Annie's revenge

Last Thursday Amber's appendix (Annie) decided to make her presence known. She was tired of always being under-appreciated and considered a useless vestigial organ. She had her 15 minutes of fame, and we all paid attention. But sadly, this move ultimately led to her demise.

Amber came home from spending time preparing her grandmother, who had recently passed away, for her funeral, when she began complaining of stomach pains. She told me that it was the worse pain she had ever felt and told me that she needed an ambulance. I then gave the expert advice of "maybe we should just wait it out". We compromised and Amber let me drive her to the emergency room. It's a good thing she had her eyes closed so she didn't see me driving 75 MPH in a 40 MPH zone, or the 3 stop lights I ran. Mikkena noticed. Sorry Mikkena.

We arrived at the emergency room at 11:00 at night. After 4 hours of blood tests, CAT scans, puking, and prodding, Amber was admitted to the hospital for an emergency appendectomy. Sorry Annie, maybe you should have just used your words.

At least Amber got to eat hospital food, which in her case is a good thing. We want to thank every one for your help and your visits, especially Sherine, Todd and Brandi. Thanks for taking care of Mikkena while we were having fun.

puking peeps for perfect chocolate

The quest for the perfect chocolate budget bunny continues! I decided to sacrifice my body yet again for the noble goal of saving Mikkena's Easter from bad chocolate.

First on the list is Hershey's. Instead of the "Yummy" bunny we now have the "Speedy" bunny. The only place that bunny is speeding off to is the toilet. The chocolate tasted processed, and way too sweet. I couldn't eat more than a few bites.

Next we have the Russel Stover milk chocolate bunny. The chocolate had a cheap consistency. It was hard, dry, and splintered when I bit into it. But this chocolate had more flavor than any other chocolate I have tasted. It had a very pleasant peanutty aftertaste. Definitely not too sweet.

Last, we have the Lindt bunny. After eating this bunny I need to apologize about my disparaging comments towards hollow chocolate bunnies. I'm sorry mister Lindt bunny, I didn't know you were out there when I said those mean things. Can we still be friends? Needless to say Lindt makes good chocolate. It was soft, pliable and melted easily in my mouth. The chocolate was flavorful, and smooth. Just plain good.

In order of worse to best the final list is:

5. Palmer's "Yummy" Bunny

4. Hershey's "Speedy" Bunny

3. Russel Stover's Milk Chocolate Bunny

2. Dove Milk Chocolate Solid Bunny

1. Lindt

Final thought on chocolate bunnies: Families on extreme budgets should go for Russel Stover over Palmer and Hershey any day. That bunny is surprisingly tasty.

Now to the competition!

I decided to break the competition into two categories. Adults and tweens. First to the Tweens.

For the Tween portion of the competition I thought it was best to use the new devil-colored peeps. It was a hard fought fight. The two big trash talkers (my nephews Cody and Tobin) came in tied for second place at 6 peeps a piece.

Tobin did win style points for his pre-smashed peeps strategy.

Cody also got some for the most disgusting stained-red teeth while drooling on his own hand picture.

But in the end they were beat out by Cooper and Mikkena who tied for first place with 7 peeps a piece.

I've never been more proud! And you thought it didn't look fun.

Victory is sweet!

Now to those who should know better.

Look at that super couple. I got 10 peeps and Amber pulled off 5.

Adrienne, Nyssa, Zach and Sabin joined the contest from Las Vegas. Nyssa held down 3 and Adrienne held down 4.

It came down to a run off between the boys. Zach's previous record of 13 was shattered by the Army man pounding in one more.

Can the king of stupid-human contests pull of yet another victory from behind?

Yes he does! 15 peeps in the kisser. By the way Zach, this photo is going to bite you in the butt when you're trying to get the pretty ladies to write to you in Singapore. Just let them know that you are the proud winner of a Lindt chocolate bunny....to be mailed off shortly.

Saving Easter with my peeps

Mikkena and I were walking through the Holiday section of Smiths when Mikkena told me that Easter was her favorite holiday. Since, I measure each holiday strictly by candy quality I was naturally appalled. The only holiday that has worse candy than Easter is Arbor day. As a kid I remember waking up early on Easter morning and biting off the head of a chalky, hollow, and pastel chocolate bunny. I have never been more disappointed. The only thing that saved Easter for me is low-budget black licorice jelly beans. MMMM (and I'm serious they're delicious). I hope you had your hanky near for that story.

That's why I never want to see another child suffer the same horrible fate as me. After Mikkena told me that she has always wanted a chocolate bunny for Easter I decided that I will need to find and test several chocolate bunnies to ensure that Easter remains Mikkena's favorite holiday. I won't let you down!

First off, this one.

Don't let it's packaging deceive you. Even though the bunny is labeled "yummy" and "totally delicious" I was suspicious. Methinks the bunny doth protest to much. Sure enough it was revolting. It tasted like way-too-sweet syrupy wax. Also, I can't get over how sad it is to bite into a hollow bunny. Good thing I was only out a buck.

The next one I tried was a Dove bunny. This one had some clear improvements over Mr. braggy bunny. First off it was solid chocolate. The chocolate was rich and not too sweet. In fact it was exactly like the smaller dove chocolates except larger and in the shape of a bunny. I don't know why I expected something different. It was more of an investment at $3.50, but it was superior in every way to the first test rabbit. Given how many choco bunnies I will probably go through, I have imposed a 5 dollar limit per bunny. The search must go on!

