Among the major highlights of the last quarter is Ashley's third birthday. We celebrated by taking her to a local establishment called the Cache Valley Fun Park. This facility has an enormous play-land area. Large enough for myself to climb around the tubes and shoot down the slides. I didn't even get stuck once. Although, my knees were grateful when it was time to grab some chicken stars and head home for cake.

In the days leading up to Ashley's birthday Andrew embarked on the whole new world of solid foods. As you would expect from our posterity, Andrew likes food. He embraced the solid stuff from the first slurp, and is still eating like a horse.

I feel fortunate to still be employed as the economy is taking it's toll at Utah State University. Work started getting weird when the university issued a mandatory week-long furlough for all employees during spring break. After getting over the idea that I was getting a cut in my salary for the year, I was grateful that USU gave us the time off for the missing compensation. We decided to take full advantage of the week together as a family.

Our main activity was a day trip to the exotic land of Ogden, Utah. We descending from Cache Valley to visit the Treehouse Children's Museum on tip from a friend at work. Ashley loved the place. We arrived early in the day and stayed to well into the afternoon. Ashley was on the young end of many of the activities and exhibits, but she still enjoyed herself. And, I see us going back for many years to come.

A price we pay for living in the paradise that is Logan is the occasional spring snow storm, of which we've had a few this year. Spring break, the first week of March, actually opened with a hefty snowfall. There was enough fresh powder to build a snow princess in the backyard. Today was actually the first time that our entire yard was vacant of snow this year. It was a nice day.

Another nice day was a few Saturdays back when we met the rest of the McAllister cousins in Salt Lake for a free Real Salt Lake soccer game. The team opened up the stadium and invited the public to watch the final preseason match between RSL and a second division side. The weather cooperated perfectly, so that our three families - mine, Jenna's and Julia's - combined to nearly take over a section of the soccer stadium.

On a somber note, we enjoyed gathering relatives on Amber's side of the family as we honored the life of her aunt Mary who passed away this last month. Mary always liked to have fun, and thoroughly enjoyed life. She will be missed, but we know she is much more comfortable without having to deal with the pains of mortality any longer.

That's about it from us. Pictures of the described events will follow soon in shutterfly. As always, if you don't receive our shutterfly emails and you would like to please let us know and we'll get you on the list.

Amber and I learned a valuable lesson this year. Christmas morning we were so excited to watch Ashley as she opened her presents. So excited, in fact, that we were the ones waiting for her to wake up before we could start!

We started with the stockings, where Ashley would say, "ooooh! I'm gonna share that one," to every present that she saw - no matter if it came from her stocking or not.

When we moved to the tree we were still getting situated while Ashley was already diving under the tree ready to pull all the paper she could see. In the rush she opened two presents before we could really get started. The only problem with that was the second present was a DVD with Ashley's favorite character in all of existence, Sleeping Beauty, on the cover.

After looking in awe at the glossy packaging for a few seconds, Ashley stood and requests to put on a dress (preparation for nearly all activities) and watch the movie. We asked if she wanted to open any of her other presents, to which she repeatedly answered, "No!"

It took a lot of coaxing, but Ashley finally sat and enduring unwrapping all of her other less important presents - hardly ever taking her eye off of Sleeping Beauty. We now know which present we should have let her open last.

[DISCLAIMER: The general idea of the following story is true. However, the precise details may be slightly inaccurate as I received the bulk majority of the proceedings second-hand. Plus, this whole thing took place over three weeks ago. But, with so many of you who pledge your allegiance to the school with the Y, I figured this story must be told.]

In between Thanksgiving and Christmas we gathered up the family and headed down to Salt Lake for the USU-BYU basketball game held at the Energy Solutions Arena, where the Utah Jazz play their home games.

Rather than make the kids sit in a crowded arena for the entire night, after sitting in the car for much of the afternoon, and thanks to the kindness of Jenna and the Perego kids, Ashley and Andrew spent the evening with their cousins while Amber and I went to the intense game.

Since Jenna is twice a graduate from Brigham Young she also had interest in the game and had it playing on the radio during dinner. Her kids were already accustomed to cheering for the Cougars and they were trying to get Ashley to do the same.

But, our first born held strong. The closest she got to saying 'Go Cougars' was 'Go Coogies!' Then when she heard the radio announcer say Aggies Ashley threw both fists into the air and shouted 'Go Aggies!'

