Tustiweek of the Summer of Kim

2014, also known as the year of Kim, starts tomorrow. That means the summer of Kim is fast approaching, and we need to start planning Tustiweek of the Summer of Kim.  Tustiweek of the Summer of Kim is July 5-12.

We are very excited about the house where we will all be staying. You can look at it here:
  http://www.allstarvacationhomes.com/orlando/property.asp?ID=683
I haven't made room assignments yet, but Mia has dibs on the princess room and really hopes Hazel we be there with her. I may accommodate room requests, so feel free to ask, but I already told Aiden that nobody will sleep in the game room.  There is a pool for your cross-training pleasure, but I don't think you will find any monster tires in this gated community.

There will be plenty to do at the house, and there is a lot to do in the surrounding area.  Disney's website is really helpful. https://disneyworld.disney.go.com
The Disney Downtown area is essentially a big outdoor mall with lots of restaurants, shopping, and entertainment. Many of the restaurants in the Orlando area including non-Disney restaurants take reservations six months in advance through this web page: https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/dining/#/reservations-accepted
There is also Universal Studios Orlando https://www.universalorlando.com/From-Mobile.aspx
The Harry Potter world there is quite impressive, and the butterbeer is delicious.

As the vacation gets a little closer, we will start planning meals, activities, push-up contests, etc. We should start discussions about whether people want to dine out together and make reservations. I hope everyone is getting as excited as I am. Can't wait.

Art Class

So - Some of you know....I'm taking a couple art classes at USU.  One is basically an intro to Graphic Design.  Here is my second project - a book cover using Photoshop.  

Now unfortunately,  none of the kids in my class could fully appreciate my project, because none of them had read IT or any other Stephen King book for that matter.  WHAT!?  So I thought, maybe I'd find some respect with those of the family who have read the book.

I even came up with a story...which I thought was pretty good....


In 1986, King introduced us to Pennywise the clown.  One of  his most popuar novels ever, IT, follows the exploits of seven children as they are terrorized by an eponymous being, which exploits the fears and phobias of its victims in order to disguise itself while hunting its prey.  Since that time, fans have always wondered if IT was truly destroyed .  IT Returns not only provides answers but brings a whole new light to the nightmare inducing Clown of Northern Maine. 

IT Returns follows the journey of Dandelo, a Todash creature who wakes up under the recently destroyed town of Derry, Maine.  Knowing nothing of his past, he finds a portal to the End World and quickly finds a life for himself quietly feeding on the emotions of travelers.  When Dendelo meets Walter O’Dim, a haunting traveler who is well known to Stephen Kind fans everywhere as the denomic villain Randall Flagg, everything changes.  Together they start on an evil mission at the request of The Crimson King and soon Dendalo begins to unravel the mysteries of his past.

This is an epic tale of evil, a gory, glorious story that will thrill the millions of devoted readers of IT and satisfy anyone new to this icon in the King Canon.

Man Baby

Just want to share some pictures with you all

In this picture Riley and I were trying to get him to say word up with his arms, he didn't like it!

enjoy!

A week without Nick

I suspect all of you know that Nick wears the pants in the family along with the apron, the chauffeur's hat, accountants visor, coach's whistle, etc and so on. Well on Friday he flew off to Japan for the "international nerd competition" (a sort of big deal contest to see who can write the fastest smartest software to find brain tumors in head MRIs). Well, no surprise, he won. I feel like I had a little victory here as well. Friday night I made it home by 7:15, which is pretty amazing. Saturday morning I took Aiden to baseball, then Mia to soccer, back to Aiden's baseball game where, surprise it was our turn to work in the concession stand. After the game ended, we went home and had lunch. Then I put on my mother of the year hat and took the kids to get frozen yogurt and see Planes. Admittedly I fell dead asleep before the previews ended and didn't wake up until Mia shook me to say she was hungry about 30 minutes before the movie ended. After the movie we grocery shopped, got gas, and clipped the kids scraggly toenails because Saturday really is a special day. This morning I made pumpkin chocolate chip pancakes and got to church only 4 minutes late. I am pretty sure I can't keep up at this pace, but while Nick is off winning the international nerd contest, we are hanging in. BTW, congrats on pregnancies, babies, weddings, relocations, and everything else that has been going on.

