Gashlaria

Welcome to Earth

2011-05-22T13:24:00.003-06:00

Dear Aspen,

It all started with a dinner at the restaurant Zupa's. I, of course, was against the idea, because the place makes me sick, what with all the high maintenance girls who frequent it, squandering their men's hard-earned money on dainty soups and salads and chocolate-dipped strawberries, things they feel they're entitled to, neverminding the exorbitant prices nor their male counterparts who modestly exchange the fruit of their labors for un-glamorous but good, old-fashioned, hearty dollar burgers, packed with the real meat of life and smothered with the simple yet godly pleasures such as mayonnaise. I counted twenty-seven women and four men. The whole time we were there (about an hour), not once did any man enter without a woman leading his way.

That being said, the food was pretty good. I like Zupa's.

Anyway, we were there because your mom had her membranes stripped that morning, which means she was more-or-less induced, which means we were expecting you within twelve to forty-eight hours. So Grandma was watching Ariah, spoiling her, and I was watching your mom, spoiling her. Once again we'd taken up the fruitless topic of naming you. I've come up with so many awesome names (meaning they make me laugh and Teresa cringe), that I'm thinking of writing my own "Name Your Baby" book. Here's a list of a few:

Andromeda (I think this is the prettiest name ever, but everyone's against me in it)
Shwanna
Scratia
Tigra
Vampira
Valkira
Fangra
Elfira
Smareglyn
Grimpleasure

I'll stop at ten. I guess when it comes to babies, to me they're the ultimate product of dream. I mean, I can dream up a novel or a movie, but in the end, they're nothing more than ideas and illusions. A baby, on the other hand, grows into a god or goddess, a creator of worlds, a self-aware, thinking consciousness, the very best thing I can imagine in the entire universe. So it's hard for me to sum up all that glorious potential with a name like "Susan" or "Sally". I just want to dream and push limits and distance myself from limiting reality and ... well ... be silly.

It was about 11:00 PM, and your mom was having heavy contractions. We were watching "Tron Legacy". Cool movie with stunning visuals. Though I think I would have enjoyed it more if it were in German, because (and this is perhaps the first and only time I'll say this) for me the story actually got in the way of the visual experience. I would have preferred either an actually thought-provoking, philosophical piece, or a unabashed mindless trip through a psychedelic, neon world.

Turns out they weren't real contractions, just "Braxton Hicks". We both fell asleep disappointed and woke up rather humdrum, saying, "Well ... I guess we have to get back to real life now. I was even contemplating something as depressing as going to work, when to our joy, your mom's water broke. Then it was off to the hospital.

Your mom had been terrified of a uterine rupture, which was a threatening possibility with a vaginal birth following a C-Section (VBAC). For a long period it appeared that the contractions weren't progressing, you were stuck, and another C-Section would be necessary. After nearly eleven hours of labor (though your mom insists that it wasn't bona fide labor, because she had two epidurals) and about three hours of pushing, the doctor used a vacuum to latch onto and pull out a cylindrical piece of head. After some more pushing from your mom and pulling from the doctor, the rest of the head was procured, followed by a body. Then there you were, my slimy, new daughter with a cylindrical protrusion of head, the happy ending to a long ordeal. Good had prevailed, and lightning from heaven struck the earth upon the glorious birth of Tigra Gashler.

Actually we still hadn't agreed on a name. For the hospital records, you were "Girl Gashler". You're beautiful, life is good, and I do so very much enjoy my vacations at the hospital every few years. The nurses here at the American Fork Intermountain Health Care are among the most saintly women I've met.

There has, however, been a complication. Your mom got an amniotic infection called chorio. During labor she had a fever with a high temperature, and your little heart rate was too high for a long time. As a result, you've been separated from us and placed in intensive care for 48 hours, lest you contracted the infection when you were in the womb. It could turn into a week or more of care depending on how things turn out tonight. You're being intravenously fed antibiotics. Your mom's all right, and it appears that you'll be just fine too. Which is kind of boring to write about. I mean, by the time you're reading this, you'll either know that you turned out just fine, or you'll already be very aware of the long and gruesome, sickly life you've suffered as resulting from your unfortunate birth. Or you'll be dead and won't be reading this anyway. In any case, let's just say the air is full of tension, and only fate knows what's in store.

The runners up for your name were Evelyn, Lydia, Maya, and Aspen. We've almost agreed on the name Aspen Gashler. That is, we have agreed on it, but at least I haven't fully digested it yet. Maybe because a random woman in the hall told us that it was a tongue twister. Which I can't contest. But maybe you're that kind of girl. Your first name would resound with the crispness of the forest and the smell of sap in the sound "asp". Your last name would jut out like a waterfall with the "sh" of Gashler. Altogether you would be bold and fresh. Aspen.

The night of your birth, I told your mom that social media is dumb, and I felt no need to broadcast anything, nor any need to to sift through the resulting list of congratulating prattle. But she insisted that I post something, and as we hadn't agreed on a name yet, I posted, "Please welcome Tigra Gashler to earth." There were lots of replies such as, "Congratulations! How do you pronounce that?" Apparently it was hard for people to believe that any human being would put a tiger into their daughter's name. And alas, your mom wouldn't have it. When she found out this morning, she called me an evil man, though we had a good laugh.

Anyway, you're Aspen. Live with it. Like Ariah, your middle name will be yours to decide when you're of a timely age. Though I'm going to recommend right now: Valkyra. You'll have plenty of years to think it over.

Oh, and I love you. Even though, as far as I've gotten to know you so far, you're nothing more than a mass of constantly-sleeping baby, exhibiting no personality whatsoever, you beat Ariah in the hair contest. And it looks like you're going to be a blond. Also, I'm pretty sure you're going to be a veterinarian. A space veterinarian. We are in the twenty-first century, after all. I'm gonna go finish my burger now.

Medieval Spice

2010-11-06T08:56:00.001-06:00

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<p>Our commercial for "The Bent Sword" musical.</p>

Our Show Featured in the Daily Herald

2010-11-06T08:54:00.001-06:00

Read what the press is saying
about "The Bent Sword" musical. Our first two performances have gotten
fantastic reviews. Please come and be a part of the fun! Our show runs
through November 15th, every Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Monday at
7:30 with matinees at 2:30 at the Provo Theater (100 N 100 E). For
tickets, visit newplayproject.org.

Free tickets in exchange for your help

2010-10-21T17:18:00.001-06:00

For The Bent Sword Musical, running from November 4th through
November 15th at the Provo Theater,
we're looking for many props and costumes that could work for a
medieval theme. If you have any of the following and would be willing to
lend them to our show (a non-profit, student-funded production that
really needs your help), please let us know, and if we can put your
item(s) to use, we will happily give you a free ticket to the opening
night of our show for each lended item. It's a great cause, a great
reward, and it will be great fun. Here's what we need:

PROPS:

swords
spears
helmets
shields
armor (chain, plate, leather, etc.)
rustic or shiny five-pointed stars
a bendable sword
large leathery book
medieval-looking books
wooden or leather box
parchment / old paper
quill and ink
golden comb
barrels
baskets
satchels or bags
fake rocks
plates
cups
stocks (you know, for torturing people)
shackles
fancy tablecloth
bow and arrows
money purses
crib
drapes
dice
flags / tapestries
medieval-looking trumpets or horns

COSTUMES:

wizard hats
nun robe
monk robes
male shirts / blouses
female shirts / blouses
tunics
dresses / skirts
crowns
aprons
boots
shawls
scarfs
sashes
vests
coats
kerchiefs
football shoulder pads

Last Opportunity to Audition

2010-09-23T10:01:00.000-06:00

Today's the last opportunity to audition for The Bent Sword musical at the Provo Theater, 100 N 100 E, from 4:30 - 6:30. Uncle Sam wants you there. Get more information.

Huge Signing Today at Barnes & Noble

2010-09-18T08:38:00.001-06:00

Authorpalooza today at Barnes & Noble in Orem (over 40 authors) from 1 - 4. Be a friend and come visit me in the back of the store while everyone else waits in line to see Brandons Sanderson and Mull

The Fleece of Handsomeness RPG

2010-08-30T08:40:00.001-06:00

Citizens of Earth,

Partly as a writing exercise, partly for kicks and giggles, I'm going to be hosting an online role playing game hosted on my blog, based in the medieval world of my novel The Bent Sword. My best ideas for stories have often come from role playing games, so who knows, if your character and story is good, they may end up in future novels. The format will be like this: I write a post establishing the story, then every character may make one comment describing their action. The next day, I update the story. More specific rules will be given in time.

To make the game more interesting, I'm going to send a free copy of The Bent Sword to the winner. The winner is the person who either completes the quest, survives the longest, or the last person who doesn't drop out from boredom. If you're interested, click on the link below, where you'll need to make a comment with the following information:

Your character's name
Any distinguishing attributes of your character
Why your character isn't lame

http://stephengashler.com/?p=479

Birds

2010-08-26T20:20:00.002-06:00

Salem Pond

2010-08-26T19:50:00.012-06:00

This summer we filmed a screenplay I wrote called "Removed". The main character Derek wants to have a Walden experience, so he decides to "live deliberately" by giving up all his worldly possessions to his roommate and starting a new life in the nearby city park. Unfortunately for him, the city park fails to be the Walden fantasy that he's looking for as he confronts skateboarders and a girl who is constantly on her cell phone. As he seeks to learn from nature, he ends up learning what he didn't expect. The movie will be coming out within the next couple of months, so we'll keep you posted.

We chose to film it at the beautiful Salem Pond. I highly recommend it as a beautiful park to enjoy a lunch or dinner at with your family or friends. It's huge! It has a big beautiful pond with ducks to feed, a big field to run around on, picnic tables, a playground, and plenty of benches to ponder on.

Book Giveaway

2010-08-18T10:18:00.001-06:00

Two (and a half) book reviewers are giving away a free copy of The Bent Sword. Read their review and enter to win.

Book Signing Tonight

2010-08-17T12:40:00.001-06:00

I'll be doing a book signing tonight from 5:00 to 9:00 PM at the BYU Bookstore in Provo. You (the ambiguous, statistical cloud of potential customers whom I nevertheless hold an endearing brotherly love for) should come.

Book Seller Conventions

2010-08-05T22:15:00.001-06:00

Tuesday night was a dinner at Cedar Fort in Springville, where LDS booksellers from around the world (some as far as England and Switzerland), came to hear authors pitch their books. We only got two minutes to do so. I think I packed a good punch. It was fun to finally meet some of the people at Cedar Fort that I've been corresponding with for months.

Tonight was a similar event at the South Town Expo Center in Sandy, where there was a large mingle with booksellers and authors. It was fun to see how many people were in my same camp ... first time authors that were more or less clueless but gun-ho nonetheless. One bookseller from Montana was very insistent that I needed to come and do a signing at her store. I smiled and nodded, but I can't imagine at this point how that could be economical. Some other booksellers from Idaho told me that they already had my book. That was a pleasant surprise. On top of all the other contacts I made, I tried to bond a little with famous fantasy author James Dashner, but in the end I realized that I hadn't read any of his books and I frankly had nothing to say to him. I became friends with the uncle of another famous fantasy author, Brandom Mull. He promised to buy my book.

Teresa's Birthday in Space

2010-08-04T22:10:00.001-06:00

For Teresa's birthday party last Friday, I turned our basement into the bridge of a Star-Trek-esque spaceship. I accomplished this by creating cool hexagonal shaped architecture with our recording studio soundboards, setting up our laptop computers at a desk with cool screen savers that mimicked Star Trek computers, shutting out the light of the windows with multiple layers of garbage bags, setting up a large flat panel, wide screen TV with my computer, which ran a realistic space simulation program, and by playing a continuous soundtrack I created of spaceship engine hums, futuristic computer noises and all manner of spacey sounds.

Teresa is by no means a Star Trek fan, but in trying to think of something fun and original to do for her (if you're unaware, we have a longstanding tradition of trying to outdo each other with "surprise" birthday parties twice a year), the thought of this was irresistible. I'd hosted a similar party in high school, though with much cruder resources. And frankly, creating amazing space simulations has always been a dream of mine. To get Teresa and myself psyched for the event, we checked out and watched the new movie Star Trek the night before. Unfortunately, neither of us liked it. Though we're just haters.

Of course, when I picked up Teresa, whom I'd sent off to her parents' house, she was under the impression that we had some date plans in Salt Lake City. Though she was no doubt suspicious, as her mom had slightly leaked some information. When she entered our basement, many friends and family members, dressed in Star Trek outfits, soluted her as captain and escorted her to the captain's chair. She didn't known any Star Trek jargon, and as her first mate, I wasn't very good at it either. But our crew improvised well enough to get us launched deep into space, when, not long after, there was a transmission from an enemy ship (friends in the basement bedroom who communicated with us through a multiple camera setup and a TV of their own). Enemies boarded our ship, violent struggles ensued, engines were deactivated, victims were hurled into the vacuum of space, the captain was kidnapped, rescue missions were sent, etc., and it was good fun ... though short-lived. It was short-lived because our basement, in the heat of July, with nothing to cool it but a single fan, was so unbearably hot, especially in the super-insulated spaceship, that no one could take much of it before having to go outside and cool down.

Tragically, we forgot to take a picture of the spaceship.

A Message From Lord Bore

2010-08-03T22:52:00.001-06:00

Last chance to win a free book

2010-07-27T17:10:00.001-06:00

Less than a day left to win a copy of The Bent Sword. Enter now before
bees come down and eat your bones! http://tiny.cc/0kn7f

Book Giveaway

2010-07-21T11:01:00.001-06:00

We'll be giving away a copy of The Bent Sword one week from today to a randomly selected person from our email list, so if you haven't subscribed to our email list yet, now's the time! http://thebentsword.com

Contest Winner

2010-07-19T11:27:00.001-06:00

Winner of the Box of Boredom Busters: http://thebentsword.com/site/?p=241

Launch Party for The Bent Sword tonight

2010-07-17T08:30:00.001-06:00

Reminder: The official launch party for The Bent Sword is tonight, starting at 7:00 at 2102 N 80 E in Provo. There will be shish kabobs, swordfighting, books and signings, and all manner of fake British accents! Your attendance is highly desired. And medieval garb is highly recommended.

A sketch of Lord Bore

2010-07-14T06:00:00.001-06:00

If you've wondered what Lord Bore looks like, the amazing Dallin Blankenship rendered this very accurate depiction:

Box of Boredom Busters revealed

2010-07-12T13:27:00.001-06:00

For those of you who haven't entered our contest for The Box of Boredom Busters yet, there's only a few days left! As promised, we're now going to reveal what's inside of the prized box for the winner, which is a fantastic book entitled "Fun on the Run!" by Cynthia L. Copeland:

This book, having gotten great reviews, is described as "The perfect antidote to boooring car rides, waits at the doctor's office, restaurant fidgetiness, supermarket meltdowns -- hundreds of super-quick games and activities to roll out at a moment's notice. And no props required!

What better way to defeat the dark Lord of Boredom? To win this awesome book, just tell us about a time you defeated the Lord of Boredom.

My Interview With Cedar Fort Publishing

2010-07-10T22:42:00.000-06:00

Q: Tell us about yourself.

A: I am great. Frankly I don’t know anyone greater than me.

Q: Where are you from?

A: You may not believe this, but I’m actually from outer space. I know a
lot of eccentric people make that claim, but I’m telling the truth. And
rest assured, I was telling the truth about telling the truth. I may,
however, be lying about that last sentence, but the odds are that I’m
not. Currently I’m residing in Orem, Utah.

Q: What did you study at college?

A: I have no formal education. In fact I was raised by wolves. And yes, I
did roam around the forest in a red speedo. Though I like to tell
people that I got my bachelors degree in Digital Media from Utah Valley
University.

Q: Marriage?

A: No thanks, I’m already spoken for.

Q: Kids?

A: I’d say that my one-year-old daughter’s cuter than yours, but I don’t
like to boast. You can judge for yourself whether the foregoing
sentence counts as boasting or not.

Q: All the works…

A: Yes, and with anchovies if possible. I prize myself in my
appreciation for all things rare and exotic. Like that Mexican sausage
made out of beef salivary glands I bought a few weeks ago at the grocery
store.

Q: What are your hobbies?

A: Country dancing, watching TV, chatting with my friends on Facebook,
listening to popular music, shopping for clothes, staying up with the
latest trends, eating spicy curry. Only minus everything but the curry.

Q: What is your favorite book, why?

A: The Book of Mormon. Because I pride myself in flaunting my
died-in-the-wool-true-blue-through-and-through-Mormonness. Beyond that,
the most influential novel in my life was probably that dilapidated book
from my parents book shelf entitled “Robin Hood”. I don’t think it even
listed the author. But reading it made me who I am. To this day, I am
Robin Hood.

Q: Do you have an author who inspires you? Who and why?

