.

This is us in front of Indiana Jones... er.... Dinosaur.

Dustin with his favorite cartoon character.

Walking into the Magic Kingdom.

Funeral, Talent Show, braces...

I thought I'd get another good blog post in the hopper before our big trip this week as there has been a lot to catch up on these past few weeks. So without further ado...

Grandpa Craner -- A few weeks ago we got word from Dad that Grandpa Craner wasn't doing too well and that we should probably get ready for his passing.

Grandpa (Eugene) Craner was a man I had only met a few times in my life -- several early in my life at different functions at the Craner household in Portland growing up. Nothing I remember too much, just remembered that he was a tall man who looked a lot like Uncle Greg.

It wasn't until after Karli and I were married for one year that I truly remember having a conversation with him. We had decided to go with David and Carla to spend a few nights at Grandpa and Grandma's beach house at Cannon Beach. I remember that we met Dave and Carla at Grandpa's house in preparation for the drive there. While there, I was amazed at how much of my personal background he knew about me.... usually people only understand it with the aid of a whiteboard.... but he had the story down Pat... He also liked the fact that I was a journalist and quizzed me on several of the things I had written about until then.

The next and last time I met him was maybe ten years later when he and Grandma drove to Payson for a visit and pictures of all of us. This visit happened after my adoption into the Craner family, so I paid a lot more attention to this man. My first impression is how he smiled like Dad Craner and looked a lot like him. He then engaged me in a few more philosophical discussions in the brief visit we had.

Those are the only memories of the man who had become my adopted Grandpa. Unlike Grandpa Poyfair, I understandably didn't know him that well at all.

So, attending his funeral was a very different event for me that it was for the rest of my Craner family siblings. For them, it was a time to reflect on the life of a man that they grew up learning life lessons from. For me, it was a time to learn to appreciate the role this man had played in the lives of people whom I love very much. It was also a time for me to get to know the larger Craner family and I had a wonderful time in helping Grandma Craner clean up her house and then visiting with her in those few occassion when she wasn't working.

The funeral was truly cathartic experience for me. Here were all these people that I loved truly celebrating the life of a man who had led his life in a truly unique fashion -- A man who appreciated and loved to work. I learned more about this kind, gentle man who taught through example and keen insight.

By the funeral's end, I felt that I had a wonderful new connection to this family that I call my own. I felt uplifted and added upon for being around those people whom Grandpa had interacted with throughout his life. It was a wonderfully spiritual experience that I'm so happy I participated in. I've been to a few funerals. I dont' remember enjoying a funeral that much.

After the funeral I got to have lunch with Uncle Ed and Peggy, whom I had never met before then. I also got to visit my Mother's and Nana and Gramp's grave as well.

Kate the Brace Face -- Over the years as Katelyn has grown up we've watched as her teeth didn't quite look right. Dallin's teeth always looked great. Kate's... not so much.

So, we finally took the plunge and got Katelyn into some braces. This is what she'll look like for the next two years.

Renaissance fair -- The sixth graders at Ridgeline Elementary take part in a Rennaissance fair each year in which they sell trinkets at booths set up in gym in a medieval setting. This event is the crowning finish of a month long module they do in studying and understanding the medieval period a little better. In this module each kid is expected to earn 400 points to get an 'A' by a certain due date.

To get her points Katelyn worked with Grandma Orton to sew a rennaissance dress, built a castle out of legos, drew up a coat of arms, made a medieval restuarant menu and wrote several reports to get to her magical 400 point level.


Then she turned it in a week early. A week early? Who does that? Must be an Orton family trait.

Show -- like I said in the title, there's nothing like a good ward talent show to fill up a blog post. Dallin performed in two acts and Katelyn one. Here are video clips from them.

Dallin, Reuben and Maddie.



Here's Kate playing the piano...



Here's a cute video of me trying to steal ice cream from a baby -- Rebecca Allgood. I almost got away with it, too.