After testing bunnies we did the next logical thing, we tried to see how many Peeps we can stuff in our mouths at one time.

Our friend AJ successfully got 5 marshmallow fowls into his mouth.

I got 10. I think I had room for one or two more but the little dudes kept pushing on my gaggy ball.

Tune in next time for more bunny tests, but in the mean time, we are having Hanging With the Hill's first contest. I will find the most delicious chocolate bunny and award it to the individual who can shove the most peeps in his or her mouth. Here are the rules

1. You must have a witness.

2. You must be able to completely close your mouth.

3. I want a picture.

Just cram, snap a pic, and send it to me jaredrhill@yahoo.com . The person with the most peeps gets a choco bunny.

Goodbye to winter (I hope)

Frozen families and sharing the addiction

If you're looking for something really fun for your family to do, let me suggest something you should stay away from: ice fishing. I know what you're thinking, how can standing outside in freezing weather and dipping smelly fish bait into the water unsuccessfully for an hour not be a blast? Well, its not, despite the cheesy grin on my face.

Mikkena was excited to go. She had a vision of fish jumping out of the ice and landing on a bed of ice cream. It's too bad no matter how much you believe, ice fishing is still cold and boring.

At least Amber didn't freeze. At least I think that's Amber.



PLUS!

Recently, we had our nephew/cousin Deacon over for the night. The evening started out normally with dinner at Olive Garden. But after we stuffed him full of candy things started to get a little weird.

After the sugar wore off, we settled down for a movie and popcorn.

If any one else needs a break from a little kid and doesn't mind them coming back with a sugar addiction give us a call, we still haven't satisfied the baby hunger.

Always looking for an excuse to do something stupid (for charity)

I've done my share of stupid things. I once took Mikkena river rafting rafting on the Provo River during spring run-off. In high school I continued to drive my van for a month after the break lines were cut. But now that I've gotten a little older I confine all (most) (OK some) of my risk taking to charity. That's why I jumped at the opportunity to, um, jump into a frozen lake to support the special Olympics of Utah. I put together a plunge team of troubled youth (it seemed to fit), and raised $300 in sponsorships.

The location was the beautiful, pristine, and tropical Utah lake. I don't know many people that want to swim in Utah Lake when it's 90 degrees out, so I was surprised by the amount of people who wanted to jump into it when it was frozen. After they cut a hole in the ice I could see that it was as disgusting as ever. I don't know why I was surprised by the nastiness. I guess I expected the water to be less nasty because it was so cold. But no, there it was nasty and frozen. I was kind of hungry so my plan was to jump in with my mouth open and just see what happened.

This is a shot of the "maybe this isn't such a good idea" thought I get sometimes. But I ignored it and it went away like it always does.

I'm not breathing in this picture, that didn't start again for another minute or so.





2/3rds of my brain froze, so I think I'm missing some memories, but suddenly I had a doughnut in my hand. I wanted to meet the genius who thought it was a good idea to hand the plungers a doughnut while they were still dripping with pond scum. But after I ate the little bacteria-infested crud-soaked delicious morsel I understood. MMMMMM Good!

Thanks for everyone who sponsored me, especially Stacie for the last-minute pull-through so we could meet our goal! Without you, my stupidity wouldn't have had a cause. I think we should have more of these. I'm thinking dodging traffic for the homeless, or cliff jumping for cancer or something like that.

Evil Christmas-Hating Tomatoes

After a wonderful Christmas Eve with family, we decided to settle in for the night. Mikkena asked if she could wake us up as soon as she woke up for presents the next morning. Knowing that this was going to be a bad idea, I reluctantly agreed. She smiled and went to bed. I kissed Amber goodnight, and waited expectantly for Christmas morning. It seemed like everyone was looking forward to a nice Christmas morning, everyone except the tomatoes......

12:30 AM Christmas morning the tomatoes attacked, and they brought with them their dear friend Eddie, the Christmas puke.

This picture location is merely coincidental.


From 12:30 Am until 10:00 AM Amber was back and forth from the bathroom throwing up. I tried my best to support her, I got her ice-chips, went to the gas station to buy Sprite and crackers, but mostly all I could do is say "Oh Honey", or "I'm so sorry you're sick" after every puke. The saddest part of the story happened at 6:30 Am when Mikkena woke me up beaming, "Can we open presents now, Daddy?" "Wait, what's that sound?"


HUUUGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!


"Dad, what's going on in the bathroom?"


HUUUGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!


"Its nothing sweety we'll come get you when mommy's done"

The ironic part of this wonderful Christmas story is that Amber is an extremely picky eater. She won't eat or drink any food that is even nearing its expiration date. Amber decided recently to try to waste less food. Instead of throwing the evil, Christmas-hating tomatoes away, she scraped the mold off and ate them anyway.

Christmas 2008 took another bad turn when I went to work at 3:00 for a swing shift followed by the grave-yard shift. Between my "Oh, honeys" and getting ice chips, I probably landed 2 hours of sleep (which was two hours longer than Amber). I tried to sleep, but guilt is powerful when your wife is puking her guts out.

For those of you that have never gone 48 hours without sleep, I suggest you try it at least once. I got to a point during my grave shift (around 5:30 AM) when I stopped being able to perform routine tasks. It took me almost three minutes to open a door, and at another point I got up and walked out on a conversation I was having with another employee in mid-sentence.





Well that's the poor-us wrap up! I hope your Christmas went better than ours. What was your worst holiday experience?