Fred Leavitt

After New Years

2012-02-08T21:37:00.000-08:00

After New Years Eve things slowed down dramatically. Sunday was a pretty rough day for me though. As I said before, Sarah, Oliver, Caitlin and her boyfriend and Mackenzie and her fiance stayed after the dance and played games. I decided to stay up and read my book and by the time they left it was after 3:00 AM. I then decided to put some food away that had been left out and by the time I got to ready to climb in bed I saw that it was 4:17AM. I had set the alarm to go off at 4:20 to take Justin to the airport. It was a good thing I didn't go to bed because Justin had slept through his alarm and my alarm had been set but not turned on. So I woke Justin up and off we went.

Alycia and Trevor also left on Sunday and so we only had Kira and her boys and Sarah here. Not much happened the next week because both Lisa and I went back to work. Monday was a holiday though so we went to the beach. It was a ton of fun.

I don't know if you've ever tried to make a sand castle with a two year old around but it can be rather frustrating. Luckily Landon was occupied with the waves long enough for me to finally get my tower to a respectable height. He kept coming along and knocking it down.

We normally like to build our towers inside a castle wall and then when the tide comes in we see how long the wall can protect the tower from getting washed away. This time Evan decided he wanted to sit inside the wall and let the waves come around him. There were a couple of times when the waves washed over the walls and gave Evan a bit of a shock but we reinforced the walls and Evan continued to defy the waves.

And then the big one came leaving Evan an island in the ocean. He loved it.

Looking at Mom and Sarah you would think it was the middle of the winter. Oh yeah, it was the middle of the winter but it wasn't that cold.

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

Today the last surviving veteran from world war 1 died.

Her name was Florence Green.

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Our First Win

2012-02-05T22:49:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I went sailing with my buddy Dan. We've sailed together some what sporadically for more than ten years now but because we aren't really serious sailors we've never actually won before. The race consists of four fleets, the A fleet (for the very serious), the B fleet, the C fleet and then there is the D fleet for the weekend warriors like myself. If you prove yourself in one fleet then you get to move up to the next level. In the entire time we've been racing we've never made it out of the D fleet. People in the A fleet are the guys who routinely scrub the bottom of their boat and wax it so that it is extra smooth and all of that stuff. We of course don't do any of that.

Each time we compete there are two races. Yesterday in the first race we didn't do so well. We are actually pretty good at getting a good starting position and all of that but we just don't seem to have it when it comes to things like how you set the sails etc. At one point we had managed to cut ahead of two other boats going around one of the markers but when we came around and were heading down wind one of the boats gradually closed the distance between us and passed us up. We had our sails set exactly the same and as best as I could see there was no difference between us but they just gradually pulled ahead of us. We didn't come in last but we just couldn't win.

Between the two races we decided to pull the little outboard motor to see if it made any difference if we could shift the center of gravity forward a bit. The motor was out of the water but it was still hanging on the back of the boat. In the end we didn't have time to figure out how to pull the motor but we did notice that our fore line had fallen into the water and during the whole race we had been dragging a stupid line. We pulled the line out of the water and wound the line up on the front of the boat. Well the most amazing thing happened. We managed to get an excellent position and crossed the starting line mere seconds after the horn went off and when we rounded the first buoy we were at least thirty yards ahead of the next contender. While a couple of racers managed to close the gap a little bit we were still clearly in the lead when we crossed the finish line. It was a glorious day.

I really wish I had pictures to share with you but sometimes when we are racing with a good wind we lean so far over in the water than I'm sure we're going to capsize the boat. For a while that would make me very nervous so I finally made sure that I didn't take anything on the boat and I decided that if we tipped it would be a fun adventure. Now I don't even worry about it but I'm not about to take my phone out there just to take a picture. The picture above was taken a while ago and it is our boat in the harbour.

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

New York area airports account for half of all the delays in America

even though they only represent 12% of the nations air traffic.

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New Years Eve

2012-01-30T19:00:00.000-08:00

In many ways New Years Eve was the highlight of the holidays. Justin had planned a murder mystery dinner and he gave us all a description of the character we were to play. Each couple got $10 and we went to a thrift store to get into costume. I was the Baron of the castle and Lisa was my spinster sister who was a religious fanatic. Grandma was the maid, Kira and Sharley were gypsy's who happened to be passing through and since a storm was coming I let her them stay in my castle if they provided entertainment. Ben was a local farmer who had lost his little girl to wolves and he was petitioning me for help. Since the storm stranded him at the castle I kind of had to let him stay for dinner. Alycia was a hunter who I had hired to get rid of the wolves that were causing a lot of problems with the locals (like Ben) and Trevor was the local drunk. I think he was supposed to be doctor or something too. We also invited Cameron and Erica over and Erica was the butler and Cameron was some business man passing through who got stranded. He was very curious about what was going on and he rather suspicious to me but he turned out to be innocent.
Sarah of course was thoroughly bummed. All the years she was growing up she watched her older siblings head of to the young adult dances and she stayed home and did nothing and now that she can go to the dance we have a party without her. I can't say as I blame her but she has actually gone to the youth dances for the last four years and they do make a big deal out of those.

So after getting our costumes we ate at the In-N-Out and then went home and got the dinner ready. The dinner sort of melded into our play where the two rotten Gypsy's turned out to be the evil ones and managed to kill us all off. We might have taken them out if Cameron hadn't died so fast.

After we all died we broke out Mom's new Kinect and danced the night away. I'm not sure how they talked me into dancing but I have to admit it was fun. When we tired of that we played another board game and when midnight arrived we celebrated with a round of Martinelli's.

Sarah and her friends arrived home about the time we were all headed for bed so decided to try and read my book on the couch in the other room while they all played that fun Tellustrations game. I was asleep long before they decided to leave. It was really good to see MacKenzie again and to meet her new fiance. He seems like a very nice guy. Caitlin and her boyfriend (soon to be fiance it looks like to me) were the other couple in the group with Sarah and Oliver and Jace Olsen.

And that was New Years Eve. Thank goodness we started late church this year so we could all sleep in the next morning.

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

The concept behind Sweet Hearts dates back to the time of Abraham Lincoln. Today they make more than 8 billion (8,000,000,000) candy hearts a year.

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Sea World

2012-01-21T22:00:00.000-08:00

Friday we did Sea World. Once again Ben & Sharley couldn't be there because of work. It was sad he couldn't get more days off work because we really missed them. Sea World is one of our favorite places in San Diego. It is expensive but very cool.

Everyone loved the whale show which we watched twice. Landon was so into it he about crawled over the rail to get down there.

Evan was into it as well. Here he is fascinated with the Beluga's.

As is Landon.

This kid is all boy.

It was Trevor's first time at Sea World and he was getting in to it as well.

Here we all are with Shamu.

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

If a Diesel Electric train were a car it would get about 400 miles per gallon.

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Point Loma Tide Pools

2012-01-21T00:05:00.000-08:00

Sadly Ben and Sharley left us Thursday morning to go back to work. Thursday was the day we rescheduled the tide pools for. One of the prettiest places in San Diego is Point Loma. It is the point of land that juts out and forms one side of the mouth of San Diego Bay. The point is quite high up and so you would figure it would be the perfect place for a light house. More than a century ago they built that light house and ran it for some time before they decided that during the fog (when you really want a light house) it was just too high up and people were running into the shore before they could actually see the light house hundreds of feet up above them. The current light house is actually a beacon that is down at the shore line but the old light house is still there and is a very cool attraction.

Down on the water below the light house are some of the best tide pools you will ever see. Unfortunately for us, all during Christmas the low tide always occurred at night and during the day when we could actually see anything the tide was quite high. That didn't deter us however so we headed to the shore anyway.

We went to the lighthouse first and it didn’t take us too long to look into the living quarters of the light house and then climb up into the tower, take a bunch of pictures and then head out. What was very cool however is that when we first got to the light house we could see a wall of fog out on the ocean heading toward the land. We literally watched the fog hit the point and spill over the ridge and down the other side. We went from perfectly clear weather to foggy within about fifteen minutes.

Looking across the mouth of San Diego Bay to Coronado Island Naval Station.

Kira getting lost in the fog. Look at how clear the view is in the photo before Kira's and then look at the fog in the photo with Kira. That fog coming in was quite dramatic. Kira looks like she's walking in a cloud. Kind of like an angel don't you think?

And here is another angel with her head in the clouds

Justin and Landon

Sarah and Grandma

Evan and Trevor

Justin, Trevor and Landon

Me, Mom and Alycia

The fog engulfing the light house as it rolls in over the ridge

When we were all satisfied with the lighthouse we headed down the hill to the beach. The tide was in so we couldn’t see much but there were still lots of rock and pot holes and so we took off our shoes and searched out the crabs, anemone, barnacles and other wild life that we could find.

At one point Sarah nearly gave me a heart attack. She came walking down this one rock and slipped on some moss and landed on her backside. She was right on the edge of a little drop which would have dropped her about four feet onto another ledge of rock. Four feet might not sound like much but if you landed on your head it would hurt. I tried to run over and catch her as best I could but she had caught herself by the time I got there so all I could do was comfort her and kiss her owey better. She really hurt her hand.

Not long after Sarah's acrobatics Justin, Sarah and I were intently checking out a pool of water when a rogue wave about washed us off the rock. It was a rather chilling shock. It looks like Justin took the brunt of it.

Trevor trying to keep Alycia warm.

After we went home and warmed up we made a family trip to the temple. Thursday is my normal day to work at the temple so we picked that day for the family trip. I went in for my shift before everyone else but they all showed up later and I joined them in the cafeteria for dinner. After dinner everyone except Sarah attended an endowment session. Sarah isn't able to do a regular session at the temple but she can go and do baptisms so she did that while we did a session. I love it when we can all go together to the temple.

The Big Balloon Parade

2012-01-18T23:14:00.000-08:00

On Wednesday (December 28) we went and watched the "Big Balloon Parade". This is not something we would normally do but as it turned out, the group that Sarah volunteers for was in the parade. Sarah has volunteered for a couple of years now with "Sports for Exceptional Athletes". I guess for some reason the Special Olympics left San Diego and these are the guys who filled the void left behind. When they learned that Sarah had a nephew in a wheel chair they invited him to be in the parade with them and so how could we not go and watch Evan in the parade?

The parade was actually quite good and Kira of, course, loved all of the bands. For those who may not know, Kira actually marched with her band in the Rose Bowl Parade one year. My skinny little girl carried a humongous Sousaphone for the entire distance.

While Kira was getting Evan to where he belonged before the parade started they happened to run into Captain Jack Sparrow. While Evan was thrilled to see him, he was just a bit scared of him too.

And finally we saw the Sports for Exceptional Athletes arrive and we anxiously looked for Evan.

And there he is with a very cute girl walking right behind him.

It looks like he's a natural at this doesn't it? I guess he was like that the entire parade, just waving at everyone. When the parade finally ended Sarah told us that Evan looked at her and said, "why are we stopping?" He was ready to keep going. The guy with Sarah is Oliver. He also volunteers with the group.

After the parade we all headed to Old Town for lunch andthen the Mormon Battalion visitors center.

Our favorite place to eat in OldTown is the Old Town Mexican Café. Unfortunately when we got there they told usthe wait was like two hours or some dumb thing like that. We weren’t really upto a two hour wait so we headed across the street to “Fred’s Mexican Café”.With a name like that how can you go wrong? I think it is the atmosphere at theOld Town Mexican Café that makes it so cool more than it is the food.

