The Tangrens

It has become a tradition with my boys (meaning Derek and Hyrum) to get donuts after getting their hair cut. It all started with me asking Derek to pick up something at the store on the way home from getting haircuts one time. And since he was at the store on a Saturday morning he decided to get donuts. Hyrum was with him and he thought that's just what you do when you get a haircut...and so it was.

Noah got his first haircut this last Saturday (the 26th) We took the boys to Brad's Barber shop in Spanish Fork where Derek has been taking Hyrum about a year. Derek grew up going to barber shops and just prefers them... I have to say that I'm becoming a fan as well.

Hyrum needed his hair cut and went first. He is doing SOOOO much better with haircuts these days . I'm so proud of him. He's so brave. He was sad about loosing his curls this time so we had them cut it a little longer than they usually do.

As we waited for Noah's turn I had to get a picture of his only curls. The ones that only appear when his hair is altogether way too long.

He got in the chair and looked so small up there. And he actually sat still...for awhile

Those who have boys know that the worst thing about the first haircut ( and for the next couple years of subsequent haircuts) is the clippers. They are loud and tickly and that's hard to be still when your being tickled especially as a 1 year old

Part of the charm of a barber shop is that everyone get's involved. The two other men there waiting for their haircuts (who were sitting right in front of Noah) were making helpful comments laughing and commiserating on their experiences taking their sons to get first haircuts. It was unifying and fun to share this bench mark event. It seems to me that a boys first haircut is so much more eventful than a girls...but then again what do I have to compare it to?

He did pretty well in no small part to his Daddy making silly faces and sounds to distract him.

We'd brought other things as distraction but nothing distracts like new toys. The barber had a Barber Smurf toy. Noah thought it was great

and tasty

Toward the end of the haircut Noah was done and more extreme measures had to be taken

It was a good thing that he was in the chair by the window. He's very into cars these days.

He did so good all things considered

He thought he was done but then came the vacuum

At the end they presented us with a first haircut certificate that said that Noah had bravely completed all the requirements to getting his first haircut and had officially graduated from babyhood. ( You don't get this kind of thing at Supercuts!)

It was an occasion... and he absolutely got his donut.

What a handsome little man!

You have to have a great heroic pose

While you perform daring feats

It's also good to form crime fighting teams whenever you can

Can I just say that I love this stage. So fun.

A couple of weeks ago Adobe began participation in the Global Corporate Challenge which is a program aimed at getting desk sitters moving. They are grouped in to teams of seven and each given a pedometer ( and a back pack and a hat- which Hyrum loves for some reason) to track their daily steps. If the group averages 10 thousand steps per person through the 16 week challenge it's the equivalence of walking around the world. You can even go onto the website and see your groups progress around the world. As Derek tracked his steps he found that a lot of times at work he would only have around 3 to 4 thousand steps. But on weekends he'd easily get up to 17 thousand. So he tried to walk around during calls with clients that didn't require him being in front of his computer and we tried to take walks when he got home from work. He started to get to where he would average around 10 thousand a day. On his biggest day he had 27 thousand steps. Then came last Friday.

A couple of months ago he'd been talking to the guys he takes a van pool with about if there was an emergency ( earthquake or some other kind of natural disaster ) how they would be able to get back to their families. They decided to try to walk it once to see if they could do it and get a better idea of what to they would need and should keep on hand if there were an emergency. (That would be at least 15 miles and more like 16 or 17 at the end of the day). They'd talked about doing it on April 16th but that fell through and they instead decided to do it on the 17th of June, this last Friday.

They left work at 12:06pm and headed south taking back roads with slower speeds or busier roads with sidewalks. When I heard from him at 2:06 they had already made it to downtown Provo which was about half way. We went to get him Father's day gifts and when we left the store I was afraid that we'd missed his homecoming. We rushed home with a mind to make big signs to welcome him home from his long trek. When we got home at around 4pm, he hadn't made it yet. I asked him where he was and he'd made it to Springville right by where he would catch the van pool, about 3 and a half miles away. We hurried and made signs and I told him to let me know when he was close. I kept vigil over the computer. I expected him any moment but the last few miles were the hardest. I went out to water the garden and when I came there was a message from three minutes ago that said he was at the head of the street. I hurried and grabbed the signs and hurried the boys outside to see him walking up to the house at around 5:15. We cheered and showed him our signs. I'd hoped that we'd be cheering him down the street to our open arms but at least he'd gotten a welcome.

The first thing he said is "I've got to sit down." We hurried him inside and had him sit on the couch. One of the first things he realized about what he would need was better shoes. He got gigantic blisters on the entirety of two of his five toes on each foot as well as a blister on each of the balls of his feet.

Poor kid. But he did it! He shuffled like an old man the rest of the day but he did it! And that night when he went to enter his steps for the day which was over 40 thousand they gave him a speeding ticket and he had to explain why his step count was so high. There were at least two other guys getting speeding tickets on the Global Corporate Challenge for that day too!

It seems every little community in Utah has a city celebration. Pleasant Grove has Strawberry days, Payson has Onion days, Spanish Fork has Fiesta days, American Fork has Steel Days and Springville has Art City days...just to name a few. When we were in American Fork the city celebration came to us. The grande parade marched past our apartments the firemen's breakfast woke us with their sirens, we even saw the smoke from the burn out a couple streets over. The carnival was down at the end of the block we saw the fireworks from our porch, we were in the middle of it all. Then we moved to Springville. One day these cute cub scouts stopped by our house and sold us tickets for a car wash and breakfast at a church on Main street one Saturday. We went to get our cars washed and discovered that the grande parade was about to make it's way down the same main street we were on. The last day of Art City days and we just stumble upon it. This year I was determined to experience it as full as I could. So when the booklet came I poured over it and decided on what we'd do.

First up was the children's parade. Hyrum wanted to ride his tricycle so I set off to figure out how to decorate it. I started my pursuit on a windy day before the big event. I tried long trails attached to his seat but one circle around the back yard and they were entirely wrapped around the axles of the rear wheels. We were back to the drawing board and I wasn't able to get back to working on it until the next morning...P-day! We had suppose to go to a Teddy bear picnic earlier in the week that I'd forgotten about, and Hyrum had been so excited to go to it so I put a teddy bear on the back of his bike to make him think we were going to the Teddy bear picnic after all.

I have to say that I was pretty impressed how it turned out

The chariot ( stroller ) that Noah rode in was not as grand. But in my defense if there were any streamers within his reach they would be on the ground in seconds.

I can't tell you how excited we all were to be in the parade. As we started around the block I realized that this way probably the longest that Hyrum had ever been on a tricycle. He was such a trooper!