Arizona Trip

Friday, May 19, 2023

A few months back Ben and Sharley invited Lisa and I to go on a short Disney Cruise with them. We have these Chinese students so we can’t just leave them (that can be a royal pain in the rear at times) plus I didn’t feel I could miss another week of work, so I stayed home, and Lisa went with them. She left last Thursday and got home on Monday.

As it turned out Yuchen joined a school trip to New York and left Saturday and because so many of the students were on the New York trip, they cancelled school for the rest of the students, so Jonathan had no school this week Mon thru Wed.

I have been needing bring some wood pellets from Mesa back to San Diego for some time so I figured this would be a good time to go get them. I would leave Monday morning; Lisa would get home Monday night and she wouldn’t have to deal with getting them to school and back.

In all my work in the yard I have accumulated a bunch of bricks that had been used to outline the flower beds and Kira has been wanting them. Since I was hauling out a trailer to bring back the wood pellets, I figured it was a good time to get rid of a bunch of the bricks.

Kira and Ben have both been able to find some tortoises as pets, so I got to meet Kira’s two baby tortoises. Meet Taco and Tortellini. They are desert tortoises.

Kira then took me to Ben’s house where I got to meet Bowser. Bowser is a Sulcata Tortoise native to the Sahara Desert. She will get huge. She seemed quite a home in Ben’s yard.

Ben’s yard is starting to look beautiful. His trees are healthy and happy and he is growing some healthy looking vegetables.

He has a mulberry bush that has some delicious berries on it. Of course, I had to go around and around the mulberry bush. I never found a weasel.

Kira took time out of busy schedule to come and help me load up the wood pellets so after running a few errands we headed to the storage unit. I don’t know why I didn’t get pictures of my load of pellets, but we did get a picture of ourselves after loading the pellets. I am surprised by how much dust has collected on those pellets. This isn’t normal dust either, I wonder what else was going on in that warehouse in Miami?

The original plan was to head straight home as soon as the pellets were loaded up but fortuitously Tuesday was also the day that Olivia Van der Veer was getting married. I decided I had to stay for that.

Kira and Justin first met Olivia in Calgary when they hired her to be with Evan during the nights and to get him ready for school in the morning. When they moved to the States Olivia moved with them but since a normal tourist visa is only good for six months, she had to register for college to remain.

Since young adults need a social life and she knew no one, Kira and Justin encouraged Olivia to go to young adults. She wasn’t a member of the church, but they assured her that they have fun activities, and it is a good place to meet nice guys. It wasn’t long before Olivia was dating a nice young return missionary named Kenny and not long after that when she got baptized.

Kenny and Olivia got married Tuesday and I’m glad I got to be there. It was a hot day, and I was sweating away but towards the end of the ceremony a breeze picked up and cooled things off. A little bit later the breeze turned into a windstorm and blew tables and decorations all over the place, but I still preferred that to the heat.

It then rained for about fifteen minutes and then it was a nice relaxing evening. I then hopped in the car and drove five and a half hours home.

San Diego Temple

Monday, May 8, 2023

Yesterday was the annual devotional they hold for temple workers. While I love all these devotionals this one seemed special.

There have been rumors for months that the San Diego Temple will be shutting down. The beautiful stained-glass windows need to be repaired. Some are broken and others leak. Lisa even told me that there are what looks like bullet holes in some of them. Well on April 17th the church made this announcement. 

The First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has announced the San Diego California Temple — the Church’s 45th temple and operating since 1993 — will close in July 2023 for extensive renovations.

So it is now official that the temple will be closing down but there are a whole new set of rumors about for how long and what they will be doing. While nothing has been announced, the most common rumors are the glass windows will be repaired and that the cafeteria will be repurposed. Shortly after the operation of the temple returned to normal following Covid, it was announced that all temple cafeterias worldwide will be closed. That was a loss, but I understand that it was an unnecessary expense.

So, the official last day for the temple will be July 31 but that is a Monday and temples are not open Mondays or Sundays, so the actual last day is Saturday July 29th.

The San Diego Temple is very precious to me, and we have been so fortunate to have it with us from the time we moved here in 1992. They closed the Cardston temple shortly before we moved from Alberta and rededicated it on June 22, 1991. Kira was able to go to that rededication with us. I think you were supposed to be twelve but since she was almost twelve, we snuck her in.

The renovations for that temple were wonderful. It originally had a water fountain in front of it, beautiful tile floors and curved benches in the Telestial room.