After awonderful lunch at "Fred’s" we then headed up to the visitors center. A year ortwo ago the Mormon Battalion Visitors center was completely redone and if youhaven’t seen it yet you really should go. I love it every time I’m there. Evan has been excited to go to the "Mormon Italian" long before e arrived in San Diego. He has called Mom several times just to let her know.

Landon liked it too. He's riding his horse.

And pumping water.

Evan, on the other hand, is helping his mother do the laundry.

And helping his Dad make some bricks.

And I'm panning for gold in the nearby stream.

Wednesday night we had a surprise planned for our kids. Lastyear a friend of ours, Rick Daynes, invited us to a song and dance show called “MixedTape”. As you may know, I’m not much into popular music but this show was a lotof fun and brought back all kinds of memories from when I was a teenager.

Rick has a friend who is in the Mixed Tape caste and she had tickets waiting for us at will call. So we got the kids loaded up (always a challenge), got the baby sitter set up and then we piled into two cars (I'm thinking we need to rent a bus for the next time we're all home) and headed for down town. About the time we're decending into mission valley we get a panicked call from Rick. Apparently for the first time in over a year the show has sold out and there are no tickets available for us. Not even at full price. We were quite bummed but we turned the cars around and went home and played games into the we hours of the night. Justin had a new game called Telestrations. While I don't think it was quite as fun as Settlers, the girls liked it more and twelve people could play so it was definitely more fun to get everyone involved.

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

The Mormon Battalion made the longest infantry march in American history.

They also constructed the first brick building in California.

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Mount Woodson

2012-01-17T22:22:00.000-08:00

The plan for Tuesday was to climb Mt. Woodson. It is fairly steep in places but only four miles up and four miles back. There are three trails up the Mountain but by far the prettiest one starts out from Poway Lake. I was hoping we could all go on the hike but as it turned out Ben had to work and kind of at the last minute some friends of Trevor's showed up in town and he and Alycia decided to spend the day with them. That left Justin, Kira, their boys, Sarah, Lisa and myself.

It was a perfect day for hiking. It wasn't too cold so you didn't overheat and as long as you stayed in the sun you didn't get too cold. In case you don't know Landon (Justin and Kira's youngest) he is a ball of energy. If he is awake he is constantly moving and I mean moving fast. I rarely saw him run out of energy the whole time he was here so I was watching to see just how long he would hold out on this hike. It wasn't too long but it was fairly steep in places.

As it turned out, he almost made it to the top. I'm not sure where the stroller was but this must have been a tough way to do a hike. That boy is heavy.

Mom at least made it further than Landon did. She does have an excuse though. She's been sick since August and while she is on the mend, her Fe levels are still quite low and without iron it is a lot harder to get oxygen to your cells. She did well and Justin once again was a good man and stayed with her most of the way up.

Just before you get to the top of the mountain there is this sharp rock ledge that sticks out from a cliff. Of course you have to stand on the end of it.

A lot of people are quite hesitant to stand on the end of the rock and while I couldn't talk Mom in to going I did get everyone else out there.

This is about as close to the rock as Lisa was about to get.

Ever since he got here (and I think even before he got here) Evan has been asking if he could have a fire. After we got home and recuperated a little bit we lit a fire in our fire-pit in the back yard. As a special surprise for Evan Lisa bought these humongous marshmallows. They are seriously the size of tennis balls. Evan had a ball using them to make a torch. He thinks it is much more fun to burn marshmallows than it is to eat them. I think I might have to agree with him.

And then, just like any other night, we played games until well into the wee hours of the morning.

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

Our DNA proves that every living human being descends from one woman.

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Christmas Day

2012-01-16T23:31:00.000-08:00

Christmas Morning in our house was a bit different than it normally is. With it being a Sunday and church at 9:00 we did not have time to open our presents. It takes us a good 5 or 6 hours to open our presents because we only allow one person at a time to open their gifts. The gifts from Santa however are left unwrapped under the tree so we decided to let the boys (and Sarah) enjoy their Santa gifts and then we all got ready for church.

Church was beautiful. I love to sing Christmas songs and with Kira and her Oboe it made it even more special.

After church we commenced with the gifts. I have to admit that Evan was a bit happier with his gifts on Christmas Day than he was with his gift from Christmas Eve. Santa was good to everyone.

Even the big kids were excited.

Ben pulled a very funny trick on Sharley. For Christmas they bought each other I-Phones. They'd been using them already for a few weeks so Ben stole Sharley's phone from her after she'd gone to sleep and wrapped it up. As we're all settling in getting ready to open gifts he uses my phone to call Sharley. He couldn't call from his own phone because she has a special ring tone for him that she would recognize. It was so funny to see everyone's faces when one of the presents under the tree started to ring. You should have seen the look of confusion on Sharley's face when someone handed her the ringing present. It was really funny.

Of course, Sheba has to be right in the thick of it all.

Lisa and I got all of the kids a pizza stone and pizza paddles to go along with them. We found wooden ones with long handles or metal ones with short handles. We really liked the wooden ones so we got them and cut the handles off for anyone who didn't want to pack the long handles. We also made the kids books about Waldemaar Christian and Ella Dora Lybbert. Lisa was able to get to the Lybbert reunion this summer and saw that Marsha (Smith) Nelson had put the book together using Heritage Makers so Lisa copied it for our kids. It is a very cool book and if anyone wants a copy contact Lisa, she will tell you how you can buy one.

About the time the presents were winding down it was time to get our Skype call from Alex. It was of course the highlight of our day. We plugged our big screen TV into the laptop and there was Alex larger than life. What was also cool was that we could also conference in Brandon from Texas.

It was also pretty cool because for both Alex and me it was the first time we got to see little Rosalie.

Hayley has also grown a lot since Alex lost saw her. I love that little girl. I sure miss those girls.

We even got to meet Alex's companion, Elder Carcamo.

Monday we had scheduled the tide pools but it didn't quite work out that way. Kira went for breakfast with her friends, Alycia went to breakfast with her friends, Ben, Trevor and Justin went and played football with their friends. By the time we got everyone back home it was too late to do the tide pools so we went to a movie instead. We figured "I Bought a Zoo" would be a cool movie for the kids. Wrong. It was a very adult movie and not at all what we expected. It was still a good movie but Evan and Landon did not enjoy it.

Following the movie we did Christmas Card Lane. Normally we walk the entire thing but it was late and we were tired so we rolled down the windows in the van and drove slowly.

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

Scientists have designed a nanoparticle that will stab a microscopic knife into bacteria but will leave human cells alone. It appears to work on those nasty drug resistant bacteria like MRSA. Human trials will start in a few years.

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Christmas Eve

2012-01-15T21:40:00.000-08:00

Alycia and Trevor arrived on the Friday before Christmas and then Ben and Sharley arrived Christmas Eve. Noticeably absent from our home was Brandon, Serene and their girls and Alex. Both had good excuses to skip out on all of our fun but it was still sad not having them. Alex, of course, is on his mission in Chili and Brandon and Serene are in Texas.

Serene was due to have a baby on Christmas day so I guess it wouldn't have been wise to travel while in such a delicate condition. Little Rosalie was actually born while we were on our way to Disneyland. How exciting is that? I was still rooting for Christmas Day but I'm sure little Rosalie will be glad to be able to celebrate before the Christmas excitement.

Saturday morning we had a choir practice. Our Christmas program was essential our ward choir singing and of course my favorite part was Kira's two solo's. I just love listening to her play her Oboe. It is so beautiful.

Grandma helped the boys ice some cookies.

Christmas Eve at the Leavitt household is a major production. It all started when our kids were little and we had them act out the Nativity story. Once they got a bit more talented we had them actually perform. Since we forced all of our kids to start out on an instrument it got to be rather high caliber. Over the years I would say it has actually degraded a bit talent wise but it has sure become a lot more fun. We also have a tradition of caroling to our neighbors. When the kids were all playing instruments we actually had a pretty good performance. Kira on her Oboe, Brandon on his violin, Ben on his trumpet, Alycia on the flute, Alex on his Saxaphone and Sarah on her clarinet. I don't think we actually had all six of them at the same time but we did have all of them. This year we skipped the instruments and just sang. Our neighbors all look forward to us coming.

Our talents this year were as follows:

Kira shared a video of one of her Oboe performances. Beautiful as always

Justin bench pressed Evan and Landon

Ben made his famous street taco's for us.

His lovely wife of course gave him a hand.

Sharley made home made ice-cream. Delicious.

Trevor did a magic trick. It was actually really good. I have no idea how he did it.

Alycia read a story about the history of Nativities. It seemed quite relevant seeing as we were surrounded by dozens of them.

And Sarah showed us all how to give a proper back rub. She demonstrated on Sharley. I'm not sure why she didn't pick me.

Evan showed us how he can drink milk like a cat. Pretty good if you ask me.

Landon sang "Red Solo Cup" and did a really good job of it. It was very cute and we were all singing that song all week long.

Lisa normally does a nativity video which she did again this year but it was a different video. Very nice. I normally read the nativity story out of Luke II but this year I cheated and let Linus tell the story from the Peanut's Christmas Show.

After the talent show we always let the kids open up one present before they go to bed. They don't get to choose which present however and the present we always gave them was pajamas or something similar. Once they married we quit doing the Christmas Eve present but Now Kira and Justin are doing it with their kids. When Evan opened up his pajamas he was so upset that he started bawling. That made all of us laugh which only made him bawl even louder. It was sooo funny.

What was even more funny is that Alycia decided that her and Trevor would do the Christmas Eve pajama tradtion and when Trevor opened his pajamas (which were actually some work out clothes) he started crying too. For a second he actually had her fooled until she realized he was copying Evan. It was funny.

We then let the kids have a brief sword fight with their fancy Disneyland swords and put them to bed.

And then we played well into the night. We of course paid for it the next morning when the kids wanted to get up early but hey, who has time for sleep when your family is home?

Everyone Arrives.

2012-01-14T22:58:00.000-08:00

What a wonderful Christmas this was. I have had so much fun with my kids that I couldn't bear taking even just a few minutes to blog. I could write a book about the last three weeks but instead of posting a discourse so long that no one reads it I will take it just a day or two at a time.

Sarah was the first of the kids to arrive home and she flew into Long Beach on December 14. She had a look of shell shock on her face when we picked her up at the airport. This was a rough semester for her and the last month before finals was especially difficult. She worked hard and did well in all of her classes so we are all quite happy. I don't think anyone has been more grateful for a break that she was. She deserved the break and enjoyed in thoroughly.

We can't go to Long Beach and not drop in and say hi to Ben and Sharley so from the airport we went and picked them up and had Ben show us his new favorite taco place. It really was good and just talking about it I want to go and eat a couple.

Sarah was thrilled to see some of her friends.

The next person to arrive was Grandma Shaw. She flew in on Saturday, December 17. I don't remember too much exciting happening until the next week Wednesday, December 21 when Kira, Justin and their boys arrived. We never had a boring moment after that. Kira and Justins Christmas present to us was a trip to Disneyland and the best day for that just happened to be the next day. It probably wasn't the best idea for Kira and Justin since they didn't even have a chance to recover from their trip. The next morning we got up early and headed for Disneyland. It was a blast.