A: My wife can attest that every time I pick up any sort of literature
by Daniel Pinkwater, I giggle like a schoolgirl until my eyes are red
with tears. He has a knack for non-conventional, left-fielded, totally
innocent young adult comedy with a heavy dose of mind-bending coolness. I
want to write stuff like that.

Q: When did you start writing, or what inspired you to start writing The
Bent Sword?

A: I first learned about the Lord of Boredom while in fifth grade in
Sandy, Utah. He was the dark spirit of all things … school. As a way of
showing off my eccentricities to the girls at recess, I engaged in
imaginary light saber battles with Lord Bore, but just before I sealed
my triumph, the aid would always blow her whistle, and I once again
found myself a prisoner. Soon I realized that it would take a great deal
of dream magic to oppose the dark lord, so one recess I invited all of
my friends to join me in a holy quest, one that would inevitably be full
of adventure, filling us with dream and giving us the power to free
ourselves from our fifth grade oppression. All sorts of invisible
oracles spoke to me and informed us that our final object was to
“conquer the Tupperware”, a phrase that randomly entered my mind.

After battling myriads of invisible skeleton warriors, outrunning title
waves, and surviving the booby traps of ancient temples, the invisible
spirits of improvisation revealed to me that the Tupperware was the
domed monkey bars on the playground. To conquer it, every member of our
fellowship (there were six or seven of us), had to stand on the highest
bars with our hands in the air at the same time. It was a cold and
blustery day, and my friends were antsy to end the quest. I watched
their hands carefully, and though, to appease them, I told them that the
Tupperware was conquered, I knew in my heart that we never quite
achieved our goal.

And so the dark lord lived on. And at the close of my sixth grade year,
he revealed his terrible power, whisking me away from my friends forever
and, along with my family, planting me in the strange land of Provo,
Utah. There I faced a lonely summer, surrounded by mists of boredom,
soon to confront the horror of middle school as a lone adventurer. It
was a world where people were starting to lose their childlike virtues,
allured by the evils of pop culture. I hated it all. But by the time
eighth grade rolled around, I had found new brothers in life and death,
outcasts and weirdos like me, who shared my aversion to all things
grownup. It was during this Renaissance that I remembered my unfinished
quest, of the unconquered Tupperware. I realized that it was none other
than my old nemesis that was poisoning the minds of my middle school
peers, and I had to defy him.

Thus a second quest was born, and this time we could not fail. Each man
took on a new name, giving birth to Steffin of Peaville, Jimbob the
wizard, Mammoth the friendly giant, Sir Him and Garrick, Sir Percivel
Flowermander, and others. To defy the kids around us, who were
preoccupied with sitting around and being cool, trying to forget that
they had ever played pretend, we wandered and ran about the school,
speaking in fake British accents, filling our minds with dream, and
improvising the tales that were destined to become The Bent Sword.

The following summer, I realized that my friends and I had come up with
so many great characters and stories that they needed to be written
down. Other friends had similar ideas, and there was a birth of
TupperWar literature. But in my story, the Tupperware evolved into the
container for the dark lord’s power. The pathetic, cardboard sword
wrapped in duct tape made by my friend Patrick (Percivel), became the
symbol of our satirical, postmodern adventures, and, to avoid trademark
violation, the new name of our epic. And one night, while gazing at the
heavens, I realized just how important our story was. It was written in
the stars!

Many drafts, many years, and many rejection notices later, my dream
became a reality through Cedar Fort. Of course, having become a wizard
of dream magic through my adventures, I always knew that this time would
come. I’m just glad that it came before I was sixty. My hope is that
through reading the book, others will be inspired to join me in my
quest, which is far from finished. And I hope to sell lots of books so
that I can pump out the sequels and have a swimming pool.

Q: What did you enjoy the most about writing The Bent Sword?

A: Creating characters, then watching them come alive before my eyes. As
described in the book, storytelling is a highly magical art and good
fun.

Q: What made you choose Cedar Fort to publish your book?

A: Everyone else rejected me ;-). I learned that my home teaching
companion’s wife Jennifer Boss worked at Cedar Fort, and she offered to
personally put my manuscript onto Cedar Fort’s acquisitions desk. Alas,
it’s true what they say about life revolving around who you know. That
being said, I really like Cedar Fort’s values-driven media. And I just
found out that my uncle, Ted Gashler, was also published through Cedar
Fort, so I guess it’s a family loyalty now.

Invitation to Launch Party

2010-07-10T06:00:00.003-06:00

Everyone and his dog is hereby formally invited to a spectacular
launch party for The Bent Sword on Saturday the 17th. There will be fun
medieval atmosphere, free food (like shish kabobs), book signings,
games, sword fighting and more! Here’s the official invitation:

My experience getting published

2010-07-09T06:00:00.000-06:00

I've had friends ask me about my experience getting published, so here's my response:

Getting published was hard, as expected. I tried once to submit my manuscript directly to a publisher but was rejected. Knowing that most publishers don't accept unsolicited manuscripts anymore, early last year I focused on sending my works to agencies that looked for Young Adult Fantasy, as listed on the Writers Market website, which I subscribed to temporarily. I was told by everyone in the business that agents are a necessary evil. Though I sent my query (cover letter, synopsis, first three chapters) to every agency listed, all of them either ignored me or rejected me. Then I learned that a lady in my church congregation worked at a publishing company (Cedar Fort). I talked to her, and she was happy to put my query on the desk of the lady who does acquisitions. This act made all the difference, and Cedar Fort told me that they wanted the full manuscript. So either everyone else hated my stuff, or more likely, they never even looked at it.

To finally read something besides a rejection letter was pretty exciting. I wanted to make sure that my manuscript was polished, so I sent it to some family members who helped me with some edits. But I was naive and was more concerned with expanding the story than polishing what I already had. Not wanting to let too much time go by, I ended up sending a 500+ page manuscript that was so large that it had to be carried in a box, and the story wasn't even finished. Months went by before Cedar Fort gave me their rejection letter, due to the length. Apparently a long novel isn't a good idea for a first time author. Though they told me that if I trimmed it down, they'd reconsider it. So basically I chopped my novel in half (creating a sequel), tied up some loose ends, and resubmitted it. Weeks later, Cedar Fort told me that they wanted to publish my book. Cool.

Cedar Fort requested that I send it to my own editor prior to it being reviewed by their own editor. I asked a friend, and she was happy to take on the assignment. What surprised me the most about both editors was how few comments they had. They fixed a lot of grammar issues, sure, but I was expecting a lot more critical feedback. This still has me a little worried. Though, I guess, perhaps the novel's just really ready to go. Seems too good to be true.

And there you have it. Now my wife and I are working on all the fun promotion stuff. We just set up my first book signing at Borders, which was surprisingly easy to do. Throughout it all, there's the looming dread that my book won't be received that well. I'm reminded of George Lucas throwing up in the bathroom while Star Wars was premiered for the first time :). I guess we just need to have a little faith in ourselves and push our work as if it's the greatest work ever written, because that's how the business succeeds. Hope that helps.

The Bent Sword released!

2010-07-07T17:29:00.001-06:00

Steve's novel The Bent Sword hits stores today, so hopefully you’ll be able to find a
copy. If not, let your local merchants and librarians know that you
demand this book, followed by a slap in the face and the line “Pull
yourself together, man!” Because haven’t you always wanted to do that?

The Bent Sword Cover Art

2010-06-07T17:59:00.005-06:00

We have Tanya Quinlan, Melissa Caldwell, and all the folks at Cedarfort to thank for this beautiful cover art. We're having a party first week of July to celebrate it's release, so we'll make sure to have the details for you soon.

The Bent Sword in print

2010-05-20T13:52:00.000-06:00

The Bent Sword was sent to the press yesterday. It will be released in the first week of July, preceded by a fabulous party, still to be announced. In the mean time, you can read the first three chapters at thebentsword.com. The Bent Sword the Musical has currently undergone two workshops with New Play Project, and plans are under way for a production in Provo, Utah in August. If you haven’t yet, now’s a great time to enter your email address at the website for a chance to win a free copy of the book.

Life is Fragile, Episode 8

2010-05-17T17:05:00.001-06:00

Play / Download MP3

As Vinny, Foster and the Goblin continue on their quest, strange things begin to occur in night.Could the vampires be behind it?

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Book signing today!

2010-05-17T11:50:00.001-06:00

I'll be signing books today at Borders in the Riverwoods mall in Provo from 7:00 - 9:00 PM. I hear there will likely be live music. I'm also going to try my hand at some ventriloquism. It will be fun. So join the Facebook event and come.

The Bent Sword Proof and Illustrations

2010-05-15T11:37:00.001-06:00

I've finished reviewing the proof of The Bent Sword, and after two long days of non-stop drawing (followed by a much needed dinner at a Greek Restaurant), I've completed the chapter illustrations as well. See them at http://thebentsword.com.

Some good news

2010-05-02T12:19:00.003-06:00

1)We've been trying to buy a house for the past 7 ish months, and while we haven't been completely successful yet, there's still hope that we can buy within the next 2 months. Actually, if it doesn't work out within the next 2 months, then we're going to have to stick with renting for a little bit. But we have a lot of hope that it will work out, which is good news.

2)On those lines, we are currently renting the house that we want to buy. It's a happy cozy house that we've fallen in love with. I have to admit that I had negative feelings towards the neighborhood at first, but as we have seen and talked to people, they are good people just trying to get by. I really hope we get this house!

3)For fall and winter semesters, I got a 3.95 GPA!!! Before that I wasn't doing so well in school, so I've had to do some attitude adjusting and study habit adjusting as well. It has paid off.

4)It's a little less than a year until I graduate!

5)I get more time with Ariah! The bad news is, I had to quit the library because of school conflicts. We'll have to make up for the extra income that is lost from that, but I know we can do that. I am so excited to be with her more, and I really can't wait until I can do mommy full time!

The Bent Sword the Musical

2010-04-12T12:32:00.001-06:00

I've had a musical version of The Bent Sword in the works for a good few years now. The musical usually evolved as I wrote the stories or worked them out in my mind, and I found myself humming a score for the particular character or episode in mind. Now with the release date of the first book set for July, I realized this was the perfect opportunity to finish and produce the musical as a promotional work. I've been workshopping the script with New Play Project, which organization is also going to help me produce it. It's going to be a lot of fun. Stay tuned for updates, auditions, recordings, pictures and more as this behemoth of a project comes into fruition.

Let There Be No Mistake

2010-03-31T22:38:00.001-06:00

Let There Be No Mistake

This is a draft of a song conceived by my brother Eric that he made for his birthday.

Life is Fragile, Episode 5

2010-03-23T22:14:00.001-06:00

Play / Download MP3

Foster and Vinny set forth on their quest to find the goblin's long-lost lover, while Brant and Vinny teach each other the arts of jockhood and nerdiness.

Health Care Debate

2010-03-20T09:11:00.001-06:00

Monte Emerson referred this video to me that quoted the many controversial parts of the proposed new health care bill (though a few months outdated), and I passed it on through social networking, and it generated no small amount of flack:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcBaSP31Be8

Hours of my day were sucked into debate. I'd say it was fruitless, but that would imply that I was absolutely right and trying to convert others. I honestly tried to consider their arguments, but I failed to see much true logic in their debates, though with some stirring exceptions. On the other hand, I think it's fair to say that my arguments were generally overlooked and reduced to absurdity or responded to with suppressed anger. It all makes open debate seem so pointless, and yet I feel that it has to be done. It seems to be one of the more difficult duties of being a thinking human. That is, I'll say that open social-networking debate is fruitless. A public but limited debate would make a lot more sense. When everyone is tempted to throw in their input, the result is a hodgepodge of conflicting opinions, like a team of rowers each paddling in a different direction. The boat goes nowhere. Or it goes with the majority. But that certainly doesn't imply a correct direction.

Here's a selection of the thoughts I made:

Socialism in any degree has and will always be founded on the religion that the ends justify the means, fuelled by good intentions but only possible through fascist control, the mentality that everyone must submit to the "right" way or be damned. It is the very antithesis of freedom. Almost without exception in world history, this failed experiment has produced massive poverty, massive bureaucracy and massive corruption. Until everyone is willing to put in as much as they're willing to take out, forced redistribution will always be a worthless pursuit. True charity and true altruism are only possible when founded by personal volition, from the bottom up, never compulsion from the top down. I cannot understand how these truths can seem less than self evident.

I find it somewhat telling that so many of your criticisms are directed toward the messenger and not the message. I find the blanket assessment that conservatives operate out of hate as ignorant as imaginable. Anyone who makes such claims obviously has no idea what's really going on with the tea party movement throughout the nation but hypocritically dismisses their opposition based on outward appearances.

About a month ago, Mr. Obama publicly admitted that the original bill, despite prior claims, would in fact rule out the option of choosing another insurance provider:

"...if you want to keep the health insurance you got, you can keep it, that you’re not going to have anybody getting in between you and your doctor in your decision making. And I think that some of the provisions that got snuck in might have violated that pledge.” (President Obama at the GOP retreat in Baltimore, MD, 1/29/10). Those words cannot be misconstrued. It's a downplayed, forced confession. He stated, de facto, that something was "snuck" into the bill that would have prevented all citizens from keeping their current health insurance and doctor. That is hugely significant.

Whether or not this law has been removed from the current bill, the President's intentions for total control are transparent enough to me, and I'm confident that it will only be a matter of time before the "public" option makes it impossible for private insurers to exist. Come on guys, we know this political game.

Of course insurance companies have to assess their demographics to determine coverage and rates. The difference between a private-owned and a government-owned insurance model is, once again, freedom. If I don't like my provider, I have the option of finding a new one. If I don't like my government insurance, my only option is bribery. I'm sure that never happens in Canada. You can dismiss the points of the video to absurdity, but the facts remain that the bill will force rationing on many levels (how could it not?), and the government will have the final say on who gets it and who doesn't, who lives and who dies. It will drastically stunt medical progress, innovation and the quality of care, as all financial incentives are removed, and all doctors, no matter of what discipline, will receive the same compensation. If you don't believe me (or the bill), take a look at this, and see for yourself what healthcare is like in Canada:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2jijuj1ysw

Does a monopoly better serve the public than competition? It is simply wishful thinking to believe that taking out financial incentives will somehow create lower rates and better quality. The public's volitional support of a service as well as competition with other service providers are the ultimate checks and balances to ensure quality. Take that away, and you have a monopoly that is only accountable to its superiors, not the people it serves. (What would Mr. Marx say?) You have an immortal bureaucracy, notorious for inefficiency. Anyone ever been to the DMV? Aren't you excited for such quick and fantastic customer service to work its way into our hospitals? Teresa and I are buying a home right now with a government-ensured FHA loan, and we're required to have an FHA inspector look at the home. If we were to hire a private inspector, the average rate is $150, and he would usually show up within 24 hours. The FHA inspector costs $450 and takes about a week to show up. But we have no choice. This is what happens when you take away competition. It is true that the government will have no profit motive to routinely deny benefits. Supply and demand will give the government no choice but to routinely deny benefits.

It's a nice sentiment that healthcare is a basic human right. But it's a problematic way of thinking. If healthcare is a right, surely food and water are also rights. If food and water are also rights, shelter must also be a right. People need jobs, so jobs must be rights as well. Pretty soon you've equated the term "right" with "need". What's wrong with that? It implies that people's needs must be provided to them as surely as the right of freedom is provided to them, and only a government could provide so much. Government provide rights, and taking it one step further, government can take away rights. It places the people beneath the government, subordinate to a Big Brother that's obligated to micromanage their lives. But what's wrong with that? Governments have never been known to turn evil, have they?

It is wrong to suppose that only leftists want healthcare reform. I hate monopolies and back room deals as much as anyone. But to equate corporations as the problem and the biggest corporation of all--that little company that prints its own money, writes its own rules, determines its own pay and excuses itself from accountability--as the solution, is near-sided to say the least. The Obama Administration, without a single member from the private sector, let alone a real doctor, is perhaps the worst force there could be to enact healthcare reform. There are real solutions, but this evil, evil bill is not it.

Life is Fragile, Episode 4

2010-03-17T23:09:00.000-06:00

Play / Download MP3

The jocks and the nerds return a rescued puppy to Barry, the old sage. The tides turn, and friends become enemies and enemies become friends. Meanwhile Brant tries out for the football team while his girlfriend Jenny watches with admiration.

Listen to the whole series

Treatment of a Quote by C.S. Lewis

2010-03-07T10:06:00.001-07:00

"Give up your self, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in" (C.S. Lewis, selection from last paragraph of Mere Christianity).

This is a beautiful quote, but if one dwells the surface implications, it can come across as contradictory, for example, the very notion of "losing your life and you will save it" or of "submit to death...and you will find eternal life." However, this form of irony was not invented by Lewis. Christ himself said "For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for My sake, the same shall save it" (Luke 9:24).

The quote also seems to imply a kind of personal futility and self-loathing, for example, "Submit to death . . . of your ambitions and favourite wishes. . . . Look for yourself, and you will find . . . only hatred, loneliness, despair . . ." But Lewis didn't invent this either. Christ also said: If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple" (Matthew 14:26, emphasis added). Those are strong words!