Jenna's oldest child, Joshua, was perplexed as to why anyone related to him would cheer for a school other than BYU. Jenna explained that Ashleys parents were Aggies from Utah State, and they didn't cheer for the Cougars. Apparently this touched Joshua and the other children as they all began to cheer for the Aggies. By the end of the night Josh was even disappointed when the Aggies lost the game.

Thanks to Ashley's influence we should be expecting Joshua in Logan when it's time for him to start college.

We took the whole family to the Utah State basketball game last week against Weber State. We had mixed results with Ashley and the boisterous atmosphere of the basketball games last season, so we weren't sure what to expect this time around.

To our surprise Ashley sat in her seat for most of the game, watched the action on the court intently, and even clapped with the crowd every time the Aggies scored. She eventually got bored, after all she is only two, and began to fidget around our seats. What brought her attention back to the court every time was the music over the loud speaker.

Of course, it wasn't so much the tunes or the beat, but the Aggie Dancers that got Ashley's attention. For most of the second half, when ever the dancers were out performing Ashley could be seen mimicking their actions from her seat. So cute.

While slugging through some code tonight my mind made a valiant effort of escaping the after hours torture I was putting it through. The thought of a conversation I had with Ashley this past Sunday came to mind.

Just as our sabbath day was winding down Amber and I went to great lengths to plan an evening with brownies without Ashley learning of it. After all, we were trying to get her to bed. We were perfect in keeping our secret all afternoon and evening. So well, in fact, that for a split second I had forgotten that the dessert was a secret when I uttered the word 'brownies' while carrying a tired Ashley up the stairs.

As the sound of my transgression lingered in the air, I paused hoping Ashley hadn't noticed. Maybe she was already asleep on my shoulder, right? Wrong. For the following two minutes, while preparing for bed, Ashley repeated the phrase, "Mommy's making brownies." In frustration, I ignored her, hoping that the subject would change her train of thought. I didn't.

After hearing my blunder repeated over and over, in defeat I finally said, "Ashley, I don't know what Mommy is doing."

With a look of concern that I had some how missed the point that she was trying to make, Ashley leaned in as if to fill me in on a secret. After making eye contact Ashley explained with a nod, "she's making brownies."

Sometimes it's okay to backtrack in a blog. I know there have been many events that have been note worthy recently, but there is one night I wanted to be sure to post about. We would like to share with you our first night at the opera.

A few weeks back (or possibly a month or so) one of my co-workers double-booked himself and needed to off-load some tickets to the Utah Festival Opera. Normally I would have passed on such an offer, but this particular performance was for children. The show, entitled The Carnival of the Animals, was a short production narrated by Michael Ballam. Had we known that he was going to be the only character, and that he would spend the entire evening reading from a chair we might have hesitated taking Ashley.

We could have taken the hint from the nice lady taking tickets at the entrance, when she stopped us and asked how old Ashley was. We told her, and she responded with the information that there was normally a four year age limit for members of the audience. She politely instructed us to see what the folks at the ticket window had to say about the matter.

After braving the line to get to the window - good thing we were uncharacteristically early - we talked to the nice girl who told us the same information about the age limit. However, she followed it up with the fact that she couldn't force anyone with a ticket out of the theater. We decided to take the chance and pray that our seats were near an exit - or at least an aisle.

With that in mind our seats were awful. From a spectator perspective they were awesome! We were on the second row of the balcony, directly in front of center stage - the farthest possible point from any one aisle. To her credit, Ashley behaved as good as you could ask for a two-year-old. She followed the story fairly well, and could be heard, through out the theatre, exclaiming, "Kangaroo!" or whatever animal the narrator was talking about at the time.

An enjoyable evening all around, and probably not our last trip to a cultured event with Ashley.

We tried something new this week. Even though we have seen the frisbee golf course that surrounds Amber's office, we had not given the skillful sport a try. To be honest, the 4-foot polls with chain link baskets were just another piece of the scenery. That is until I joined the youth from our church for activity at the course a few weeks back. After tossing the disc around for a quick nine holes I knew it was something we could do as a family - even with Amber pregnant.