Our tree this year was beautiful. We got it at Costco and it was way cheaper than anywhere else. It was probably the fullest and most beautiful tree we've ever had. Next year however I think we're going artificial.

Grandma came with us and since we didn't want her to slow us down too much nor did we want to kill her we rented a wheel chair for her. I'm not sure where she is in this picture but Sarah decided to take a break. Do you notice how we're all bundled up? It was a very cold day.

Mom and Sarah on the caterpillar ride.

Here's my girls.

Me and my baby. How quickly they grow up. It seems like just yesterday I was holding her in my arms and now she is a real woman.

Evan loved the merry go round.

So did Evan's daddy.

Disneyland is very wheel chair friendly. Many of their rides have special cars designed just for wheel chairs. Evan was able to stay in his chair for many of the rides. Here we are in "It's a small world".

This ride was for old times sake. Before we even moved to San Diego we took the kids to Disneyland. Kira and Brandon were barely tall enough to go on the rides but Ben was still too small. I really wanted to go on Space Mountain but Kira was way too scared. I eventually convinced her that it wasn't all that bad and so we left Ben with Grandma, Lisa went with Brandon and Kira and I went together. As soon as the car started moving Kira started screaming and never stopped until well after the ride was over. I think it was a good ten years before she ever went on another roller coaster. Here we are going on Space Mountain again. Not much has changed though. She still screamed from the beginning to the end. An interesting side story is how Brandon reacted with Lisa. They were in the front car and half way through the ride, in a calm and very serious tone, Brandon says to Lisa, "I think, we're going to die."

Come on Mom, why aren't you on a horse?

Alice in Wonderland is really a freaky story.

Here is Evan coming out of "It's a small world". Does that kid look happy or what?

Hey, there's a four generation picture.

Did I mention that it was a rather cold day?

If you expand this picture you might notice snow flakes. While it was a cold day it wasn't that cold. They actually had a snow blower that blew out fake snow. It was little soap bubbles. Ben swears that they taste like cotton candy but what little I could get in my mouth, I'm not convinced. Ben and Sharley actually bought pizza and we met up with them in Down Town Disney for dinner. It was good to see them.

He looks like he's the King of the World doesn't he?

Let me tell you what a cool son-in-law I have. The boys (and Grandma) were great the entire day but come ten o'clock and they were getting pretty tuckered out. Justin insisted that Lisa and I stay with Kira while he took everyone else home. It was a lot of fun hanging out with Kira and we realized that this is the first time we've been alone with Kira since Brandon was born. Sarah likes to point out how it stinks being the youngest but I guess being the oldest also has it's down side. It really was special that we could just play with our eldest child. Thank you Justin.

Coincidentally Alycia came home for her friends wedding last September and she pointed out then that it was the first time that she's ever been home alone with Lisa and I. That was fun too. I love a large family and I wouldn't trade it for anything but I never realized how special it can be to spend time with just one child. I've spent one-on-one time with all of my kids but until Sarah was alone I don't think we've ever done two-on-one with any of the kids. It really is a lot of fun.

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

Wal-Mart is the largest company in the history of the world.

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Hark the Herald Angels Sing

2011-12-23T18:00:00.000-08:00

Right now I'm rereading one of my all time favorite books. It's called, "Fishers of Men" by Lund. It is an historical fiction novel about a family who lived during the time of Christ. One of the reasons I like this book so much is because it almost makes you feel like you were living during that time and I truly believe that much of how this books portrays Christ is very close to how it must have been. The main character in the story was a young teenager when Christ was born and I recently read a part in the book when he tells his son about his experience. If you want to read what seems very much like an eye witness account of the shepherds experience on that night click on the link below.

click here

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

Network executives argued against having Linus read from the Bible in "A Charlie Brown Christmas" but Peanuts creator, Charles Schulz insisted on it. Shea, the voice of Linus, was 7 years old when he performed the part.

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Energy Vampires

2011-12-12T23:19:00.000-08:00

The other night I was locking the doors and turning off the lights getting ready to go to bed. When the lights were all off and I was heading up the stairs I was struck but just how many little lights there were in my home even though everything was turned off. I've seen these lights many times but this time it sort of just hit me a little more powerfully. So much so that I even went and got my camera so I could share it with you. Of course this picture can only show the lights around my computers, it doesn't get the ones in the kitchen and the family room. Just to name some of the lights that come to mind without thinking too much about it I have.

Modem
Routers
cell phones
speakers
stove clock
microwave clock
house phones
lap tops
blue ray
cable box
stereo
xbox

I'm sure I'm missing something but you get the idea. They're like little vampires slowly sucking the energy out of my home.

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

The average house consumes about 200 watts of power
even when everything is turned off.

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

Lunar Eclipse

2011-12-10T22:00:00.000-08:00

Normally I use Saturday morning as a chance to sleep in but today I just had to get up at 6:00 and check out the last lunar eclipse of the year. In fact I think they are saying it is the last total eclipse for three years. This eclipse was unusual because it happened to occur just as the moon was setting and here in Southern California we had the ideal view.

When an eclipse happens as the moon is setting the suns light passes through the earths atmosphere. The atmosphere scatters all of the light the blue end of the spectrum so all that is left to shine on the moon is the red end of the spectrum. That is why the moon looks so red during the eclipse.

I thought I would have more time but as you can see from the pictures I only had a few minutes before the moon descended below the horizon. At that point I went right back to bed.

Today I finally got the Christmas decorations up. I usually do that the first Saturday after Thanksgiving but life has been way too busy this year. We also went and bought our tree. Now that the kids are gone we were bound and determined to buy an artificial tree this year but the nice fake trees are expensive and Costco had the real trees pretty cheap so I guess it won't happen this year.

Tonight was the Church Christmas dinner. We had prime rib and it was really good. I love prime rib.

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

In 1961 we had 27 students per teacher and spent $2,800 per student (in 2011 dollars)

Today we have 16 students per teacher and spend $10,000 per student.

Students perform worse now than they did in 1961. I don't think money is the problem here.

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

Austin - Flying Home

2011-12-08T23:09:00.000-08:00

With every thing that has happened I never did finish the story of our visit to Austin. We were interrupted by Mom's surgery, non-functional furnaces, drunken rats and a myriad of other things that I haven't been able to share with you what turned out to be a very eventful day.

We woke up Tuesday morning after Brandons ceremony to a lot of rain. Since our flight didn't leave until the afternoon we had a nice and relaxed morning visiting with Pam. We learned about a very bizarre Texan tradition on this trip. We stayed in Chase's bedroom and in his closet was a very strange object hanging on a hanger. At first glance it look like a large dead bird. It was called a Mum. I always thought that Homecoming consisted of a football game and a dance but not in Texas. In Texas (or at least in Austin) the boy (or usually his mother) makes a large frilly object that he gives to a special girl. The girl wears this thing all day around the school and then to the football game. It looked to me like it would nearly cut your head off but I guess they get quite excited about them. After all of that they don't have a homecoming dance. I guess the origins to this tradition date back to a time when the boy gave his girl a Mum (the flower) to wear. Eventually the ordinary flower wasn't adequate so it got doctored up a bit. This continued to the point where there is no longer a flower but the thing that remains is still called a mum. A very interesting tradition indeed.

We decided that we would have time to stop and take a tour of the state capitol building on our way to the airport. We picked up an umbrella for Lisa on our way down town. We parked and made our way to the visitors center and then headed over to the capitol building to catch the 1:30 tour. While we were standing there Lisa asked my how long our flight was. I had a copy of the email with the agenda in my phone so I looked it up and in doing so I noticed that our flight was supposed to leave at 1:45. For some reason I had shown in my calendar that the plan left around 4:00. We now had about 15 minutes to make a half hour drive to the airport.

The trip to the airport went quickly and even stopping to get gas at a station where their credit card machine was down we still check the car in around 2:00. The car was empty and the car rental places charge you nearly ten bucks a gallon if you have them fill it for you. I may have paid that if I thought we could still catch our plane but since we were so late I stopped and filled it.

When we got to the ticket counter I very sheepishly told them that we had missed our flight and was there anyway we could still get home today. To our surprise she told us that we had not missed our flight, it was late. I've never been so happy to hear that a flight was late. Now we had a whole new problem, our flight was so late that we would now miss our connection in Dallas. We were supposed to fly into Dallas, catch a flight to LA and then a flight to San Diego. At least now the problems were American's problems and not ours. After some finagling they were finally able to get us on a later flight out of Dallas that would eventually get us home after 11:00, we were originally going to get home somewhere around 9:00.

So off to Dallas we went and as we were walking through the terminal Lisa so a gate with a sign that said there was a direct flight to San Diego. On a whim we decided to ask if there was any room left on the plane. There wasn't on that plane but after some checking the woman was able to get us on the next direct flight to San Diego and so we ended up getting home somewhere around 8:00 which was a good hour earlier than we were originally going to get home. Pretty cool eh?

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

Texas exports more product than any other state. California is a distant second but it has 50% more people.

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

It's the Christmas Season

2011-12-04T23:46:00.000-08:00

I love Christmas time and this season just got a great kick start. I've mentioned before how much Lisa loves unique nativities and that she has a fantastic collection of them. Obviously the kids all know that as well so when Ben and Sharley went to their Stakes Nativity display yesterday and saw how wonderful it was of course his first thought was about how much his mother would enjoy that. He told her that the display would be over today (Sunday) at 9:00pm and so we decided to go up and visit them and see this wonderful display. We made some spaghetti sauce and took it up with us and Sharley made spaghetti, a wonderful salad and the most delicious peanut butter cookies you'll ever taste. After eating way too much we headed over to the church to see the display. It really was wonderful. I guess they've been doing this for twenty years and the place was packed. We could barely get parking.

They had nativities from all over the world and amazingly four of Lisa's nativities were there. Obviously I couldn't take pictures of them all so here are just a few of my favorites. You'll have to forgive the poor quality, I didn't bother taking my good camera and Martha doesn't do too well in love light conditions.

This Nativity was perhaps the coolest one there. It is from Mexico and consists of dozens of little figurines that the collector has gathered over the last thirty years. It is more like a nativity village.

I don't know if this was my favorite one or not but it really drew me in. It is made from a rare clay that is only found in a narrow three foot thick seam in Alabama. The wise men are American Indian warriors and the baby Jesus is a papoose. The animals consist of a buffalo, wolf, horse and bear. The color of the figurines was very unique and I assume it was the native color of the clay.

Lisa loved this nativity from Australia.

I'm not so sure I liked this one all that much but it is certainly unique and it is from New Zealand so I had to take a picture of it.

This nativity is similar to the Alabama one in that it consists of American Indian traditions and it is made from native materials. This one is made from volcanic ash from Mount St Helens. How cool is that? The teepee also adds a nice touch. Sharley liked the cactus.

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

A wolf is born deaf but an adult wolf can hear another wolf howl from ten miles away.

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

One Less Rat

2011-11-29T22:53:00.000-08:00

Well I just had an interesting experience. Lisa just handed me the metal rack that goes in the bottom of the big turkey roasting pan and asked me to go put it with the roasting pan that we keep in the garage. We only use that big roasting pan at Christmas and Thanksgiving. I walked into the garage and there in the middle of the floor was a big rat. He was a good ten inches long (not counting his tail) and he just sat there looking at me. Normally these animals clear out the instant the door opens so I figure this guy must have helped himself to some of that poison I left out there a couple of days ago. Dixie and Mark recommended that I use "Tom Cat" and the first day I put it out nothing touched it. I figure it was because the container was designed for a small mouse. I broke open the package and left the block of poison out and all four of them were gone the next day.