White Chicken Chili

Here's the recipe from the other night. Glad you all liked it.  

Servings 4 - 6

3-4 chicken breasts, cut into 1 inch cubes

1 medium onion, chopped (works well with onion flakes too)

1 1/2 tsp garlic powder

1 tbs vegetable oil

2 cans great northern beans, rinsed and drained

1 14.5 ounce can chicken broth

2 cans diced green chilies

1 tsp salt

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp oregano

1/2 tsp pepper

1 c sour cream

1/2 c whipping cream

---

In a large saucepan, saute chicken, onion, and garlic powder in oil until chicken is no longer pink. Add beans, broth, chilies, and seasonings. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, simmer 30 minutes. Remove from heat; stir in sour cream and whip cream. Add a little hot sauce or cayenne pepper if desired. 

Jesus Fight Club: Mormon Style

The most yardage BYU will get at UVA this year

Whenever I'm on a run and go past a parked car, I can't help but look at the window.  It's obviously not to see if there's anything worth taking inside the car but rather I like to check out my running form and also to make sure I still have my "swell on" from doing push-ups beforehand.  I'd be willing to bet that this is a shared trait amongst one or more of the Tustison clan.  Anyway, this recent Father's Day this quirk was taken to a whole new level when I had my final 50 yards projected on the UVA football stadium screen.  The Men's 4 Miler is an annual race just for men to raise money for men's health issues typically limited to about 400 people (the woman's analog is a much bigger race attracting closer to 10,000 participants).  However, despite its size it is a pretty competitive race on a relatively hilly course.  The winner this year finished in 19:51.  I was a bit slower at 23:57 but I did get first in my age group (that guy behind me on the screen won the age group last year).  And I owe it all to the Brazil shorts.  

Texas

Wedding highlights or should I just say pictures I liked..... need I say more about this car.

or the shoes

fav wedding picture

and I also don't need to explain why I love these pictures

this is my only close up of you two, sorry Trevor it looks like your mumbling something.

Chad in his natural habitat

and once again sorry Clint's locks are in his face, but they were for every picture I have...

Anyway we had tones of fun and were so glad we could be there with Trevor and Summer, Congratulations guys.....

CapTex Triathlong Race Report

It’s been a while since posting a race report so here it goes.  Trevor and I raced the CapTex Triathlon this past Memorial Day in Austin.  Jenn and Summer suffered through the day with us. Trevor did the International Distance(1500/24/6.2) while I did the Sprint Distance (750/12/3.1).

Swim:  The swim took place in Lady Bird Park Lake, right in downtown Austin.  After some internal debate, I decided to go with the wetsuit, even with the temperature at 76.5.  Overheating in races tends to be my Achilles heel, so the water temperature (w/ a wetsuit) was a concern but it actually felt okay.  My swim wave started at 9:10.  I ended up hitting a lot of traffic about halfway through the swim, which probably slowed me down by at least 30 seconds.  My final time was 11:58 (3^rd AG). As a side note, I was reading yesterday that there was some concern by race officials of e. coli breakout in the lake due to all the rainfall.  A few people decided not to do the race. I had some stomach issues yesterday but I think it was just the Doritos Locos taco I had the day before.

Bike:  First off, this bike course was probably the most fun and interesting course I’ve been on.  It was also the most packed.  The course took on two laps right through downtown, right next to the Capitol, and over a bridge.  The roads were fairly smooth and fast.  Although with all turns and crowdedness, there wasn’t much chance to really flip the switch on the NOS boosters.  I kept leapfrogging with two or three guys, one of which was in my age group.  The ride overall felt great and I turned in a rate of 21.1 mph (11^th AG).

