Skate or Die!

While up in Grapevine over the 4th of July Mason discovered skateboarding! I think I am going to get him a skateboard so we can practice a little. Skateboarding was one of my favorite things to do when I was younger so it made me so happy that he took to riding.

10 Years

This last week was our 10 year anniversay and I can't believe how fast the time has gone. It has been a great 10 years and I look forward to many many more years! Your the best Nanz and I love you a ton! This is a picture from our trip last week in Cozumel Mexico.

Wilco

This last Monday I had saw my favorite band Wilco play live. It has been a few years since I have seen them and now I remember why I like them so much. It was the best show that I have ever been to! If you get the chance to see Wilco you should definitely go and see them.

Camping Out with Mason!

Mason and I just got back from his first campout ever and he had a great time. Here are a few pictures to prove it! The weather for the most part was good except for a few hours when it rained like crazy There was also a ton of lighting and thunder which made for great entertainment while we sat in the tent waiting for the storm to pass over. Overall it was a fun time and Mason was so tired that he fell asleep for the entire drive back to Austin!

My Dream Car

I first saw the Smart Car a few months ago on my commute home from work and have been obsessed with them ever since. The Smart Car hit the streets in American at the begging of 2008 and they have drawn a lot of attention. They start at $11,590 which is not to bad. They get 33 miles to the gallon in the city and 40 miles to the gallon on the highway. The total length of the car is 8.8 feet. Considering my commute each day, this might not be a bad option!

Dressing Up for Easter

It is Cottam tradition for the kids to get a new outfit for Easter Sunday each year. Both Maya and Mason looked so cute today and they even let me take a few pictures before church today. Happy Easter everyone!

New Painting For The House

A few weeks ago I came across this painting on the internet and thought that it would be cool to have for the house. I love any and all pictures of VW buses. I contacted the local Austin artist to inquire about the painting and ended up purchasing the original painting yesterday. It is 24 x 24 on a canvas frame and looks even better in person. Kim Edge is the Austin artist and she has some really cool paintings on her blog.

Working In the Garage

Maya decided that it would be fun to work on painting in the garage yesterday afternoon. She painted and I worked on cleaning the garage. We pulled out the old space heater to make it warm and cranked up the tunes on the radio and had a great. We both agreed that it would be cool to convert the garage into an art studio.

Just Like the Old Days

The ski run

The jump

and the not-so-perfect landiing!

I had the chance to go sking last week during our visit to Salt Lake City and here are a few pictures to document how it all went down. The one think I learned was that I can't jump like I use to!

Maya & Maya

For Christmas Maya got a tire horse and decided to also name her Maya. She loves to ride Maya and would spend every minute of everyday swinging on her if she could. On Saturday the weather finally warmed up enough to go outside and play, so the first thing Maya wanted to do was swing on Maya. I spend 2 hours outside pushing her on her horse. That girl loves to be outside!

A New Band?

I just bought the "Everything All the Time" album from Band of Horses and I'm digging it a lot. A few months ago Natalie downloaded their newest album Cease to Exist and I liked it so much I thought I would try their older stuff. I highly recommend both albums.

My Car Turns 100k

During my morning commute today, my car finally hit 100k miles. I have been watching the odometer for the last week in anticipation of the big moment only to be disappointed when I noticed that I missed it due to me singing along to some random song on the radio while trying to make the morning commute more bearable. When I looked down the odometer read 100,002. I guess I will just have to wait another 100k!

Here are some of the car highlights over the years:

• Bought the car in 2002 with 29k miles for $7k


• Put 3,381 gallons of gas in the tank for a total cost of $8,452 over the last 6 years


• Spent over $7,200 on car insurance


• Spent a total of 1,578 hours or 66 days driving in the car


• Natalie was rear-ended only once in the car when maya was 6 weeks old


• I only rear-ended someone once in the car


• Brought Maya home from hospital in the car


• Took many road trips in the car


• Drove for 2 long weeks one winter with the moon roof stuck open which was very cold. I had to pay a sketchy chop shop in North Austin cash to close it. The option was $50 to close it or $800 to fix it. I chose the $50 option.