So there we were, me and the rat staring each other down. If I had my shoes on I would have tried to step on him but I wasn't going to do that in my stocking feet. Finally I realized that I had a sturdy metal rack in my hands so I just slammed the rack on top of the rat and held him there nice and tight until he quit trying to wiggle. It's a strange feeling squeezing the life out of another living being with your bare hands but any time I started to waiver I just had to think of my furnace and there was no way that rat was leaving my garage alive.

Finally I tentatively lifted up the rack and picked the body up and dumped it in a shopping bag. I was sorely tempted to take a picture of him for the blog but that seemed a little too morbid. Now I have to scrub the rack with scalding soap and water before Lisa will even let me put it in the dishwasher. I think if it was up to her we would throw it out. I also have to disinfect myself before she will let me in bed with her tonight. I've also been told that she's not going in the garage for some time.

Oh well, we have one less rat in the garage.

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

A rat can tread water for three days and survive a fifty foot fall unharmed.

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

Thanksgiving

2011-11-25T19:00:00.000-08:00

Us and the Bagleys

This has been a wonderful Thanksgiving even though Sarah is our only child who was here. Because it was going to be a lonely Thanksgiving we decided to invite some friends over as well as the missionaries. The food was wonderful and we ate to our hearts content. The missionaries had to leave soon after we'd finished eating and we'd planned on playing some games or watching a movie or something with our friends but we ended up just talking until quite late. It was a fun time. I hope we didn't bore them too much.

Ready to dig in

The Bagley's are recent empty nesters like us. They have two boys, one who is off to college and another who is on a mission. He's in Guatemala and has been out about the as long as Alex has. Since they were going to be home alone for Thanksgiving we thought we'd have them over and talk about our kids. I'm afraid we talked more than they did.

I gained five pounds in one day. Hopefully it goes about as fast.

After dinner David and I did the dishes.
Mostly I talked while he washed.

Today we went and saw a movie. We went to Twilight. I thought it was a great movie but then I'm easily impressed. I love a good escape novel. Tonight Sarah is going out laser tagging with a bunch of friends and then they're coming by here for a movie. I think it could be another late night.

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

A new borns brain burns 65% of all the calories they consume.

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

While the Women relaxed and visited.

My House is Warm

2011-11-23T23:51:00.000-08:00

Tonight our house is warm. As I mentioned before I pulled the fan out of my furnace but I was unable to pull the fan off of the motor shaft so I had to take it in to my work. I put some penetrating oil on it and then went and dug out a pulley puller but the fan the was already loose. I then pulled the fan off and soldered in new wires to replace the ones those stupid rats ate. Monday night I put the repaired fans back into my furnace and when I hooked everything back up my fan came on. That was quite exciting until I couldn't get the fan to go off. I mean I turned the thermostat off and everything else I could turn off and my fan wouldn't turn off. How frustrating.

The brain that runs everything on my furnace is a control box and once I decided that the problem must be in there I was now out of my league. I'm a materials guy, not a sparky. I can make my way around electricity but when you get into a circuit board I get just a bit nervous. I decided it was time to pull in some help. A friend of ours uses a local handyman to help her out with these odd jobs so I gave him a call. He knew even less about my furnace than I did but what he did know was the name of an independent HVAC guy. What a life saver. I called Clayton and he showed up at noon today. It took him about five minutes of poking around when he told me my transformer was burned out. Duh... why didn't I check that? Well the reason is because the transformer is buried in with the big ugly circuit board and so I kind of shied away from it. It took Clayton all of ten minutes to put in a new transformer and $100 later he was on his way and I was very happy.

As for the mice, I'm quite sure they are rats. I've set a dozen traps in my garage and almost every day one of them is set off but nothing is in the trap. One of the traps even disappeared and I'm thinking that somewhere in my garage is a big rat with a wooden board stuck to his leg. I've got a couple of big rat traps but they don't seem to get set off. Dixie told me about some good rat poison that I can get from Walmart and I've decided that is the next step. I hate to use poison because I don't like the idea of some dead rat rotting away in my garage but after cleaning up after those rodents I came to the conclusion that it is worth it. Die rat, die.

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

Scientists have genetically modified the mosquito that carries dengue fever so that the female babies (only the females bite) have no wing muscles. This means that when they evolve out of their pupal stage the females just sit there on the water and can't fly or mate while the males, who are also genetically modified, go off and mate with the native females giving them wingless babies. In controlled trials the entire mosquito population crashed within just a few months. Real world trials are just beginning now in Mexico.

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

The Furnace

2011-11-19T22:00:00.000-08:00

Lisa loves to see how late in the year we can go before we need to turn on the furnace. When we first moved her it was pretty much Christmas time before she would break down. As we have become softer the day of the furnace has moved earlier and earlier. I've been begging for heat for several weeks now but it was last week before I finally insisted that we had a furnace for a reason and I was turning it on. Imagine my dismay when nothing happened.

I went out and checked out the furnace but I couldn't see anything wrong so I grabbed a flash light and noticed that the heat exchanger was full of dog food. There was also a good amount of mouse droppings around so it was no mystery how the dog food got into the heat exchanger. The mystery was where did the dog food come from? Bridget hasn't been with us for two years now and we did use the furnace all last winter.

The problem now was that to clean that stuff out of the furnace was going to take longer more time than I have after I get home from work so it was going to have to be a Saturday job. Unfortunately last Saturday we went to Texas so there we were watching TV in our coats and blankets. Until this Saturday when I could tear my furnace apart.

This morning I got up bright and early and headed out into the garage bound and determined to work until we had warmth in our house. Even though the heat exchanger was full of dog food I was a bit curious as to why the igniter didn't work. The furnace should at least try and start even if it was full of dog food. The mystery was solved when I pulled the cover off the furnace and saw that two bundles of wire had been chewed completely apart. Those stupid mice had eaten my wires. As angry as that made me I was somewhat relieved because that is an easy fix.

It took me several hours and a trip to Home Depot before I finally got the furnace all cleaned out and reassembled. I took a five gallon bucket and a shop vac full of dog food, bow tie macaroni and mouse droppings out of that furnace. Gross, I really hope I don't come down with that Haunta Virus. Once it was all together I plugged in the furnace and turned on the the thermostat and anxiously awaited the "click, click, click" that tells me the furnace is trying to light. Sadly all I could hear was a soft hum. What a let down.

After several minutes of trying not to electrocute myself I tracked the hum down to the fan motor. I dug around the fan motor for a while and saw that those #%*&$@*$#@ mice had chewed through the wires that connected the condenser to the fan motor. this was not going to be as easy of a fix as the thermostat wires were.

After disassembling all of the work I had just done I finally had the fan and motor out onto the floor. That is when I was able to tell that the wires had been chewed off right where they came out of the motor. I now had two problems. First of all, I couldn't get the fan off of the motor so it was impossible to get to the area where I needed to work and second, even if I were able to get the fan off I'm not sure I could connect to the little stubs of wires that were left. It looks like I am now to the point where I'm going to have to spend money. I hate that. After making many phone calls I realized that the only HVAC people who answer their phones on a Saturday are the ones who are willing to send an emergency repairman out to your house but not sell you spare parts. The fan/motor is now by my front door ready to go to work with me on Monday. I guess I can't put the coat away just yet. I better have this fixed before Thanksgiving or our company may suggest that we go to their house.

---------------trivia--------------
The output of the United States exceeds the output of the entire remaining world combined.
------------------------------------

Surgery

2011-11-18T21:20:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I received a phone call from Kira chewing me out because I neglected to let any of the kids know that Mom was having surgery today. I have to admit that I would be rather put out if one of my kids had surgery and didn't tell me so I guess she had a right to be upset. My only excuse is that I'm so used to Lisa keeping every one updated that it didn't even occur to me to let anyone know. Of course Lisa isn't going to want to tell everyone about her own problems so that should have been my job.

I decided the best way to make amends would be to give them all a running narrative during the surgery. Rather than tell the story all over again I figured I would just repeat the text messages here.

10:59 Me: We have mom all checked in and we're now waiting. Her surgery is scheduled for noon and is expect to last an hour.

11:01 Ben: We are praying everything goes well. Let us know.

11:01 Sarah: :( call me as soon as you get out?

11:04 Me: They just took mom away to prep her. They wouldn't let me go with her. They said I could go see her once they have the IV etc. all hooked up.

11:05 Me: We are at the Palomar hospital in Escondido.

11:06 Sarah: ;(

11:09 Alycia: Thanks for the updates.... I bet you're making Kira happy.

11:16 Me: I have been chastised for not letting you all know about Moms procedure. Sorry about that. My only excuse is that I am used to letting mom keep you all informed and it didn't occur to me that she would be reluctant to talk about herself. I should have known better.

11:28 Alycia: I am not worried about it haha don't be too hard on yourself.

11:30 Me: Thank you.

11:56 Me: I'm in with mom. They're letting me be with her until they put her to sleep.

11:56 Me: That's not the kind of sleep we did with Bridget by the way.

11:58 Ben: I wasn't going to give you a hard time because I knew Kira did.

11:58 Ben: And I'm like Mom in where I just kinda keep that stuff to myself.

11:59 Ben: So I understand

12:13 Kira: How are you holding up Dad??

12:17 Me: I am fine, thank you for asking.

12:16 Brandon: Tell mom not to look into the light

12:20 Me: Mom said that she saw that light once and she isn't ready to go there just yet.

12:14 Me: We're waiting for the person currently in the operating room to get out. They're running late.

12:15 Me: Mom is getting anxious, she isn't liking this and wants it to be over with.

12:16 Ben: Just make sure they don't rush anything. You couldn't resist the Bridget joke eh?

12:16 Ben: :)

12:18 Me: It sounded funny when I said they were going to put her to sleep so I just had to say something.

12:18 Sarah: Tell mom I love her and I'm keeping her in my prayers. Please keep me up to date. I love you and hey we all know Mom would never talk about herself ;) Love you: See you in 2 days!!!

12:19 Kira: Give mom a big hug for me.

12:19 Kira: I love you guys!!

12:20 Kira: and thanks for not putting Mom down! ;-)

12:22 Me: You guys are all making mom laugh and its hurting her. She wants me to write down all your funny comments.

12:24 Kira: I won't be able to respond for about an hour now but please still send me everything. make sure mom knows I love her!!

12:25 Me: I gave her a hug for you (which I really enjoyed by the way) an I'm reading her all of your texts. I will keep you updated.

12:32 Alycia: Tell her not to worry about him being late. It will literally be over in the blink of an eye for her haha!

12:43 Me: You will be disappointed to know that mom is not pregnant.

12:45 Sarah: Well wouldn't the bleeding confirm that?

12:45 Me: She has her tubes tied and she's been bleeding since August but they still made her take the test.

12:46 Me: You would think so eh?

12:46 Ben: And that cost how much? No wonder our healthcare system sucks...

12:46 Sarah: Ha ha ha how did surgery go? Is she out yet?

12:47 Sarah: Yea! haha

12:48 Me: We're still waiting for the last guy to get out of the room.

12:48 Me: Pretty ridiculous eh?

12:52 Me: If they take much longer they won't need drugs. Mom is almost asleep.

