The Cramer Family

Kyle Whittingham might be my friend

Dan — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 05:51:53 +0000

Even though I want his to team to lose badly on Saturday, it’s nice to know that Kyle might be someone I know, because of our BYU connection.

The Homework Dilemma

Dan — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 05:08:24 +0000

So Tammy and I have been having a discussion about homework lately. I’m coming down on the side that kids in elementary don’t need to have any homework at all, while Tammy thinks that it is an important piece in their educational experience. I don’t really remember doing that much homework in elementary school (my parents assure me that I did), so of course I’m adding that to my list of reasons why they shouldn’t do so much homework.

I’m basing a lot of what I’m thinking about this on two articles by Orson Scott Card about homework. Basically he is in the camp of ‘kids need to be kids’ and that homework puts too much stress on the kids and the parents. Now Card can be very polarizing in his writing, but these are two well written articles that make me think about the issue. For me this is ‘Strong Opinion, Weakly Held’ and the next more convincing article I read about the merits of homework could remove the whole argument. But until that happens I will resist the teachers tyrannical rule! (Only after the boys are asleep of course).

Floor Demolition

Dan — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 23:18:25 +0000

Living in Utah

Dan — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 15:02:40 +0000

Looks like the week coming up has everything available in the weather spectrum. We’ve got your wind, rain, lightning, snow, sun and partial clouds!

The boys start up soccer tonight. They have Monday practices and games Wednesday and Saturday. I don’t know if I’m ready to be a ‘Soccer’ family, but it will be fun to get them out there running with the bunch.

Gavin

Dan — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 23:45:18 +0000

What we’ve been up to the last month

Dan — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 15:05:52 +0000

Lunching with Bea

Sledding at Grandma’s

Rocking New Years

Gavin and Mommy strutting their stuff

Getting silly with the popsicles

Today’s the Day! Where is Jeff headed on his Mission?

Dan — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 15:50:16 +0000

View Larger Map

Geebers turns One!

Dan — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 15:38:59 +0000

What a lucky kid. Gavin got 2 birthday parties for his first birthday. One on the actual day and one on Sunday. This way Steven and Eb and Scott and Nicole could both take part in the fun.

We even got 2 smash cakes for Gavin. He didn’t really dig in too much, but he was definitely messier with the second. Something about the frosting just didn’t jive with him.

Owen "helping" Gavin play with his toy.

Not too sure what to think of the candle. But he did try to blow it out.

Silly Uncle Steven

We had a great time, and Gavin got some cool toys. His favorite is a dinosaur ball ramp thingy .

You can see all the photos here

Woffinden Family Christmas Party

Dan — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 15:31:53 +0000

On Saturday we braved the snow storm to travel down to Benjamin UT, for the annual Woffinden family Christmas Party. Tammy has a Great Aunt who lives in Benjamin who has adopted us as he grand kids, so it is a great time. And to make things even better, she has a COOKING DEGREE!

The drive down was a little hairy (passed 3-4 accidents along the way) but we made it alright. Once there we had a good time talking with family while we waited for Santa to arrive. Yeah that’s right, SANTA came to Benjamin UT for this party. The boys were very excited to go, and because of the relatively small number of kids there they got to be right up in the middle of it all. Even so much as helping Santa with his sack.

Both of the boys got to sit on Santa’s lap and tell him what they wanted for Christmas (Owen:Shake and Go Racer, Braeden:Dinosaur Factory). Gavin was NOT a huge fan of Santa, so we get to add to the “Kids afraid of Santa” pool. When you think about it though, Santa is pretty freaky. And the whole “Breaking and Entering to leave presents” concept could easily be misinterpreted :).

Besides scarring Gavin for life, we had a great time down in Benjamin. We even got a nice family picture with the big guy, but you can see that Gavin is still very aware of where Santa is at all times. You never know when he might try to get you!

And one more of Tammy, because I think she looks really hot in this picture:

I am one lucky guy I’ll tell you what! You can see the rest of the photos here:

Thanksgiving Trip 2007

Dan — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 18:38:24 +0000

If your idea of fun is strapping in 2 five year olds, a one year old and a dog into a minivan and driving for 11 hours, have I got a trip for you!

Saturday Nov 17

We left on Saturday the 17th at a reasonable hour (not 4am or 5am as Tammy’s Parent’s are known to do). Thanks to the DVD player and DS the boys were actually really good for the whole trip. The last hour got a little rough when all the boys together decided that they no longer cared to be in the car. Owen and Braeden expressed this by hitting and fighting each other, Gavin resorted to monotone talk/yelling over and over. But fortunately we had a nice GPS (thanks Mom!) that could give the boys updates on how close we were to getting out of the car (we still averaged 3-4 “Are we there yet?”s per hour, but it could be easily deflected by pointing at the map.

Sunday

Attended the Vacaville Stake Conference and afterwards took a nice walk at Lagoon Valley on the West Side of Vacaville. The Owens have 3 dogs, so with the addition of our Winston, we had quite the pack of dogs/boys going through the park.

Monday

I took Winston out “hunting” at Dad Owen’s hunting club. Bill wanted to see if Winston was gun shy so we had him out on a leash. Once it was established that he wasn’t gun shy we hit the field. For a city dog he did ok, but the best part was when Starr flushed a pheasant while Winston was falling into a ditch. I heard a yelp, and saw him pulling himself out of the ditch soaking wet, while Starr brought back the bird.

After hunting we took a trip to the Jelly Belly factory. We had a great time looking at all of the many different robots and belts that produce some great Jelly Beans.

Tuesday

We went into San Francisco today and spent the day at the Exploratorium. That place is HUGE! We all got to do a bunch of fun experiments. One of the boys favorite was the bubble wall where they could make some massive bubbles. Even Gavin was having fun, even though he couldn’t get down and dirty like the boys, he still was having fun watching everything that was going on.

After the Exploratorium we went to Ghirardelli Square to get some ice cream. With 5 hungry boys we ordered 2 “Earthquake” plates. 16 scoops of ice cream total! and those boys DEVOURED it! As you can see from the picture, we were the entertainment for the onlookers that night.

After ice cream we went over to Pier 39 to walk around and see the Sea Lions. Got some great pictures of the boys and Tammy (smoking hot I may add).

I wanted to get a bread bowl with clam chowder, delicious.

Wednesday

Took it easy, did a little shopping to prepare for the big meal.

Thursday

Had some great Turkey and delicious cheesecake.

Friday

Tammy and her mom braved the Black Friday mob and actually found everything on their list!

Saturday

Went to Chris and Erin’s house and then over to the Northstar Christmas Tree farm to help Mom and Dad and Chris and Erin pick out their Christmas Trees. There was a merry go round for the kids and we all went on the wagon ride OF FURY!! (read: nice and slow to start, but scary fast in the middle/end portion)

Sunday Nov 25

On the road again! Now packed in twice as tight with the presents that Tammy and Mom found on Friday. Once again the DVD and DS proved invaluable for the entire ride. We even visited a Redbox in Elko and got another movie for the boys for the ride home. Not too shabby.

We had a blast in Northern California and can’t wait to go back again. It’s always fun to see the family that you don’t get to see as often.

You can see all the pictures we took from the trip on my flickr account