• Paid a chop-shop cash for a very interesting tint job in North Las Vegas. I wanted a light tint and came a way with dark limo tint. At least it keeps the car cool in the summer.

For the most part the Malibu has been a good reliable car without many problems. I can only hope for another 100k miles!

Wilco on Tour!

Anyone one who knows me well, knows that I love to listen to Wilco. I have been know to listen to them for months and months at a time. It looks like they are on tour again, but so far no tour date has been set for Austin. It looks like Houston is the closest they will come on March 7th. Man I would love to see them again!

Week in Review

Here are a few things that happened this week:

• Visited the Oakland Temple during my business trip to San Francisco. The temple was closed for it's annual cleaning, so I walked the grounds and visited the Visitor Center. I was able to see a first edition Book of Mormon for the first time which I thought was pretty cool.


• Ate the best peanut butter cup dessert in the world. The last time I was in San Francisco I went to the Fog City Diner and had their peanut butter cup dessert and I have been dreaming about them ever since. Sometimes things aren't as good as you remember them when you go back, but it was even better the second time! I can't wait to go back to San Francisco so that I can have them again. I am a sucker for peanut butter and chocolate.


• Got bumped of my flight from San Francisco to Austin and ended up spending the night in some hotel in Dallas. I arrived at the hotel at 1:30 AM and left at 5:45 AM. I guess it was worth the $300 travel voucher even though I am know a little sick.


• Ate two times at Zocalo Cafe, a Mexican restaurant in Austin that we just discovered. The food is great and I can't wait to go back and have another chicken burrito.


• Played the game of Uno with Maya after church today. She loves this game and is really good at it. We played 8 games and she won 6 of them. She has come up with a very clever strategy that almost always guarantees her a win if she gets the right card. It was a blast playing a few games with her.


• We decided to take a drive on Saturday morning around some neighborhoods in Austin that we have never visited. It was so much fun hanging out together. I think the best part for the kids were the Slurpee that we got them at the gas station. Mason ended up wearing half of his Slurpee on his face and shirt. The best part for me was just being back in Austin with Natalie and the Kids.


• Since I was sick most the weekend I took a long nap on Saturday afternoon. If felt so good to get a little bit of extra sleep. Natalie claims that I snored the whole time I was asleep which I have been know to do, but man it felt good to sleep for 4 hours!


• I spend most of Sunday with Mason as were both sick. Natalie took Maya to church and Mason and I stayed home. It was fun to hang out with him. We played blocks and read a few books and he even let me rock him in the rocker. He is growing up so fast so I have to take advantage of every moment with him.


• Finished watching Arrested Development again. I vote this the best TV show ever. Natalie and I both decided that we need to watch all of the episodes at least once a year. This was our second go around and it was just as good as the first time. If you have not seen Arrested Development I recommend that you do.

It was a good week and my favorite part was coming home to see everyone after being gone all week in San Francisco.

Golden Gate Bridge

Tonight after work I headed down to the Golden Gate Bridge and took a few pictures. It was a bit cold outside, but I was able to snap a few pictures in the dark.

Another Visit to San Francisco

I'm back in San Francisco for a few days for work. In 2007 I traveled to San Francisco 13 times for work. It is a fun place to visit and there is a ton of always a ton of things to see and do. I usually get done working around 7:00 PM which leaves me a few hours to go into the city and walk around. So far on this visit I have visited the Oakland Temple which was closed for cleaning, so I spent some time walking around the visitor center which was pretty cool. I also went to one of the malls and picked up a few new shirts. Natalie always tells me that S.F. has some of the best shopping out west. Tomorrow night after work I am planning on going into the city again and eating at the Fog City Diner which has the best peanut butter cups I have ever tasted. I think I will also order a bowl of clam chowder It should be fun!

My 2 Girls!

Here is a picture of the sweetest girls in world! I am so lucky to have both of them in my life!

Suckers & Mickey Mouse?