12:52 Alycia: Pooor Mamasita

1:09 Me: The anesthesiologist just talked to us. I guess she is going to have general anesthesia. I thought it was going to be the one that just makes you all loopy.

1:10 Me: It should be soon now.

1:10 Kira: Good luck

1:18 Me: They just took my wife away. She should be done in an hour.

1:18 Me: In case you weren't aware of just what is happening, let me explain.

1:19 Sarah: :)

1:19 Me: Moms uterus has many fibroids and polyps.

1:20 Alycia: that's scary

1:22 Me: Since the ultra sound doesn't have enough resolution they are going to do a hysteroscopy to see exactly what they are dealing with.

1:23 Me: They will then do a D&C which means they will scrape clean the inside of her uterus and hopefully remove the polyps and maybe some of the fibroids.

1:23 Me: If the fibroids are not in the way they will then do an endometrial ablation.

1:26 Me: In this case that means they will insert a wire mesh which opens up inside the uterus. The mesh will then act as a microwave antennae which will burn the inside of her uterus.

1:28 Me: If the fibroids are in the way then they won't be able to do the ablation. In that case they will insert an IUD.

1:29 Me: The hope is that the ablation will force her into menopause.

1:29 Me: The IUD may or may not stop her periods.

1:34 Sarah: What's an IUD?

1:36 Me: It stands for Intra Uterine Device. It is normally used for birth control but I guess it can stop your periods.

2:31 Me: The computer board says that mom is out of the procedure room. Yay.

2:32 Alycia: yay!

2:32 Kira: Oh good!!

2:34 Ben: Yay!!!

2:37 Me: I just talked to the doctor. Mom's been done for a while but the doc had to go deliver a baby before she could talk to me.

2:38 Sarah: Is she okay?

2:38 Alycia: wow... uterus, baby... lots to do.

2:38 Me: Everything went perfectly and I should be able to take her home in about an hour.

2:41 Kira: Did they do the ablation?

2:41 Ben: Ha ha. Busy doctor. Everything ok?

2:42 Me: The doc said mom is still quite groggy so they won't let me in yet.

2:43 Alycia: boo.

2:43 Kira: That's how I am when I wake up. Every time I kept trying to go back to sleep.

2:43 Me: They did a D&C and the ablation. No need for the IUD.

3:05 Sarah: How is she???

3:06 Me: I haven't been able to see her yet. They said everything went perfectly.

3:21 Alycia: So does that mean it worked well enough there was no need for the IUD?

3:21 Me: yes, it ent well. No IUD.

3:23 Alycia: How do they know they don't need the IUD? How can they tell it will stop the bleeding?

3:24 Sarah: yayayayayayay

3:30 Me: I'm in with mom. She's hurting but very happy.

3:35 Me: Blood pressure 141/86, heart rate 77 bpm, oxygen level 100%. They need to unplug her so we can go.

3:53 Me: We're on our way to the car.

3:55 Ben: OK good! No more doctors visits for you two for awhile ok?

In addition to all of the text messages Lisa received a few video messages as well.

When I was talking to the doctor I asked if I would be able to see some of the pictures from the hysteroscopy. She was a bit surprised but quite willing to accommodate me. I thought I would share with you the inside of Lisa's uterus. It is kind of strange to think that all six of my children have been inside of this thing.

The picture on the left is from before they did the endometrial ablation. According to the doctor it looks surprisingly good. The fibroids were all intramuscular so they wouldn't cause any problems with the ablation and the only polyps she was able to see were very tiny ones near the opening that were not likely causing her any problems. She thinks that the bleeding is caused by a lack of the hormone that normally stops a woman's period. That misty white thing in the "before" picture is actually some of the membrane that gets shed every month. In a healthy young woman the uterus would be full of the stuff. Mom's is mostly gone because she is so close to menopause.

The picture on the right is the "after" picture. To me it looks to be about medium well done.

Desiree has been wonderful through-out this whole experience mom has been going through. She has come over to visit with her several times before the surgery and then she came to the hospital to be there after mom came out of surgery. The original plan was for me to go back to work and Desiree was going to take Mom home but we were so late that I canned work for the day. Desiree then decided that she would go get us some food and bring it to us. The woman is an angel and I know she is like that for everyone, not just us.

I now have mom home and she is mostly just tired. I think she will be tender for a while but she claims the pain isn't a whole lot more than she has dealt with for the last few months.

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

The Medusa fish can live forever.

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

San Antonio

2011-11-17T23:32:00.000-08:00

San Antonio was a fascinating town. I thought it would be cool to see the Alamo and the temple but I didn't know what else might be there. Lisa mentioned that we should go and see the river walk as well. I had never heard of the River Walk and so I wasn't too thrilled about taking the time out to go see it. As it turned out, the river walk was my favorite place. Lisa said it was considered the "Venice" of the USA. I completely agree (even though I've never been to Venice).

The Alamo was a very sobering experience. I always knew that a bunch of people died in their while under attack by the Mexicans but I never knew the whole story. It was fascinating and we spent quite a long time in there. It is hard for me to imagine that people would willingly die for what they know is a lost cause. Some how I suspect that if it were me I would have snuck out of the Alamo so I could live to fight another day. I do know that I would never have surrendered to that man however since the last guys who surrendered to him were all executed. I loved the Alamo.

After we were finished at the Alamo we decided to check out the River Walk since we had the time. Directly across the street from the Alamo was a shopping mall where we had parked the car. When we asked someone where the river walk was they pointed out the window of the mall to what looked like a small pool and they said that it was right there. How do you like that, we had unknowingly parked our car closer to the River Walk than we had to the Alamo. We decided to go check it out.

We headed down the stairs and out to the pool and saw that it indeed was a long water way. We started to go for a walk along the bank of the water way and Lisa suggested that we pay for a boat ride since she was tired from the Alamo and needed a rest. She tires easily in her condition. What a great move that was. The boat ride was three and a half miles long and made a loop and the atmosphere through out the ride was wonderful. Definitely worth the time we took.

By the time our ride was over it was dark so we decided to get a table by the water and enjoy a little snack before we headed back.

On the way home we asked Martha to take us by the temple. The temples are all closed on Mondays so we knew it wouldn't be open but wanted to just see it anyway. It was very beautiful and I'm glad we stopped. It was more or less on our way anyway.

So that was our day. It was enjoyable from the time I got out of bed until we got back to bed and it was really good to spend time with Brandon and Serene and their beautiful girls.

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

Scientists have discovered a bacteria that appears able to substitute arsenic for phosphorous in its DNA. It has always been assumed that all life required phosphorous and if this finding is confirmed it means that every biology book in the world will have to be rewritten.

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

Induction Ceremony

2011-11-16T20:09:00.000-08:00

Monday was Brandon’sbig day. We got up at 6:30which was really tough since our bodies were still on San Diego time and it felt like we weregetting up at 4:30. Theceremonies all started at 10:00but the doors opened at 8:30and we were there right when they opened.

I’ve always prided myself on being able to get around welland not get lost and so when the GPS devices were first invented I sort of poopoo’d the whole concept and figured they were for people who couldn’t read amap. I’m now completely sold on GPS devices. My android phone is now an extension of my body and I’m not sure how I could live without it. Let me justlist a few of the many things I use my phone for daily.

- makingphone calls

- takingpictures and videos

- calendarand meeting reminder

- sendingand receiving text messages

- transferringfiles from one place to another

- addresslist (including the stake directory)

- readingbooks (including the Bible etc.)

- identifyingstars in the sky

- lookingup material properties on the periodic table

- watchingmovies and tv shows and listening to the radio

- convertingunits (1 W/mK = 18.49 BTU in/hr ft2 °F)

- checkingmy altitude

- acompass

- payingmy bills and transferring money in my bank accounts

- musicplayer

- taperecorder

- readingbar codes

- checkingthe temperature

- dictionary

- checkingthe tide

- measuringthe calories burned and how far I run

- translatingAlex’s Spanish words

- makingtrades on my fantasy football team

- andthen of course there are the myriad games that you can play

And now I am a huge fan of GPS. Martha (my phone) got me allover Austin andSan Antonio andwe didn’t have a single missed turn or anything. It was great. Brandons ceremony took place in the Frank Erwin Center and we were thefirst people to walk into the place. We could have sat on the very front rowbut we didn’t because we weren’t sure when Brandon would get there and if wewasn’t right in front of us then we would have a good view of him. Instead wechose to sit on the front row of the next level up. As it turns out we wouldhave been able to have Brandonright in front of us but hey, how can you know? We still had a clear view ofhim.

The ceremonies were pretty cool because they had the TexasSupreme Court judges sitting up on the stand and the Stake Court of Appealsjudges. Some how I though they were the same but apparently not. Some dudestood at the stand and called out in a loud voice, “OH YAY, OH YAY, OH YAY!!!All stand for the Supreme Court of Texas.” Or something like that. It was veryinteresting. They then spent the next half hour introducing each of them givingtheir entire life history which may have been interesting for Brandon but not so much for me.

They then gave out some awards for various things and thencame the swearing in ceremony. They did their best to make it a solemn occasionand they did a pretty good job. Serene and her girls along with Serene’s motherand sister also sat with us so we pretty much took up the entire row. The girlswere really good through out the whole thing which really didn’t take too long.

Sydney was fullof some really good comments this weekend. You’ll have to get Lisa to sharethem with you but one good one was when she asked her Grandma (Sydney was glued to Grandmas hip the entireweekend), “So is my daddy a lawyer now?” Lisa told her than yes he was. Sydney then asked, “Willhe look different now?” Lisa told her that he will just look like a daddylawyer. She is a very bright girl.

Sydneymay love her Grandma but Hailey loves her Grandpa. She would sit on my lap forhours and cuddle with me. I loved it. One time she was upset about somethingand Brandonasked her if she wanted to go to her mother or to Grandma. She reached out herarms for me. I think that alone made the trip worth it. I really miss thosegirls. Brandonneeds to get a really good paying job so he can bring his family to visit usoften.

After the ceremony we took Brandon, Serene and the girls for lunch.We asked Martha for a good place to eat that was close by and she suggested wego to Stubbs Barbecue. It was good but not as good as the place we went toafter his graduation ceremony. I think it was called Blues Barbecue. It wasstill very good but what was really interesting was the building it was in.

Youcould tell it was very old and made of native limestone. It was on the edge ofa steam and was built into the side of the hill. It had a large courtyard andseveral huge rooms that are now being used to put on shows and it is full ofmany smaller rooms. I wish I had been able to explore the entire place. As we wereleaving one of the workers was outside having a smoke and Brandon asked him when it was built. The guysaid, “In the 1860’s, it was originally a Mormon settlement.” How cool is that?

After lunch we kissed our little granddaughters goodbye andthen we hugged and kissed Brandonand Serene goodbye and we headed south to San Antonio. It was so good to see Brandon and hisbeautiful family again. In case you don’t know, Serene is expecting a baby onChristmas day and for being just a few weeks away from delivering she looksreally good.

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

For ten years scientists have been trying to figure out how a key enzyme involved in aids is folded. Some one decided to make this problem into a video game called "Fold It" where gamers with no bio-chemistry experience try to fold a shape. The gamers solved the problem in ten days.

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

Off to Austen

2011-11-15T23:25:00.000-08:00

With just Mom and I at home I find that I don't have a whole lot of stuff to talk about. Well this weekend I have a whole lot of stuff to talk about. So much so that most of you probably wouldn't read it all so I'm going to break it up into smaller segments and spread it out over a few days.

