The Name Game

Tiffany wanted me to post this public-service announcement...

We've decided to let you all participate in a poll to decide the name of our next child. Please choose one first and middle name from each category. All entries must be submitted before mid-April, 2009. More complete instructions may be provided in December.

Girl
First names:
Gwynevere
Morgan
Miriam
Liberty

Middle names:
Lillian/Lily
Eleanor
Elizabeth
Anne
Rae

Boy
First names:
Ian
Gideon
Jackson
Ryan

Middle names:
Shawn/Sean
Daniel
Joseph
Michael
Andrew

We look forward to your responses. We really do.

So That's What My Brother-In-Law Looks Like

Tonight I got an invite to my little sister's reception. It's crazy to think that after my little sister has been married for over a month now, that tonight was the first time I actually got to see a picture of my new brother-in-law. They're cute together:


I'm looking forward to driving up to Utah next weekend to get to see these crazy kids.

The Return of Jonny Bloggin (and James Bloggin Too!)

It's been a long while since I've put any family pictures up, and we had lots of good ones over the past several months that I figured I would share.

This first one is James and George (Pierce Nichols' little boy) at a birthday party for Jonny and James last December. Tiff got that big plastic tub, and filled it full of pinto beans for the kids to play with. I'm sure the Banks family is still finding beans hiding in their garage!


Jonny really likes the camera, and every time we try to take a picture of him doing something cute, he tries to get us to give him the camera. He's definitely a technophile.


This is Jonny, demonstrating that his Tool-Fu is strong.


James on the other hand takes after his mom--he's probably going to be a musician.


I've always been impressed though with Tiff's ability to improvise. Here's the "sled" she came up with for the boys so they could play in the snow.


Of course in this picture, with all the layers Tiff put on him, James looks like "Ralphie" from that movie "A Christmas Story".


Here's Jonny and James being GQ.


This was from Sunday. I'm glad Jonny and James get along so well. They're both a bunch of laughy-heads.


Especially James.

Name Transfusion

My little sister, Jennifer successfully earned her "Mrs. Degree" yesterday up in Utah. The name transfusion was also successful, and she now has a new last name. Walton or Walten or something like that. I'd actually know for sure, and I'd probably even post a picture of the happy sappy couple if anyone had bother to send me one.

As it is, I started hearing rumors a few weeks ago that Jenny was dating some "Returned Missionary". Apparently even though he lived on the opposite side of town (and of course neither of them had a car) he was walking her home and staying up talking on her front porch till 1am on a regular basis. Having been there and done that myself, I knew what the signs meant, and figured there was a decent chance I was going to be hearing about an engagement at some point in the near future. After all, Tiff and I had only been dating in such a manner for three weeks when we got engaged.

So I get a call from my sister Monday, squeakily announcing that they were getting married, and that I ought to see if I could get some time off in the next three weeks to come up and meet him. I asked if they had picked a date, and they said no. Then I hear later on in the day that they actually meant that the wedding itself was going to be within the next three weeks, but the Salt Lake Temple was booked solid through the end of the month. So I figured, ok that'll give me some time to arrange for a Friday off, and get caught-up on work after being gone most of last week. No problem.

Then I get a call later in the day telling me that they had picked a date--this Friday. By the way, yes, having a 4 day engagement does strike me as clinically insane too. My parents had a short engagement (first date week before Thanksgiving, engaged at Thanksgiving, married between Christmas and New Years), but less than a week is impressively fast. Of course this meant that I wasn't able to make it. I haven't even seen a picture of the guy, talked with him, or even chatted with him on the intertubes. He's a nice guy from what I hear. Name is Allan or Allen or something like that [Edit: It turns out it's Alan...Hey, at least I was close!]. Apparently he did the same thing I did (started college at BYU at 16), but he switch majors enough that he didn't graduate before his mission. When he got home, some of his old best friends convinced him to transfer down to George Wythe College (the little ~100 student liberal arts school my siblings have all gone to so far) just in time to meet Jen.

Anyhow, in spite of slight annoyances at being kept completely out of the loop like this, I am happy for them. Hopefully I'll actually get to meet the guy sometime in the next month or two or three. Maybe someone can eventually send me a picture as well.

