As Promised...

Megan worries that by revealing this everybody is going to think that I don't do any school work. I'm willing to risk it.

If you think that was as awesome as I do (i.e. "totally"), feel free to direct your friends to it.

And as a brief note, I just wanted to point out what I could have become, had my parents just given me a real middle name:

Facebook: The land of what could have been.

Happy Grandparents' Day!

With today being National Grandparents Day, Topher wanted to use this post to send a special thanks to his grandparents for all they have done for him in the past 11 months.

We sure appreciate everything you all have done for us. Take this as official permission to take some time off and relax. Since we know you are all pretty bad at doing so, Topher wanted to show you how:

Wastin' away in margaritaville

Thanks to all of the grandparents out there!

And just as a quick note, we wanted to note that BYU is doing so well that even the Wal-Marts in Connecticut have started carrying their gear:

We really don't know how this made it to the Willimantic Walmart, but you can bet we bought it.

Scott's "Knit-nut" :)

School has started for Scott once again so Toph and I have had some free time on our hands. We've decided to develop some of our talents :). I discovered Topher's innate desire to cook the other day when I opened the fridge and yours truly came running. The next thing I knew, he was holding a spatula and gathering ingredients into a pile. Everything eventually ended up on the floor, but I thought it would be cool (and really nice for me) if Toph likes to cook someday like his Daddy does :)




I, on the other hand, being a less than notable cook have turned my attention to knitting. Scott's mom has been teaching me to knit and I've discovered that I really enjoy it! A couple of weeks ago I finished my first project, a baby blanket for a friend. I was so proud of myself, and since this is my blog and I can write whatever I want, I think the blanket turned out wonderfully!




Toph and I will be quite a team once we've mastered our new skills :).

They say that catching up is hard to do...

Sorry everyone about missing last week. School has started back up and I've found that they tend to get graduate students right in the swing of things. Now I've been using school work as an excuse to keep from doing lots of things, and lots of things as an excuse for not doing school work. Needless to say, I'm simultaneously as stressed and as relaxed as I've been for some time.

Now that that is out of the way, join me on a journey into the not so distant past...

SMOKE FILLS THE ROOM

So, my folks came out to visit us. I thought that it was so that they could come to see Topher, but it turned out that it was so that my mom could further convert Megan into what I

begrudgingly call a "knit-nut."

This is Topher's "Somebody pay attention to me!" stance.

Despite being a little under the weather, Topher warmed up to folks to the point that he smiled at the camera while they held him -- a feat that neither Megan nor I have yet accomplished.

Don't be surprised if this face gets photoshopped into the next few months' family photos.

We decided to make our way up to Massachusetts to take in Lexington, Concord, and Boston.

The National Historic Site visitors center near Concord is actually quite amazing. I highly recommend it to anyone within a reasonable distance.

Topher really got into the spirit of things.

Apparently Topher is a patriot at heart, since he'd allow the tricorn hat to stay on for 1.5 seconds longer than the pirate hat we bought him.

We really didn't know what we were getting into in Concord. Apparently in addition to being the site of the "Shot heard 'round the world," it was home to a gaggle of famous authors and poets. For example Ralph Waldo Emerson, Louisa May Alcott, and Henry David Thoreau are all buried in Concord.

Here we are at Walden Pond. This was the only shot we could get without B.F. Skinner herding his infants around the property in the background.

In addition to taking in the historical sites, we took a moment to visit the grounds of the Boston LDS Temple.

Unfortunately, my dad and Topher had a bit of a falling out in the process.

Fortunately, we have a saying in our family: "Cemeteries cure all ills."

Well, that joke is actually a little deeper than I care to deal with at the moment.

Boston hadn't changed too much since the last time we visited, but this time around we made it to the Bunker Hill monument.

Elevators not included.

Against my better judgement, I agreed to take the 294 stairs to the top.

Here is some good proof that just because I'm smiling, you shouldn't assume I'm okay.

Topher sure showed me up, he didn't even break a sweat going up.

At least he hasn't learned to yell "Mush!" yet.

All and all we had a great time and sure enjoyed having my folks out. And if there is one lasting benefit, it is that Megan no longer needs to resort to sticking head bands on Topher to entertain herself.

At least we'll be able to show this to a fiance someday.

Now in unrelated news (per usual), I secretly think that this is why the Cougars won last night:

We're glad that Topher doesn't startle like he used to because there was a significant amount of shouting, high-fiving, yelling, and cheering going on last night. We're also glad that we don't have any neighbors.

And as a final note to my parents: Topher may be walking, but you're plan has yet to come to fruition:

Kind of reminds you of Bam-Bam from the Flinstones, doesn't it?

It's a Graveyard Smash

Seeking to fulfill one of Megan's fondest dreams, we recently set out for Salem, Massachusetts. As though some force was trying to warn us of impending danger, we found our house surrounded by dense fog that morning.

I can't say for sure, but I suspect those shadowy figures were some sort of ogres or zombie elephants.

We didn't make too much of it and kept going. Little did we know it, but Salem still had some magic in store for us. Our first hint was that the city government has taken control of the weather.

Apparently they weren't enforcing the snow ban today, but it still turned out sunny.