Easter Bunny -- We received a visit from the Easter Bunny this morning. I noticed that the Bunny is getting lazy in his egg and candy hiding tendencies. He must be getting old and gets tired at night easily.



First it was Blogger (here), then I gravitated to Facebook, Now I'm on Twitter (patpoyfair) -- in every method... I'm just here to let you know what's up in my and my family's life... cause I know you can never get enough of us. Right?

Thanks all. Next update will be Disneyworld!

Workin for a living, What's the plural of louse?, Dallin's birthday, New blogs

I loaded all the kids up Saturday morning for a different kind of trip to Grandma and Grandpa Craner's house. As I mentioned in my last post, we'll be taking a vacation (well, the kids and Karli will... I'll be working half the time) to Disneyworld. As this trip is on an extreme budget, we informed the kids that they're on their own for souvenirs this time around. After doing some brainstorming, the kids decided that they'd have to do some work to earn some money to purchase things.

First Stop: Grandpa.

I was put in charge of asking if this was even a possibility. He loved the idea and assured me that there was plenty of work to do at their house in exchange for Disneyworld spending money. He told me that the work wouldn't be easy though, and they'd be expected to provide value for the jobs they were tasked with.

So as we drove to Grandpa's house yesterday morning, the mood was different from the other trips down to Payson. This time, they were going to work.

When we got there, Grandpa brought us right into the garage and handed out jobs. Katelyn was to spend her day in Grandma's rose garden, picking up rose bush branches. Dustin and Kristen were in charge of picking up rocks near the fruit trees in the lower lot. Dallin would be spending his time with Grandpa in pruning trees.

Here is some video of the occassion....






They worked from 10 a.m. until almost four. They were very tired at the end of their 'shift', so Grandpa treated them to 'Escape to Witch Mountain.'

In all, it was a great experience for them to work outside and get a chance to earn some much needed money. Thanks to Dad for giving them the opportunity.

Yes, you heard Kristen correctly. She had lice this week. You never know where it exactly comes from, but we're thinking it had something to do with the play she was in this week -- A play all about Utah. Kristen played the part of a mountain man and was required to dress up like one... buckskin shirt, and a coon skin hat borrowed from her cousin Madison.



Kristen said there was a lot of sharing of the hat with her friends. We're thinking one of her lice-infested friends was one of the 'sharers.'

Kristen came to Karli on Friday morning complaining that she hadn't slept very well that night.

'Why?' Karli asked.

"My head kept itching," Krissy said.

So Karli checked Kristen's hair quickly and found the source of the problem... a small, black bug that was dead on her scalp.

"Well here's your problem," Karli said. "You slept on a bug."

Problem solved. The bug was dead. Kristen was sent to school and even had a friend stay until 9 p.m. that evening. After her friend left. Kristen put her pajamas on and then came back into our room to tell us that her head still itched. Karli took another look. This time she found several of the black bugs.

Alive. Moving. Sucking the blood right out of her scalp.

So I was dispatched to internet research duty. I kept looking for pictures of white bugs, cause lice are white, right?

Duh Pat.

Nope. Those little buggers were black in the pictures I found. Just like the ones that Karli kept bringing me off of Krissy's scalp.

Crap.

So, we sprung into action at 10 p.m. Friday night. I drove to Wal-mart to pick up the Lice shampoo. Karli immediately started the cleaning process. Sheets and pillowcases first. We woke up Dustin to make sure he didn't have them. He didn't

We called Dallin and Katelyn home from the neighborhood party they were at. They didn't have it either.

Whew. So, we all got a nice Rid Shampoo that evening. Kristen got a thorough hair combing with a special comb. We were all in bed by midnight. In the end, it wasn't that huge of an ordeal. Of course, Karli was happy we were all gone the next day so she could deep clean the whole house. But other than that, I think we're good.

Karli was sustained today as the new Relief Society 1st counselor. While sad she was released as the ward choir director, she's excited for the new opportunity and she'll do great. There are not too many people who work harder or are more organized tha Karli. I wish I had those attributes.