Run:  In a word, my run was frustrating.  I know the heat and late race start affected me a little but I can't really blame it on that.  The first mile was pretty horrible even though I felt great coming off the bike.  Usually it takes me about an eighth to a quarter mile to get in the groove but I couldn’t shake off the cobwebs.  It didn’t help when we had to pass the nasty warm coconut water table at the quarter mile marker.  Finally at about the mile marker, I saw one of the guys in my AG about 100 yards up ahead of me.  I went into zombie mode and began slowly chipping away his lead.   I passed him between mile 2 and 2.5. My overall pace was 7:04 per mile (5^th AG).

This is the part of the season where I start to focus on intervals and the run was a reminder that I needed to start hitting the speed more. One bright spot was I also able to keep running while simultaneously throwing up a gel pack I had taken in about 45 minutes before the swim – in the past, I’ve had to stop for a few seconds to clear out my gut.  I try to eat my last food at least 1 to 1.5 hours before the swim and this was one of my mistakes on the day.

Overall, I loved the course and venue.  I came in 2^nd in my age group out of about 90 racers.  The guy who got first was 25 seconds ahead of me.  Interestingly, after looking at results, he raced the Texas State Triathlon in April and I beat him by about a minute.  The only unfortunate incident was after my award, I walked over to transition to grab my gear and realized that my Rudy wingspan helmet had been stolen – a stark reminder that some people are evil and that one should remove their gear from transition as soon as transition opens.  It looks like I’m back to my sweet commuter mongoose helmet for awhile.  Hope to see some of you at echo!

Possible Summertime Activity

Just for the fun of it I thought I would throw out the idea of an activity as people come and go around Salt Lake this summer.  We will be doing the Summer and Trevor party/BBQ most likely in July .  Around whenever that is are the following activities:

Jun 22 Provo tri

Jun 29-Green River Tri (even the sprint is a one mile down river swim)
Jun 29- Dino tri in Vernal
Jun 29-Rock Cliff tri at Jordonell

Jul 6 Cache Valley super sprint (pool swim)

Jul 13 Eco tri

Jul 20 J L Sorensen tri in Herriman. ?????


Jul 24-27 Wight reunion
Jul 27 Bear Lake tri

Any thoughts?

Chad (has the) Runs

A local photographer from my ward pulled me aside a couple of weeks ago and told me he needed a somewhat athletic, generally non-repulsive looking specimen to use as a subject to add to his portfolio.   Since he’s pretty much the coolest guy in the ward, and pretty much the only guy I know, I said sure. 

So this past Saturday, we met at a local trail system ½ mile from the house.  I think the pictures turned out okay considering I had just put in about 10 miles a couple of hours before.  One thing though - he didn't post any good pictures of my calves.  This is unfortunate considering that they’re pretty much blasted 24/7. Oh well. For anyone who cares...

http://www.ashtonrodgers.com/portfolio/chad-runs/

The Flu is for Much Stronger People Than He and Me

So we go to Las Vegas last Thursday and have a great time hanging out at the MGM, shopping, strange-people watching, check out Hoover Dam and do the partial strip. Then I got sick - felt better, then got the fever and the severe headache and shakes going a few hours later. We drove home on Monday where I slept and Dad got sick. Now here we sit in the recliners and have not gone anywhere except to the dr and pharmacy. Dad had strep throat/Type A and I have Type B slowly going into pneumonia. Boring TV shows and not enough energy to find a good movie to watch. Duck Dynasty is getting old. We are definitely planning on laughing about this later.

Summer Overshadows Utah's Winter

By the time this review makes its rounds in the Tustison circle: 

1)Chad will have found out where he'll be going for grad school

2) Samantha will hit six-digit values on her website

3)Nick will have won the Nobel Prize

and

4) Clint will have a beard resembling the subject of this year's Priesthood manual.

Nonetheless, I'll write it, despite the potential for outdated information.  

Summer came to the Tustison household and there were several highlights, most of which will elicit laughs only if Clint tells them.  So I'll spare the stories, but just say that it was a successful outing.  Summer came out and enjoyed herself.  We were even lucky enough to be chaperoned by Mayka herself as she made sure there was a bible between us both at all times.  Summer left today and it looks like Summer in summer could be a legitimate possibility.