Bizarre people that we are (Although maybe in Salem's case it makes us fit right in), the first thing we sought out was a cemetery.

This cemetery is on the grounds where Giles Cory was pressed to death. They say that his ghost can sometimes be seen walking the grounds, which indicates that tragedy is soon to befall Salem. That must explain why he mysteriously appeared in this photo:

Megan is going to kill me for suggesting that Giles Cory was a totally awesome looking wizard, but I contend that we have no evidence to suggest that he wasn't.

That's when things got spooky.

We started taking tours through the various museums there. Each turned out to be slightly more ridiculous than the last. We started to let our guard down, thinking that Salem was just squeezing it's tragic history for every penny possible. Unfortunately, as so many have found out, and as so many will, that's when the zombies showed up.

This is no time to think. Just shoot him!

Perhaps you are now saying, "Scott, not every shadowy figure is a zombie." Not only do I disagree with you as a matter of principle, but I offer you this:

Convinced?

Having left our sawed off shotgun in the car, we had no choice but to run for it. Unfortunately, Topher got lost along the way and was discovered by the witches themselves.

Looks like we need to start working on Topher's fear response.

Thankfully, Megan's history major really started pulling its weight when she remembered that witches only eat babies if they've been left outside for a few days. We quickly made our way to the town stocks and snuck away with him.

Why didn't they put him in the baby one on the right there? That's just cruel.

We tried to make a break for it, but the witches sent their familiars after us.

Which one would you say is the bigger imp?

While running for our lives, we found an informative sign that noted that the wharf was the one safe place in town. While I still have no idea what a wharf is, we went for it, not realizing that the wharf was longer than the town of Salem itself.

I know I could look up what a wharf is, but I prefer to be able to make jokes about not knowing what it is.

With the threat of witches and zombies off our backs, we took a moment to take a family photo.

Topher was still a little suspicious.

The wharf was more powerful than we thought. As we returned we found the witches to be decreasing in resolution.

Eventually they just became grayish smudges.

Not only did we vanquish the witches, we were happy to find some friendly faces.

I know it looks like he's pretending like he doesn't know me, but he's just fooling around. We go way back.

Unfortunately, it turned out that most of the pirates were zombies, too.



Things got really dicey when they tried to recruit Topher onto their crew. They gave him a hat to keep, regardless of his decision and offered him a free tattoo, just for signing up. He thought about it, but refused. He didn't even keep the hat.

That was actually a mash-up of scenes from Peter Pan and Speed Racer. I think it worked out pretty well.

We finally realized that things were only going to go downhill from here, wharf or no wharf, and high-tailed it out of Salem. We were worried about what might have followed us or what might await us at home. However, all of our fears were allayed when Falcor made a brief appearance, reminding us of our neverending friendship.

I certainly hope that everyone now has the theme song from Neverending Story stuck in their heads. I know that I will for days.

As a parting, unrelated note, I was looking at our visitor tracker and noticed that some visitors had found us by searching for "Monkey Business with the Huffs." I got excited to see if maybe we had made the big time: Maybe we'd show up on Google's predictive search. All my hopes were dashed when this was all that came up.

Thwarted by Shia Labeouf again. I would say "You could do worse," but I'm not so sure that's true.

Pretending to be adults

In this corner: Toph the Terminantor!

Signature move: The Two Thirty (AM) Thunder Tantrum

And in this corner: Dixie the Destroyer!

Signature move: The Long Lost Lick of Doom

Let's get ready to rumble!

Check it out on pay-per-view

In reality, Topher and Dixie actually got along swimmingly. She is an amazingly patient dog, especially when a little boy refuses to release the two fistfuls of fur he got ahold of. Topher was also surprisingly patient with the licks to the face and feet that came on a daily basis.

We've had quite the time house sitting. It's given us a chance to pretend like we have reached that stage in life that seems increasingly elusive (especially considering the amount of work I've completed on my master's thesis this summer). You don't have to take my word for it, here's Topher for you:

Megan's new talk show will be starting as soon as they finally take Jimmy Fallon off the air.

I think that his enthusiasm has largely stemmed from having so much room to wander and so many new toys to play with.

Here is Topher getting his Davy Jones on.

Unfortunately, Megan has also been finding things to keep herself busy and an excessive number of those things involve putting headbands on Topher.

He would make a cute girl, though.

With all the pictures we've been taking lately, though, Topher's cheeser faces have been becoming increasingly more extreme.

I don't know where he can go from here.

With this I'm inaugurating a return to blogging. In the coming days you can look forward to...

A trip to Salem Massachusetts!

A visit from my Parents!

Several appearances by our best historical friend, Cotton Mather (Including one in Zombie form)!

And Topher's brand new, hit dance video!

Please excuse our appearance

Hi folks,

For those three of you who check our blog, I'm just dropping this line here to let you know that it is unlikely that we'll post a good update for the next couple of weeks. We are currently house-sitting for some friends, so it's been a little less convenient to post like we used to. Don't worry though, once we're back in our apartment we'll be back up to full steam with a total recap (which will mostly be pictures of Topher bothering the dog here). Catch you on the flip side.