Now I doubt that Christ was actually advocating forceful hatred towards family members, considering that he condemned Pharisees for failing to keep the fourth commandment of honoring their parents (Matthew 15:4-6) and that, according to him, the second greatest commandment is to "love thy neighbour as thyself" (Matthew 22:39), which surely applies to family members. While hanging on the cross, some of Christ's final words were in consideration for his mother's welfare (John 19:26-27).

But did Christ advocate a forsaking of personal ambition and self-loathing? It's hard for me to imagine one who has no goals in life and who hates himself measuring up to Christ's admonish to "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven" (Matthew 5:16). Christ certainly didn't hate himself. He loved life, waking up early, meditating in nature, making many friends, doing good wherever he went, lifting people's hearts, boldly declaring himself as the son of God, saying "I am the way, the truth and the life; no man cometh unto the father but by me" (John 14:6). Could one with no self-esteem or personal ambition be so bold? Considering that he said to the Nephites "What manner of men ought ye to be? Verily I say unto you, even as I am" (3 Nephi 27:27), it stands to reason that we must share in his sense of self-worth and personal ambition. Furthermore, how can we love our neighbors as ourselves if we don't first love ourselves?

So is there contradiction between these opposite ends of Christ's message, between forsaking one's life and finding one's life? Certainly not. Christ spoke in the manner of the Jewish scholars and prophets of his time, quoting scriptures, using metaphors, teaching in parables, and certainly using hyperbole. The fact that he himself coined the seeming paradoxes such as "whosoever will love his life . . . shall save it" proves that he openly spoke poetically, to the spiritually minded.

Christ gave us the key to this riddle when he said "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also" (Matthew 6:21). Illustrating this point, he told the parable of the rich man who invested all his time and resources in material gain, only to die the night before he intended to enjoy his wealth (Luke 12:13-21). If, on the other hand, our hearts are in building the kingdom of God, to "Go . . . into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature" (Mark 16:15)--no small ambition--then surely our ambitions are God's ambitions, and they are righteous. The fact that Christ commanded us to be like him means that we must be incredibly ambitious. Infinitely ambitious! For the smartest, strongest, most spiritual, most influential, most successful, wealthiest men on earth are still dwarfed beneath his godliness.

"But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you" (Matthew 6:33). Christ wants us to be happy and to prosper, but the irony is that this is impossible unless our goals are eternal life and not wordly gain. This is the heart of Christ's message as reiterated by C.S. Lewis.

Approximate Release Date for the Bent Sword

2010-03-05T11:00:00.001-07:00

I found out from Cedar Fort today that The Bent Sword will be sent to the press on May 17th, and it will be officially released in July. I’ll be hosting an awesome, very geeky party then. The Bent Sword.com.

New Blog Home

2010-02-19T07:34:00.002-07:00

Steve has been working on an awesome family website for us, and it's almost done. As much as I love blogger, it is silly for me to not use our family website for our blog. You can find it at www.gashler.com/gashlaria . It's still under construction. If anyone is feeling bold, would you be willing to comment on your likes and dislikes of the site? Especially as a reader?

Beautiful snow, beautiful decorations

2010-01-10T22:23:00.003-07:00

I need a macro lens. Don't you just love it when the snow can land and you can see the gorgeous shape?

My family is way into decorating. I'm a fan of the poinsettia tree, myself.

Tree decorating

2010-01-10T22:14:00.004-07:00

When my family takes out the tree, we like to also take out our collection of ornaments and put them up together as a family. Ariah really got into getting ornaments from my mom and taking them to my dad to put on the tree.

I'm so glad that everyone is around. With the missions and grad schooling coming, it'll be a while until we have another Christmas together.

3 years!

2010-01-03T16:29:00.004-07:00

Three years? Really? These have been some amazingly fast, but awesome years.

Here are some of the highlights:

-Dec 06: Beautiful sealing and wonderful lunch and reception thanks to the sacrifice of family and friends.
-Dec 06-Jan 07: Amazing honeymoon to Pebble Beach, Carmel, Monterrey, and Disneyland, thanks to Steve's aunt Mavis and uncle Park.
-Jan-May 07: We both work at the Provo City library as Storytime performers. So fun!
-April 07: Steve graduates and gets his degree in Multimedia Communications Technology.
-May 07: Gashlermedia is born.
-May 07: We move into the batcave.
-Nov 07: Disneyland with Peavlers and Thanksgiving with Gashlers in Gilbert Arizona. Our car dies. More about that here, here, and here.
-Dec 07: Christmas with Peavlers, one year anniversary (what did we do for that?).
-Jan-Sept 08: Teresa is a preg. Already forgot what that was like. My favorite preg picture here.
-Mainly trying to survive in 2008...
-Sept 08: Ariah is born!
-November-December 08: Thanksgiving with Peavlers, Christmas with Gashlers. 2 year anniversary of going to La Vigna thanks to Sammie and being at home with babysitting from my parents. Thanks!
-March 09: Steve's 26th b-day Zelda adventure.
-April 09: We move out of the batcave into Mara Ledezma's home, generous on her side for sure!
-May 09: Ariah takes first place in a baby contest.
-July 09: My play The Man Who Cried Woof gets accepted in New Play Project's festival Mixed Up. Steve acts in it as Lenny. Steve directs Gotta Be Happy by Lyvia Martinez. I act in it. Gotta Be Happy gets first place, Man Who Cried Woof gets second. Steve performs song he wrote in honor of my birthday :)
-Sept 09: Teresa decides to do a Playwriting major. Graduation date is April 2011. Woo!
-Nov 09: Gashler's come up for Thanksgiving and we have a ridiculous amount of fun.
-Dec 09: Christmas with Peavlers, which is also a lot of fun.

And now to our 3rd anniversary. We thank my parents for babysitting (again). We went up Rock Canyon at night and chatted. We also went and ate dinner at Arby's and Outback and talked. And we saw Princess and the Frog. I know it sounds boring, but the talking is very big for us.

I will be with you always, Steve. I love you!

Princess and the Frog Review

2009-12-24T08:22:00.004-07:00

Steve and I saw Princess and the Frog last night as part of our anniversary. It seems the craze is to see Avatar and The Blind Side, which seem like good movies, but there was hardly anyone in the theater with us. We were reluctant to see it, but we actually enjoyed it. This review won't spoil the movie.

The good: The story was charming. I was afraid it would be about racial issues, but it wasn't! How refreshing. I'm not one to say that we should completely ignore racial issues, but it's refreshing to not see it all the time. I liked the resolution and how the main characters interact with each other. The main characters were refreshing too. I never wanted to kick them or yell at them (which is a common thing with recent Disney animations). It was fun.

The bad: Most animations feel like they have to appeal to kids with violent and bathroom humor. I've been greatly disillusioned with cartoons such as Looney Tunes where they only rely on violent humor. I think that is the lowest type of humor. I admire Disney's old Mickey Mouse cartoons more because they try to have other types of humor. I think kids (and everyone else) are above that. The best humor comes from relatable characters in silly situations in which they take the situation seriously. This movie, like most other animations, had silly supporting characters doing silly things trying to appease the little kids. The truth is, they weren't funny at all. Steve gave the example of Mary Poppins (which is one of the most brilliant movies of all time, btw). It doesn't have violent humor, but children love it and adults laugh and enjoy it too. Kids may not laugh as hard as the adults, but they still love the movie. I wish this movie had that.
The movie relied heavily on getting to the next song. Some of the songs seemed under developed. The plot was fast paced, and I wished it could have slowed down more. Taking out all the violent humor would have helped.

Other: The bad guy was weird. He worked, but he was weird.

Should you see it?: It's still worth seeing, despite my criticisms. It's a step in the right direction with the charming story and characters. My question is, will animations wise up and drop the dumb humor? Hopefully.

What did you think of the movie?

Sammie's Mission Call

2009-12-18T17:25:00.003-07:00

My gorgeous sister Sam just got back from Hawaii today, and her mission call has been waiting here for her about a week. The temptation to sabotage it of course was very strong, but we made a promise to Sam that we wouldn't open it at all...

So with some wicked awesome photoshop skills (actually, I used the free version of photoshop. It's called Gimp.), and illegal copying of postage barcodes at Kinkos, we made a convincing enough fake mission call without even touching her's.

Here's the fake. How would you react to "Disneyland West Mission"? I thought she would know it was a prank 100% at that point, but it looked so official that she second guessed it.

Anyways, that's not important. Sammie is going to Lubbock Texas. As she read that, the spirit touched me so strongly. Sam is going to be an awesome missionary, and not because she's good at selling or tricking people. It's because she knows it's true. She has a strong testimony and she strives to live as her Father in Heaven wants her to live. She is so kind and friendly, I know she will reach out to so many. I am so proud of her!

Love you Sammie!

Here's the fake versus the real letters:

Fantastic News!!!

2009-12-13T11:44:00.003-07:00

Steve's book The Bent Sword is getting published by Cedar Fort Publishing! We are so extremely excited about this. We'll probably make a separate blog in excitement for the upcoming book, so we'll keep you posted!

Thanks for all of you who have supported Steve in this.

Who hair

2009-12-13T11:40:00.004-07:00

I was a Who for the Provo City Christmas parade. Miss Kristi Hill did my hair and helped me figure out my costume. Thanks a ton Kristi! I stole this picture from my friend Donna's blog. Thanks for taking it Donna! Having my hair like that was fun, but it sure made my head sore.

Future home ideas

2009-12-13T11:13:00.005-07:00

Steve and I got to go to a home show here in Provo, thanks to Steve's aunt Carol. The houses were absolutely stunning. They all knew how to use space and color very well.

At first, I admit I was feeling negative feelings towards "the rich". Some things seemed so frivolous and overly ornate at first. But as we went through, I felt like I was starting to get to know the people who lived there, and my feelings completely changed.

The most amazing house was the Peay house, which is owned by a widowed woman. She has family pictures everywhere, and we could tell that she hosts people at her house all the time. She served a mission by herself and returned just earlier this year.

Another house that caught my attention was one with a young family. It was fun, because the family was there and the little kids gave us a tour. I was greatly impressed because they were so friendly and kind. Of course it was clean for the house show, but I noticed that they had a good organizing system for a family with 5 little kids.

I don't know much more about any of them, but Steve and I left feeling edified. I strongly believe many, if not all of these "rich people" share and give as much as they can.

I was tempted to take tons of pictures, but I decided to just take a few of ideas that could be practical to incorporate into our future home. Ok, you may argue that some aren't that practical...

I thought these curtains were cute, but after I took the picture, Steve said he didn't like them. Oh well.

Gift wrapping station! A must!

I love nooks! I'm not sure if Steve is a fan, but I just love them!

My dad actually made a play house into the wall similar to this one. I totally want to do this for our kids.

Brilliant organization!

A telephone booth! Ok, not so practical, but I think it's awesome.

This was taken in a gym room, with mirrors all across. We both agreed we'd love a room like this.

These are Grandma's Glasses

2009-12-13T11:12:00.001-07:00

Ward Christmas Party

2009-12-13T11:06:00.003-07:00

The babe is 15 months now, which only means one thing: 3 more long months until nursery! This is such a hard age, because she wants to move around and play during church. When I take her to Relief Society with me, she goes on commando missions stealing other ladies things and bringing them to me. Oi. So, I spend a lot of time in the hallway with her. There should be a pre-nursery where moms and dads can stay with their kids and it can prepare them to interact with other kids. But alas, I have to wait out in the hallway for 3 more months.

She knows how to smile for a camera.

Gashler Family Photos

2009-12-13T09:38:00.008-07:00

Angie and Miguel Berrio did these photos for us. I highly recommend them if you're looking for a photographer. Here is their portfolio site.

TotRags Messy Face Contest

2009-12-09T22:06:00.003-07:00

I am entering this lovely picture in a contest here. Check it out, and if you've got a good messy face picture, you should enter it. It doesn't matter if it was you years ago or your child/neice/nephew now. You could win 2 bibs, and they aren't just ordinary bibs. They are made of recycled material and cover a lot more than your regular bib. I love mine.

Scenes from Thanksgiving

2009-12-06T19:23:00.004-07:00

Do you ever wish that you had a professional photographer with you all the time? Ok, not all the time, but most of the time. My problem is when I'm having a lot of fun, I forget to take pictures sometimes. So, these pictures lack me, Steve, and Linda. Luckily, we got family pictures taken the same week, so those will have all of us in them. But I hate not getting everyone.

Thanksgiving was so fun! We had a lot of bonding time. We played games such as the extended version of Mafia (a lot more fun than the regular version) and Supreme Exalted Overlord. We discussed life and politics a lot. We stayed up late every night talking. I am so grateful for fantastic inlaws!

Wonderful Pistachio Contest

2009-11-29T23:16:00.001-07:00

Queen of the Flies

2009-11-27T11:21:00.007-07:00

The flies won't leave Deanna alone. With no other choice, she teams up with a friendly spider and seeks out the infamous queen of the flies in order to address her wrongs.

Family pictures

2009-11-08T11:53:00.005-07:00

On Friday, we spontaneously decided that we wanted an updated family portrait. So, we grabbed my brother Josh and went to the temple, right as the sun was setting. Thanks a ton, Josh!

The Unhappy Lioness

2009-11-07T21:02:00.003-07:00

Back in September, I found a very cute lion costume at Kid to Kid. I was intending on making Miss Ariah a lion costume for Halloween, but I couldn't possibly make one for as cheap as this costume was. I was excited to try it on her, only to make the little lioness roar. She would have torn up the costume, had she had real claws.

So, for the month of October, I tried to put it on her, hoping that she would learn to love it. I even tried bribing her with chocolate. Silly Ariah. Don't you know that your name means lion in Hebrew (according the the reliable world wide web, anyways...)? Don't you know that this costume is a manifestation of the lioness tendencies that exist within you? Hmm... maybe she was unhappy because it had a mane...

THE tradition

2009-11-07T20:40:00.002-07:00

PS-don't have a one-year-old finger paint. Sounds like a no duh statement, I know.

Where's daddy's nose?

2009-11-07T18:54:00.002-07:00

Ariah is pretty good at pointing out facial features when we ask her where they are. It has amazed me how many words she understands when she hears them, such as baby, bear, binky, sleep, love (which she responds to by giving a snuggly hug), downstairs, outside, who's that, etc.

Happy Birthday, Jamie

2009-10-26T22:17:00.001-06:00

Our lovely niece Jamie turned 6. What better way to celebrate than by becoming swashbuckling seadogs at Pirate Island in Orem? Here is the birthday girl and Eric, playing on the pirate ship playground.

The decor gets an A. They had a waterfall and animatronic pirate in the foyer. We were seated in a cave, which was really awesome. Canons go off sometimes and strobe lights flash.

Talia loved the merry go round.

Steve helping Ariah down the slide.

They didn't have very loud atmospheric piratey music in the background. It sounded like the sound system didn't work so well. It would have been fun too if there were more entertainers...

But it was a lot of fun. The little people had a lot of fun running around with Steve and Eric acting like pirates. The food is good, but heavy! Of course we topped it all off with fabulous cake and presents.

Happy Birthday Miss Jamie! Mike no like flash.

Miss Independent

2009-10-25T22:25:00.002-06:00

Ariah is a great walker now, but she doesn't like to hold my hand anymore. She likes to wander off until we have to run after her. She likes to play chasing games, where we say "I'm gonna get you, I'm gonna get you.." and she runs and giggles with glee when we get her.

She hates being spoon fed by us. She loves to feed herself, and she should feed herself now. I guess I'm a silly sentimental mom who doesn't want her baby to grow up. But Miss Ariah is now refusing to eat if I feed her, so I have to give in and let her feed herself.

She's starting to throw mini tantrums. Usually they just make me laugh, but outbursts in church are no bueno. I have less than a week to make her go from hating her Halloween costume to tolerating it. Wish me luck.

Goblin Valley

2009-10-25T21:59:00.002-06:00

Do you see the goblins?

We went to Goblin Valley. It was mine and Ariah's first time. We went to shoot a friend's movie as part of New Film Project. It is a Jedi movie that will be up on the site sometime within the next few months, after Lee finishes editing it.

Ariah was the production baby. Steve made up a song about her being the queen of the goblins. She is the queen of the goblins. And she was very good on this all day adventure.

Mermaid

2009-10-25T21:51:00.002-06:00

We took a picture of a real life mermaid! That's not a daddy talking up her daughter, this is the real thing. That's not our daughter Ariah, it's a real mermaid. They need to eat bubbles to survive. I know she looks like Ariah, but she's not. This isn't a joke. We're not trying to be funny. She really has fins. They're just not in the picture.