So the big news is that two weeks ago Brandon received news that he passed his bar exam. For him this is the accomplishment that means the most to him. When he graduated from law school it was a bit of an empty celebration because he still had this big three day long exam hanging over his head and without passing the bar his entire law school would be meaningless. While Lisa and I weren't too worried about him passing he couldn't allow himself to get his hopes up and the closer it came to receiving his results (he wrote the test in August) the more nervous and stressed he would get. When he finally did receive his results it was like a huge load was removed from his shoulders.

Now the big problem was that his swearing in ceremony was only two weeks away making tickets expensive and planning difficult.. I guess we could have been planning to go for several months but we didn't know about the ceremony and Brandon wasn't wanting to get his hopes up. We talked about only one of us going or maybe driving out and then I decided to give "Price Line" a chance. I checked out what the going rate was for tickets to Austin were (the ceremony was in the State Capitol) and then made a bid for nearly half of the regular price. I won the bid. I think I'm going use Price Line more often.

We flew out of San Diego on Saturday and arrived in Austin fairly late in the evening. I had no idea that Austin was famous for their music. I think they are famous specifically for their live music. We figured something was up when we saw guitar stuff all over the airport. The luggage conveyors had these huge ten foot guitars standing on them. It was actually pretty cool.

Brandon and his family drove down and stayed with some friends. We stayed with the Gosch's. They used to live in our ward and moved to Austin. They were kind enough to offer us a room in their very nice house. Even more, they offered to have Brandon and his family join us for Sunday dinner.

We met up with Brandon and his family Sunday afternoon in Zilker Park. It is a huge park and we couldn't possibly see the whole place in one day so we chose to go the Nature Center. We had a lot of fun watching them play with the many hands on displays and stuff. I think the highlight for Sydney was the dinosaur pit. They can use plastic shovels to dig in the sand and uncover some dinosaur bones. They then use a brush to clean all the sand off of the bones. They had a blast.

When dinner time came around we headed to the Gosch's for a very delicious meal. We barbecued chicken and had some rice and salads and we had a great meal. We then visited until late and then Brandon and Serene took their girls back to their friends and put them to bed.

It was so good to see them again.

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

When trying to get in shape, what you eat is four times more important than exercise.

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

Trunk or Treat

2011-10-30T03:10:00.000-07:00

Right now it is 2:30 in the morning and I'm at work. We have a very important delivery that needs to go out on Monday and as is usually the case, several setbacks have made us late. If I came in on the weekend and completed a few tests then we have a chance of delivering what we promised on Monday. So here I am. In between readings I thought I would take a few minutes and update my blog.

Several years ago when the kids were still small Halloween fell on a Sunday. To discourage the kids from going Trick or Treating on Sunday the church had a "Trunk or Treat" on the previous Saturday. All of the parents (and anyone else who wanted to participate) backed their cars into the stalls at the church parking lot and the kids went from car to car trick or treating. The primary had booths in the cultural hall where the kids could bob for apples and all that fun stuff as well.

Trunk or treat went over so well that we've had it ever since. In the years since I've noticed that fewer and fewer kids come to our door and more and more kids show up at the Trunk or Treat. I think a lot of the kids are inviting their friends and why not? You can hit the equivalent of dozens of house by walking around the parking lot and since you know everyone you don't have to worry so much either.

At first few people did much in the way of decorating their cars but over the years there have been some pretty well decorated cars. I decided that this year I should do something as well. I lined the back of our van with black fabric and set Lisa's nice marble table in the "cave" with a skull on it. I also hung a lantern with a candle in it. The light was so dim that I added a second candle next to the skull and a third one on the floor. For the candy dish I borrowed a Dutch oven and I kind of liked the results. Luckily science has come up with electric candles so I don't have to risk setting our van in flames to light up my cave.

I wanted to sit in the cave and hand out candy but I didn't know quite how I should dress up. I finally decided on letting my whiskers grow out (I needed a good week for that) and wear a white shirt and dark pants. I also wore an old hat. I didn't know what to call myself but some one said I looked like Indiana Jones so I'll go with that. It was so dark in the "cave" that many of the kids about wet their pants when they finally saw me in the darkness.

I think I like trunk or treat.

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

The number of stars that are visible with a telescope is ten times the number of grains of sand in all of the earths deserts.

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

Occupy Wall Street Demands

2011-10-25T23:39:00.000-07:00

When I talked about the occupy wall street crowd last time I mentioned that none of them could describe what their objective was. Well since then I've actually found a web sight where they do mention their objectives. I was a bit surprised to learn than some of their objectives I sort of agree with in a round about way. Most of them however would be completely destructive if they actually got their way. I thought I would go through their objectives one my one and describe what I thought would happen if they were actually able to get everything they wanted.

The "Occupy Wall Street" protesters have listed 13 proposeddemands from their website.

Demand one: Restoration of the living wage.

I thought we had this and it was called “minimum wage”. I'm not sure but I think a living wage is a minimum wage of $20/hr. If we had to pay the guy flipping burgers in McDonalds $20/hr then you can say good by the dollar menu. Everything will be much more expensive, we'll have higher unemployment especially among teenagers and if we don’t impose tariffs on imports then it wouldresult in a greater trade imbalance causing many domestic companies to go outof business.

Demand two: Institute a universal single payer healthcaresystem.

This would eliminate what is left of the free market system amongst health care and put a cap on the doctors wages. This would result in a shortage of doctors, longer waiting times andeventually rationing of life saving procedures. Old people and the handicapped would be allowed todie in order to give the limited resources to younger people. Since I’m nowconsidered “older”, I don’t like this.

Demand three: Guaranteed living wage income regardless ofemployment.

I actually proposed this idea as a form of welfare but my “living wage” wasjust barely enough to allow someone to not starve. If every citizen received a basic living allowance then this would eliminate abuse.

Demand four: Free college education.

I might actually be able to go along with this one. I believe education would solve many of our problems. I would use a vouchersystem that is good for qualified programs (not something like ebonics) and if you aren’t passing your classes then you’re out of there.

Demand five: Begin a fast track process to bring the fossilfuel economy to an end while at the same bringing the alternative energyeconomy up to energy demand.

Unless you want energy costs to sky rocket you can’t end fossil fuels on afast track. I would encourage domestic energy (coal, oil and gas) and discourageforeign energy with tariffs. I would definitely fast track alternative energy of allkinds (wind, nuclear, solar, bio-fuels etc).

Demand six: One trillion dollars in infrastructure (Water,Sewer, Rail, Roads and Bridges and Electrical Grid) spending now.

There goes our taxes again. If we had actually done this with the lasttrillion dollars we spent (instead of bail out the banks) I think we’d be in alot better situation now though.

Demand seven: One trillion dollars in ecologicalrestoration planting forests, reestablishing wetlands and the natural flow ofriver systems and decommissioning of all of America'snuclear power plants.

Nuclear power is the only viable source of energy that produces no pollutionof any kind. I do think we should create more national parks but a trillion dollars may be a bit out of line.

Demand eight: Racial and gender equal rights amendment.

I thought racial and gender discrimination was already illegal. If we wantto put it in an amendment though I’m fine with that.

Demand nine: Open borders migration. anyone can travelanywhere to work and live.

I fully agree that immigration should be VASTLY simplified but do we reallywant to allow open borders to terrorists, drug smuggling, criminals and peoplewith nasty diseases?

Demand ten: Bring American elections up to internationalstandards of a paper ballot precinct counted and recounted in front of anindependent and party observers system.

This is one demand that I can completely agree with.

Demand eleven: Immediate across the board debt forgivenessfor all. Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages,home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now! Alldebt must be stricken from the "Books." World Bank Loans to allNations, Bank to Bank Debt and all Bonds and Margin Call Debt in the stockmarket including all Derivatives or Credit Default Swaps, all 65 trilliondollars of them must also be stricken from the "Books." And I don'tmean debt that is in default, I mean all debt on the entire planet period.

Huh??? That would be interesting. I’ll have to think about this one. I thinkI could actually go along with this. Debt causes a LOTof problems and personally I think we'd be a better off if we didn't have it. Just watch the price of houses plummet if you had to pay cash for them.

Demand twelve: Outlaw all credit reporting agencies.

Well if you don’t have debt then you don’t need the reporting agencies. Ifwe do have debt then you kind of need to know what your risks are or elseinterest rates will sky rocket for everyone.

Demand thirteen: Allow all workers to sign a ballot at anytime during a union organizing campaign or at any time that represents theiryeah or nay to having a union represent them in collective bargaining or toform a union.

As long as it is a secret ballot then I'm all for it. Unions are good when they're needed but if they're not needed then they shouldn't exist. I would not allow unions for public employees. Then you have the fox guarding the hen house. Tie public employees wages to the private sector and you'll be fine.

A Visit from Sarah

2011-10-23T23:03:00.000-07:00

My highlight of this week was that Sarah came home for a few days. I guess UVU has a fall break so we took the opportunity to bring her home for a few days. It was a thrill to see her. We wouldn't normally bring a kid home with Thanksgiving and Christmas coming so soon after but she's been up there all summer long and we missed her and she missed us and we got a good deal on tickets so home she came. I think she really enjoyed being able to sleep in also.

We didn't actually do anything special but she did go to the temple on Thursday evening and did baptisms. Thursday of course is my shift and she used to go every Thursday night for most of her senior year. We would always have dinner together in the cafeteria and then she would go do baptisms while I went back to work. It was really fun to have her there again. Of course everyone on my shift was glad to see her again as well.

Saturday Ben and Sharley came down after Ben got off work so they could see Sarah as well. It was nice to see them again as well. Ben and Sharley's new apartment doesn't have a washer and dryer so they brought a few loads of laundry with them. Ben had to finish up freshman Geology class they wouldn't transfer over and then Fullerton has a required class that he couldn't take until after he completed all of this required classes so he's now taking those two classes and a couple of others that he added just for fun. Since he will be completed everything at Christmas time he's now in full interview mode looking for gainful employment starting 2012. He's had some pretty exciting interviews and opportunities. I'm quite excited and anxious to see what he ends up doing. I really hope he doesn't have to leave Southern California.

Since we had a special gathering we decided to go out for a Hodad burger. I haven't been so full since last Christmas and I don't think I ate more fat in one meal than I've had in the last month. It was wonderful. You'll have to excuse the blurriness of that last picture, the taking the picture was just a bit inebriated and he didn't focus the picture very well. I imagine the picture looked normal to him.

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

The median price for a house in Detroit is $7,500.

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

Grandpa and Nana

2011-10-17T00:05:00.000-07:00

This was the most relaxing weekend I've had in a very long time. Lisa's Dad and Carol are taking a vacation in Phoenix and since Phoenix is a whole lot closer than Vancouver Island and I haven't seen Carol since Alycia's wedding (and even then we didn't get to visit a whole lot) we decided to whip over to Phoenix and spend the weekend with them. The drive out was really quite relaxing. It was only five and a half hours and we got left early so it was nice. When we first moved here I couldn't help but think what an ugly place the desert is. I was really glad that San Diego has lots of water brought in because we would truly be a desert otherwise. After having lived here however I've come to believe that the desert is really a very beautiful place. Don't get me wrong, I'm still VERY glad that we have lot's of water brought in but the desert really is beautiful. Harsh and rugged but still beautiful.