There are two things in life that Mason loves more that anything, suckers and Mickey Mouse. Just the sight of suckers or anything Mickey Mouse sends him into hysterics. That's my boy!

From another galaxy?

Most Friday nights we go out to eat as a way to kick off the weekend. Tonight we went out to one of my favorite places, Galaxy Cafe. The food is always great, they have good service and it is close to our house. Tonight I had a fish wrap that was so delicious. I have never had a bad experience eating there and the kids love to eat there also because they give out free suckers which Mason goes crazy for. It is a win win situation and everyone goes home happy!

Early Mornings with Maya

One of my favorite parts of the day is before I leave to go to work when I see Maya. She is an early riser and is almost always up working on something creative in her room when I leave for work at 6:45. Nanz and Mason are always asleep, so I get to spend a few minutes with just Maya! She often times helps make me make my lunch and if I am not running behind we spend a few minutes having breakfast together. Today she really wanted me to stay home from work and help her clean her room. I told her that I needed to go to work, so she started begging me to go to work. She told me that she could help out by filing papers and typing my emails for me. I had a good laugh and told her that she needed stay home and work on her room and that maybe sometime she could come visit me at work. I must admit that seeing her each morning is a great way to start the day off!

Brack to the Gym

One of my goals this year is to make it to the gym at least 3 times a week rain or shine. So far so good! Last year I did pretty good for the most part until November hit and then it was all down hill from there. My problem is that I have a love hate relationship with the gym. I love the feeling after a hard workout, but I hate going to the gym. I found that for me the best time to go to the gym is during lunch. Luckly I have a Gold's gym right around the corner from my office. It is not that busy at lunch time and helps break the day up.

Going Old School!

Last week I was in the middle of the phone call at work when 2 kids skated past my window on their skateboards and decided that it would be fun to try and skate off the stairs right in front of the office. They were having fun and making a bunch of noise disturbing everyone in the office. My first reaction after I finished my phone call was to go tell them that they had to leave because they were disturbing everyone at work. So I headed up to the front of the office and when I opened the front door they were half way across the parking lot skating off to their next adventure laughing and talking about much air they got when they jumped over the stairs. At that moment I felt old. I love to skateboard in my youth and I am sure that I disrupted tons of people. My two brothers and I would spend countless hours riding our skateboards in parking lots and business parks.

The skateboard that I used to ride was a Powell Peralta Lance Mountain just like the one in the picture. I loved that skateboard and I bought it at Hamel's Surf Shop when I lived in San Diego with money that I had earned from my paper route. Watching those kids skate away the other day took me back to those old school days. Man I wish I still had my old skateboard!

College Football Is Over

Last night a new team was crowned the nation champions of college football for the 2007 season. Congratulations to LSU for a job well done! I'm just happy that Ohio State did not win as the only thing worse that a Big 10 team winning the BCS championship is a PAC 10 team winning it. I stayed up way to late last night watching the game and I am happy that it is finally over so that can be productive around the house again. I love to watch college football and probably spend to much time watching football games. I only hope that next year the Texas Longhorns will do better so that they have a shot at the BCS championship!

My new jacket!

Anyone who knows me well knows that I don't really like wearing jackets. I live in Texas for a reason and the reason is that it stays warm year round. I haven't purchased a new jacket since I was in college 6 years ago at the University of Utah but I finally decided that it was time to purchase a new jacket when I saw this one at REI. I must admit that even in Texas it gets cold enough to wear a jacket once in a while!

Why do they call me the Brack?

I am not exactly sure when I was first nicknamed "the Brack" but I do know that it all started with my wife's family. If memory serves me well, it was about 11 years ago back when Natalie and I began dating. Her younger brother Matt is the one that I give credit for coming up with the nickname for me. The name Brack comes from a silly cartoon character from the show Space Ghosts Coast to Coast that he watched all the time. I must admit that I have only seen one or two episodes and still don't really even know what its even about. Natalie's older brother is also named Chris so it was always a bit confusing when we were both together, so her family began to call me "the Brack". The name has stuck for 11 years and going strong. It is a funny name but it fits me well!