Freddie Charles Leavitt

What a great weekend we just had. Exhausting but wonderful. We went to Phoenix for three very worthy causes. First, Ben and Sharley blessed their baby Freddie, second, it was Ben's 31st birthday and third, in an effort to prove that he isn't getting old, Ben signed up to run a Super Spartan. He invited others to join him and when Alex, Brandon and Sarah signed up how could I not?

Because so many of the family was going to be in town it seemed like a good time to get us all together and bless Freddie. Most of Sharley's family was there as well. The blessing was held at Chuck and Jean Cotters condo and a member of Bens bishopric was there. 

From our family we had Lisa and I, Brandon, Sam and Sarah and Frank and Hannah Criger. Well they aren't married yet so I guess Hannah isn't a Criger just yet. Frank is like a son to us. After the blessing we had tacos and hung around the rest of the afternoon.

We did have one incident that we had to deal with. Because so many of us came, there was no room for us all at Ben's so Lisa and I rented a motel room nearby. I specifically ordered a no smoking room but alas, we ended up in a smoking room. It was so bad that it was actually hard to breath. Since there was no non-smoking rooms left we ended up taking the room. Lisa actually got up in the middle of the night and slept in the car. I think she has many more smelling neurons in her nose that the average person. She is very sensitive to smells.

Lisa posted a scathing entry on Instagram the next day and received several offers of help. The Motel 6 offered to move us to a non-smoking room. It was much better but you could tell it had been smoked in. In the end they gave us a full refund and we spent the night with a girl who had grown up in our Stake. Erin McMullin Tarwater. I love the name Tarwater, it just sounds cool. Their son Cove graciously offered us his bed to sleep in. Thank you Cove. The bad part was that I use a CPAP machine and when I put it on the next night I was breathing cigarette smoke. I went to sleep smoking but thank goodness it was gone when I woke up the next morning.

Ben gave Freddie a beautiful blessing. While I can't remember much of what he said I do remember that the gist of it was that Freddie would grow up to be a peacemaker.