Bird Island

2009-10-19T11:14:00.005-06:00

It began as a dream. One day Enoch Allred glanced at a map of Utah Lake to discover that it had an island! And this wasn't just any island, it was "Bird Island." At once his imagination conjured images of ancient ruins inhabited by the ferocious bird people in Greek togas. It was a mystery that had to be explored, and he knew that only one companion would be suitable for the adventure: me. Unfortunately, I was on my mission at the time, but a few weeks after my return, Enoch and I, and my brother Eric, set forth on a mystical voyage. As we paddled a canoe through terrible heat, our muscles aching, the prospects of ever reaching the island seemed dim, but we persevered, and by and by we landed on Provo's own Isle of Avalon, the forbidden domain of the birds. No sooner did we land, than hoards of pelicans and seagulls fled in disgrace, known that their conquerors had arrived.

The mountain in the distance isn't Bird Island. Bird Island is actually a pathetic little sand bar, the shore of which is showing in the bottom right. Yes, though we came with high hopes, it turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. There were no ancient ruins, and the place reeked like nothing else, covered with briers, spiders and the remains of dead fish. It was what we more or less expected in the back of our minds, but the folklore was more fun to believe. So soon after conquering the island and heading back toward the civilized world, we continued to develop the folklore of our awesome adventure. Hence, five years later, the squawks of birds began to stir the soul of Eric, and as if a revelation, he knew that it was time to return and reek our vengeance on the birds, reclaiming our Avalon. So we did.

This time, Teresa and Eric's girlfriend Erin (who's taking the picture), accompanied our fellowship. And this time, the island was even more pathetic, about half the size it had been before. There were no spiders and no odious stench. However, rather than swimming away, the birds remained on the island until we ran toward them. So sudden was their flight that the sky was darkened all around us as hundreds of birds flew every which way. It was surreal, far more entertaining than anything you can get at any aviary.

And so, after eating a bunch of Starbursts and some turkey sandwiches, we went home, anticipating our next great adventure when, once again, the birds call.

Ariah likes to eat apples

2009-10-11T17:47:00.000-06:00

Swingin' and Slidin'

2009-09-26T16:31:00.004-06:00

We live very close to Pioneer park and have taken Ariah there a few times. This was the first time that she actually enjoyed going down the slide.

More birthday

2009-09-26T15:45:00.004-06:00

We had a double celebration at the Peavler's house for Heather and Ariah.

I can remember when I was doing this with Miss Heather!

Ariah just loves wearing bibs. Just as much as she loves wearing bows.

Heather got a swanky camera in this hip Hawaiian bag.

She can feed herself with a spoon (sorta).

Ariah got a cute little shopping cart from my parents that she likes to walk around with. Yay for birthdays.

The Babe is 1

2009-09-20T21:36:00.007-06:00

I can't believe it's been a whole year! At the same time, looking back at her newborn pictures, it's hard to remember what that baby was like.

She got some darling clothes, a baby (giving babies to babies...), a pop-up book, a singing bear, a balloon, giant legos, a shopping cart, and a cute turtle that you put shaped blocks into. She was intensely intrigued by opening the presents, as you can see in the picture above. Talia was more than eager to help open and play with the presents.

I wanted to do something cute but simple with cupcakes, so here it is.

We love you Ri! Many more happy years to come.

Many thanks to Heather for being the photographer :)

Looking for Dinosaurs

2009-09-13T17:04:00.005-06:00

We were feeling adventurous and wanted to go searching for dinosaur remains. We went in agroup, but we disagreed on searching tactics, so we decided to divide and conquer.

Ariah's tactics were to ignore any written clues and work completely hands on. Any time I stopped to read something, she reminded me her opinion on that method.

This is us touching fossilized ripples.

Ariah kept reminding me that this was serious business, but I couldn't help and try to loosen her up. She was working really hard brushing up sand.

Meanwhile, Steve and Eric found the miniature breed of dinosaurs. Instead of thoroughly studying them, they wanted to reenact history, sounds and everything.

Will and Katherine did some deep searching for our prehistoric friends, but had no luck for a while. Finally, they decided to try a traditional raptor mating call along with the necessary claw gestures. Unfortunately for them, it was a little too successful.

After minutes of brushing away sand, I realized that Ariah had more interest in the sand than finding bones. She even had a taste when I wasn't looking. That's the last time I choose to have a baby on my team when doing serious paleontology work! Except she was very cute.

Through his investigation, Eric found a never discovered species of dinosaur. By holding onto the creature's nose in this fashion, he was able to keep it still long enough for a picture. This is the picture that would make him millions....

...if only he had learned something valuable from documentaries like Jurassic Park or King Kong. Not only did he find the same raptor that took Will and Katherine, he insisted that one picture was not enough. Poor Eric. We will use the money from these valuable pictures to buy a Wii in his honor.

Ariah discovered some ancient hieroglyphics. They translated saying it was too scary to look for real dinosaurs. So we decided to end our adventuring...

And just pretend to be scary dinosaurs ourselves. A lot safer that way. The End.

Our summer in a somewhat large nutshell

2009-08-30T22:20:00.004-06:00

These past couple of months have been really crazy for us. Here's what happened in a nutshell:

1)We were both involved with New Play Project's show Mixed Up. I wrote a play called "The Man Who Cried Woof" and Steve acted in it. It took 2nd place :) I acted in a mini musical called "Gotta Be Happy" by Lyvia Martinez. Steve directed it. That took 1st place :) We will place a link on this blog to the recorded shows in case you want to see them for yourself.

2)We've been job hunting, as the business gives us jobs in waves. Steve got a job as a web design teacher at Maeser Preparatory Academy and as a freelance web designer through Heritage Web Solutions. Woo-hoo! And, the business has picked up a few big jobs. I'm going back to work at the library tomorrow. Steady income = relief.

3)I am wanting to finish my degree at BYU. The problems have been a)choosing a degree and b)being able to register for classes due to holds on my account. I have "decided" to be a Theater Studies major, though I'm still having second thoughts. It took me forever to get my registration woes taken care of, but I have finally figured out who to talk to and who NOT to talk to in BYU Collections and Financial Aid. Some people told me my case was hopeless. I finally found a guy a couple of days ago who actually wanted to help me. I am forever grateful for him.

4)Ariah was in the 4th of July parade for getting 1st place in the baby contest. As I walked, I tried to get her to wave and smile, but she decided she would rather arch her back and cry. I'm pretty sure the spectators were wondering how on earth she won. We got to go see Stadium of Fire. I was quoted in the newspaper about it.
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705315966/Stadium-of-Fire-flag-burning-was-fake.html

5)Steve wrote me a very fun song for my 22nd b-day. He wanted to plan something more elaborate, but I told him before my b-day that we are too poor and didn't have time for anything elaborate. The song was an amazing gift. I couldn't ask for more.

6)My parents gave me a season pass to 7 Peaks for my b-day, so this whole summer we've been having a lot of fun there. Ariah's favorite thing to do it splash like crazy - making it hard for her and the victim holding her to see. Steve got me to go down all the scary slides I said I would never go on :) Now I'm queen of the world.

And now, pictures.

One day we ran out of diapers and didn't have money to buy any, so I made a diaper out of a towel. You can imagine how well that worked. Luckily, we got a paycheck the next day.

Ariah is hard to keep up with! She is on the verge of walking and is into EVERYTHING. So, I try hard to keep her entertained. We like to pull her around in this basket. She finds joy in it, though her facial expression doesn't seem to show that.

She won't wear bows! I was lucky to get this picture. As soon as I put them in, she takes them out :( Sad day.

She's eating solid foods. She does not like to eat baby food. She wants what we're eating. Even if it makes a face, she wants more. She just wants to be like us.

I can't get enough sleeping pictures of her.

If you read through that whole thing, you are awesome. Go reward yourself with a candy bar or a cookie.

Dead Chicken Song...finally!

2009-06-16T17:22:00.002-06:00

We finished this extraordinary song, and it only took us two years!

Listen to "Dead Chicken Song."

"Dead Chicken Song" is the touching tale about a boy who loses his pet chicken, created by Your Imaginary Friends and Maxed Out Puppetry.

Music by Stephen Gashler - Lyrics by Caitlin Shirts - Produced by Monte (Trance) Emerson - Vocals: Stephen and Teresa Gashler - Guitar: Curtis Wiederhold - Piano: Stephen Gashler - Bass and drums: Freddy Desposorio

Summer Puppetry Workshop

2009-06-14T16:28:00.002-06:00

What are your kids doing this summer? We’re now offering a fun and exciting children’s puppetry workshop, in which kids will learn from professional puppeteers (us!), make their own puppets, watch guest performers, create their own shows and perform in the park for friends and family. They’ll receive a professionally recorded DVD of their performances as well as awesome t-shirts.

The workshop, to be held at the home of Stephen and Teresa Gashler (457 W 730 S, Provo, UT 84601) is spread over two weeks of one hour classes and is open to all children. Admission is only $60.

June Workshop

Jun 22nd – Jul 3rd, MWF, 1:00 – 2:00
Jul 3rd, 7:00 PM: performance in the park (location TBA)

July Workshop

Jul 15th – Jul 26th, MWF, 1:00 – 2:00
Jul 26th, 7:00 PM: performance in the park (location TBA)

August Workshop

Aug 10th – Aug 21st, MWF, 1:00 – 2:00
Aug 21st, 7:00 PM: performance in the park (location TBA)

What could be more fun? Don’t miss this incredible opportunity! For more information or to sign up, call 801-494-3440 or email info@yourimaginaryfriends.net.

Beautiful Baby

2009-06-07T10:53:00.002-06:00

We entered Miss Ariah in the Provo Freedom Festival Baby Contest. We spent all morning debating what to have her wear and how to do her hair. It was rather silly and Ariah was getting annoyed at us for playing dress up with her. We knew she would only have a chance if she was in a good mood, so we tried really hard to make sure of that. Since the judging was right during her usual nap time, we woke her up extra early, and then had her sleep until 9:00. Then, we fed and changed her immediately before judging.

She shone with the judges. She cooed, smiled, babbled, showed them her 2 tiny teeth, and was so cute and social. She even demonstrated how she roars after Steve roared to her. One of the judges commented on how cool it was that she made eye contact with them and smiled. She's so friendly... when she wants to be. Sometimes, she refuses to look at anyone.

When it was time for the awards ceremony, Ariah was getting pretty impatient with the events of the day. Finally, they announced the winners for girls 7-9 months. Our Ariah took 1st place!

She received a medal, a headband, gift certificates, coupons, 2 Granny B Cookies, a onesie, and popcorn. Oh, and we get to be in the 4th of July parade with her.

We've talked a lot about contests and pageants, especially baby pageants. It seems pretty silly to put a baby over another baby, but I think if everyone has the right attitude, it's overall just a fun, silly experience. Ariah could have lost easily if she were in the wrong mood. I had a look at all the babies I could see, and they were all beautiful. Steve was entered in a baby contest as a wee one, and did not win. So, we don't plan to make this a big deal. It's just a fun thing that happened. We don't believe our baby is a lot more special than all the other babies, she just was able to communicate her cuteness at the right place and time.

I do plan on entering all my kids into this, just for fun. I don't have ridiculous expectations. And I can't stand parents who try so hard to put their kids above everyone else's kids. But that's another rant for another day.

Victory never tasted so.... metallic.

New Play Project and New Film Project

2009-06-06T19:27:00.001-06:00

I submitted my first ever play, called The Boy Who Cried Woof, to New Play Project. It got selected! They are going to perform it starting July 30th. I'm way excited. For more information about that, click here

Steve has been working crazy on New Film Project's first movie: Johny Rock VS the Bees. To see more updates on what's going on with New Film Project, click here

Here is a fun little teaser he made:

Some Differences Between Steve and Teresa

2009-05-25T09:27:00.004-06:00

Who is older?
Steve by 4 years. We both went to Timpview High School, but he went from 1998-2001 and I went from 2001-2005. Talk about robbin' the grave!

Who is taller?
Steve is 5'8" and I am 5'5". I have never liked high heels, and now I have a great reason not the wear them :)

Who is smarter?
Hard to say. In High School, I graduated with honors and had a higher ACT score than Steve. But in College, Steve's GPA is better than mine and he even made it on the Deans List a few times. When it comes to street smarts, Steve wins. When it comes to math, I win. When it comes to who has made the least dumb mistakes, we both lose. I would have to say that if a wizard were looking for a smart apprentice and had to choose between me and Steve, he would choose Steve.

Who makes more money?
Steve brings in the bread working hard on the business. But I have helped out too. And believe me, it's hard to run a business.

Who is more emotional?
Me by a longshot. I cry so much that I've learned to produce tears for on stage purposes. Steve says that the only times his eyes water up is when he is watching a show where a hero overcomes evil, like Disney's Fantasmic.

Who is more picky?
Me. When it comes to food, Steve will eat anything. He is training me, though. Thanks to him, some foods I couldn't stand before I can gladly say I like. We are working on pickles and mushrooms right now. When it comes to buying things, I am not super picky in general, but compared to Steve, I am.

Who is cleaner?
Alas, we are both pig people. I wish one of us were clean to get the other in shape, but we both put it off. We've had incredibly clean moments, but overall don't have a very clean slate. We are working on that - and we vow to be changed people.

Who is the better cook?
I can conjure up some good things when closely following a recipe, but Steve has a gift of creating foods from scratch. He has had some disasters from experimenting, but all his yummy creations have made up for it. He has mastered the secret of the Arby's curly fry, and that has won my heart (and clogged it).

Who would be most likely to attend sporting events?
Me! I have always been a basketball and football enthusiast. Steve played football back in middle school, but can't stand watching sports. He'd rather play them. I used to have an all sports pass for BYU, but now that we're married, we haven't gone to any sporting events. I don't miss them too much, as I'd rather be with Steve.

Who has more clothes?
Steve! But he hates shopping...

Who is more cultured?
Steve grew up on cello, I on piano. We both have dabbled at the idea of being a humanities major. We both love going to museums, plays, concerts, Renaissance fairs, etc. We both love trying ethnic food, though Steve is more willing to try some things than I am. We are both pretty well read on the classics. He has been to Europe and the Caribbean. I went to NYC. You be the judge.

Who is sillier?
Steve. Ask him to play dogs with you sometime.

Who is more responsible?
Me. I am the bill-payer and friendly reminder wife, though I'm certainly not close to perfect.

We Moved!

2009-05-17T12:16:00.006-06:00

So, we moved into a bigger place 2 weeks ago in South West Provo, thanks to Mara Ledezma. We love it here and want to invite friends to dinner, so don't be surprised if you receive an invite from us in the future.

Ariah loves having us read to her. She recently discovered how to open book pages herself, so she finds great joy in turning pages and looking at the pictures. She also likes to sink her little teeth (she's got 2 on the bottom now) into the hard pages.

Ariah hasn't shown any signs of being shy or unwilling to go into other people's arms. Infact, she usually greets everyone with a signature full-mouthed grin (unless she's hungry or tired). She has been laughing a lot lately. My mom commented that yesterday, when she was doing something to make her and my sister laugh, Ariah seemed to be aware of that and she would continue the action to get more laughs. She's an entertainer like her crazy parents.

She has never hated a bath. She loves to splash and she doesn't mind water dribbling in her eyes. We got 7 Peaks passes, so I'm excited to take her and see what she thinks.

Johny Rock Versus the Bees

2009-04-19T21:30:00.005-06:00

On Saturday my buddies Randy McNair, Will McAllister and I teamed up to shoot the preliminary film of our new organization, New Film Project (inspired by New Play Project). This film has been long anticipated by my friends for almost ten years, and production has been attempted several times. Now, we've finally produced the glorious action thriller, Johny Rock Versus the Bees (formerly known as Silvester Stallone Versus the Bees, which we had to change for obvious reasons).

For a long time we were stumped over where we were going to shoot it, as the entire movie took place in a pit, one that would take a very long time to dig. But the day before the shoot, Randy prayed for guidance, then drove around and found two awesome natural pits (each missing a fourth wall), which we used to fake a single pit. This was actually preferable, as it allowed us room to setup a crane and dolly, which would have been impossible in a pit as small as the film depicts.

I played Johny Rock. My inspiration was, of course, Silvester Stallone, whom I studied for several weeks, watching lots of his clips on Youtube and reading all of the articles on his website about his exercise and diet. I even got my brother to be my personal trainer, who drove around in a car and insulted me as we ran around the block, and he made me do ignomenious exercises like carry heavy jugs of orange juice as I ran through every aisle of Maceys. The day before the shoot, I did over five-hundred pushups, as I had no access to actual weights; but that's okay, because it was similar to Rocky's greatest training sequence in Rocky 4.

The shoot began early and ended late. The whole day was windy and cold, and standing around in a thin tank top, covered in vegetable oil (for the sweaty effect) and mud, I could never put on a coat and so was always miserable. I had to beat up myself pretty bad for some of the shots. We wrapped just as dusk turned to night, not a moment too soon, and the day was a huge success. I'm excited to see how the footage turns out.

Be excited for this film. With a stellar musical number, an exploding grenade and hundreds of angry bees, the will be an epic you won't want to miss.