Kids these days.

Thankyou-giving-giving

Well, we made it safely to Utah for Thanksgiving (or Thankyou-giving-giving as Jonny calls it). We ended up driving through the night with a sick Jonny, but we made it ok. I have to say, one of the things I'm most thankful for is for such a wonderful family. And two sweet and silly little boys.

Jonny, Jimmy, and Us Bloggin

Just wanted to put some pictures up since it's been a while:








This last one is an oldie, but one of my favorites. It was a picture from when Tiff and I had just gotten engaged (which was four years ago Friday). It was sitting in my scriptures for most of the past four years, and I realized that I probably ought to scan it in, as I don't think I have any other copies of the picture.


And yes, before I got married, I was actually skinny. Thanks for asking.

New Year's Resolutions

Well, it's a couple of days past that magical time of the year when people start making goals for themselves for the next year. Things have been so hectic the last few days that I'm a little bit behind in my timing, but I wanted to mention a few of my relevant goals in the hopes that some reader might just prod me into accomplishing them.

Educational: Finish that darned thesis!
I'm actually making some headway on this again. I finally found two papers that describe the coupling between a vibrating tube and a fluid...now if I can only figure out what the heck they're doing (terms like "streamfunction-vorticity formulation of the Navier-Stokes equations" make me shudder), I might just finish this thing. Or if I can't figure them out soon, I have a backup topic that my thesis advisor has said he'd support me on--he even sent me the paperwork for filing a new prospectus. I figure I'll pursue both options over the next two weeks, then make a final decision.

Spirituality: Finish the Old and New Testament
I started reading the Old Testament last year as a goal, and managed to keep reading almost every day throughout the year. Alas, some of the days I must have only read one chapter, because I just got into Isaiah. But I slogged all the way through Psalms this time without giving up the will to read/live, so I think I'm in the clear. I won't even comment on Songs of Solomon. Oy vey. I've never finished the Old Testament though, and I've always wanted to do so.

Personal Fulfilment: Get at least one journal article or book accepted for publication.
This may take the form of a "blog book" as some commenters have suggested, or a journal article writeup of my oh-so-ugly thesis topic. Either way, it's about time I actually get some publications under my belt. I sure flap my gums enough and slay my fair share of electrons!

Family: On nights that I get home before his bed time, I'm going to read to Jonny for at least 10 minutes.
I figure that one of the single best things my mom ever did for me was teaching me how to read at a very young age. Once you can read, the world is open at your fingertips more or less.

I also have a fitness goal, but that's personal.

Uh Oh...There Goes The Neighborhood

So, I'm sitting on the couch with Baby James. Little Jonny walks in, turns on the computer and pulls out a chair. Intrigued, I decide to watch. He then proceeds to slide the keyboard out, and pushes the Esc button at just the right moment to cut out of the memory test (which for some reason runs really slow three times in a row on our computer if you don't cut out of it). Amused, I decide to watch a little longer. When the Windows log-on screen came up, he moved the mouse over my name, pressed the button and logged me in...


...I'm not sure wether to be surprised, distrubed, proud, or worried. Probably a little of all of them. One thing's for certain though. This kid's going to end up being a total geek just like his mom and dad. There's no hope for him. He has the "knack".

Oh, and in case you see any blog posts titled "I want my Binky" or "Baby James Barfied on Mr Bear" or some such, you know who to blame now...

Jimmy Bloggin

Just in case you guys have been wondering why blogging has been so "light" over the past several weeks...

Last night, my wife Tiffany gave birth to our third little boy, James Henry Goff, at 8:42pm. With our past experience with premature delivery, we were surprised to find ourselves still waiting almost a week after his due date for James to make his cameo. When we went down for our checkup yesterday, we found that Tiffany was already dilated 2/3rds of the way in spite of not having had hardly any painful contractions. We decided it would be better to induce while we were actually down in Bakersfield, instead of risking her dilating even further and then going into labor before we could reach the hospital.