If my relaxing weekend started with the drive out, it only got better once we arrived. Grandpa and Nana already had the table set when we got there and after we sat by the pool and relaxed for a while we threw the steaks on and had a great barbecue. I decided a long time ago that as long as I don't have to work in it, I don't mind extreme heat one bit. I do need the shade or I will burn in no time flat but I can sit in the shade and relax just fine. Nothing better than laying in the lawn chair reading a book.

So Saturday morning after a relaxing breakfast we headed out to be tourists. I think the original plan was to make a wide and sweeping circle through the Superstition Mountains so we could experience the whole area but poor Lisa wasn't feeling well so we downgraded to a less ambitious plan. She wasn't up for a whole day so we went to see the Goldfield Mine. What a fascinating place. At one time the town of Gold Field was much larger than Phoenix. Who would have thought? There are still several operating mines at Goldfield but the main mine that started it all is now flooded. It was actually flooded once before when a flash flood swept through the area and filled the mine shaft completely full of water but they pumped that all out (it took them several months) and they kept digging. The next problem happened when they got down to around 1,200 feet deep and they broke into an aquifer. That they haven't been able to pump out and the mine remains full of water to this day. I guess the locals refer to the aquifer as the GoldfField River.

I learned some other trivia on this trip. Apparently the Sonoran desert is the only "Living" Dessert on the planet. Now in case you're like me and not quite sure what a "living" desert is, it is simply a desert with lots of plants in it. Any other desert has lots of sand and very sparse plant life. Somehow the Sonoran desert has been able to evolve a lot more plants that can survive in it. When you look at some of the pictures I took I guess you do have to agree. It looks rather green for a dessert.

Those are the Superstition Mountains you see in the background. Don't you love that name? Superstition Mountains. I like it.

Every once in a while as we were cruising along in the living desert we would see random buildings. It seemed very odd and you couldn't help but wonder what those buildings were. At one point in one of the more barren parts of the desert we came upon a fairly large complex of buildings. When we came up to the buildings we were quite surprised to see that it was an elementary school. How bizarre, there was an elementary school and there wasn't a single building within sight of it. I'm guessing the real estate was pretty cheap.

So after we were done with the tour we headed back to the house and jumped into the pool. I thought it would be wonderful to jump in a cool pool when it was 100° outside but even nice water is a major shock to an overheated body. It only took moments to adjust however and I can tell you, it is wonderful to be in a cool pool when it is hot outside.

So after good company, good food and a good book we finally had to come home. Thanks Grandpa and Nana for a wonderful weekend. I think you should do that more often.

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

The Saguaro cactus doesn't get it's first arm until it is at least 70 years old.

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

Occupy Wall Street

2011-10-11T23:10:00.000-07:00

I just had to take a minute and state my disgust for the morons who are participating in this "Occupy Wall street" march. They have groups in all the major cities including San Diego. In case you haven't been paying attention I guess a bunch of unemployed and uninformed bums have decided to march against big business. The problem is that these guys don't even know what they are marching for (or against). All they will say is that big business is bad and the government should raise the taxes on rich people. Some of them are even claiming that the government should take over everything. What I don't understand is if we did as they want and got rid of big business, who they think will make their clothes and their shoes, and their cars and their razor blades and their cell phones and I think you get the idea.

Now don't get me wrong, I agree that there are major problems with lots of big businesses but most of those problems actually stem from the government. The best example is the government bailing out the big banks and General Motors. If a bank makes bad decisions then they should be allowed to fail. That way the good banks will survive and the bad banks will fail. All Obama did (and yes I know Bush started the whole stimulus package but Obama turned it into a two trillion dollar nightmare) was reward the bad banks and punish the good banks.

All I'm saying is that if the government would just leave the big businesses alone, get rid of all the loop holes in the tax code (or just go to a flat tax) then those evil big businesses would start investing their hard earned money and unemployment would drop very quickly.

In case you want to see just how clueless some of these people are watch this video.

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

A recent survey determined that a majority of Americans

think that Obama is as bad as or worse than than Bush.

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

Xavier

2011-09-30T23:15:00.000-07:00

This morning at about 0100 Lisa rolled over and elbowed me telling me that my phone was ringing. I always leave my phone down stairs because if it is upstairs and it rings Lisa is a very unhappy camper. Apparently I needn't have worried because she wakes up even if it is downstairs. I laid there trying to imagine who would be calling me at 1:00 AM when I suddenly remembered that Javier's baby is due on the October 8. I knew it had to be him. I ran downstairs and called the number of who ever had been calling me and sure enough. It was Javier and his baby had arrived at 12:31 AM. How exciting. Xavier de Jesus Valdez was 6lb 6oz and 19 inches long and he looks just like Javier. The delivery went well and Rosi is healthy and very happy. I thought about heading to the hospital right then and there but I knew Rosi's family would probably be there and I didn't want to overwhelm the baby and Rosi so we headed to the hospital this morning. We took Rosi some pretty Lily's. When we got there Javier had gone for breakfast so we tried to visit with Rosi. She doesn't speak a word of English and we only speak about five words of Spanish so did a lot of gesturing. We did pretty go though. Javier finally showed up and we hung out for an hour or two and then headed out.

The day only got better from there. This weekend is the Miramar Air Show and the Blue Angles are always the star attraction. In case I've not mentioned it before, Hi-Z is located directly across the street from the Miramar Marine Core Air Station so we have a good view of all the attractions. When I realized that the Angles were on I climbed onto the the roof and watched. While it doesn't do it any justice I took a few short video clips of what we could see from the roof of our lab.

Tonight we had the missionaries over for dinner. I always enjoy having them come visit and when you have a son on a mission it is even more meaningful.

Other than that I've just been enjoying a much slower and more relaxed life style with just Lisa and I at home. I rather enjoy it.

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

Once a man has children his testosterone levels drop dramatically and the more involved he is with the children the more it drops. Supposedly the testosterone helps him get a woman and then it drops so he hangs around to help raise the kids.

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

Red Tide

2011-09-25T23:52:00.000-07:00

Lisa heard from a friend that there was a red tide at Torrey Pines beach. I knew that a red tide was an algae bloom and I'd heard that they can be quite pretty but I never realized that the algae in a red tide is bio-luminescent. According to Lisa's friend when the waves break and when they crash up on the shore they glowed. In my mind I imagined a faint blue glimmer that you might be able to notice if it was really dark or something. Boy was I mistaken. Tonight Lisa and I decided to go for a walk on the beach and see just how bright bioluminescent algae can be.

It is bright. I didn't bother taking my expensive camera because I didn't think it would be all that dramatic and it wasn't bright enough that I could take a picture with my droid but it was really bright. Especially when the waves first crash. I downloaded the picture above from the internet. This is pretty much what an average wave looked like but when they first break they are much brighter. It was really quite eerie looking. As we were walking on the beach we then noticed that every time we took a step the sand around our feet would flash. It flashed quite bright too. I felt like I was in a video game or something with flashing lights all around me. Maybe if the red tide is still around tomorrow I'll take my nice camera and see if I can get any pictures. In any case, it was a very cool experience.

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

People who live in cold environments have longer and

bigger noses than people who live in warm environments.

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

An Action Packed Saturday

2011-09-17T23:39:00.000-07:00

This has been a nice few days. Alycia is down for the weekend to be a bridesmaid in her friends wedding. Lisa picked her up in Long Beach. She flew in on Thursday evening so I was at the Temple and unable to go get her. She flew to Long Beach because she got a cheap flight but I think next time they get a "cheap flight" I'll give them the $78 gas money that we spend to pick them up and have them fly straight to San Diego. It'll be cheaper for us and whole lot more convenient. It has been great to have her here though.

Today has been a rather intense day. A very enjoyable day as well. It started off by me sleeping in until 9:00. It's been a while since I've done that. We had a relaxed morning with Alycia getting ready to go to the Wedding Rehearsal and then we headed off to Torrey Pines Beach for the Ward Beach Party. It was a rather cool and overcast morning so there weren't too many people at the beach but as soon as we got there the sun came out and it was a beautiful beach day. I decided to park in a different place than we normally do to try and get closer to the place where we were supposedly meeting. It would have been a good move too except that they were doing construction and the access to the beach was closed. This meant we ended up walking a bit further than we normally would have but it was OK because it was a beautiful walk on the tops of the cliffs and we enjoyed it.

The Beach Party was fun but I couldn't get Lisa to leave in time for us to meet our friends because tonight we were going to the Aztec / Washington football game. To compound the problem I thought it would be nice to return to our car along the beach and hope there was an access to the tops of the cliffs further down. Big mistake. We ended up walking all the way to the Del Mar beach and then walking back to our car. We probably walked three miles to get to our car that was perhaps a half mile from where we started. We enjoyed the walk along the beach and we certainly need the exercise but we got home around 4:20 and we were supposed to meet our friends at 4:00.

We got to the restaurant around 4:30 and had a good meal while the Haws watched us eat since they were finishing up when we got there. We then piled in our van and we carpooled to the stadium. Unfortunately the KGB Sky Show is getting so popular that this year the parking lot filled up and we were turned away. After running around the area for a good 15 minutes Brent guided us to a secret parking place he has. It is a great place to park and not a long walk away from the stadium. I'll have to remember it for the next time I go to the stadium.

The path we path we ended up walking on opened up into the stadium parking lot and to our horror it was all barricaded with chain link fence. We were beginning to see a theme forming here. We had done a lot of walking (and driving around) only to find barricades in our way. Our beach access, the stadium parking lot and now our walk way. It was only a beginning however.

The chain-link fence was to keep people away from the fireworks and we managed to get around it only to find that the ticket booth was closed. The Haws had free tickets Brent had won on the radio station but we needed to buy ours. Another barrier. We went to the people taking tickets and asked one of them where we could buy tickets. She pulled a bunch out of her pocket and said, I just happen to have a bunch of free tickets here, would you like them? I profusely thanked her and off we went. While the barriers through out the day had been frustrating they managed to get us a beautiful walk on the beach, free parking and now free entrance to the game. Not too bad eh?

The Aztecs thoroughly beat Washington and then it was the moment we had all been waiting for. The Haws assured us that the KGB Sky Show is the best fireworks we would ever see. KGB is a local radio station and every year they put on this huge fireworks shows after one of the Aztecs football games. The Haws have been going for a while but this was our first time. Have you noticed that at most fireworks shows they have a pretty nice show but then for the last minute of the show they light off a whole bunch of fireworks all at once? This big grand finale? Well imagine that grand finale lasting 30 minutes. That is what we saw tonight. The absolute most amazing fireworks show I've ever seen. I managed to record about five minutes of it for you to enjoy. Make sure your sound isn't too loud, this is amazing.

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

In 2008, for the first time in the history of mankind, the number of people living in cities surpassed the number of people living in the country side.

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

The Pratt's

2011-09-13T22:49:00.000-07:00

Now that I've settled in from another wild weekend let me share with you what has been happening. Let's go back to when Lisa and Sarah took off and left me alone for the third time this summer. As bummed as I was it was the sensible thing to do. First of all, Sarah and Lisa had several meetings that they had to attend regarding Sarah's school, second, Lisa has been begging to spend some time in the Genealogy library and finally Lisa found out that there was a big Pratt reunion on September 10th. It just didn't make sense for her to come home and then drive back up so she begged our good friends Mahonry and Molly Sanchez if she could crash with them and Sheba and I once again got to snuggle up in bed together.

