Sawyers Baptism

Wednesday, May 14, 2025

Alycia and Trevor and their family headed home on Thursday, May 8th and Lisa and I hopped on a plane to go to Alycia and Trevor’s house on Friday, May 9th. It was kind of bizarre to see them at our house one day and then literally the next day we see them at their house. The kids didn’t think it was odd at all. They were just glad to see us.

We didn’t fly straight to St George, that would cost around $700 for the two of us but we were able to get round trip tickets for the two of us for $80, and rent a car for $50. The gas alone would cost more than that and Friday traffic to Vegas can often take up to ten hours. Return traffic on a Sunday afternoon can take up to twelve hours. It was a great deal.

To make the trip even more enjoyable, Kira decided to meet up with us in Vegas and ride with us the rest of the way to St George. We walked off our plane and there she was.

Lucky for us, Saturday was not only Sawyers baptism, but it was also June’s dance recital. Kira, Mom and I took June to her final dance practice Saturday morning and then met the rest of the family at the church for the baptism. We show up and the first thing we hear is a distraught Alycia telling us the baptism was at 9:00 and the Bishop had gone home. It was a mass of confusion for about ten minutes but finally we learned that they had to change the schedule around and no one told Alycia, nor did they tell the stake person who was supposed to tell Alycia. We got a councilor there, and Sawyer had a beautiful baptism at 10:00, just like we had planned.

We have seen a lot of different methods that different stakes use to baptise a lot of kids on one day and the best one we ever saw was Elle’s. Rather than repeat how it was done here you can go read about it in my entry on September 22, 2023.

For Sawyers baptism they had all the primary aged kids get up and sing a song. It was fun to see all four of the kids together.

I was surprised to see my cousin Louis and her husband Marty Nygard there. Their grandson and Sawyer have become good friends, and they brought him so he could be with Sawyer for his baptism.

After the baptism, we all headed to back to Alycia’s house and ate some good food. They then took us out to the lake on their boat. That was a lot of fun.

I guess water skiing is very different now than it was back in the day I went. No one just uses skis anymore. It is either wake boarding or surfing. Alycia went first and boy is she good. She used a very short rope so she is right in the biggest part of the wake and then, to my surprise, she threw the rope into the boat. I had no idea she was supposed to ditch the rope. There she was literally surfing the wake just like she was in the ocean. It was quite spectacular. She was very happy because she was only able to do this at the last part of the last season. This is the first time they’ve taken the boat out this year. You would never know it. She got up the first time and threw the rope in like a pro.

Kira went next, she also got up the first time and surfed until her legs gave out. She was amazing.

I really wanted to go, but as I’ve got older, my body is falling apart. I was afraid that my legs weren’t strong enough and that my balance wasn’t what it used to be. As it turned out, my legs were plenty strong enough, but my balance could be better.

I got up the first try but I couldn’t navigate my way out of the white water behind the prop to the side where you can drop into the wake. After five tries my body was exhausted and I said I would go later.

After me, Trevor showed us all how to Wake Board. I then tried again and was finally able to drop down into the wake without wiping out. What a blast that was.

I even got brave enough to go one handed.

In reality, Kira and I were both on the verge of wiping out the whole time and neither of us was ever going to let go of that rope. We did both go until our legs gave out.

Trevor was amazing on his wake board, jumping completely over the wake. He was always going back and forth.

At one point Alycia’s hat blew off so she promptly dumped Trevor into the lake and went back for the hat. I tried to grab it as we drifted by, but my fingers couldn’t get a grip. Alycia then ran to the back of the boat and dived in after her hat. It was really kind of funny to see her. You’d think she was going in after one of her kids. I really wish we had a video of that.

We then parked the boat near a quiet end of the lake and swam for a little bit and then headed home. It was a fun afternoon.

In the evening, we all got to go to some high school and watch June perform her little ballet dance. Little girls are always so fun to watch dance. She did great. At these little girl dances, there is always some little girl just doing her own thing but June was trying really hard and was concentrating on the dance. Most of the girls were laser focused on their teachers for the cues on what part of the dance comes next.

Sunday morning, we all headed to church and while we were all dressed up I grabbed this picture of three of my girls. They are all so beautiful. Looking at this picture they really could be sisters.

When the Crowley’s were at our house earlier in the week, Ella told Lisa that she really wanted to learn to cook. Mom promised her that she would teach her how to make no bake cookies when we were there. I love no bake cookies.

To describe our trip home would fill a book. I will try and keep it short. Kira’s flight was earlier so she took a shuttle to Las Vegas so we could have more time with Alycia and her family. We were worried about traffic, so we got to the airport early and were waiting for our flight which was to leave at around 10:30. At some point it showed that it was delayed a few minutes and then it was delayed ten or fifteen minutes and then, all of a sudden, it said the flight was cancelled. Four or five of us immediately headed for the agent at the gate. He simply called out, the flight is cancelled, you need to head for the ticket counter to arrange new flights. And there was a stampede.

When we finally got to the ticket counter, there were more than a hundred people in line in front of us and it was moving very slowly. I figured we would get the counter at about two or three in the morning. As we waited, we got text messages giving us a free hotel room, free food and a free Lyft ride. A woman came by encouraging us to go get a hotel room and make plans tomorrow. When a disgruntled customer left the counter and yelled at us that they had no flights until Wednesday we agreed.

Our options were to a) get a refund, b) cancel our flight c) book another flight. None of those options were great because a) our ticket was only $80 and we’d used half of it so we would get $40 back, b) we had to get home and c) there wasn’t another flight until Wednesday. Not acceptable.

In the end, Lisa cancelled our flight and booked a ticket on Southwest for Monday morning at 6:30. We headed to our hotel room, slept for three hours and were waiting for our southwest flight early on Monday. And then it started all over again. Our flight was five minutes late and then ten minutes late and I could see it all starting over again. We finally boarded but just as we were getting to the end of the runway, the pilot comes on the speaker and tells us we had to go back because of we had no working toilets. We finally got left about an hour and a half late, had a good flight and then landed safely in San Diego. As we’re approaching our gate the pilot comes on again and says, “It never rains but it pours”. Because we were so late, we now had no gate. So, our one-hour flight took us three hours and most of those three hours were sitting on the plane.

So, Monday night I gave Lisa her mother’s day gift. It is a set of wind chimes.

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The earliest known wind chimes originated in Southeast Asia and China around 3000 BC.

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