Noah in SV

He's almost up to my shoulders. A few more years and we'll be eye level, I'll bet. Serene backdrop right?

Noah spotted this cool lizard on this rad old barn that we took some family pictures in front of. Christmas cards are comin' baby! Sorry, no sneak peeks... Liz's orders.

So... Sierra Vista. We like. Awesome weather, job, small town, and not Vegas. This is about 20ish minutes from our house in the Huachuca mountains (Wa-choo-ka).
Tripod = rock.

It has been monsoon-ing ever since we arrived. Much more rain than Mesa. Awesome lightning shows and cracking thunder.
Standing in the partially flooded street.

Oliver hard at work. Such a rough life. O.S.W. turned 2! We didn't do much.

It's time to FEEEEESH!

So I have to brag a little about a pretty sweet trip I just got back from. One of my best amigos invited me on a last minute, chartered tuna fishing trip down in Mexican waters. We drove to and departed from San Diego and then motored down about 150 miles south for the two and a half day excursion. I guess the fleet, out of Point Loma, have been having an extremely slow season, so I was very lucky / skilled (ha ha) to get 2 fish (aka - 'feeeesh').
HUGE thanks to the Kennedy brothers; Russell (aka - Rew-sal) and Derek (aka - heavy D) for the invite.

Also, thanks to Liz for calling me a pansy, when I was trying to talk myself out of going. "Go; you'll have so much fun! Be spontaneous... GOSH!" I think were her exact words. What kind of wife says stuff like that anyways? I've grown into a fairly boring, practical, geezer over the last couple of years I guess.

I got pretty sick after the first night. Oy! I didn't hack though. Some dudes on the boat had some prescription strength Dramamine derivatives and it did the trick for the most part.

This is Rew-sal (and me) w/ our Albacore. Not record breakers by any means, but decent I think.

This is the yellow-fin... it was so much fun to fight. It was cool because I caught this just in the 'nick of time' you could say. This was the last stop were we baited our hooks and gave it one last go, before we headed back to San Diego. "First in the water gets the fish!"

what's new

... nothing is new. The Las Vegas-Mesa-Sierra Vista Wolfingtons are still stuck in a Groundhog Day-ish transition period. Not cool.
Lizabeth, Elijah, AND Oliver are just now getting better after a solid week and half of being bedridden-ly sick. I felt like Will Smith in I Am Legend, were I had some weird immunity to whatever bug they had.

The boys playing at BurgerKing.

Elijah and Cohen on the carousel at SS springs mall.
Liz pretending to eat her semi-famous Krabby patty desert treats.

Rocky Point 2010

Liz's parents got the family some awesome condo's down in Rocky Point a few weeks ago and we had a friggin' blast. The kids (in there ever growing numbers) were a bit needy at times, but it was so nice to relax on the beach. We love Rocky Point.
Our sister-in-law/photographer Harmony took this 'funny face' group shot with her nice DSLR (and the one with Oliver, by himself).
Shmee-lie Bee-lie and smally-Olly. If you know Oliver, you can actually hear him saying "EEEEEE" (for "cheeeeese") as we take this picture. Food in his mouth and all. Unfortunately for Elijah, I passed down my Chinese smiling eyes. I would say Elijah had the most fun out of anyone. The kid was in the water 80% of the time, no joke.

We eat at this fish place in town, the few times we've gone to Rocky Point. I don't remember what it is called, and that is unimportant anyway. We order this fish and just peel the meat right off and make fish tacos. It's real good. This is the place the kids presented the most struggle. Oy vey. I can still remember the headache.

Mi amore.

Graduation / graduation trip

Crazy. Unbelievable.
I would say, in the same breath as "time has flown by",... it has been a friggin' long 4 yrs of dental school! Sheeeeesh! All the hurdles. All the anxiety over those big tests. All the time spent with good friends. And now it all changes. Everything switches. Friends fan out across the country, and Las Vegas becomes 'a place we used to live'. Grades morph into paychecks... and I so VERY rarely say this but... HOLLA!! It's a good thing too because the baby chimpanzee that was on my back when I started school has grown into a plane swatting, chest pounding, damsel stealing King Kong of a monkey (i.e. debt). Elizabeth and I are excited for the future.
Martha E. and I decided to take a trip to Manhattan for a few days and my Mom so kindly agreed to watch the boys during our get away. Thanks again to all the family who made the drive/flight up to Vegas for the graduation. I AM special! Aw, shucks.

Apparently "Lavender" is the 'dental' color for our graduation. Weird.
These dudes have been my family for 4 years. *sniff sniff

Thanks to my Aunt Marcie, and a website called Tripadvisor, our itinerary was strategically executed. We got everything done we wanted to, and then some, w/o feeling rushed.

This picture is on the Brooklyn bridge. We took the subway to the east side, and walked back to Manhattan across the bridge at sunset with the cityscape as our backdrop. Magic!
"Top of the Rock" - Rockefeller Center overlooking downtown.

I have a truck load more pictures, but they are tied up on a memory card that won't allow me to extract the data. Bummer. Once I figure that out I will post a couple more pictures of NYC.