The following week we headed up to campus where the course weaves through various dorm buildings at the university. With our USU ID cards we were able to check out proper saucers, and we set out to our first hole. Ashley was ecstatic to be holding a pink disc. I built on my experience from the previous week with the youth making conservative tosses that were safe and practical. Amber, on the other hand, went for distance on her first try. The idea was good, although she ultimately ended up in a tree before getting to the basket. No big deal, these things happen. And, I was able to shoot it down with only a few (dozen) throws of my own disc.

The second hole was even more fun than the first as we didn't get completely stuck in any local vegetation - although we came close to whacking a dorm room window...twice. The evening was progressing into an enjoyable one until the sidewalk reached up and hooked Ashley's feet out from under her. She came crashing down to the concrete with a smack. More shaken up than actually hurt, Ashley was done with frisbee golf - which meant so were we. Our game was postponed on account of injury. Amber and I will have to return soon to finish up the last six holes.

The city of Logan maintains a tradition of holding their fireworks celebration on the night of July 3rd. We're not sure of the official reason, but our theory is so that they don't compete with the shows down south in the state. Having the local show the night before has usually worked out well for us, as I have had to be in Salt Lake over the last few years for soccer games on the Fourth.

This year, however, Real Salt Lake moved their Independence Day game to the third in order accommodate ESPN's schedule. The result was that while I worked the game in Salt Lake (you can find my story here) Amber and Ashley caught the Logan fireworks with some old friends, the Littles.

Our Fourth started with a drive up Logan Canyon where we hiked the Limber Pine trail. We heard that it was not a strenuous route, so we took that as meaning it could handle a jogging stroller. There were some tricky spots, but the stroller totally worked out. Taking an easy pace, we enjoyed the wild flowers that lined the trail, beautiful mountain scenery of the canyon surrounding it, and the majestic overlook of Bear Lake toward the end of the walk.

In our last post we mentioned that grilling drumsticks was our favorite summer treat. We lied. Sorry, we'll try not to let it happen again. I had forgotten about another fun creation we learned to grill last summer - pizza. It's a fun meal to make, and yummy to eat.

The day ended with a trip out to Lewiston to partake in their tradition of fireworks. The show was great, and lasted about as long as Ashley cared to watch. She loved to watch the pretty colors in the sky. And when ever there was a break in the action she would ask, "More poka-dots!?"

I have tainted my daughter.

Traveling home from Orem along a crowded Interstate-15 on Sunday night I was struck with a sudden and intense pang of hunger. In my haste to find food I followed Amber's suggestion and reached into the pocket of the driver-side door for a granola bar. My fingers searched through the dark for an opening in the box, and as they glided over the smooth cardboard they reached the edge only to be welcomed with the sharp ridge of paper product that ripped mercilessly into the top layer of skin.

My reaction was quick and instinctive. I began flinging my hand back and forth through the air and cried, "DANGIT!"

No sooner had the words left my mouth when I heard an echo of, "Dangit", from the two-year old passenger in the back seat.

The incident was noted and then quickly forgotten until today when Amber reported that Ashley received a paper cut. As she grimaced from the pain, Ashley looked up at Amber and said, "Dangit!" What kind of father am I?

The only thing for sure that I can tell you about potty training your child is that the title of the book 'Potty Training in Less than a Day' is a lie. At least, it is for us. We courageously followed the books instructions expecting Ashley to be fully in control of her bowels by the end of the day and were sorely disappointed.

Actually, we decided that the principles didn't match our parenting style....err something....and we chose to continue helping Ashley learn how to keep her paints dry without a diaper.

That was ten days ago. And, even though she's not perfectly dry at all times, Ashley is getting better. She made it almost all the way through church without any major catastrophes. Credit goes to Ashley and Amber for that feat. I have had little to do with the whole process as it happens mainly while I'm at work.

Speaking of work, the project that has been keeping me busy since August is about to wrap. We have been developing an application called Tree Browser for the USU Forestry Extension. We used a brand new technology - brand new to us anyways - called Flex to build it. Take a look at our development site. Now, because it's a development area I can't promise it will always be up and working, but it should remain usable at this point. However, if you could let me know if you have any problems with it, that would help us greatly.

Amber concluded her season of church basketball yesterday. You could always spot her on the court as the one wearing the biggest smile during the games. Her team played well enough through the season to earn a spot in the area tournament. The played hard in an intense, but still fun, game in the opening round and lost. Even in defeat, Amber was still beaming as the teams shook hands.