Happy Birthday Brian!

2009-04-14T17:40:00.005-06:00

Brian's b-day was April Fools Day, so Steve, Eric, and I wanted to make a puppet show movie in his honor. Unfortunately it took us 14 days to finish. But, better late than never, right?

This movie celebrates the made up monsters and people Steve and Eric created for their little brother Brian when he was a wee one. Enjoy.

Makeup final

2009-04-13T12:49:00.002-06:00

7 Months!

2009-04-12T20:57:00.003-06:00

Our baby is amazing and beautiful. Some of her favorite activities include eating, sleeping, pounding on keyboards, grabbing everything, roaring, rolling, scratching, cooing, and slithering. She is on the verge of crawling.

Wedding, Terry, baby ouchie, Eric, and teaser

2009-03-29T23:24:00.009-06:00

As you know, I haven't made this private yet. That will be a job for next week, when I can make sure to have everyone's e-mails that I want.

We did wedding photography and videography for a very cute Japanese couple. They were a lot of fun and their reception was awesome. Here's some pictures to give you an idea of their personality.
We have been to many a reception, and the "typical" LDS one is so boring! I love it when people have programs. Whether it's the bride & groom or others entertaining, that's what makes a good reception, in my opinion. At least, that's what makes it memorable.

This week, I met my male alter-ego Terry.

I don't think Terry would do very well with the ladies, to be quite blunt. And he's not very strong. But he's a nice chap with a good heart.

Ariah got her very first bruise this week as she has been practicing sitting up all by herself. She wears it well.

It was Eric's b-day Friday... and I didn't get a picture :( I need to stop forgetting. Happy birthday, man. You're a great human being.

I started editing Steve's b-day adventure, but I've got more to do. Here is a 4-5 minute teaser. If your not familiar with the Legend of Zelda games, you will probably be really confused. I plan to add text, transitions, and music. Enjoy.

The Bent Sword Chapter 1

2009-03-22T21:31:00.006-06:00

It's my turn to post something on the blog. I was going to videotape Teresa and I having a scat duel, but we can't find the the plate for our tripod, so it will have to wait. I not knowing what else to do, Mrs. G suggested I paste a chapter from the novel I'm currently revising for Cedar Fort Publishing. (I got past the query letter and first three chapters screening, but before I send them the full manuscript, I want to make it good.) Though it seems like a cop out to me, she's happy, so I'm happy. You are under no obligation to read this. I probably wouldn't. (Sorry all the auto formatting was lost between copying it from Open Office and pasting it into Blogger.)

THE BENT SWORD
By Stephen Gashler

(I drew this in church:)

A Word to the Reader

As nice as proper beginnings are, sometimes our stories begin in chapter ten. That's just how it is. And the explanations never come soon enough.

10. Steffin

The war had all but ended. Heaven thundered, earth shook. Steel littered the earth where fallen heroes took their final slumber, shrouded beneath the thick fog of war. The rivers ran red with the blood of men, green with the blood of goblins. The fallen lay in heaps as numerous as the stars which once filled the sky, now fallen from the heavens.
Yet one soul lived on. Sir Steffin, scarred from head to bear toe, his garments torn, his dirty hair ablaze in the wind, climbed to the highest summit and raised his blood-stained sword. Flesh weary but spirit unconquerable, he directed the heavens as if a divine conductor, and the music -the symphony and choir of heaven – gave peace to a heavy heart. With a swift swipe of his glowing blade, he commanded the mists above to part, and the elements obeyed. Starlight once again fell to the earth.
“Behold the heavens!” he shouted over the rumble of distant thunder. Down below, the starlight illuminated the faces of sleeping men, giving life to their eyes. Limp hands gripped their weapons, weary legs found strength. Soon, the lone man on the hill was joined by Sir Reginald the just, Sir Kenneth the brave, and Sir Griswold the grisly. Following the gaze of their leader, their bearded faces turned to the sky, lips curling. Each starlit face gazed at the same seven bright stars, a constellation they knew well, a glorious sign from God. It was the bent sword, a symbol of light's imminent triumph over darkness.
Standing above the world, the brothers through life and death beheld the grim battlefield. Their eyes locked, but no words could describe the depths of their emotion. Like the sleeping soldiers, hell and earth no longer poised threats. The knights were free. But the story wasn't over. Yet.
Another hole tore above. A heavenly beam revealed a distant structure. At once they recognized their final challenge, no more a nightmare, but real, glowing in the distance, waiting. It was the box of boredom. The stolen dreams of Britain, now trapped and dead, a toxic gas, whirled within the semitransparent structure like a mad beast.
Sir Reginald and Sir Kenneth fell to their knees, feeling their dream being uprooted from their bosoms. Even Sir Steffin leaned on his sword for support. But he would not back down. Not now.
“Long live the king,” he muttered, struggling to make his weary voice heard. He coughed up blood.
The mighty Sir Griswold gripped his leader's shoulders, and their eyes met. No love between man and woman could ever be holier or stronger than the love these men felt for each other. Steffin lowered his brow over his dazzling, war-hardened, blue eyes. Again his blade shone with heavenly light. With Griswold's help, he held it high.
“LONG LIVE KING RICHARD!”
First limping, then jogging, then charging, the holy fellowship rushed toward their destiny, crying as at Jericho.
The war resumed, the powers of darkness stirred. Soon a mighty shadow passed over them. The knights stopped, raised their shields, looked to the sky.
“A two-headed dragon!” cried Sir Reginald.
“No, a seven-headed dragon!” cried Sir Griswold. “With sharp teeth!” Sir Griswold unsheathed his sword, pounded his iron chest. “I’ll take him.” Forking from their path, he pursued the enormous shadow.
The remaining knights slowed their pace as they approached the giant box, which dazzled their chain mail with unearthly light. Again Sir Reginald and Sir Kenneth began to lose their strength, but Sir Steffin held fast. His blade now glowed so brightly that none could gaze at it without shielding their eyes. The light began to fill his entire body. He swung the burning steel in preparation to seal the triumph of their holy quest. As prophesied by the holy oracle, one blow of the righteous blade would vanquish the edifice of evil forever, releasing the stolen dreams and overturning the powers of boredom. The world would never be the same. Holding his sword with both hands over his head, Sir Steffin held his breath. His men held their breaths. The angels held their breaths. The heavenly symphony was a measure away from its climax.
Somewhere on a distant hill, the fair lady Porkatha stood in a white gown, waving her handkerchief in the wind, a token of her devotion for her knight. Always there, watching and falling deeper in love, she eagerly awaited this unparalleled act of manliness, a final sacrament to her honor.
“Wait,” said Sir Reginald.
The great leader blinked a few times, then turned his head. “I beg your pardon?”
Sir Reginald's expression was suddenly far from holy. “It's my turn.”
Sir Steffin reluctantly lowered his sword. “What are you talking about?”
“I think I should get to cut it open.”
The great leader reached beneath his sweaty breastplate, scratching a devil of an itch. “Oh, come on, Regy, don’t be a baby.”
Suddenly a gauntlet hit the ground, and Sir Steffin and Sir Kenneth stepped back in alarm.
“You’re the baby,” said a fuming Sir Reginald. “You always have to be the hero. Well I say it’s my turn.”
“I get to cut it open because I'm the leader of the quest. That's just how it's done.”
“Who made you the leader?”
“The holy oracle. Have you forgotten?”
Sir Kenneth the peacemaker took off a soaking helmet and placed a hand on Sir Steffin's shoulder. “Regy's right, Steffin. You already got to save the princess, duel the goblin king and wear the fleece of handsomeness. You know we all wanted to wear that.”
“Come, men,” said Sir Steffin, gazing with disbelief at the mutinous faces. In the corner of his eye, the glory of his blade waned. “We're a team. Let's not talk of selfishness.” Finding himself cornered against the giant box, a desperate Sir Steffin smiled at the distant sight of Sir Griswold, carrying a severed dragon head. He hollered, “How was it, Grisy?”
“You should have seen me!” Sir Griswold proudly threw the enormous, bloody head against the ground. “He was terrible. He had eleven heads!”
Sir Reginald did not look impressed. “You said seven.”
“Well, there were eight. But he was really awful!”
Sir Steffin and Sir Griswold bounced fists as only the holiest of friends could. Sir Griswold turned to the others with an outstretched fist, but to his surprise, neither man returned the gesture.
Sir Steffin broke the awkward silence. “If it wasn't for Grisy, we wouldn't have made it this far. That's what I call teamwork.”
Sir Reginald folded his arms. “Fine. Then why don't we act like a team and cut the box together?”
Sir Steffin felt the necessity to rub his chin. “You remember what the oracle said: 'Only one pure in heart—' ”
“I'm as pure as you are!”
“I'm sure you are, but my point is that he said one. You're just not the chosen one, Regy. Why can't you understand that?”
A strange and frightening voice, as if from another realm, startled the knights. They looked to the source of the voice, another hole torn into their world. With horror, they beheld a towering whose power obviously surpassed their own, whose authority tugged at the chains of their hearts.
It was Sir Reginald's mother. “Regy, time for dinner!” The knights looked around them as the fabric of their world instantly began to unravel.
Staring at Sir Steffin, Sir Reginald sheathed his sword. “I'm glad. Because I'm tired of this stupid quest, and I quit.” He turned a cold shoulder and briskly went his way out of the dark, thundering world and into an English meadow in the late afternoon. The others had to turn away from the blinding light.
Sir Kenneth also sheathed his sword. “I'm with him.” He followed after Sir Reginald.
The goblins had tried in vain, only Sir Steffin's closest friends managed to place a dagger in his heart. He turned to his remaining comrade. “You're still loyal, aren't you?”
Sir Griswold stared at the ground, digging a little hole with his iron boot. “Steffin...I didn't want to be the one to say this...but we are getting a bit old for this, don't you think?”
“Grisy—”
“I know, I know, I'm not saying we should forsake our youths or anything like that. I'm just saying...perhaps there's something more noble we should be doing. Like pursuing girls.”
“But what about the princesses of—”
“Real girls.”
“Oh.”
An awkward moment.
“Well, I'll see you later,” said Grisy. “We'll play again some time. Promise.”
No longer knights but boys, they bounced their fists again, and Grisy went his way, tearing yet another hole through their dying world.
Steffin looked out at the remnants of the battlefield. No more goblin warriors, no more glory, nothing but a dry wind. On a hill in the distance stood his nemesis, brown robes flapping. He laughed monotonously. Lord Bore always won.
“It's not over yet.” Steffin sheathed his sword, and as the blade disappeared, so did the dark world. Once again he found himself in an empty meadow, alone. The sun sank behind the western mountains. Crows tortured the air. Only the dry wind remained.
It was getting late. Mom would be worrying.
Starting to shiver, he hugged himself close and headed for home. The mountains caught his gaze. They were calling him, whispering.
“Someday,” he promised.

As always, the cottage was hot and stuffy. Squashed between a swarm of siblings, Steffin struggled to free his elbows in order to get to his soup. Staring resentfully at the poisonous, steaming gruel, he managed to produce a spoonful of the vile stuff and bring it to his lips. It was good. Very good. If only it were disgusting, that would be so much more romantic.
He'd heard once that Robin Hood would never eat dinner unless he had performed a good deed for the day. He looked up at his ravenous siblings, lapping up their dinner like dogs. What ungrateful ignoramuses, binging away, untried, undeserving. They would never be great.
Mom bent over the fire, stirring a cauldron of pudding. “Oh, I heard the most wonderful news today. Misses Numkins had her baby.”
Gwendolyn clapped her hands in a disgustingly feminine way. “Is it a boy or a girl?”
“That's what's so wonderful.” Leaving the cauldron, Mom brought a vase of stupid flowers to the table. “Both!”
“What?”
“She had twins!”
“Oh, how delightful.”
Steffin whispered to young Kraggen, who was playing with his peas, “Babies are for old people.” The little brother laughed.
Dad, with his all-hearing ears and all-seeing eyes, said, “Steffin, be respectful. And stop leaning back on the chair.”
Mother continued. “Anyway, the Numkins are throwing a feast to celebrate on Friday. They've invited all of us. So boys, don't make any other plans for that evening. You'll each need to wash up and wear your nice clothes.”
As an act of defiance toward old people and their nice clothes, Steffin smashed his peas with his fist. Little Kraggen laughed.
Again, there was no escaping Dad. His solemn voice always invoked guilt. “Steffin, please don't play with your food.”
Dad was so boring. Surely the man had dreams once, but Lord Bore had defeated him. Could no one but Steffin see that a dark spirit controlled their lives? No, they were all oblivious. Especially his sisters. They were the dumbest of all.
Gwendolyn twiddled one of her braids. “Mother, I love how you decorated the kitchen. The tulips and the chrysanthemums, they're lovely.”
Little Kraggen piped up. “They look like farts!”
A shower of stew burst from Steffin's mouth, messing on Dad.
Dad's face flushed. “Steffin, look what you've taught him.”
“I never—”
Kraggen smashed his fist onto his peas.
Dad continued. “He looks up to you, and you're a bad example. Go to your room, both of you.”
Steffin defiantly pounded the table. The cottage fell silent, and all heads turned to Steffin, who, amazed at what he had done, looked guiltily at his fist. Could Robin Hood defy Prince John? Steffin met the eyes of Dad, and the answer was clear. He slid back his chair and left the kitchen.

Kraggen joined him upstairs on the bed, where Steffin gazed out the window at the mountains.
“Whatcha lookin' at?” asked the younger brother.
“Nothing.” The mountains were calling him again. Surely, amid magical lands, his fate awaited him on the other side. In fact, part of him was already there. Somehow he knew that his story would not be the beginning but the long-awaited climax of an ancient epic. If only someone would show him his role.
“I'm sorry I got you in trouble,” said Kraggen.
“This family's dumb. I wish I were an orphan.”
“Me too.”
“Mom and Dad don't understand me. No one here understands me.”
“I understand you.”
“No you don't.” Steffin lay down on the cool bed, stretching his arms and legs over the soft quilt. Kraggen did likewise. They gazed at the beams in the ceiling, so precise and stiff. “Have you ever heard of Robin Hood?”
“Who's that?”
“He was the greatest hero there ever was. He lived in the woods with his men. Can you imagine that, living in the woods? All he ever did was have adventures and kill bad guys. I'll bet he was an orphan. He must have been an orphan.”
Floorboards creaked beneath heavy feet. Both boys sat up and tried to look serious. To their relief, it was only big brother Jareth.
“Hey guys, Mom and Dad went for a walk. Wanna play don't touch the floor or you die?”
“No thanks,” said Steffin.
“How about lava monsters?”
“No thanks. I'm tired of games.”
“Me too,” said Kraggen. They were pounding their fists on their palms.
“Honestly, Jareth,” continued Steffin, “don't you think you're getting a little old for such nonsense?”
Jareth, stunned, joined them on the bed. “Steffin, when did you become a grownup?”
“I've always been a grownup. Children just pretend; grownups do the real thing.”
“Then why don't you help Father and I in the shop?”
“No, not like that. I want to do something meaningful like Robin Hood did. Honestly, Jareth, do you really want to spend your whole life making barrels?”
“Why not?”
“Don't you ever want to just forget it all and go on an adventure?”
Jareth consulted the stubble on his chin. “Steffin, the problem with your philosophy is that, as romantic as it is, it's not real. It doesn't do well to build your life on dreams. Everyone has to work and be practical. But we can still have fun.”
Steffin looked out the window again, this time at the bell tower of the church rising above the rooftops. It looked heavenly in the moonlight. How could God be so sadistic as to create a romantic soul and drop him in an unromantic world? But Jareth was right. As nice as dreams were, real people were better.
“Okay, let's play.”
But looking back at the tower, Steffin silently made an appointment with God.

Friar Felix dipped his aged fingers into the holy water, and with a gentle stroke on the newborn forehead, he saved the first Numkins baby from hell. Monks walked up the aisles, singing and filling the stone expanses over them with sublimity.
Among the congregation, Steffin pointed to the monks' robes, whispering to Kraggen, “That's the kind of robe that Lord Bore wears. Boredom has a brownish color to it.”
Monkhood, what a wasted life. So limited, so trapped, so unadventurous. Yet Steffin envied their peace of mind, their security, their holiness.
His mind turning to God, he gazed up at the arched ceiling, at a colorful mural of the Holy Crusades. If a life of manly adventure was just as holy as a life of quiet asceticism, why would anyone choose the latter? Then noticing colorful light in the corner of his eye, he turned to a stained glass window, where stood his favorite bible character of all: Paul. He loved Paul because of his finger. It was a raised finger, illuminated by heavenly light, calling repentance. Surely unseen crowds were oppressing him, but with that single, glorious finger, Paul defied the world. Steffin looked down at his own finger, so bland, no power. Where was the path that led from boyhood to sainthood?
A piercing cry brought his attention back to the baptismal font. Apparently the second Numkins baby wasn't as keen on being saved from hell. It was relieving that not everyone was destined for sainthood, because that would be too much competition. Babies. How nice to have a fresh life before one's self, endless possibilities. The friar was saying to the congregation, “...and said our Lord to Nicodemus, 'Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.' ”
Born again; a second chance, a new life. But I've already been baptized. That's too bad. Now the friar was saying, “...except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”
Another dazzling light caught Steffin's attention, a window depicting angels. They were looking down, extending hands to men on earth. Something stirred within him. He raised his eyes. At the top of the window was a glorious man with a beard, the Almighty, the Holy Father, calling His children. Calling his sons. Calling...
Steffin. A beam of light shined through the colorful panes, warming his face. By the burning in his bosom, he knew it was a sign. He looked around, but the mass of faces were oblivious to the light. God was speaking to him, only him. He felt peaceful, strong, able to... defy the world. Then, looking back at Paul, at the glorious finger, he understood.
I have a quest.

