A Little Adventure

We have a great Christmas. We were thinking about going on a hike on Christmas Eve, but we ended up not going. We weren’t feeling the greatest and it didn’t seem like a good idea. We did have our Christmas Dinner on Christmas Eve. For dinner we had: ham, rolls, honey butter, squash, cheesy potatoes and I don’t remember what else. It was very tasty.

After dinner we had a family home evening about the nativity. It really great. Milo was super excited about Christmas. I was lucky to even get him to sleep.

Milo woke up at 6am and got us up. We got Holly up and she was super grouchy. We got Scott’s family on the webcam and started the festivities. Holly got a scooter, a stuffed Boots and Backpack from Dora. They both got an easel with a chalkboard, white board and paper. Milo got a new bike, and a few DS games. Holly didn’t want to do anything but write on the chalkboard. We did finally convince her to open her stocking and the other gifts. Both kids got a DVD or two. Holly got a cash register which she enjoys playing with.

After we opened gifts, we had Christmas breakfast. We had sausage, rice pudding, almond bread and hash browns.

For Christmas dinner, we went to our neighbor’s house. We had a great time. We took a fruit tray and dessert (cake balls and cookies). We had sandwiches, soup, chips, dips, and a veggie tray. The kids enjoyed playing with their friends. We had a great time.

I’m sorry, I didn’t take any pictures. Scott has them and he will post them when he has the opportunity.

We decided to take a trip to Big Bend National Park the weekend before Thanksgiving. We drove to Ft. Stockton and stayed the night and then headed down to the park the next day.

We saw the big things in the park. The first day we went to Boquillas Canyon. The kids loved playing in the sand there. We also went on the Dagger Flat Auto Trail and saw some great yucca plants.

Milo found a stick and played with it the entire time we were here.

We stayed at the Rio Grand Campground that night.

Holly slept fairly well in the tent, but woke up a few times. She was calling her sleeping bag a tunnel. It was hilarious.

Here’s one of the yucca plants.

This is a great little video of Holly climbing. She was climbing all over everything.

The next day we Santa Elena Canyon where the kids were able to play in the sand again. It was a great trip for them.

The next day we went out of the park to Big Bend Ranch State Park and did Closed Canyon. It was fun. It was that day we were able to find out that Real Salt Lake had won the MLS Cup Championship. We were super excited. Yes, we didn’t even watch the game.

The last day we spent in Chisos Basin. We went down the windows trail a bit, but didn’t last long.

In our campsite at Chisos Basin, there was a big rock. Holly kept climbing it. It was crazy. Here’s a picture of her imitating her dad.

We also did a little hiking, but were limited in what we did for the children’s sanity. We enjoyed our trip. Holly and Milo loved playing in the sand and climbing things. Holly climbed on everything. We did leave early the last morning because it turned cold.

Here are my pictures and such. I’m sure Scott will post some when he has a chance.

Milo lost his first tooth on Thursday night. It had been loose for a few weeks. He had started pushing on it with his tongue and it had a bunch of canker sores on it. We felt that we needed to get the tooth out. Scott got it out without any problem. Milo was afraid that it would bleed a lot. It did some, but it was ok. All is well now.

Monica already detailed her top iPhone apps. We do have some overlap, but I am going to give my thoughts on it all. I will also only provide AppShopper links as navigating the App Store through iTunes generally sort of annoys me. AppShopper is really the way to go. I am not going to bother to think about whether these apps work for the iPod Touch…if you own a Touch I presume you can think about that…

Okay…so I was just going through my screens and commenting on the stuff I use a lot. It ended up being longer than I expected. I will do another post soon that covers the games…because I probably have more games than “normal” apps

Omnifocus is my todo list app. It is pretty complicated for a todo list app, but I generally like the GTD approach. I also LOVE iPhone apps that have a desktop client. It fits the bill and the recent update has helped tremendously. 2Do is another great todo app that is a bit cheaper and generally gets good reviews.

1Password is my password keeper application on my desktop. It is fantastic and the iPhone version in nice and syncs with the desktop version. I don’t use it much, but it is nice to have all of my passwords securely stored on my phone when I need them.