The water fountain had been filled in with dirt and made into a flower bed because the brutal west winds kept the fountain filled with leaves. The tile floors had been carpeted over and I think some of the murals may have been painted over as well. My dad was the engineer at the temple during all of this too, so we got detailed reports.

Many miracles took place during the renovation of Cardston Temple. The carpets were removed, and the beautiful tile floors were restored. When the curved wooden benches were removed, they had been sold and decades later every single bench had been tracked down and donated back to the temple. They wanted to add a new entry way into the temple but the quarry where the original granite had been secured had been shut down. Fortunately, when they built the temple the scraps and excess granite had been dumped in some farmers field just outside of town. This farmer had kept the pile of granite and there was just enough left to build the new entry way.

They designed the entry way to cover the original water fountain which is now operational inside the new entry way out of the nasty winds.

Dad managed to find the original beautiful custom light fixtures in the temple basement so those were refurbished and reinstalled.

So we attended the rededication of the Cardston temple in June of 1991, moved to San Diego in July of 1992 and attended the dedication of the San Diego Temple in April of 1993. We were blessed.

I remember one of the first fast Sundays after we moved here, they asked us in Sacrament Meeting to fast for the temple because they didn’t have enough parking for the expected attendance. Shortly after that fast, the office building just north of the temple went bankrupt and the church bought it. That office building has a parking structure that borders the temple parking lot so they then cut an opening into the parking structure from the temple parking lot. During the day the parking structure is used for the office building but in the evening when the temple has the greatest need for parking, office building is closed, they open the gates to the parking structure and it is used by the temple. The perfect solution but I do feel bad at times that we fasted the office building into bankruptcy.

We were also told that Brigham Young had once prophesied that in the last days there would be “a temple by the sea with a garden on the roof”. This is a lousy picture of the Atrium, but you can see how beautiful it is. While the temple is about a mile from the beach, I think one could say it is “by” the sea and while the atrium isn’t technically “on the roof”, there is nothing but open sky above it so I choose to believe that this temple is a fulfillment of Brigham Youngs prophecy.

Another story that we were told about the San Diego temple is that the architects were a Catholic couple. A husband-and-wife team. I found that both sad and amazing at the same time. It is sad that they can’t go into the temple and admire the wonderful work that they did.

The San Diego temple has this beautiful grand staircase that goes from the dressing rooms up to the endowment rooms and then on up to the sealing rooms. It is completely unsupported and free standing, and it is gorgeous. We were told that in the original design there was supposed to be a water fountain in the center of the staircase at the bottom. This end of the temple is next to the I-5 freeway and the water fountain would drown out the freeway noise.

While the road noise is clearly audible it isn’t a distraction, but that fountain would be amazing. Apparently, the fountain was cut from the plans because the cost had gone so far over budget.

It seems like most modern temples have a theme. The Calgary Alberta temple has heads of wheat throughout the temple. We were able to tour the Payson Temple and it has a theme of peach trees from the local peach orchards. In fact, I just read that thirty-nine of the temples adopt a theme from the local culture. While I don’t know for sure, but I believe the San Diego Temple may have been the first to use such a theme throughout the temple. The eight-sided star is found all through the temple. While it wasn’t by intent, it turns out that the eight-sided star was the seal of Melchizedek. I think that is very cool.

The original design included a large reflection pool where the large lawn is currently. The temple was built during a nasty drought, and they decided that it would look bad to build such a large water feature. They decided to make it into a lawn. While I would have loved a reflection pool, there have been thousands of great wedding pictures on that lawn.

I wondered for decades if these stories I had heard about the temple were all true but then several years ago while we were participating in an empty nesters Family Home Evening, one of our meetings was a presentation by William S Lewis, the architect of San Diego Temple. He gave a wonderful presentation about the temple and then afterwards during a Q&A I asked him about all these rumors. He confirmed that they were all true.

The rumor that the architects were a Catholic couple were only partly true, he employed Dennis & Shelly Hyndman to work with him. They were devout Roman Catholics. They were quite sad that after the temple was dedicated, they would never again be able to go inside. If they are still alive and if they haven’t since joined the church, then it looks like they will get a chance to go see their beautiful temple during this next open house.

He told me that the eight-pointed star had no meaning when he chose to use it as a theme throughout the temple, he has since learned that it was a symbol of Melchizedek, and he loves that connection.

