Blast From The Past!

Shelley's sister Gretchen has been in town to visit and has brought with her a high-speed scanner and her expertise as an independent consultant with the company Heritage Makers. We went to town finding all our old photos (pre-digital camera age) and had Gretchen scan them so we could make sure that we save them. As we searched for all our old photos we also found old journals, scrap books and memorabilia from our past. It has been so fun reading old journals and looking at old pictures of our younger lives while reliving so many good times. It is also great fun to try to understand why we thought certain hairstyles and clothes were cool. I can't believe some of the things we wore.
The thing that is so abundantly clear is that we (I better say "I" so that I don't include Shelley in this missive) am getting old. In reading journals of when I was 14-15 years old, I can't believe that Lindsey is that age. It is hard to comprehend that a whole generation has passed since I was Lindsey's age. I remember my mother and others telling me how fast time flies and to slow down and enjoy the small moments but I just brushed it off. Now I understand. I found myself saying the EXACT same thing to my kids on Friday night.
We were also blessed to have Shelley's grandmother, in town to visit. Grandma L. is our kid's great-grandmother and made three generations of family able to enjoy one another's company. What a blessing. I can't stop time from flying but I can enjoy the small and simple things that happen every day. I may be twenty years slow in learning this lesson but maybe I am finally starting to get it.

Austin Basketball 2009

Austin is playing basketball for the first time this year and is loving it. He is doing well and is the tallest boy on his team. He keeps count of how many rebounds he gets, how many times he dives on the floor for loose balls and how many steals he gets. He gets his fair share of baskets but really loves defense and getting on the ground. He seems to find being on the ground a natural place to be.

Austin's team is the Tornadoes and has a great coach and teammates. He is playing with many of the same kids he has played soccer with for years. He is very lucky to be able to have such great friends and coaches. Go Tornadoes!

Arizona Cardinals 2009 Super Bowl

I know it is seems completely out of the realm of possibility but my dreams have come true and the Arizona Cardinals have reached the playoffs. Team Tanner has had a great time watching the Cardinals run through the playoffs as they beat the Falcons, Panthers, Eagles and now play the Steelers in the Super Bowl.

Austin (8 years old) has been a huge fan for several years and knows all the players, their stats and what their strengths and weaknesses are. He lives and dies by their wins and losses. He knows many of their plays, what the penalties are and when bad calls are made. For the Carolina Panthers game, Austin even went as far as to make tickets to the game (in our media room), make attendees promise to cheer for the Cardinals, and provided them seating arrangements. Austin has worked hard to recruit Cardinal fans from among his Texas friends. Many of them are on board and aren't really sure why except that Austin is very persuasive. One of his little friends Jaxon Copeland even went so far as to get a Cardinals jersey and full uniform including Cardinals helmet for Christmas. He almost started to cry when the Cardinals fell behind to the Eagles. Now that is a true fan (good job Jaxon)

The most bizarre story of all is when we were in New Jersey for a wedding last week, we saw some kids playing football in a local park and two of them had Cardinals jerseys on. This was in the middle of Giants and Jets territory and they were sporting Arizona jerseys. This my friends was a true miracle.

It has been so much fun going through the playoffs with Austin, Lindsey, Nikki and Shelley. They have been watching the games and are decked out in their Cards uniforms, hats and lucky gear. We are just trying to enjoy each step of the way knowing we may not be back here for a while. Win or lose in the Super Bowl it has been a great ride. GO CARDINALS!!

(Picture above is a pic after the Cardinals earned the right to go to the Super Bowl and the team was celebrating on the TV behind us.)

Lindsey in Choir

It's not a huge surprise to most of my friends and family, but I'm not really good at posting very often :) I'm glad Len figured out how to post, so now we might have more entries to our "history". Lindsey and her friend Allie had their first choir concert a couple weeks ago. It's a long story and involved several late night discussions, but the first week of school, Lindsey decided to drop out of Band. She had played clarinet for 2 years. She realized she wasn't loving it and after singing her Duet in church with Poppy, discovered that she really liked to sing! So she decided Band wasn't for her, and her electives this year are Spanish (since it's almost the primary language in Texas :) ), Choir and Yearbook. She is really enjoying yearbook. They get a cool pass and special access to all the athletic events to get good pictures.

Campfire Night in Texas

A few weeks ago our family and a group of friends went to a large park for a night of fun, campfire and games. I am taking the liberty of using the post of one of the families that was there. Since it has already been written about why do it again, right? I thought I would just "borrow" her words from her blog. Thanks Anne Copeland!

"Growing up in Utah at the base of the Wasatch Mountains I spent a lot of my nights as a teenager in the mountains. A typical weekend consisted of building a campfire and listening to friends play guitar. It is one of my favorite things to do. I never thought such a thing would be possible in Texas but we discovered we could still enjoy the outdoors with a campfire even if we were not in the mountains. A group of us went to Erwin park in Mckinney and found the perfect camping spot. It had lots of maintained grassy area around us so we could play sports while it was light, then it had a great fire pit for the evening. We got up to the spot about 4 in the afternoon and did not leave until closing at 10. One of the funniest highlights of the trip was when Len Tanner, Cameron and Len's daughter Lindsey decided that we needed to move the camp trash can away from our table because there were tons of bees bothering us. The men put on sweatshirts and gloves and planned on running with the trash can while Lindsey stood near by with newspaper on fire to calm the bees..."