Twitbird Pro is my Twitter app of choice. It does cost a bit, but I think I picked it up for free. It allows me to do nearly everything I want with Twitter and doesn’t crash. That is sort of all I ask. I do use the feature that allows me to send links to ReadItLater. That way I can quickly move through the tweets and read the meatier stuff later.

Camera Genius is a camera app that has anti-shake and supports the 3GS touch to focus and expose. Those are my main requirements. It does have some odd issues and is a bit slow to save, but I don’t know of another app with the two features I require.

Weatherbug and The Weather Channel…I am sort of a weather junkie and this pair of apps has served me well. I love Weatherbug because we pull data from a weather station that is about a mile from our house. I feel like I have a better idea of the actual weather at my house that way. I prefer the map interface on The Weather Channel when I am trying to figure out what is going on with the doppler. This has come in handy several times while traveling or deciding whether to travel based on the weather.

Flashlight is an app that I use more than I expected. It is handy when checking on the kids or doing other random tasks at night in our dark house.

ESPN Scorecenter has been my default app for sports scores. It has the European soccer leagues I care about. Recently, I discovered Sportacular which I really like because it uses push notification to tell me when games start/end and goals are scored. Right now it only supports the Premier League, but I hope that they will eventually support the other European leagues, MLS, and most importantly Champion’s League. It is a VERY cool feature…especially when I am at work

Dropbox is a great app to get files on my iPhone. It integrates with the web service that you should know and love. The best feature is that you can favorite files so that they can be downloaded for offline use. Great stuff!

Redlaser is something that I think Monica uses more than I do. It is the best bar code scanner for the iPhone. Being able to quickly scan something and price check can be invaluable.

Pocket Universe isn’t something I use everyday, but it is very handy. Often when camping or looking up at the dark sky before I go to work in the morning I wonder which celestial bodies I am seeing. I don’t wonder anymore…I go to this app and it gives me a real-time map of the sky based on my location data.

GraphiX48 is great because I am an RPN guy. I know there are probably better RPN calculators, but this is comfortable for me as I used an HP calculator through my undergraduate years. I like this one better than the others I have tried.

Clock GT is just a simple clock I use when I am presenting and there isn’t a clock in the room. It is handy and free.

I am not really a music critic. In fact, I know very little about music theory and the like. I listen to a few of the NPR critics and don’t always agree or understand. I do find new music mainly through them though as I haven’t seriously listened to the over the air radio in years. Anyway, here are the 10 songs I loved most this year. You may not like them, but they help me make it through the day at work. Enjoy!

1. Lisztomania by Phoenix – I was a bit slow to jump on the bandwagon here. The album was released in May and lots of folks loved it. I never got into it until I heard it again in November. The album is decent, but I totally LOVE this song. Milo walked in while I was doing this and immediately started singing along

2. Party All the Time by Black Eyed Peas – I am not a traditional fan of this type of pop/dance stuff. I have gotten into it a bit more this year. This song is just fun and keeps me awake. I have often used the phrase, “Let’s rock and roll party people” to indicate it is time to get moving. Given this song has a similar idea it has sort of become a family anthem…just try not to listen to many of the other words outside the chorus…and try not to take the chorus to heart…okay, maybe a bad choice for a family anthem…forget I mentioned it.

3. Temazcal by Monsters of Folk – I am generally not a fan of super groups. I wasn’t planning on grabbing this album, but amazon had it on sale for a couple of bucks. It sounded nice at a time when I was looking for something new, so I grabbed it. I like a few songs on the album, but I think this is the best one. It is slower than the previous two, but I like the beat and the words…that may be due to the mention of the Mayans…I think I have become a bit enamored with the idea of seeing the Mayan sites while living close-ish to them.

4. My Girls by Animal Collective – I am generally not a huge Animal Collective fan, but I latched on to this song for some reason. It has maintained a place on my go to playlist for essentially the whole year. Not too bad…

5. Horchata by Vampire Weekend – I enjoyed the first Vampire Weekend album and was looking forward to the second. They released this track early and I just loved the up tempo song. The lyrics are a bit on the too clever side, but I kind of like it. I was hoping to find more of this on the full album, but I was left wanting…maybe I will have to give it another listen later.

