Survivor Tryouts

This will go down as one of those thing you do on a whim that seemed like a good idea until you actually go through it and realize that your justifications for doing it really weren't that good. I like the show "Survivor". Heather and I got hooked on it years ago from the influence of our friends, Doug and Julie Rogers. But the enjoyment has always been in watching the show, at my own house, sitting down in front of a tv. This week I saw an advertisement for Survivor auditions in San Diego and for some reason I could suddenly see myself sitting there on national television, winning challenges, and being the coolest, most likeable member on the cast. If I only had a few minutes to show them who I really was, there would be no way they could turn me down. It turns out that 600 other people in San Diego thought the same thing. But 1 out of 600 still isn't too bad. Multiply that by 15 other cities that they visited, not to mention the thousands of other videos that people can mail in. My chances started looking worse, but I didn't realize that until I had already been in line for 4 hours on a Saturday morning, and by then I couldn't just leave the line. I mean, I had already spent 4 hours there and I couldn't just throw that all away. So instead I decided to stay 3 and 1/2 more hours to get my big break. And all it turned out to be was 2 minutes in front of a video camera that they will send to judges to screen through later. And when it came time to do the actual on-camera audition, I was nervous and I'm sure I talked too fast and sounded like a goof (not that I'm not a goof, but at least I'm not a nervous one).

I made some friends during the 7 and 1/2 hours waiting in line

The line in front of me

And the line behind me

Famous Venice painting travels to San Diego

I went on a business trip to Italy last spring. We visited Rome, Florence, Parma, Cinque Terra, Pisa, and finally Venice, in that order. I searched for a painting I could buy that would remind me of my trip, something Heather would like, and look super nice framed somewhere in our house. I passed up all the other venders in all the cities because their paintings were just too expensive, until I was just about to leave Venice. I couldn't come home empty handed, so I finally gave in and paid a lot of money for a picturesque painting of a canal in Venice, with buildings on the side and a few gondolas in the water. Although it was expensive, it would be something I would keep with me and something I could share with Heather for a long time. Then as we were walking along other painting vendors, my co-worker, who also went on the trip with me, found a very similar painting for 3/4th the price. That sure makes you feel good. What they don't tell you, and if you are a guy and have never gotten anything framed before, is that getting a frame for such a big painting on canvas is even more expensive. So much so, you realize how much money you could have saved if only you didn't buy that darn painting. So almost a year later I have given in and we had the painting framed and it is now up on our wall.

Insights of a three year old.....

I am way behind at posting but we have had people at our house for the last month! It's been fun but I am exhausted. Once I catch up on all the household stuff I am behind on I will post some more. Just thought I would share this funny moment with you...

Last night we were sitting in the car outside Longs Drugs while Jacoby ran in to return something. I turned to Rett and said "Where's mama?" and he points to me, then "Where's Coby?" and he points to Coby, then "Where's Rett?" and he points to himself. Lastly I ask "Where's dada?" and he points to the store and Coby says "He might be in jail I think." Just wondering what Coby thinks Jacoby does all day.....:)

Bake Day

One of my favorite Christmas traditions we had growing up was baking tons of different types of Christmas cookies and then making treat plates to pass out to our friends and neighbors. Once I went away to college I continued the tradition with my roommate Jill and now am sharing it with my own family. Jacoby is usually my bake day helper (he's a good sport). But now that the boys are a little older they love to get in on the action (although how much of "helping" they really do I am not sure of!). Coby's favorite part are the sugar cookies. He loves the cookie cutters and of course the frosting part. He likes to frost the same cookie multiple times and just keep eating off the frosting. This year we made sugar cookies, russian teacakes, m&m cookies, candy cane cookies, and homemade oreos. I think it ended up being somewhere around 300 cookies:) Yummy!

GRE

I (Jacoby) have been applying for a Department of Defense scholarship called the SMART scholarship that would pay me half my salary to go back to school for a graduate degree for the next year. My work will be gracious enough to let me work part time so in essence, I would be making my full salary and getting a graduate degree at the same time. However, in order for me to actually receive the scholarship I need to be accepted to graduate school. And in order for me to get accepted to graduate school at the school I would like to attend (UCSD - its close so I could still work part-time and it has a really good robotics branch of their EE department) I need good GRE scores. Last year I prepared a few months for the test and when I took it, I was very dissappointed with my scores. That verbal test is incredibly tough. When you are supposed to pick an antonym of a word, and you don't recognize that one nor 4 of the 5 answer choices, it can be a very difficult test. Here is an example of an antonym question I have seen (not from the actual GRE tests I have taken because that would be a breach of my testing contract):

OPPROBRIOUS:

(A) meretricious
(B) innocuous
(C) invulnerable
(D) irreproachable
(E) ambitious

Do you see what I mean? Opprobrious? Meretricious? When I don't even know what I am supposed to take the antonym of, this gets tough. The answer is D. Opprobrious means "expressing offensive reproach" and irreproachable means "not subject to blame, faultless".

Anyway, so I bombed the test last year and things didn't fall into place to go back to school and get the scholarship. So I am applying for the scholarship again this year and I knew I would take the GRE once again. But this year I have been studying on and off for the last year, mainly studying vocabulary. Its the weirdest thing but I see all these new words in novels and publications all over the place. Its like everyone else is learning and using these new words with me. So I took the test yesterday again with my new-found vocab knowledge and I rocked it! I raised my verbal score by more than 200 points (which either means I got a near perfect score this time or I must have done really poorly last time - ding ding ding ding we have a winner) and my math score even went up too. Still, I haven't even applied to UCSD or for the scholarship and I don't know if I will be accepted, but I have a much better chance than I did last year, and I know I won't have to take the test again.

Coby's 3rd Birthday

It's hard to believe that Coby is now three. At least it will clear up the confusion at the grocery store when the clerks ask how old he is and he says two and they say no you are too big you must mean three and he says no two! It is rather funny to watch since it would happen to us at least twice a week. I am sure he is thinking these adults just aren't so smart that I always have to tell them twice how old I am before they understand.

Last weekend we had a Thomas the train party for Coby, or as he calls it a James party since James is his favorite train. I think it ended up being a ton of fun. We bought three different used train tables and set them up with trains and cars for the kids to play with. The one is the middle is actually the boys Christmas present. We told Coby that we rented them from a train store so they could just stay for the day. Then afterwards we packed the one we were keeping back in the garage and sold the other two. Coby was in heaven with all the trains but I think a little overwhelmed with so many people in our small house! We had 17 kids and 18 adults. A little crazy huh? Sometimes I tend to get a little carried away when I get an idea in my head! It was a wonderful day!

Need I say that someone was not too happy about putting on his train gear???

Halloween

So I am finally attempting to get our blog going and keep everyone informed on the Larson Happenings. This year for Halloween we were the Toy Story gang. I made costumes for Jacoby and I and then ended up just buying the boys used costumes since they were cheaper than making them. Little did I know when I started them that my costume would have to be completely hand-sewn since I was sewing on already made clothes. It was very tedious and a lot more hours than I had anticipated. Thankfully, Jacoby's costume was a lot easier to create:) In the end it is all worth it as I love the feeling of accomplishment when they are finally complete. I also added our last two years of Halloween pictures just for fun.