His family could not know. He hid behind a pillar until they were gone, then hesitantly approached the friar.
The old man was putting out candles when he heard the footsteps. “Steffin,” he said, startled at seeing another soul in the empty chapel. His voice reverberated through stone chambers. Steffin felt very exposed.
This would be difficult. How could an old duffer understand a young heart? Yet Steffin was determined to find the door to heaven. “Hello, Friar. I...I...”
“Come close, son.”
Steffin couldn't look up as he approached. “I want you to teach me the ways of God.”
Friar Felix lifted Steffin's chin. “You've attended church your whole life. What more do you want to know?”
Steffin wiggled free of the friar's finger. “I know of God, but I don't know him.”
The old man folded his arms. “This is a good desire.” He looked at a stained window. “Of the wisest men of the earth, few of them, very few, really know God. But why do you come to me now?”
Steffin put his hands in his pockets. “I feel that heaven has something great in store for me. That I should prepare myself.” Feeling the friar's hand on his shoulder, he looked up.
The old man was smiling, he face beaming with wisdom. “Heaven speaks to us through our hearts. And when we act on our feelings, we will be given more. Steffin, your heart is pure, and I believe that God is speaking to you. You came to the right place.”
“What shall I do?” Steffin's heart began to pound.
“That's easy. First you'll need to learn to read.”
The boy's smiled faded.

In a soft pool of candlelight, a reluctant mind filled with letters. When his head hurt, he closed his eyes and listened to the soothing chants of monks. Though in another language, the serene chants spoke to his soul, a prelude to the holy quest before him. As each ink symbol came to have meaning, he felt more intimate with God. For he had discovered a hidden world, the world of knowledge, which now seemed inseparably connected with heaven. What other hidden worlds were there?
As the months passed, Steffin found himself sinking deeper and deeper into his new cloister. He'd found a new world; who cared about the old one? He opened sacred records, words of prophets, but more importantly, words of chivalry. He felt heaven's golden key unlocking his mind, showing him his destiny, which was somewhere between Camelot and the holy grail. The more he read, the more restless he felt, ready for his own adventure.
Like Sir Reginald's mother, the friar disrupted the hidden world. “What are you reading, son?”
Again the boy felt exposed. For a moment he had mistaken the friar for the Sheriff of Nottingham. “The ballads of Robin Hood.” He couldn't hide the trace of guilt in his voice. Still, he forced himself to look up at the kindly man. “Friar, was it a sin for him to steal from the rich?”
The friar looked grave, searching for words. “The Lord's ways are righteous. He commanded men not to steal. But sometimes, in order to bring about His righteous ways, the spirit of the law must be followed, and the letter must be broken.”
Steffin folded his arms, smiling. “I suppose there could be many times when the spirit takes precedence over the letter.” And suddenly, as if a divine manifestation, he saw himself dressed in disguise, deceiving nations, storming castles, combating foes, stealing that forbidden kiss, all for a righteous cause. “I believe I'm ready for my quest. Do you have a sword I can use?”
From the friar's expression, Steffin surmised that he'd said something wrong Ashamed, he looked down, sensing an oncoming lecture.
“Steffin, get these wicked thoughts out of your head. I have watched you over these past months, and your heart has strayed from where it began. You've spent far more time reading myths and legends than the words of God. Whose glory are you truly seeking?”
Steffin felt as if slapped on the face. “God's, of course.”
The old sage's eyes penetrated Steffin's soul, a very uncomfortable feeling. “Your heart is mostly good. But there is the desire for evil in you. I see it now as clear as day. Steffin, I warn you to beware of yourself. If you seek your own glory, it will destroy you.
“Remember this: a man of God does not appoint himself. He must be called. If heaven truly has something in store for you, then your time will come. As for now, God sent you to the earth as a peasant, not a knight. Live your life for what it is, and stop dreaming of things that cannot be.”
As the peasant walked home that evening, the stars seemed extra dim. He hadn't reached his fifteenth year, and already he felt like an old man. Now it was clear: no ballads would be written about Steffin of Peaville. His test in life was not to overcome impossible odds but to humbly accept mediocrity. The thought made him want to cry.
At home, he rushed past his brothers and sisters, up the ladder, into the bedroom. He had to escape, and only one place offered comfort: the hidden world. He sat down at a desk with a stack of parchment, pen, and ink. With flint and steel he lit a candle, then all concentration went to the blank pages in the pool of light, at the unorganized world, waiting for his touch. The door opened. Sleeping souls awakened. He found his friends. He gave them form, and they gave him hope. The more he dreamed about them, the more real they seemed.

“But they're not real,” said Jareth, sawing wood. “You can't dream things into existence. It takes action.”
An older Steffin pounded an iron rim with a hammer. “I don't care. Life is too boring without fiction.”
Jareth split the piece of wood, then rubbed his weary arm. “You talk as if you've given up hope. Years ago you told me that you planned to leave on a quest. Now it's only your imaginary characters who go on quests. What happened?”
“I realized that I should accept my fate for what it is.”
“How do you know what your fate is?”
“The friar told me. I'm supposed to be a peasant.”
“Hmm. It just doesn't seem like you to give up hope so easily.”
“Well, I asked mom and dad if I could leave on a quest, but they said no.”
“Why?”
“They said it wasn't practical.”
Jareth laughed. “I hate that word.”
“So do I.” Wiping the sweat from his forehead, Steffin set down the hammer and began to bend the rim, straining. “But it's all right. Inspiration, while often so real...is fleeting. I don't need to run away to find myself.”
“But sometimes you still feel the inspiration, don't you?”
Steffin relaxed his muscles and looked out a window. In the clouds, he could almost make out the silhouette of a dragon. “Yes.”
With the days work finished, his dues of drudgery were paid, and Steffin eagerly returned to his manuscript through which he was permitted to live for the few short hours left of the day. He shuffled through a thick stack of parchment until he found where he had left off: in the middle of a swamp at midnight surrounded by skeleton warriors. How would Sir Percivel and Sir Mammoth possibly survive this one? The adventure continued. He wrote until his hand ached, and the wax was gone, sometimes losing all track of time until the cock crowed. His friends seemed so real. Why couldn't they be real?
“Forget the friar,” said Jareth, back at his sawing. Again the day was bright and hot. “Forget mom and dad. Why don't you just go?”
“Go where?” Steffin was staring out the window, at the mountains. Oh yes, he was supposed to be working. He picked up another rim.
“You told me that you felt called by heaven. If that's true, heaven will show you where.”
“Last week I heard a preacher say that God doesn't speak to men anymore.”
“Do you believe that?”
“...No. Still, it was probably just my imagination.”
“What's wrong with that? Perhaps imagination is all you need to start a quest.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well what do you want...for a damsel to send you a letter of distress? For a dragon to stroll into town? Or perhaps you're waiting for the Pope himself to commission you to find the holy grail.”
“Jareth, like any of that would happen.”
“You're not listening to me.” Jareth walked to the window, put his hand against it. “In stories, the adventure usually comes to the hero. It's not fair, really. In real life, if you really want adventure, you need to start it yourself.”
Steffin laughed. “And how would I do that?”
“I don't know. The fairy tale way begins with a villain abducting some broad and thus compelling a hero to do whatever it takes to stop him. But in my opinion, the hero is simply undoing the villain's art. Hardly heroic in my opinion. Rather, I admire the villain. It's his hard work that puts the whole story into motion. He's the one with a dream, and all the stupid hero does is pull it down. Perhaps you could learn a lot from the villains.”
Steffin was angrily bending his rim. “This town is so boring. I should have been an orphan.”
Jareth sighed and began to massage Steffin's shoulders. “Listen to me. You're in control of your destiny. Your story begins when you want it to.”
“Jareth, forget it. I used to think I was the chosen one. I've grown up. My destiny has nothing to do with slaying dragons, because there's no such thing.”
“Perhaps the chosen one is he who first chooses himself.”
Steffin sighed. “If I had an actual purpose...if somewhere, anywhere, there was a real need...”
“What I'm saying is, being a hero is more than destroying something evil. It's about making something good. Somewhere in you, you still have a dream. Follow it, and you'll find your purpose.”

In his refuge of candlelight, to the sound of chirping crickets, Steffin once again stared at his ink creations. He longed to lose himself in his fictional world. He longed for the companionship of the gallant Sir Percivel and Mammoth the friendly giant. “If only you were real,” he whispered. “We would have such grand adventures together.” He checked to make sure that his brothers were still asleep, then turned back to his friends. “But I made you so you can live the life that I cannot.”
Again he tried to write, but his inspiration had run dry. He couldn't lie to himself anymore. “I'm tired of fiction. I want to live.”
And then, as always, there was the window, moonlight pouring out of it, creating square patterns on the floor. He covered the manuscript and put the quill back into the bottle. Walking to the portal to heaven, he saw the glorious constellation, the seven bright stars. Others saw it as a kitchen ladle or part of a bear, but they were wrong. It was the bent sword, the symbol of his life—potentially glorious but whacked out of shape.
Suddenly inspiration, that fleeting force, returned, and this time it hit hard. For a reason he could not explain, his heart began to pound.
“Dear God...what is this I feel?” Yet he understood so clearly, for the stars were telling him. He was to go, and he was to change the world, and he would be endowed with the holy order of Robin Hood. And who could stop him? It was then that he first heard the new melody. He whistled it softly, tried hard to hold on to it.
But when morning came, it was gone. No more stars, no more whisperings from heaven, just a bright sun and a mundane world.
Yet his determination was set. He dressed for traveling and announced at the breakfast table, “Mom, Dad, today I'm leaving on my quest.”
“Oh no you're not,” said dad. And though a debate ensued, that was really the end of the matter. Steffin changed his clothes and went back to work.
But not many days later, the old man would come who would change everything, because that's how every story begins, even for those who don't think they have a story.

Wedding bells and face painting

2009-03-15T23:45:00.005-06:00

Zach Watson and Shannon Batty were married for time and all eternity yesterday. We had the opportunity to attend their sealing, and it was a very spiritual experience. They are a beautiful couple.

For their reception, they gave Steve permission to do whatever he wanted. He decided to put together a group of guys to retell their love story through human art.

Eva and Aiden Ledezma represented Zach and Shannon. I missed it, but I heard it was a huge success. Someone got it on tape, so we'll post it (along with Steve's b-day) as soon as we get the chance. If you're not familiar with Japanese human art, this is what it's like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHKuJlcArxk

Miss Ariah turned 6 months old this week! She is healthy and happy and growing too fast.

She is ticklish, but very reluctant to giggle. When she does, it's a very special moment. Her giggles are so sweet.
She still loves to eat her hands. And anything else she can get ahold of. So now that she's rolling, oi.
She has been into sticking out her tongue, and I was lucky to get this shot of it. Cute little baby tongue.

I have been taking a theater/film makeup class at BYU. It's been a lot of fun.

Here's some stage makeup for a middle aged Teresa. Not bad for the first time. Creepy look into the future though.

I had a lot of fun doing this fox. Makeup is awesome.

ह्यूमन विडियो गमेस

2009-03-08T23:47:00.001-06:00

Friday night was Zach Watson's bachelor party at the former Ledezmas' pink mansion. After the usual spiel of some Guitar Hero and an excessive amount of hamburgers, soda and Doritos, I suggested we entertain ourselves with the games my younger brother and I invented in our Pre-Nintendo days (I've often said that one of the best things parents can do for their kids is to refuse to buy them a Nintendo; it forces creativity.) Our first game was Human Frogger. The preliminary version was done by making a narrow lane as outlined by blankets, and then having guys roll back and forth as "logs" while the "frog," has to jump over them. When that game was no longer challenging, we played a version where three guys stood up throughout the lane, closed their eyes and randomly walked back and forth. This time the frog was also granted the gift of bipedal locomotion as he tried to weave through the moving obstacles.

Next we played Mike Tyson's Punch Out. As we didn't have boxing gloves, we had to wrap blankets around our fists. I took on Nefi. After getting a series of "power hits," as awarded by the announcer (Zach), I was able to K.O. Nefi by knocking him down right before the buzzer at the end of the fourth round (we were tied at the end of the third).

We also tried Human Mario. I had the unlucky fate of being a turtle while guys jumped over me...or on me. We didn't take that game very far. We also played a game where one man had to get to the other side of the room while two other guys tried to clobber him first. In so doing, Zach painfully popped his knee out of place, signifying the universal "game over." Of course, as is custom for bachelor parties among my cliques, we also played "Rodney King Beatings," the game in which a blanket is thrown over someone and then he's beaten senseless, and "Get 'Em!" a roulette-like game in which a random member of a circle is beaten senseless. Lest you perceive us as brute beasts, I would impress upon you the sheer civility through which we exchange and receive our loving blows. I can't explain why, but there's something about a bunch of friends hitting each other that inevitably inspires laughter, whether you're the one pummeling or being pummeled.

The next day, Saturday, I was at home, working on my novel, when I was startled by the sudden appearance of a Fairy. She had wings and leafy garland, and she strongly resembled my sister-inlaw, Heather Peavler. She told me that the princess Zelda had been kidnapped by the insidious Gannon and that it was my fate to rescue her. She had brought me a green, leater tunic, which I put on, and then she bade me follow her.

Outside, we were joined by Curtis Wiederhold, who was holding a videocamera and pushing our stroller, from which came baby cooing. The fairy told me to pay no attention to Curtis, so I didn't. We set forth down 300 West on our quest. The fair was really annoying. She kept saying, "Hey!" and "Listen!" even when I was giving her my undivided attention. She really didn't make any sense.

Soon we came to a bridge that led to the Parkway trail. Beneath it, I observed a mysterious old man with a white beard. He strongly resembled my older brother Mike. I met him, and he presented a cardboard sword, saying, "Master using it, and you can have it." He wouldn't say anything else. So I thanked him, and the fairy and I continued over the bridge.

Moments later, we saw a knight charging toward us in plastic armor. He resembled my brother inlaw Lafe Peavler. I tried to reason with the mad chap, but he insisted on killing me, so I had to slay him in self defense. After he dramatically hit the ground, to my surprise, a series of random objects, such as little squashes, flew out from his pocket as propelled by his dying hand. The fairy told me that these were "rupees." So I looted the dead man, and we went on.

Soon we encountered another foe. He was a wormy fellow with an accordian-like exterior, which I learned was called a like-like. Like-likes are bizarre creatures that have a taste for metal shields. Anyway, it was hobbling about like a dumb idiot, and I didn't want to harm it, but like the guard, it insited on dying, so I put it out of its misery. The spirit that fled from its corpse resembled my brother-inlaw Josh Peavler.

I went on to encounter a man on a bench who had nothing more to say than, "I am Error." Error also resembled Lafe Peavler. I also met a strange girl who said, "Play me a song, and I'll talk." She resembled Sarina Wiederhold. I had a recorder, and I played her a tune, but it wasn't the one she wanted to hear. So we went on. Next, while passing under a scary bridge, I suspected danger, and I was right. A terrible warrior that resembled Joseph Cardon jumped down from a wall and brandished a sword that was much larger than my own. But I stunned him with the boomerang I'd looted from my first murder, and soon this fellow was a gonner as well. I tried to take his amazing sword, but the fairy informed me that such an action was illegal. I had been wounded in this battle, and I was glad to soon meet a fairy beneath the bridge, who healed me. Later, I threw my broken cardboard sword into the water, and the fairy gave me a major upgrade, a plastic sword.

Next I encountered a very eccentric mask salesman who resembled Levi Stannard. He was very pushy in selling me a plastic mask that I had no interest in, but I didn't know what else to do with my rupees, so I bought it. And it's a good thing I did, for next on my path was a cloaked girl on a bench whom I would later discover strongly resembled Bria Wiederhold. She wore a similar mask, and I found that she would only talk to me if I put on my mask. Well, like most people in this strange world called Hyrule, she wouldn't actually talk but would activate her single routine, which was to present me with a box, from which I produced a "silver" (Nerf) arrow.