[Len talking here - I learned on the Discovery Channel that if you use smoke it calms the bees down. Seemed to work because we weren't eaten alive. BTW, who says watching TV isn't worthy of our time?]

"I have to say it was one of the funniest things to witness...you can see a little of it in the pictures we took. After that we cooked tinfoil dinners over coals and they turned out perfect! We ate our dinners and then roasted marshmallows and sang songs by the campfire while Cameron and Steve played. The highlight is when Cameron played guitar and Len and Steve sang an improv song about the night. We were crying they were both so clever.

Wait for about the one minute mark for the song to start:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2K0YOGT3x6c

The kids told scary stories and made forts in the trees. It just felt like it should, you know the way it was when you were all kids. Free fun loving innocent fun. It was all around a great family night out."

BYU vs. TCU

The night after the BYU fireside (see below) we went to the TCU/BYU football game. Even though the game was in Ft. Worth (which is only about 60 minutes from our house) we wanted to make it feel like a road trip. We rented a hotel room just a couple miles from the stadium and made an event out of it. We met some friends (Anne, Cameron, Jaxon and Sydney Copeland) at the stadium before the game and did some tail gating.

The weather was perfect but the game was not! TCU was amped up and ready to take on BYU which was #8 in the nation at the time. The final score was 32-7. We made the best of the night and enjoyed ourselves. The TCU fans were great and treated all the BYU fans nicely (unlike a Wyoming game Ian and Alyssa Worden and I went to about 10 years ago in Laramie where we were frightened for our lives). Everyone had a good time and we saw lots of our friends at the game.

I feel bad because the last time BYU lost a game was in Tulsa, OK last year and guess what? That was the last game we attended. I think it is best if we stay home when BYU is close to Dallas. We don't seem to be their good luck charms. We have raised some great BYU fans in our kids and they love to watch the team when we get a chance to see them. Plus it is a great way for us to do something fun as a family and enjoy ourselves.

Lindsey and Nikki both have their sights set on BYU-Provo as their college of choice and Austin is thinking a football scholarship would be pretty cool. Ok, the scholarship is my idea but the idea of football, famous and being on TV is his idea of a fun school.

BYU Football Fireside (Dallas, TX)

Since this is a football story I felt it only proper that I (Len) tell this story. Our family had the treat of a lifetime when the BYU football team came to Texas to play the TCU Horned Frogs in Ft. Worth. We were very lucky to have the fireside at our Stake Center on Oct. 15, 2008.

Although the game was a terrible let down (we lost but more on that later), the fireside was a great experience. The picture to the right is Lindsey, Nikki and Austin with BYU's starting quarterback, Max Hall. He is a native of Mesa, Arizona and one of our favorite players.

For those of you that don't know the fireside consists of small talks from a couple of football players and talks by Coach Bronco Mendenhall and his wife Holly. Most of the players sit up on the stand in the choir area so you get to see them. The testimonies/talks were given by starting linebacker David Nixon and starting fullback Fui Vakapuna. We also had receiver Reed White play a nice piano solo. David Nixon is from College Station and Fui used to live in the Dallas area so it was a treat for them to speak at a fireside in their home town area. One of the best parts of the fireside is when all the football players moved up to the choir area and sang "Army of Helaman."

It was a packed house. The chapel and the cultural hall were full. They even put people in the other rooms that had sound. People were packed in the foyer and hallways. We were there about 2 hours early to make sure we got a good seat but we were still barely able to sit in the chapel. We still felt lucky to be close enough to meet the players and have a soft seat for our 2 hour wait.

The Hair Cut

Okay, so we had a deal with Austin. He really wanted to grow his hair out, so we agreed to let him grow it out over the summer and he agreed to cut it the second week of school.

This week was the second week of school...

He was not happy yesterday when he came home from school and I told him we were going to get his hair cut.

Ahhh... there he is! You can actually see his eyes now. He was still not very happy about his hair cut, but I reminded him about his overnight stay in a hotel with Mimi and Poppy coming up the next night - that perked him up.

How things go trying to take a picture... Kindda like our dog, Nash. They get distracted easy.

(Wanna go ride bikes??)

Yep, it's really us...on our own blog!!!!

My friend helped me finally join the world of blogging today. I know that we're not the best at keeping in touch all the time, so I'm hoping this will help a little. I love to read any of yours that we get, so we'll try this out.
We are back in school, and it was a sad day for all of us. We just weren't ready to go back yet. But now that the first week is over, we are getting back in the swing of things. We had a fun summer - mostly hung out here. We had a fun family reunion for my Mom's 60th birthday. For Len's family, you could go to Gretchen's and Emily's blog (if that's okay) and they both have pictures of us all and a little recap. They both told our 'story' and it might be while til I figure out how to do slideshows :) j/k
Austin was baptized on August 23. My grandma, Grandma Lowder was able to come out for his baptism. We were glad to have Mimi and Poppy close by, so they could be there too. Austin asked them both to speak, and of course they did a great job! Lindsey and Poppy sang together (Nearer, My God, To Thee) and Nikki played a song on piano.

How cool to have your Great-Grandma there for your baptism...

My favorite little boy in the whole world!

My boys in white

It was a sweet and simple little baptism.

First day of school....

Austin's the only one left at Elemtary school.

Nikki, our "big" 6th grader. Actually, she's almost the shortest kid in the whole grade.

The king (or queen) of the school now - the 8th grader!