6. Charlie Darwin by The Low Anthem – Probably the most mellow of my favorites. It is a simple song with brilliant lyrics…

7. Gimme Sympathy by Metric – This was my first encounter with Metric. They are a nice straight up rock band. I have several songs from their most recent album on my go to playlist. This is probably my favorite.

8. Dimestore Diamond by Gossip Many of the fans of Gossip and the critics hated this song and album. It actually worked for me. I like the grittiness of the song and the tempo of the song. The lyrics sort of fit into that mood. Overall very nice…

9. Bull Black Nova by Wilco – Shockingly this was my first lasting exposure to Wilco. I often like this style of British band, but I hadn’t found anything from Wilco that I really loved. When they released a new album this year I checked it out and stuck with this track.

10. Fitz and Dizzyspells by Andrew Bird – Probably the most hipster-style band on my list. It is a mellow sound that incorporates Andrew’s amazing ability to whistle. It is relaxing enough that Monica will even voluntarily listen to it

The last day of school before Christmas break was Milo’s holiday party (as well as their Polar Express Day, hence why he is wearing pajamas). I had decided to help with the party. I arrived early to set up. It was a good thing I did as there weren’t many parents who could help. They were able to decorate cookies, have a snack, play bingo, and make a craft. I helped with the sugar cookie table. It was fun. After the party Milo and I walked home. It was a good day! Here are some pictures of Milo at his party.

Scott and I decided to do a photo of the day, starting today. These photos will be published via our Twitter accounts. You can find us at calittle14 and scottLittle. We hope you enjoy the pictures.

A few people I’ve know have gotten either an iPhone or an iPod Touch in the last little bit. I thought I’d do a post about some of my favorite apps and include links for your convenience.

There are a few websites, I’d recommend checking often. The first one is Free App Alert. Each day they tell you which apps have become free. You can get some good apps there. The other website is App Shopper. At this website you can see whether the price has dropped or increased as well as have them e-mail with app updates, if you put the apps you want on your wish list. This is useful so you can know what updates were included for the app. Also if you want to read someone else’s must have iphone apps you can read about them here on App Advice.

Now on to my favorite apps. When you are just starting out, you will need to expect to spent a little money to get some apps.

Groceries – The Grocery Shopping List ($1.99). This app is the best. I like that it has a lot of groceries already programmed in it. Also, you can have lists for different stores and change it around so the groceries are listed in order of how you get them. For instance, I always get my produce first, so that is on top of the list.

A To-Do list. I use OmniFocus, which is only on the Mac and a super expensive app. I really like it and use it all the time. You should look at the to-do apps on App Advice for some other ideas.

Weather Bug (Free). I have both weather apps on my phone. I like weather bug because it gives me an accurate feel for what the weather is currently at home. There is a weather bug station at a nearby school.

Darkroom Pro ($0.99). I got this free, but it is a great photo app that helps with taking better pictures. This is an iPhone app.

Evernote (Free). This is a great little note taking app and can be used on the web as well as on the desktop.

Facebook (Free). If you are on facebook, this is a must.

Flashlight (Free). This app is perfect for when you are up in the night and need a flashlight. I use it when I need to go help the kids.

RedLaser ($1.99). This is an app that I feel all iPhone users need. With this app, you can take a picture of any UPC code and it will tell you if you can get it online and if so, the price. This is a very useful app.

Church Apps – I have several free church apps, that are great.

LDS Radio (Free). This app lets you listen to anything on the Mormon Channel. You can also listen to things like General Conference as well when it is on. It does use up a lot of battery.

You should have a scriptures and hymn app. I use this scriptures app. Although I don’t use it in church. For hymns, I like this one. Both of these apps are free. Also, very useful is the iWard ($3.99) app. It gives you the ward directory on your phone. I like this better than iStake because I don’t have a need for iStake. I’m waiting for the new Gospel Principles manual to come out, but I understand that it is coming soon.