Dallin turns 14 this week. If you haven't seen him recently, he's grown like crazy the past few months. He's shot past Karli and is challenging my 6 foot height status.

We are extremely blessed to have him in our home. He's a great kid, very kind and loving and hard working. Today at church we had a parent of one of the kids he regularly babysits let us know how impresssed he is with Dallin. This is not the first time this has happened.

What's sad to me is the fact that we only have five more years with him until he goes on a mission. Holy cow.

So, happy birthday Dallin. Here's a video of one of his songs during his most recent Jazz band concert.



I will not be here to share in his birthday festivities this week. I will instead be in Logan, Utah that night, presenting to the Utah State University Partner's in Business Conference for the Carrot Culture Group. It's a big forum, a big stage and i'm a little terrified of acting all smart in front of all those intellectuals.

But it should be a lot of fun. I'm excited to go back to Utah State and see my buddies from my grad school days.

Busy April -- I'm also prepping for trips to Chicago, San Francisco, Sacramento, Reno, Dallas and Atlanta in April. Not to mention the trip to Orlando. Wish my back good luck.

Melissa and Mark Craner recently started a blog and it's great if you enjoy keeping up with what's going on in their lives in Houston. I've linked to it twice in my sidebar. Go have a look!

And remember to visit KK's blog as well. She puts a lot of hard work into it.

So, there's another update! Comment away!

And we're back... I'm back... and speaking of backs....

Hello everyone... I'd go into a long diatribe about how sorry I am about not writing lately but we all know you don't want hear that... right?

Thanks to everyone for the well wishes about my back. It's been a rough three weeks of laying around, whining, complaining and wishing back transplants were a possibility. I've driven poor Karli absolutely nuts and for that I'd like to publicly apologize to her for my general lack of manliness.

The back is finally doing better. Finally. There's nothing like a lack of a healthy back to help you to see the light that a healthy dose of diet and exercise is necessary to avoid ever having to go through that again. Cause man... I need for that not to happen again.

But enough about my back and on with the truncated version of a blog post this week. There will be no photos or video.. just me writing... since our beloved Mac is experiencing the effects of old age and is in the Mac Hospital. Poor Guy.

We had a great Stake Conference this past weekend, a very timely message that spoke to a lot of things that have been on my mind. A lot of time was taken in speaking about Lehi's Dream. I have probably read 1 Nephi Chapter 8 a zillion times, but never has that vision been more relevant than in today's world. That Great and Spacious building is very real and many people in our day are pointing the finger of scorn directly at us for doing what is right.

Karli and Katelyn sang in the choir and I got to sit in the crowd with Dustin and Kristen and Dallin. For those of you who don't know Dustin and Kristen very well... they love each other dearly ... but fight like banshees at the drop of the hat. So... I got to sit and play referee while Karli happily sang.

After the adult session last night we had a fun party at our house. We invited the Algoods, the Holdaways, the Burnsides, the Melansons, the Rockwoods, the MacFarlanes and James Conlee. Karli made her world famous pistachio pudding cake (she also made a chocolate version) and we had a great time talking and laughing. And laughing.

During the party Julie Burnside asked me how my back was. I was interested in knowing how she knew my back was hurting. She says that she 'BlogStalks' and reads up on our family. I thought that was a good explanation and Karli admitted that she's rather adept at it.

We've also decided to take the kids to Disneyworld in about a month. It just so happens that I have a conference to attend in Orlando at the Dolphin Hotel. So Karli and I decided to cash in all my Skymiles and my Marriot Points and make a whole week of it. We'll pay nothing for hotel, but did have to come up with one airfare ($200).

We then invited Mom and Dad Craner along... so it should be an amazingly fun party. The kids are already bouncing off the walls, designing logos for our t-shirts and hoodies, creating advent calendars/chains and studying up on all the rides they want to go on. We even got Dustin to commit to go on The Tower of Terror.

Well, there's an update. If all goes well, there will be an update with photos next week.