I'll spare you from some of the more tedious details. So to summarize, I encountered the mysterious old man again, who had been hobbling in the distance through the whole quest, creating a very creepy effect. He said, "It is a secret to everybody" and gave me fifty "rupees." I eventually encountered a "Sheik," who resembled Rose Ledezma, who taught me how to play a magical melody on my recorder. I played the melody for the weird girl on the bench, and she then told me that I would find Gannon in the "place I rested my head." I also met Error on the road, who told me where to find a ladder. I think I failed to meet Error's friend, who would tell me this, so Error had to tell me himself. I found the ladder (an industrial ladder), but without possessing the magical bottomless pockets of the heroes in video games, I had to lug the cursed ladder everywhere I went, not to mention all my other cumbersome items, and it wasn't easy.

Eventually I found a "bomb bag" in the branches of a tree, for which the ladder came in handy. At a village comfortably built around the gazeebo behind the Bon Losi Academy, I meet a merchant in a tent who resembled my little neise Jaime. She sold me a shield, a bunch of bombs (water balloons), a red potion and some arrows, all for only one rupee each. But the item I coveted most, a Nerf crossbow, cost a "ducky," which I did not possess.

Next to the shop was a woman who resembled my sister-inlaw Desire Gashler. (By the way, the fairy had been holding an MP3 player this whole time which played appropriate music. The Zelda theme for our usual walking, an intense theme for battles and now a gentle theme for the village.) This woman asked if I wanted to play her game, which was throwing bombs at rocks. I accepted, and it took my nearly twenty bombs, but just before the stock was out, I hit the last rock, and the woman rewarded me with a plastic duck. As you can guess, I left the village with a crossbow added to my very cumbersome inventory. Thank goodness I was able to load some of it into the stroller pushed by the cameraman.

I knew from the clue given by the girl on the bench that Gannon was at my house. So we journeyed back, and many of the strange characters I had met along the way joined me. Carrying the ladder all the way back to my house was no fun. I asked the motley bunch if they'd stand beside me in my great confrontation with Gannon and not pull any of that "the hero must go alone" nonsense, but they declined.

In front of my house, I met a cloaked man in black who resembled Nefi Ledezma. He wanted to fight hand to hand, which we did, and I eventually pinned him and won. Then I ventured into my backyard, where lo, I beheld the terrible Gannon, who resembled Andrew Whittaker, surrounded by all of his terrible minions, with Zelda locked up in the back. Gannon said something villainous, then sent his minions on me. First I battled the swordsmen from beneath the bridge again, then two knights at once, and then the fairy from beneath the bridge who had apparently turned evil. Finally it was just Gannon and I.

The final battle was very intense. His sword was huge, and he whacked me with it many a time. Furthermore, my sword had no effect on him. I realized that I had to first hit him with the "silver arrow," and this was only possible when my fairy would first set Zelda free, thus distracting Gannon. I was able to get a rare shot at him and then whack him with my sword, but he definitely hit me a lot more. It it was a real video game, I would have died many times. But I did have the red potion, which kept me alive. My fairy continued to squirt it into my mouth (it was inside of an old Ketchup bottle), thus giving me the strength to go on. And eventually I prevailed and Gannon exploded. I took the hand of Princess Zelda, who resembled my wife, and all was happy and gay.

This amazing production was all orchestrated by Teresa on behalf of my birthday, all completely behind my back. It was also largely organized by my brother and sister-inlaw Mike and Desire Gashler. I must say that it was one of the funnest activities I've ever been engaged in, and I felt very loved. I was very impressed by Teresa's skill as a creative producer, as this was much more ellaborate than any "surprise theater" event I'd ever organized. To add to this, there was another "surprise party" that evening, though I totally knew this one was coming. I was actually the one to jump into the room and shout "surprise!" to the large crowd. We played improv games and had good fun.

I suppose one purpose of a birthday party is to help the person growing older happily confront his new age. I do confess that I wasn't too thrilled to be twenty-six, as it seemed to inaugurate my final departure from the first quarter century of my life and my youth all together. There's no getting around saying you're an adult when you're twenty-six. And I'll confess, I have a Peter Pan complex. But man, after all that fun and love, for whatever reason, I now feel really good about being a grownup. I guess the fact has been reaffirmed in my mind that I can face a lifetime of being a grownup without ever having to actually grow up.

Speaking of human video games, it was a complete coincidence that this big Zedla affair happened the night after we were playing "Frogger," "Mario," and "Mike Tyson's Punch Out" for Zach's party. In light of all this, a number of us have expressed an interest in creating some sort of theme park that specializes in "quests" like this. What could possibly be more fun? Teresa and I had set a goal to create a theme park in our backyard this summer. Maybe this dream will soon become reality. Amen. (Pictures to follow.)

Photo shoot for Ariah

2009-02-23T00:21:00.003-07:00

She is starting to roll over like crazy. I can't believe how fast she's growing.

By the way, we are going to make our blog private soon, so if you want to keep seeing our blog, make sure I have your e-mail address. Mine is sappytree@gmail.com.

Pictures of December

2009-02-01T20:50:00.000-07:00

In need of an update

2009-01-25T20:55:00.002-07:00

The end of last semester was crazy! Finals week was very stressful and I didn't get any Christmas preparations ready. We took a picture we wanted to send out as a Christmas card, but I put it off too long. Next year, I'm going to have it ready by Thanksgiving. You can hold me to that.

We went to Gilbert, Arizona for Christmas. I was expecting it to be warm, but it was chilly sweater weather. Ariah slept most the way home and back, so the car experience wasn't bad for the most part. I loved the enthusiasm people had down there for putting up Christmas lights. It was fun to drive around and see the fun decorations people had. Though none beat my parents (who had a lit poinsettia tree and wrapped door as part of their decor).

I love Steve's family. I love his parents and all his siblings and their families. It's so nice to not have tension there. Especially mother-in-law tension. It's sad that I hear so many girls clashing with their mother-in-laws. Linda is so sweet and thoughtful. We went shopping together one afternoon and it was so fun to be with her. No questions asked, she is my second mother. It was fun to see Linda and Len with Ariah. What doting grandparents. Ariah is quite spoiled.

We invented a board game called Shabobwa. It's kinda a mix between Sim City and Risk. We were working out the bugs, but we've had to put it on hold for the sake of our business. I will give more details on the game when we start working on it again, and if anyone wants to try it out, let us know.

I can't believe how fast time is flying. Ariah is 4 months now. She is quite a cute chunk, with big beautiful rolls in her legs (just like her mommy had as a baby). She rolls off her tummy without problem and is working on getting onto her back. She just barely started finding interest in anything we are holding or wearing, which makes holding her a lot more complicated. She is very reluctant to giggle, though we've gotten a few out of her. She likes to yell, whether happy or mad. She has a very open mouthed smile.

Steve and I celebrated our 2nd anniversary on New Year's Eve (even though it was technically Dec. 23rd when we were married). We got to go eat at La Vigna thanks to my sister Sam (thanks Sam!). Then we spent the evening home, not really having money to go anywhere. It was a lovely evening and it's been an amazing (and fast!) two years. I love my dear Steve so much, and I have never regretted being married to him.

Pictures to come (sorry, they are on my other computer, and I've done enough updating for tonight).

The Power of Agency and Change

2009-01-25T20:24:00.003-07:00

One thing that really bothers me about human nature is that people are willing to let a characteristic they don't like be a defining part of them. Hollywood, books (from children to adults), and the media in general have been telling us these past years: "Accept yourself for who you are." This a partly ok statement. We should remember we are children of God and that we do have light and goodness in us. We also have to remember that we also have great potential, and if we are just ok with staying the way we are, we aren't progressing.

Lately, I've been a very messy person. But I don't want that to define me. Should I just say "Oh well, I'm a messy person. I can still be happy?" No! I need to improve! I am going to improve. I hope that as time passes, I can rid myself of all things I don't want to be. And I have quite the list.

It just makes me sad when someone accepts themselves to be a certain way when they don't want to be that way. I'm not saying that people need to put themselves down all the time. We need to find joy in who we are, and work to become who we want to be.

This has everything to do with agency. Most of our attributes come from the way we choose to be. We have power to change. We have the power to change our diets, habits, looks, music preferences, food preferences, sexual orientation, etc. I even argue that some disabilities can be overcome, as I have heard friends tell stories of how they overcame a disability.

One was my younger brother, who was diagnosed as being autistic at a young age. My mom didn't listen to this diagnosis, and she told my brother not to listen. They were able to overcome his learning problems within 2 years and now he is in hard classes like AP English, AP Calculus, AP Biology. He is teaching himself how to make 3D art as he desires to study Animation at BYU. He is a runner and a very social stud muffin. If my mom had just "accepted him" as what he supposedly was, he wouldn't be who he is today. I'm not trying to put down anyone with serious disabilities, I'm just trying to show the power of agency and the power of change. Of course there are disabilities that are a permanent part of a person.

So world (I include myself), don't buy into the "accept yourself for who you are" philosophy. If you have weaknesses, work to rid them from your life. That's what I strongly desire to do.

Teresa=messy right now, but I don't want to accept that. I will work until Teresa=clean.

And I will write in this blog at least once a week. Even if it's a short philosophical thought.

They had a dream

2008-12-01T15:18:00.002-07:00

This is a video we shot back in August and finally got to editing over Thanksgiving break. I, Steve, am in it.

Pictures of Ariah

2008-11-05T16:25:00.002-07:00

We're trying to play catch up. These almost 2 months have flown so fast and been so busy. But they've been so wonderful. We love having little Ariah in our lives. Here is a slide show of pictures. There are a lot, so don't feel guilty if you don't want to see them all.

It took us a couple of weeks to get Ariah to change her sleeping schedule. Those were hard nights, especially for Steve. I am a much heavier sleeper than Steve, so many times Steve has to wake me up when she's crying. What a great mom I am! :)

She is pretty mellow and has recently started smiling and cooing. I love dressing her up, but she is notorious for going through 2 or 3 outfits a day due to explosive messes.

We are putting together video clips in a movie that we will have done by Christmas.

Happy Halloween!

2008-11-01T11:47:00.000-06:00

More pictures and updates to come soon, I promise!

Announcing Steve and Teresa 2.0: Ariah

2008-09-11T21:51:00.009-06:00

This week, I, Steve, decided that I was tired of sleep (isn't that a beautiful oximoron?), so I stayed up till two or three every night, working on projects, and woke up early in the morning to take Teresa to school. Last night, it was 2:00 AM, and I was enjoying that aching feeling in my frontal lobe, a triumph over the natural man, when I found myself teetering at the brink of my physical limits. Perhaps it was time to be reasonable and go to bed. When Teresa woke me up two hours later, moaning in pain, I wasn't very attentive. I assumed that she was just having more false contractions.

"Steve, there's this giant spider in the bathroom," she said a short time later. "It's the biggest spider I've ever seen!" I asked, "Do you want me to kill it?" - "No, it's all right." Then, climbing back into bed, she continued to moan. I'd grown accustomed to her sounds of agony, so I would have been able to sleep were it not for the thought of a gargantuan spider haunting our bathroom. There it loomed in my thoughts, taunting me. I rolled over, then over again, until I threw off my covers, determined to slay this vile intruder. And I did. It was a considerably-sized pest, but having served a mission where giant banana spiders frequently found their way into my shower, it was far from the biggest spider I'd ever seen.

Content that I'd fulfilled my manly lot, I returned to the bedroom, eager to cash in on some well-deserved sleep. But then Teresa announced that my coveted prize of thoughtless euphoria would have to wait even longer, for this was the real deal. Little Gashler was on her way. Her contractions were now consistent, requiring constant back rubs, and between this and her hustle and bustle to prepare for the hospital, my exasperated flirtations with sleep were vain.

But my second--actually fourth--wind came to the rescue, and soon the two of us were eagerly timing her contractions, hoping that we'd qualify for the five minute gaps that warranted hospital entry. This was exciting. For Teresa it meant the climactic relief from her long-suffering. For me it meant an exciting day in a flashy building of modern scientific wonder. I used to shun hospitals, loathing their smells and everything about them that reminded me of my mortality. But now they inspire me as edifices of knowledge, science and humanity. Honestly our morning anxiety was very akin to the feelings I remembered from childhood before boarding a plane on a trip to Disney World. We called the OBGYN office, and they told us that they'd call us back. 10, 20, 30, 40 minutes went by without any word from them. Teresa's contractions were teetering between 5 and 8 minute gaps. We knew that technically we weren't supposed to go yet.

"Heck to that!" announced Teresa. So we went to the hospital and were immediately admitted. I have no idea what that "we'll call you" nonsense was about. We were taken to a spacious and extravagant room on the fifth floor with a great view of Provo, and my childlike excitement was not abated. The nurse told us that Teresa had dialated two centemeters, and everything looked well. At first.

"She's breach," the nurses pronounced after an ultrasound, meaning that the baby's head was facing up. This neccesitated a Cesarian section, for turning the baby up-side-down, especially in a first pregnancy, is very dangerous. Not long after this gloomy pronouncement, the monitors indicated that Teresa had already dialated to four centemeters. This meant that she needed to be taken to the operating room as soon as possible, for full dialations during C-sections are big complications.

This is where the story gets awesome. At Disney World you only get to see guys in space suits, but I actually got to wear one. Teresa and I had just watched a documentary about Apollo 8, and this was the real deal. Well, not really, but it was still awesome. They pushed Teresa's bed to the operating room, and still slipping on my final space accessories, I chased after.

If you wouldn't like to read about a Cesarean Section, skip this paragraph; it's graphic but very interesting. First the doctor, without any formal measuring, took a quick slice at Teresa's lower abdomen. Blood trickled out, and he pried her flesh open. I saw Teresa's fat, which was made of lots of yellow goobers, just like on beef. The doctors craftily snipped and burned their way through layers of who-knows-what with some space-age tools, until they came to her frontal abdominal muscles. They simply had to pry those out of the way, not cutting anything. Next was the bladder, to which the doctor said, "We just need to move this." Who knew they could do that? It wasn't like a game of Operation, it was more like Mr. Potato Head! Then they were to the uterus--snip snip--then to the placenta. When a spurt of liquid shot up and splashed one of the doctors in the face, I wondered if something was wrong. Then I saw a large gushing of amniotic fluid, and I knew that all was well. Baby was only moments away. (Seeing the insides of a person, especially one's spouse, has an unavoidable effect of inspiring a sense of interconnection.) Lastly was the most astonishing part of all. The doctor warned Teresa--who, of course, was numbed to any pain--that she would feel a lot of pressure. He then plunged his hand into my wife's innards and felt around for the baby. It was so clumsy, it seemed like quackery! But I guess the whole process is messy. He soon produced a limb, and through a procedure of tugs and maneuvering that was anything but graceful, he welcomed our daughter to earth.

She was slimy and purple, but after some basic cleaning, I marvelled at how perfect and well-formed she looked. Of course a parent's anxiety in these moments is in wondering what their child will look like. But when I saw her face, I didn't know what to think. She was a beautiful, healthy baby, but I couldn't say that she had my nose or Teresa's eyes. She was just a baby. It was like meeting a long-lost brother that you knew nothing about or a mail-order bride. In such situations, one can't say, "I've missed you so much!" but rather, what can be said other than "huh." I don't know anything about this little girl. After staring at her and holding her for hours, I still don't think I'd necessarily be able to recognize her in a room full of a hundred unidentified babies, and I have no idea what her personality's like. Yet of course I love her, knowing nothing more about her than this simple fact: she's my daughter.

Observe the space suit.

Now, after lots of visits from family and friends, we're camping out in the hospital room. At Disney World, one has the burden of constantly exerting himself to maximize his ride coverage. Here, we don't have to wait in any lines to get our kicks. She's always just around the corner in the nursery. And what's Space Mountain compared to the elevator?

What if, like Robin Hood's policy of never eating dinner until he'd performed a great deed for the day, we weren't allowed to lay ourselves to rest until we'd similarly accomplished something worthy of it? Would bringing a baby into the world count? Oh wait, Teresa really did all the work. Hmm, what about wearing a space suit? That space suit was so awesome, I hope to have many more kids so I can wear it again. It made enduring nine months of a pregnant wife worth it. Well, in any case, I'm going to bed. Good night, world. Good night, Teresa. Good night, Ariah.

(Apparently the premortal world is much more interesting.)

1 Week to Parenthood

2008-09-10T06:41:00.002-06:00

Little Gashler is due for the 17th, which means any day now is possible. It is really hard to believe that we are actually going to have another member of our family that WE have to be responsible for. It's hard to accept the fact that there is no real way to be emotionally and physically prepared for this, but I know that we can always rely on the Lord for help. Plus our parents, and family members, and friends.... and so many people! This experience of being pregnant has helped me realize that I am blessed to be around so many loving, caring, generous people. I have learned that I always need to be willing to give of myself because I know many who have made sacrifices for us.