Fortunately we had packed all of our bags and left Jonny with a babysitter, so we ended up checking in to the hospital around 5:30pm after getting some dinner. Our doctor came and ruptured Tiff's membrane around 6:10 to see if it would induce labor without needing to use a drug like Petosin. Tiff went into labor almost immediately, and within just over two and a half hours, we had ourselves another "little" boy. We found out though that 41 week babies seem to come in slightly bigger sizes than the 34 week ones...

James tipped the scales at 9lb 2oz (literally twice as heavy as Jonny was when he was born), and 21 inches long. I'm really surprised that Tiff was able to sing a solo in church two weeks ago with a kiddo that size taking up all her lung space. He's got long dark hair, and a cute little baby face.

As you can see from this next picture, his lungs were also fully functional...



So far he's mostly been interested in eating, sleeping, dreaming of eating, making stinky messes, and being extraordinarily cute.



The nurses and doctors there at Mercy Southwest Hospital there in Bakersfield were great, and we were back on the road home less than a day from when we were admitted. Tiff's a little worse for the wear, but doing much better now.



The interesting thing is that James is as big as Jonny was when he was 6 or 8 months old. He's about the right size for me to hold in my lap while blogging. I'm sure I'll get a chance to "multitask" a bit in the near future.



When we got back to Tehachapi this afternoon (in the middle of a snowstorm), we picked Jonny up from the babysitters. He was really excited to see his little brother, and was even capable of being gentle with him! Apparently he saves his rough-housing for his Daddy.



Apparently Jonny didn't sleep very well yesterday (and didn't take any naps). So he ended up falling asleep at the tray, so to speak, while eating some Macaroni and Cheese.



Unfortunately he woke up while we were cleaning him off, and refused to go back to sleep. I was totally confused how he could be so full of energy so late at night, until Tiff pointed out that it was actually still barely 8pm. I was surprised because I could've sworn it was nearly midnight. So right now we're up with him wearing him out so he'll go to sleep. That and going through our pictures finding the cutest ones of James to post. We kind of liked this one of James dancing a little jig in his sleep:



So, seeing as how he was born on Boxing Day, does this mean he might end up being a pugilist?

New Addition to the Family...

...blogroll that is. Sorry guys, James is still taking his time showing up. But in the meantime, my little sister, Julia has started a blog: Where Oh Where Has My Mind Gone...Today? She's not quite so funny as my sister-in-law Ki, but I wanted to welcome her to the wonderful world of blogging.

Julia is studying Statesmanship/Writing at a small Liberal Arts college in Cedar City, Utah called George Wythe College. That's the school I likely would've gone to had I not gotten into BYU, with me probably studying Enterpreneurial Business/Political Economy. Those areas have always interested me, and I'm sure I'd be much more well read had I done that, but with how much fun I'm having as a rocket nerd, I'm kind of glad I made the choices I did. Not to mention that meeting Tiff would've been even more of a challenge had I been down in Cedar City instead of Provo. They have a crazy pace from what I've heard (nothing like having you read War and Peace for your first week of your first semester in college), and have a tendency to weed out students who don't decide to take their education in their own hands. Basically, they come highly recommended unless you want to be an enginerd of some flavor.

What with the crazy schedule though, I really hope Julia actually has the time to actually blog.

Christmas Morning With The Goffs

For being our first Christmas as a family all by ourselves, today has been a lot of fun. I figured I'd put up a couple of pictures.

Ian talked me into doing some woodworking projects for Tiff and Jonny for Christmas this year. He's really into woodworking, and had recently brought a lot of his tools down to the shop. We decided to make some wooden blocks for Jonny, and a nice hardwood cutting board for Tiffany. For being my first serious woodworking project in...something absurd like 16 years or so, they actually turned out pretty well.

Here's a picture of Jonny playing with his blocks:

And here's a picture of Tiff posing with her cutting board:


Tiff bought me sheetmusic for two of my favorite musical pieces. It remains to be seen if I can figure out how to sing them well enough to do them justice:


We also received several other presents from friends and family, including a new vacuum cleaner, some clothes for Jonny, a Magnetix set, and a helecopter/Lego toy for Jonny, and a crane truck toy for Jonny. I was going to include a picture Tiff took of me playing with the Magnetix set, but since I was wearing shorts at the time, I think I'll spare you all having to look at my legs. I'm not sure if my blog has pixels that white...