Mesquite Nevada

Some very nice friends of ours invited a group of us to their family's ranch house in Mesquite, which is about an hour away from Vegas. It was a beautiful property with a significant head of cattle, snow capped mountain ranges in every direction pretty much, and on this day; powerful storm clouds. We rode some quads, ate some mean BBQ, shot some shotguns, and relaxed. It was a lot of fun. For those of you who are familiar... it kind of looks like Thatcher/Safford - don't ya think?

So I look a little Asian when I smile big. Don't judge me.

Elizabeth was my main patient for boards a few weeks ago. I did two fillings on her. She was a great patient. Yes, she is trying to make a funny face. A big thanks to our friends for watching our rug rats for the day. 5 more weeks is all that's left. Craaaaaazy.


Liz found a cheap, yet legit, play-doh set and Elijah has been geeked out on it ever since.

recharging batteries

Two hours of sleep the night before and one - LONG -- day.

More than once, I told myself; "I'm going home and am going to just collapse". So I drove home and instead of the collapse... I found my batteries beginning to recharge.
- my smiling wife
- hot food
- two rambunctious boys wearing matching PJ's, bouncing off the walls (figuratively & literally).
- a nice hot shower
- a comfy couch

No collapse.

update...

After spending a fun week in Mesa, pre-Christmas... we drove back to Vegas Christmas night and spent the last week of school break w/ Noah at home. The boys slept most of the drive, even though Noah was awfully cramped between the two car seats in the backseat of the Maxima. We have definitely outgrown the 4-door sedan. Noah ordered a cool RC car w/ his Christmas loot, so we played w/ that some, and played some racquetball down at our YMCA. It was fun to have family dinners w/o an empty seat at the table. Elijah loves having his big brother home.

Shmoliver showing off his bun buns, pretending like he didn't know we were snapping a pic.

This is the "candy bar game". Liz did this growing up. You roll two dice and try to get doubles, and when you do... you have to race to put on the random accessories, because after you put them on, you start stuffing your face w/ candy. Meanwhile, the other players keep rolling the dice. It's a hoot.

Liz isn't used to staying up so late.

HAPPY NEW YEARS!!

late Thanksgiving pictures

Eli D. aka Huckleberry Finn, scrounging in the hay for candy.

We had great weather for Turkey day as we ate dinner out in Kevin's botanical garden of a 'backyard'.

Showing off Oliver's beautiful blue eyes.

It was good to see my Dad and his wife Cathy while they were here for Thanksgiving.

Ollie's early Christmas present. This bike seat is really cool and he just laughs and laughs the whole time he is in it.

busy busy busy

So I showed up to the trunk or treat and it was... unseasonably bright outside. Stupid daylight savings time in Nevada. Liz crafted the costume. Duct tape boots. I told people I lost a bet so I wouldn't look like I actually volunteered to wear this. Oh well. Pretty much everyone over 40 had no idea who Nachoooooooooooooooooooo was. Take it easy!
Liz and I went on an exclusive Hoover Dam tour w/ a group from my school. The father of a guy in my class is a tour guide and it was so cool to see the 'innards' of the dam.

Grandma Lindsay flew up to visit Sin City. It was brief, but fun. Turns out Oli is a mega-phone mouth. I wish you all could hear the audio from this picture, and you would know what I mean. It makes church not so fun.

My wife the philanthropist. Elizabeth worked her behind off getting donations from local businesses toward the Down Syndrome Organization of Southern Nevada's annual festival of trees and lights. She put together a 'party tree' w/ a gumball machine (seen to my right), bounce house rental, cotton candy machine rental, and a bunch of other stuff I am forgetting... which was auctioned off w/ the $$ going to the organization. Our friends Adam and Julia Olsen got Liz involved. It was a fun night w/ some fancy food.

Oliver is walking. That dang 'ol head creates a top-heavy situation though. He's still working out the physics.

... and a parting shot of Elijah Dale in deep thought. This kid is awesome.

Maybe I've been studying too much, but this was really funny. We eat quite a bit of popcorn 'round these parts, and this is the traditional 'delivery' system by which the uncooked popcorn gets into the micro. He usually nails it on the first throw. This kid brightens my day. I was talking to him on the phone the other night from school, right before he went to bed and he said "daddy, I want you to come to my house". Sad/adorable huh?

The ending of the video was total improvisation. What a goofball.

My nephew's 50cc motorcyle... he is 4. I've got to get me one of these.

Oliveeee in the bath. A little bit TOO cute huh?

Good Weather Days

We had a kind neighbor gift us this 3rd-wheel-kid's-bike-trailer thing the other day as he saw us struggling w/ Eli's little training wheel bike. Just one more to our fleet. All we need is a tandem and a 'tall bike' (google it... they are pretty cool) and our collection will be complete. I shudder to think what this life would be like sans beach cruisers.

Elijah loves his new bike. It's designed w/ a little tensioner on the chainless sprocket, to simulate actual pedaling. He doesn't know the difference.

And yes, I doctored the photo. I've been wanting to 'blur' a background for a while to make the people 'pop', and in this case I killed two birds w/ one stone because our neighbor's front yard is literally a dump. He collects junk from who-knows-where and then sells it for metal recycling $. So not exactly a scenic view out our front door.

Future Sun Devil

Elijah came up w/ this all on this own to show people how old he is. I'm so proud of him. It just goes to show how ingrained ASU is in our family. GO DEVILS!!!