We actually agreed on a name. Steve recommended it. His friend Monte wrote a song called Aurora Aria (though Aria is pronounced uh-RIE-uh, not AR-ee-uh). He recommended Aria, and I love how it sounds, but I wanted to spell it differently so people hopefully won't pronounce it AR-ee-uh. So, we added an h to the end: Ariah. I love how that looks, sounds, and feels. This is pretty much set in stone unless we look at her and she is not an Ariah, or she turns out to be a boy :b

Thank all of you for your sweetness, sincerity, and generosity. It means a great deal to us and I hope I can show you adequate thanks through my actions. Steve, thank you for all you've done for me. All those backrubs, delicious meals, giving into my dumb cravings and whims of fancy... the list goes on and on. I am so excited to be a parent along side you!

I have so much to catch up on, hopefully I'll be able to post it all before baby comes... knock on wood...

Pre-mommy sobbing and nesting instinct

2008-08-22T12:30:00.003-06:00

A couple weeks ago, Steve and our good friend Nefi decided they wanted to go on a hike of manliness. I hung out with his wife Rose while they were gone. It was fun to hang out with a girl friend that is outside my immediate family since I haven't really done that while being married. We sang our hearts out in a Kareoke revolution-esque game and chatted away until we got tired. No pictures, unfortunately. I always forget the camera. Our men ended up having wonderful religious and other conversation up Rock Canyon, but instead of staying the night up there as planned they decided to come down early and surprise us. They snuck in and started to spray shaving cream in my hand when I woke up very suddenly. They ran away before I could tell who they were, so I thought it was Rose. It was a shame, really. I've never been pranked in my sleep before, and I woke up so suddenly that it ruined the prank. I was trying to think of ways to get back at Rose when I heard some extra manly voices serenading outside the window. I realized they were the culprits and went to awake Rose. We all had a grand sleepover and a fun breakfast the next morning.

Before they embarked on their manly hike, Steve and Nefi took a long time trying to figure out what to take with them to eat. They wanted it to be manly and memorable. Finally I convinced them to take canned beans and other things they could cook up easily and put on tortillas. They put those things in their shopping cart and went to get the last item on their list: sunscreen. They went down the aisle where the sunscreen awaited, and then noticed something else interesting on the same aisle. Pet food. They immediately started looking through all the dog food, trying to decide which would be most economical and memorable. They both said "It will be an adventure", and the rule between them is that if that phrase is spoken in reference to doing something crazy, they are bound to do it. I didn't try to stop them when they got a big bag of doggie biscuits. I just laughed. They hardly ate any of them, so now we have a big bag of doggie biscuits in our pantry that will never be touched. Anyone want to take them for free?

You're probably wondering what this has to do with the post title "Pre-mommy sobbing and nesting instinct". I'm getting there, I promise. A couple Sundays ago, Steve had just finished doing fast offering collections with a young man in the ward and came to pick me up. When I got in the car, I noticed there was a box of cat food in the back seat.
"What's up with the cat food? Do you have a fascination with pet food now?"
"No, it's for the cat."
"What cat?"
"The one in our home."
"We can't have a cat."
"Well, we do."
He explained that as he was strolling down the sidewalk collecting fast offerings with the young man, an older lady in a power chair pleaded with them to help her. She showed them a cat hiding in the bushes and asked for one of them to take her home. The young man said his mom wouldn't like it, and Steve said it was against our contract. She pleaded and begged and went on about how the cat would die and she just couldn't take it. Poor lady. She had even bought it some cat food. So, Steve picked up kitty and placed her in our basement apartment, then came to pick me up.

So we had a cat for about 2 weeks. I was afraid it was going to be a mangy old sickly stingy awful cat, but she turned out to be quite the opposite. She was young, playful, friendly, and absolutely adorable. She wasn't sickly and didn't even seem to be starving. We posted signs and notices that we found her, but nobody claimed her. We needed to find her a home fast because we weren't supposed to have her in the first place. I posted on a lot of online sites and made lots of phone calls. We did not want to take her to the shelter because she is so perfect and I knew someone would want her.

Time raced and nobody was calling for kitty. Steve gave her the name "Lenda", a combination of his parents names. I tried not to call her anything but kitty in fear that I would become attached. It was inevitable. I have always wanted a kitty but never could have one because of allergies in my family. She was so lovable and fun. One night we left to go see a play and Steve insisted on leaving her outside so she could get outside time. I started crying and was afraid she would run away or something would happen to her. Steve put her inside, but the next day he proved that she wouldn't run away, so we let her go outside when we left from then on. One day as we were driving home it started to rain heavily with thunder and lightning. I was very insistent on getting home for the cat, and when we did she was hiding under the porch looking very afraid. I scooped her into my arms and held her close inside while she purred nonstop. I started to cry again. There were a few more instances of this crying.

Finally, someone called and wanted to see her. She came over and played with her, then agreed to take her the next Monday. I was so relieved that we found a good home for her. As the time approached for them to pick her up, I held her close and realized I couldn't stop the tears from coming. As soon as the doorbell rang, I started bawling and immediately handed the kitty to Steve so they wouldn't have to see me cry. I cried for a while. It was really hard to part with her. I know that she is in a good home and that we just couldn't keep her.

I realized afterwards that I hadn't spent as much time fantasizing about our upcoming child or reading my baby books as much as I used to. Infact, I felt like I forgot about the baby when Lenda was with us. That didn't last long though. I went to the library and got some infant books. I also started getting nesting instinct like crazy (and still have it!) I am not particulary fond of our cramped batcave of a home, but I made a realization a few days ago that if we moved some things around in our living room and bedroom, there would be a lot more space. It's 100 times nicer than it was before. We're still going through things, but I actually feel like I would be happy having an infant in this house. A crawling baby, no. But an infant, yes. Hopefully before she crawls around a lot, we can find somewhere bigger to move into. And hopefully that will allow for another Lenda.

We're less than a month away and I can hardly believe it. I don't know what to expect, but I know that it will be fun despite the many challenges.

Pioneer Day

2008-08-17T18:37:00.003-06:00

We spent our Pioneer day holiday at Strawberry with the Peavler clan. I didn't do much but observe and relax, which was just fine with me.

Getting closer...

It was fun to watch Steve and my siblings in the tube. Everyone, except Heather, attempted to stand up at one point. I think Sam was the only one somewhat able to do it without falling out.

My manly dude with not so manly Heather.

Everyone fished minus Steve, me, and my mom. Sam vowed that she would kiss a fish if she caught one, and she did. It turns out she has the kiss of death, because when they tried to throw it back in, it didn't make it. Watch out fellows.

Fantastic Fourth

2008-07-15T10:10:00.005-06:00

Our 4th of July was pretty crazy, but of course a lot of fun. This balloon is a great example of that, as it landed right in my parents neighborhood very unexpectedly.

Steve wanted to run bandit for the Freedom 10k run. For those who aren't familiar with the term "running bandit", it means running a race without registering for it. He wanted to be a real bandit, so of course he was. He did really well and kept going the whole way, but he was dead tired afterwards. I was pretty tired too, because we had to wake up super early.

Some of my siblings and cousins slept overnight on the street to save us a spot on the parade route. I met up with them in the morning and painted some of their faces. Here are the results below. It was my first attempt face painting, so taking that into consideration I think I did pretty good. Everyone wanted something patriotic except for Noah, who is at the bottom of the picture below. He wanted spiderman. But I couldn't do spiderman, so then he had me paint eyeballs on his face and on his eyelids like Jack Sparrow from the 2nd pirates movie. Funny boy :)

After the parade we had to go do a puppet performance with Curtis. We were already very worn out from the morning, but we managed to pull energy from nowhere and put on a pretty good show. Thanks Dez for taking the pictures.

We performed our Frog Prince show, and at the end we had some girls, who happened to be beauty pageant winners and wearing crowns, come and kiss the frog. They were more than eager, but alas, that frog was no prince.

For that evening Lafe headed up a fantastic bbq. Steve and I collapsed with exahaustion afterwards and slept. Then my cousins came and wanted to play. Noah gave Steve a walkie talkie to use and Steve sent Noah on secret missions throughout the house. Noah loved it.

For the evening, we made some scrumptious treats that I got from familyfun.com. Heather and Sage made these fabulous statue of liberty cupcake torches (though they were supposed to be green ice cream cones. I couldn't find any at the store)

I dipped some strawberries in white chocolate and pretty blue sprinkles for a fabulous looking red white and blue treat. I love Family Fun!

My parents live right across the street from the Stadium, so we had great seats to see the fireworks. We also had to put up with traffic though, but it was worth it. We got some little fireworks to play with, then we watched the real deal.

Not the most flattering picture for me, but I was pretty dead by this time. Steve was too, but you can't even tell in the picture. After that was over, we collapsed with exhaustion again and had to wait a long time for traffic to clear up so we could get home. It felt like 3 days jam packed in one, but that's how we enjoy holidays. Thanks mom and dad for taking most of these pictures.

Me & My Girl Friends

2008-06-30T07:25:00.004-06:00

If I were Rapunzel

One of my favorite traditions is hanging out with my mom, sisters, and grandma for the annual quilt shop hop. We jump in a car together early in the morning and drive as far as Tooele and hit around 15 quilt shops all the way down to Springville. We were stamped at every store, so we got to enter for a sewing machine. I would love to win, but of course the chances are way too slim.

People always ask me why we go do this every year. When we describe it, it sounds really boring. I love going to the shops and getting ideas for crafts and quilts, and I usually indulge. The main reason we go is because we love hanging out with each other, even crammed in a car for a whole day. Mainly Sam, Heather, and I "annoy" each other in the back which makes us laugh like crazy women. We can usually get my mom and grandma laughing too, and when they get into a fit of giggles, it only makes us laugh even harder. I got quite a good ab workout this time.

This year we very unexpectedly ran out of gas. The gas meter didn't warn us very well and my mom was lucky to exit off the freeway right before it ran out. Sam and my pregnant self had to get out and push, which was probably very entertaining to the cars around us.

Sam and Mom saving the day.

This experience only made the trip more fun. It's cool to think that if I was ever in a big catastrophe with members of my family, we could all lift and cheer each other up.

My mom

Grandma Bonnie

The theme this year was fairy tales, so each shop made it's store follow a certain fairy tale. This one was Rapunzel, of course.

Heather

Sam

I never thought I would ever want to learn how to knit, but at one of the stores they had a very adorable display of knitted baby booties and I fell in love immediately. I am currently learning and it's very addicting, actually.

I love hanging out with the girls and I hope we will things like this for the rest of our lives. Family really is the best.

Puppets & Stories for Lunch

2008-06-27T10:24:00.000-06:00

At the Provo City Library, I've been doing a show called Canopy Capers on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 12-12:30. Miss Alicen and I perform puppet shows and storytelling for pretty decent sized crowds. It's totally free, so stop by sometime. Here are some highlights from one of my shows:

Miss Alicen is an amazing performer! She graduated from BYU in vocal performance, which is a very hard program to get into to begin with. I have a lot to learn from her.

It's been awesome performing at the library for about 2 years now, but at the end of July I am going to be done. Miss Alicen is going to resign as well, so any of you who would love to perform for toddlers weekday mornings in the fall, there will be 2 positions posted. They aren't posted yet, but I'll let you know as soon as they are up.

Zoo with Gashler clan

2008-06-16T15:36:00.000-06:00

We went last Friday with Steve's parents, Deanna, Eric, Desire and her girls Jamie & Talie. We of course forgot our camera, so Desire let us take some pictures with hers until they had to leave. It was a fun experience because we actually got to see a good amount of the animals moving around instead of sleeping. A zoo keeper was feeding this tiger to get it to come close to the fence while a news station (I forget which) was doing a little live blurb about the zoo.

Good old uncle Steve let Jamie ride on his back. You can't see it, but Steve is wearing a hat that says #1 dad on it. He's practicing living up to that, as you can see here.

Jamie had a lot of fun. She was way into seeing the animals and has the child curiosity and interest that I envy and want to make sure I have myself.

Here are Deanna and Leonard (Steve's dad) in front of some turkeys. It was hard to get pictures with animals because the animals were hardly ever close enough. It's so great having family in town and spending time with them. Somehow I neglected to get a picture of Eric :S

Linda (Steve's mom) and our one and only nephew Paul. Linda is such a cute grandmother :) Paul wasn't so interested in animals, but maybe that was because he couldn't really see most of them and when we tried to point them out he didn't seem to notice. He was quite pleased with the bushes, however. He liked to pull on them.

Talie, on the other hand, was very interested in the animals and would point at them as she took notice of them. Here she is with Desire, though I can't remember which animal they were looking at. This picture is an attempt to catch her in the act of pointing.

We saw a really awesome bird show showing off eagles, parrots, chickens, and lots of other birds. It was extremely well done and very entertaining. I hear they have a lot of other great shows/exhibits to give more knowledge about their animals, so I highly recommed for anyone to check out the zoo sometime this summer. It's totally not just for kids as long as you remember to have the interest and curiosity of a child.

Performing, working, and family

2008-06-12T09:22:00.000-06:00

This is us posing as if we were bored. We've realized that posing a believable bored face is pretty hard. It's true that our sociality has been suffering greatly, that being our own fault. We, however, are anything but bored.

On Friday June 6th we had a last minute Gashlaria performance at a city event in Nephi. Since it was super last minute (which all of our performances seem to be recently) we could only get Curtis to come along with us. We performed short puppet skits, Pythagorea and the Gnome once, and did some good old storytelling. Unfortunately, we left our camera home, so we could only take cell phone pictures, which we are still trying to figure out...

On Saturday we drove to St. George for a wedding job. It was the first Catholic wedding we've ever attended and we greatly enjoyed it. It was completely Christ centered and the father emphasized to the couple the need to let Christ in their marriage. Steve was doing videography for it and during the ceremony at times we both felt that videotaping was inappropriate because parts of it seem so special and sacred, but they wanted the whole thing taped so we did it.

Between the ceremony and reception, we stopped by the Brigham Young winter home. We were in a ridiculous hurry, so one of the ladies there was nice enough to take us through quickly. It was really awesome to see. Steve remarked that he must be an old grandpa man now because he actually enjoys and took the initiative to see a church historical site. When he was young, his family took some big cross-country car trips to see church sites and it got tiresome. Now he's an old grandpa man :) and insisted that we make at least a little rushed time to see some sites.

Us in front of Brigham Young's winter home.

The reception was a fun experience too. Both the bride and the groom are in the army, so the bride decided to choose different shades of green for her colors. It was actually cute! She even had camouflage ribbon on her cake. Doesn't sound cute, but it really was. We ended our time in St. George by walking around the temple for a bit and learning about how it was made. All I can say is that the Saints living down there were absolutely amazing and hard working.

Yesterday Steve's mom, dad, and sister Deanna made it from Gilbert, AZ to be here for Emily's wedding today. We ate at La Vigna in American Fork. I read reviews before going, and most of them were negative. We all had a great experience and highly enjoyed the food, so I recommend it to anyone! Our waiter was especially good to us as well, and even was willing to take this picture of us.

It's great for the family to be all together. We are missing Eric and Brain in this picture unfortunately. It's fun to chat and watch our darling nieces and nephew interact with the world.

Performance at Showtime Utah

2008-06-03T07:59:00.000-06:00

Us with Alex Boye

Last night we performed some puppet shows for "Family Night Live" at the Showtime Utah theater in Pleasant Grove. Alex Boye was the MC, and he repeatedly told us how amazing we were. After the show, he told us that he wanted us to tour with him. He said he was doing gigs all through the country that paid a ton, and he thought we could really go far together. He said he was doing this amazing show called Black Legends, a musical tribute to all the great black musicians of the twentieth century. We didn't understand where puppets would fit in, but we smiled and nodded, stressing that we were very interested. Later Curtis realized that Alex had mistaken us for the band he had been singing with, as we were both wearing black. Apparently Alex eventually realized this, and he smoothly glossed the conversation from Black Legends to the need for puppet shows in the community. He asked for our card, pledging to hook us up with future gigs, but I think that was just an outward act to help dig himself out of a hole. It was a funny situation. Oh well, Alex was an amazing performer. Oh yeah, and we were pretty good too.

Muse Music Performance

2008-05-22T13:40:00.001-06:00

Last night we opened for an evening of bands at Muse Music in Provo. We had found out about this concert only hours before, so after a rushed, inadequate rehearsal, we were all a little nervous. As we drove to the fateful event, even more daunting was the vision of a long line of people waiting to buy tickets just outside of Muse Music. Later we realized that these people were waiting to get into the Velour, the concert hall next door to Muse Music, where, I guess, the better bands were performing. In actuality, there were only a handful of people who heard us perform, and most of them were other bands, waiting for their turn.

Someday, perhaps, the world will recognize the brilliance of all the underdog artists out there, but in the mean time, we underdog artists will continue to perform for each other, wishing there's someone who actually cares in the audience, waiting for a fat rich guy to approach us with a contract and check book. Not that we covet fame and fortune. We're all about art for art's sake. But then, it sure would be nice if such art were being admired by a crowd of screaming fans, one of them, perhaps, being a fat, rich guy with a contract and check book.