So, the temple will be closed for an undisclosed length of time. People are saying it could be as long as two years or more. I will miss our temple, but it will give us a good chance to visit the many nearby temples. Newport Beach, Redlands, Los Angeles and probably even Mesa and Gilbert. I also want to make a trip down to Tijuana to attend that temple.

Mocking Birds

Tuesday, May 2, 2023

For a few weeks now we’ve notice a nest in our lemon tree and we have seen a couple of Mockingbirds flying into and out of the tree. A week or two ago we heard what sounded like baby’s squeaking in the tree. We couldn’t see into the nest from the ground so I stood up on my new wall and moved away some branches and this is what I saw. 

We were thrilled to have babies in our back yard, but we were kicking ourselves for not checking out the nest sooner. We have now been checking the nest every day watching the baby’s progress. According to google, the eggs incubate for about 14 days and then after they hatch the babies can fly after another 14 days. 

We want to enjoy them now because it looks like they will be leaving us any day now.

--------------------trivia--------------------

The difference in time between when Tyrannosaurus Rex and Stegosaurus lived is greater than the difference in time between Tyrannosaurus Rex and now.

------------------------------------------

Samarah

Monday, May 1, 2023

Poor Sam & Sarah (Samarah) are the last of the kids to live in the frozen north. Last Tuesday they finally decided that they had had enough of the cold and came to visit us for a week. They spent the week visiting the beach and have made a few trips to Sea World. While she was here Sarah asked Mom if she would put on a baby shower for her. Sarah is expecting a little boy in August.

Friday night we had a bonfire on the beach. I guess Sam has never done a bonfire on the beach.

The bonfire was great, I don’t know why but a hot dog cooked over an open fire always tastes so much better than a hot dog cooked on a stove.

The bonfire brought back all kinds of memories from when the kids were home. We used to have the kids save all their homework for the entire year and then as soon as school was over, we would have a bonfire at the beach and the kids would burn all their homework. They looked forward to it every year. It wasn’t long before all their friends joined in on the tradition.

The baby shower was held on Saturday at Desiree’s house. I was not invited but from all accounts it was great and had a big turnout.

After church on Sunday, we decided to go to Sea World with Samarah. Mom snapped this picture of me giving Sarah a hand rub in church. All the time, growing up Sarah and I would take turns giving each other hand rubs. It was fun then and it is still fun.

At Seaworld we spent most of the time watching some of the shows and riding on little Ezzy sized rides.

They leave on Tuesday. It has been good having them here this week. I probably won’t see them again until after their baby is born. 

----------trivia----------

Humans share 50% of their DNA with bananas.   

--------------------------

My Yard

Recorded on Wednesday, April 24, 2023

I have been working on my yard since Covid first started in 2020. I’ve enjoyed the work, but it has been a long time.

The first thing I had to do was to repair our deck. It was ridden with termites and was getting to the point that I was scared to let anyone walk on it. I tore it down to the foundation and rebuilt it. Most of the supporting structure was still good but I did have to replace one strut. Most of the joists were replaced and all the decking and railings.

I then built block walls all around the yard. I separated the flower bed and built a planter on the downhill side, built a wall across the back of the yard, and terraced the uphill side with two short retaining walls.

I then wired the yard to put in flood lights and two outlets. I then plumbed the yard to add a faucet in the back and all the irrigation lines and a drain. I also added power, water and a drain for an outdoor kitchen. I am now to the point that I need to put in the pavers.

Adding pavers is the last step and I’m kind of excited. It will also be the most expensive and the most work. First, I need to dig out all the dirt and back fill with a base compound that is mostly crushed granite. That will need to be packed down. I will then put down a layer of sand and then the pavers.

Saturday, I dug out dirt from about 9:00 until 5:30. It was hard work, like I haven’t done in a long time. I sweat like a pig (that is a funny term because pigs don’t sweat) and drank gallons of water. According to my Fitbit I burned 6,388 calories on Saturday. Here is a graph of my heart rate.

It is good to finally be able to have the end in sight. My goal is to have the yard done enough that we can host Lisa’s 60th birthday party here on June 30. Wish me luck.

I used to include Trivia at the end of each of my posts. I think I will start that again.

-------------------- trivia -------------------

Russia has a larger surface area than Pluto

--------------------------------------------------

 

Water Leak

This entry was written in my journal on April 18.