As far as games. You just need to decide why types of games you like. My favorites right now are: Phase 10 ($2.99), Angry Birds ($0.99), and Tap Tap Revenge (Free for now – get now it before the price goes up). I have a lot of other games. There are a lot of games for kids. Just check some out to see if they will work for your kids.

I’ll put in here the podcasts that I listen to. I regularly listen to This American Life and Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me, both of which are NPR podcasts. I also listen to a myriad of church podcasts. You can subscribe to them here. You can decide which ones you’d like. I also listen to audiobooks. You can download some for free at Project Gutenberg. I also get books from the library and them put them on my phone. You can also do this with any audio items you download off the internet and make them into an audiobook. If you want instructions on how to do this in iTunes please contact me and I will e-mail you.

There are apps for basically anything you could want. I have a lot more apps, but these are a few of them. If you have any other questions about any of my apps or which other ones I have, please let me know.

Here are the laptop sized wallpapers (1440×900…which is the resolution of my laptop…) for 2009. Enjoy! If you would like other aspect ratios feel free to drop me an e-mail and I will see what I can do.

Blind prickly pear cactus in Big Bend NP

Boquillas Canyon in Big Bend NP

Boquillas Canyon wall in Big Bend NP

Closed Canyon in Big Bend Ranch SP

Peekaboo Slot in GSENM

Peekaboo Trail in Bryce Canyon NP

Rock texture at Big Bend Ranch SP

Rock texture at Big Bend Ranch SP

Rock texture in GSENM

Rock texture in GSENM

Rock texture in GSENM

Snowy Bryce Canyon NP

The window in Big Bend NP

Thor’s Hammer in Bryce Canyon

Yucca in Big Bend NP

Yucca in Big Bend NP

Yucca in Big Bend NP

Happy Holidays!

After some debate, we decided that the Little family event of the year was our survival of the Texas summer. What a summer it was! Austin has 11 days of 100+ heat on average, but this year we had 67! We escaped the Texas heat with an extended Utah trip in July. We took the scenic route to Utah stopping in the Bisti Wilderness and Southwestern Colorado. In Utah, enjoyed the mountains, RSL games, and visits with family and friends.

Adding a real job and public school to the family schedule has complicated our ability to get out and see the beautiful landscapes around us, but we did successfully arrange schedules a couple of times this year. Thanks to some extra “vacation”, Scott found himself in Southern Utah for a fantastic week-long adventure with some friends and his boss(!). The weather was a bit colder than is ideal, but the landscape did not disappoint. In November we finally took in some of the beauty of Texas on a trip to Big Bend National Park. It was a fun, relaxing trip. We did some kid appropriate hiking and got a better idea of what Big Bend has to offer.

Milo has made tremendous progress this year. He loves playing outside with the neighbor kids. He took swimming lessons this summer and progressed from being afraid to get in the water to being able to do basic swimming strokes. It was a change for Milo’s water-phobic parents to spend so much time at the pool. Apparently we will all learn a few new things in this strange land of Texas. Milo recently learned to ride a two-wheel bike and loves to ride all around the neighborhood with his friends. Milo is now in first grade. He likes his teacher and going to school to play with his friends. He still claims to like recess best, but his interest in reading has recently taken off.

Holly is our two and a half year old rambunctious toddler. We struggle to keep up with her. She loves to watch movies, read books, and play outside with her friends. She has started a playgroup with some kids her age two times a week and enjoys that most of the time. Holly insists on doing everything herself which makes life even more interesting.

Scott is somewhat miraculously still employed. The rough economy coupled with a strategy to overhaul parts of the company has resulted in the majority of his team members being let go (only he and his boss remain on the previously six member team). He is still learning a lot and struggling to accept the realities of a real job. Monica is continually trying to keep up with the family and all that is associated with it. While Holly is at playgroup, she does get a few things done during the day. She also enjoys going walking on the trail near our house 3 days a week.

Have a great holiday season!

Scott, Monica, Milo, & Holly

And of course as bonus web content we have the 2009 Little Family montage. The photos are in rough chronological order from top left to bottom right.

2009 Little family montage (medium version)
2009 Little family montage (large version…big enough to see good detail on the photos at full size)