Trash Talk

I don't know how many times I've mentioned this, but we love the people here in Ohio, especially the people in our ward. Several months ago, a new family, Josh & Kristi Burke and their three kids, moved into our ward from Utah. When they spoke in church and Josh said that he didn't prepare his talk until the wee hours of morning because he stayed up late watching the Jazz game, Michael knew we would be friends. He has been right. Our families have gotten along splendidly, and we are so glad that they moved here. There is one minor problem with our friendship that will meet its climax this weekend--the Burkes are University of Utah Ute fans. This has been especially troubling for our children who as most of you know are avid BYU fans (yes, they like to Buckeyes and Rockets very much too). Thobe will often mention with uneasiness the Josh that is a Burke who is a Ute fan, and Alden has done more trash talking with Josh than I ever thought he was capable of. Don't get me wrong, Josh encourages this more than you can imagine, but Alden plays right into it. They often argue about which team is better and which team will beat the other team when they play. Alden gets really fired up. Josh is always trying to convince Alden that he should be a Utah fan by bribing him, and Alden adamently stands his ground. It's actually pretty hilarious to listen to the two of them.

Anyway, yesterday we had our Primary program in Sacrament meeting. I'm the chorister for the Primary, so I've been pretty involved in making sure the kids know the songs. Alden and Thobe wrote their own parts for the program and both sang solos as well (our Primary is small enough that everyone who wanted to sing a solo was able to). Anyway, I was so happy with how everything played out and how all the kids did. Thobe is a really quiet kid at church. He has a reputation of not saying much and having his pants at his ankles (I finally found some suspenders that he will wear every week from now on). Anyway, he really stole the show with his part. So many people said afterwards, "I didn't know that Thobe could talk that well." We just smiled (I'm going to attach the video of them saying their parts to this post. I was really happy with how they did).

So after we finished, several people stopped us and talked to us, including Josh that is a Burke and a Ute fan. Josh started talking to Alden about the big game on Saturday and caught my attention when he asked Alden what sign he was flashing him all throughout church. He questioned, "Alden, were you telling me to hang loose?"

Alden said, "No, I was showing you the Y in sign language. Go Cougars."

So even though I thought we were having this very spiritual, uplifting meeting, and my six year old son was silently trash talking his rival. Certainly his love of sports comes from Michael, but I don't think even Michael would trash talk someone during church. I guess we'll have to work on that one.

Anyway, as promised, here are the videos of my kids saying their parts. Alden is sick today, so he might sound muffled. It probably didn't help that Thobe was pounding something in the background. I have both the part that they said and the song they sang. I think it's adorable.