I have a very sad tale to share. For years now I have noticed that the soil just outside the kitchen window has been damp. I didn’t think too much of it though because that is where the water valves are for the sprinkler system, and I just assumed they were leaking a little bit.

A couple of weeks ago when the rains finally took a break, I noticed that the sidewalk on the side of the house was wet. This was very unusual and was a new thing. I say it was new but with the rain we have been having it could have been leaking for months I wouldn’t have noticed because everything was always wet. My first thought was that it was a leak in the irrigation system because I had just completed the sprinkler system in the back yard. I turned off the water to the sprinkler system and checked the next day and everything was still wet.

The only other source of water near this area is our master bathroom directly above the wet spot. We have Lisa’s sink, my sink, and the shower. I figured it would be a hot water line because they are always the first to go. I climbed into the attic and cut the hot water line to the shower and checked the next day. Still wet. I then cut the hot water line to Lisa’s sink and the next day it was still wet. I then tried my sink. Finally, I cut both the hot and cold water to the master bathroom. Still wet. This whole process has taken more than a week and I am getting frustrated.

After much thought and pondering I figured it must be the kitchen sink, but it is six feet away from that side of the house. I then noticed that the ground just outside the kitchen window was still wet and since the irrigation valves had been completely removed, I knew that it was coming from the kitchen.

I didn’t even want to think about running new water lines to the kitchen because it would be almost impossible to run new water lines where the old ones went but I cut the hot water line to the kitchen and voila, the next morning the sidewalk was dry. Yay, I had found the leak but now how was I going to replumb the kitchen?

I dedicated last Saturday to replumbing the kitchen. From the moment I woke up until I went to bed was spent crawling in the attic, under the sink or in other small, cramped spaces. It was an exhausting day.

My first lucky break came when I realized that the heating duck to the kitchen drops straight down through my closet from the attic. Ever since we moved into this house, I’ve wondered what this 18” x 18” enclosed space in my closet was. I’ve been tempted to cut a hole into it just to see. Well, climbing around in the attic I realized it is the heat duct.

The next lucky break is the fact that the kitchen has a dropped ceiling so this heat duct opens up into the dropped ceiling where I can get at it.

The third lucky break is that I have installed pot lights in the kitchen ceiling so I can remove those lights and access the inside of the dropped ceiling.

Once I had figured out the plan it didn’t take too long to get the new pipe run from the attic down to the kitchen wall but now I was stuck. So far, I had managed to do all of this with only cutting a small hole under the kitchen sink and in the wall of the kitchen cabinet where no one would see them and in our master bathroom which would be easily repaired. Now I needed to cut a hole in the kitchen wall and that was going to be a problem.

Once I cut the old pipe there was no going back so before I cut it, I double checked everything. As I was looking under the kitchen sink, I saw what I thought was water damage down inside the wall. It then dawned on me that all I had to do was cut the pipe under the kitchen sink and replace that portion of the pipe. That would have been a two-hour job rather than a ten-hour job. I promptly tucked the new pipe inside the drop ceiling, replaced the pipe under the kitchen sink and cleaned up. I then dropped on the couch exhausted, frustrated that I had wasted my Saturday but confident that this problem was now behind me.

Imagine my frustration Sunday morning when I woke up to find the sidewalk wetter than ever. So, Monday evening I was back at it. I managed to get the pipe from the dropped ceiling to the sink by cutting a single hole in the kitchen wall and after an hour of great frustration and skinned knuckles I had the water line connected. Now there was no chance of a leak. I had new pipe all the way from the attic to the sink and I could see every connection and none of them had a leak. Last night I went to bed confident that the problem was behind me. I would watch it for a day or two and then patch up my holes.

This morning I happily headed out to the side of house to relish in my dry sidewalk only to find that it was wetter than ever. I was so depressed, but I instantly realized the problem and that made me even more depressed. The leak was in the dishwasher. I had just spent ten hours and hundreds of dollars solving a problem that could have been fixed in less than an hour and probably with no cost. I haven’t pulled out the dishwasher yet but it could be as simple as tightening up a fitting but as old as it is I will probably need to buy a new fitting. Worst case we will need a new dishwasher but the money I’ve spent could have paid for half of a new dishwasher.

You do need to cut me some slack though, after all, I have polybutylene plumbing which is known to be susceptible to leaks and I have already had to repair two leaks in the attic. So, when water starts flowing out of my house it is understandable that that is where my brain goes first.

Lisa hates our dishwasher, so she is hoping our dishwasher is unfixable.