I wanted to go to the Pratt reunion with Lisa and I'm always up for an excuse to see my kids so I decided to fly up on the 9th, attend the reunion on the 10th and then drive back with Lisa. If you buy your tickets in advance you can get a one way ticket for well under $100. It was getting pretty scary however on the night of the 8th when our power went out and Southern California was sitting in the dark. I tried to upload my picture from my android and while I think I could do it I was too tired to bother on that night. That is why I thought I'd shared my picture of me cooking dinner on my cool little camp stove. You can see my windup radio in the background. Power in the south part of the city started coming on around 9:30 and then it moved north from there. Claremont had power around 10:30 and La Jolla around 11:30 and then I went to bed. I turned off all of the lights except my bedroom light and then I turned the radio on full blast. I have a real tough time waking up.

At 1:00 the lights came on and the radio was blasting in my ear. I got up and checked taht my flight was still on time. I printed out my boarding pass and went back to bed.

Lisa was at the airport to meet me I spent the day doing errands at Sarah's apartment and Alycia's apartment. It was good to see them both. That night we took them for dinner at the Awful Waffle and since J Dawg's was across the street we went there for a hot dog. No one went home hungry.

Saturday was the reunion. We picked up Sarah and Alycia and off we went. After we registered and bought the new Pratt Biography we listened to several very cools stories about the Pratt's. Just in case you're wondering about our connection to the Pratts, after Lisa joined the church and started getting involved in her genealogy she learned that she was descended from Anson Pratt who is the brother of the famous Parley and Orson Pratt. Anson isn't too well known because he died early caring for his ailing mother. She eventually died from Cholera and then three days later Anson died from Cholera. The Anson Pratt descendants wore green name tags and there weren't too many of them.

After her dad died his daughter Jane Elizabeth walked across the plains with Parley's family so we feel a close kinship with Parley. Jane lived with them until she got married. Another interesting story that we learned is that Parley Pratt is that he was the very first Mormon Missionary to enter Chili. I guess Alex is there now finishing what he started.

So let me explain the hand. Sarah loves to draw on people and if she is ever in one spot for more than fifteen minutes she starts drawing. I on the other hand really enjoy a good massage and when Sarah is drawing on me it is actually a very nice massage. The only problem is that I end up with a hand that is embarrassing to have in public. You have to admit that it is a pretty good job. Perhaps Sarah should consider a career in Henna.

Everyone at the reunion (nearly 700 people) were asked to put a colored dot on the family tree. If take a close look at the tree you can see our dots on the Anson branch and the Jane Elizabeth twig. We're kind of out numbered by the blue and yellow dots.

So after the reunion we went to visit Aunt Nola. It is always good to see her. She is looking great as you can see from the pictures.

And then it was on to Provo where we dropped Alycia and Sarah off. We loaded up on BYU chocolate milk and then hit the highway. We originally planned on just driving to St George and crashing with someone but we were doing well so we just continued on arriving in San Diego at around 6:00. We slept until 11:00 (at least I did) and then we went to hear Alex Jafek give his farewell talk. He is going to Peru for his mission. He did great and he will be a great missionary.

Sunday night was pretty cool. Our Temple presidency will be release in a couple of months so they had a get together for all of the coordinators they've worked with at the temple. Spouses were invited. I've never been to a get together in the temple before. It was very cool.

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

Hippo sweat is red.

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

Remembering 9/11

2011-09-11T23:45:00.000-07:00

Today I would like to remember the events that took place ten years ago on this day. It really did change the world we live in. I think it is interesting how that single event revealed so much about our world. It reminded us that evil is real and we can never become complacent. It also showed us that in a time of need we can come together and support each other. In spite of our many differences, on that day we were all united.

I hope as we move forward to the next ten years we can never forget that day. I hope we can forgive those who wish us harm, that we can recognize that true happiness comes from friends and family and not from material things. I hope we can be more tolerant of those who are different from us and wish each person the very best in their lives.

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

1,300 children became orphans on 9/11/2001

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Sitting in the Dark

2011-09-08T21:46:00.000-07:00

This afternoon at 15:40 I was talking to Lisa on the phone when suddenly my computer shutdown. I then realized that the power had gone out. Somewhere out in central Arizona the main high voltage line that feeds southern California was severed but so far no one knows why. Once that line went down the only other line feeding Southern California from the north quickly overloaded and it went down. The massive power surge automatically disconnected the two large nuclear reactors in San Onofre and the few remaining generators couldnt possibly meet the demand and all went of them went down. As I type this on my very cool Android phone everyone from the southern tip of the Baja of Mexico to the southern parts of Orange county and east to parts of Arizona are sitting in the dark. Of course I knew none of this so when I was talking to Lisa. I told Lisa that I had to take care of my press and test stations because if the power came on I could do some damage to them. Once I took care of all my equipment i decided to head over to the temple for my regular Thu shift. Listening to the radio as i negotiated threw all the non-functioning traffic lights i began to learn the magnitude of this problem, 1.4 million people have no power right now. People are stuck on rides at amusement parks, people are stranded downtown because the trolly isnt working, the airport is shut down, malls are in the dark and it being a hot day the temperature is beginning to rise all over. I continued on to the temple because i knew they had a backup generator. Once i got there however i learned that the generator keeps the lights on but doesnt run all of the equipment including the A/C. They told us to go home and that is when i saw what was happening to the freeways. You'd think the freeway would be the one good place to drive because there are no lights but every exit has a light and with no power the traffic was backing up onto the freeway. Even still it only took me 45 min or so to get home.I quickly filled several pitchers with water in case the pumps went down, i dug out my headlight and camp stove so i can cook dinner and read a book tonight. I dug out my windup radio so im sitting here listening to the news to see what is happening. I even fired up my ham radio to see what is going on but it wasnt too informative. My wifi has a back up battery so i still have an internet connection. My computer doesnt work (Lisa took the laptop) but my Android does. I charged up my phone in the truck so i can now post to my blog with my phone. You'll have to pardon any typo's because it isnt fun typing with my index finger.I'm supposed to fly to Utah tomorrow so lets pray my flight still goes. They're saying some places won't have power until later tomorrow.

The Neighborhood Psycho

2011-09-07T22:40:00.000-07:00

I think every neighborhood needs to have their trouble maker. We certainly have ours. Our neighbor across the street had an on going feud with her next door neighbor that lasted for years. At first they fought over their fence. It got so bad that they each ended up building their own fence so they now have two fences that are about four inches apart. The psycho neighbor even put up video camera's on the eves of her house and most of them point into her next door neighbors back yard. That would make me very uncomfortable. They've called the cops on each other several times. One time the police even came and interviewed mom to get someones else's version of the story. Finally miss psycho got so bad that she built a steel fence right across the front of her house and of all things she painted it red. She took a nice house and made it look real creepy. I guess in light of all of that, I shouldn't be surprised at what happened this weekend. I am very angry.

Last night I came home from work, picked up the mail and saw that I had a letter from the city. I can't think of a single good reason to get a letter from the city so with great trepidation I opened the letter. It was from the police department telling me that my Camry had been towed. I couldn't believe it. I went out front and sure enough my car was gone. Since Sarah had gone back to college I hadn't worried about the Camry so I didn't even notice that it was gone. Apparently it was blocking miss psycho's driveway but she couldn't be like a normal neighbor and walk across the street to let me know, nope she called the cops and off went my Camry. I called today to see what it would cost me to get it back and it would be $600. I think "Anytime Towing" just got themselves an old beat up Camry. Now we're trying to figure out what was in the car that we might need.

So I called the police today and I guess I can "dispute" this but I think it will just come down to the cops saying it was blocking the driveway and me saying no it wasn't. I'll keep you informed because I totally intend to dispute this as far as I possibly can. I won't be paying the $600 however since the cars window's don't work and the air conditioner doesn't work and it will cost a $1,000 to fix them and I would still have an old car with extensive front end damage.

It makes me sick though because I could have sold that car for $500 easily and now I have no car and no money. Bummer.

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

In the desert more people die from drowning than from thirst.

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

A Random Week

2011-09-05T20:35:00.000-07:00

I keep waiting for something exciting to happen so I can blog about it but all I get are a series of little things. None of them by themselves are worth a post but all together these last couple of weeks have been quite eventful.

August 24 was Sarah's birthday. She was going to make it a big and exciting event but in the end she decided to keep it small and just with the family. Ben and Sharley came down and we had a barbecue. It was fun. Sarah also invited a friend from Provo to come down for the week. Nate Crenshaw seems like a nice guy. I would have pictures of the birthday except Mom took the camera with her and I didn't get the pic's downloaded before she left.

August 27 and everyone left me. We loaded up the van with all of Sarah's laundry that she brought home and then we threw in a desk for Alycia and Trevor and with Mom and Nates luggage the van was full. I kissed them all goodbye and once again I was left here all alone. Ok, so I didn't kiss Nate goodbye but I found it much harder to say goodbye to Sarah this time. The last time I said goodbye it was for a few weeks, this time it will be months. I really hate this part of parenting.

Being alone with no responsibilities I can pretty much do what I want. Ben was singing in church on Sunday and Sharley was giving a talk so I decided to say goodbye to Sheba (and the turtles and Tom) and head up to Anaheim. Ben and Sharley moved on the 31st so with the pick up we hauled a load over to their new apartment and I got to see their new digs. The apartment is old but really quite nice. They have a little private courtyard (private from the neighbourhood but shared by the eight apartments) that is very pretty. Again I would have pictures but it was dark when we got there so no pic's. I don't think Sharley will be going for many late night walks by herself however. The neighbors look a tad bit rough.

After we unloaded the truck Ben took me to a little Taco truck that he found and I had some of the best taco's ever. Delicious. I had three taco's el Pastor and one lengue. I'm sure I spelled that wrong but it is a tongue taco. The tongue taco was delicious but the el Pastor is by far my favorite.

August 28 I went to church with Ben and Sharley. Sharley did great on her talk and Ben sang beautifully. He sang the bass part in a quartet. Him and the Soprano were excellent but the Tenor part was interesting. The guy tried hard. That evening was the Fantasy Football draft. I have no idea if I have a good team or not but it is fun drafting them. For anyone who may know or care the big players on my team are Matt Ryan QB, Roddy White WR and Ray Rice RB. Wish me luck this year. I don't why I always go up against Ben first but alas, that is once again my fate this year.

August 30 was moving day for Ben. I'd offered to come up and help again if they needed it and they really needed it. I left work at 13:30 and was at their apartment by 15:00. We finished after midnight. Sharley is an art major and has great taste in how she wants to decorate her home but her taste is heavy. When Ben and I finally got her TV cabinet on the truck I thought I was going to be crippled by my herniated L4-L5 disc. I then walked into her bedroom and saw her dresser. It made the TV cabinet look small. Thank goodness it fit on the moving dolly to get it out and by the time we hauled it up the stairs at his new apartment he had some help show up. I used to pick up and move anything not caring how much it weighed. That is probably how I ended up with a herniated disc. After living six months as a hunch back walking with a cane I've decided those days are over. I let the young guys haul that thing up the stairs.

Part of the deal for helping move was another visit to the taco truck. This time I ordered a Tripas taco and three more el Pastors. Again the spelling is certainly wrong but you may have guessed the tripas toco is tripe also known as intestines. It wasn't bad but I won't be ordering tripe again. Especially when the el Pastor is so good. If I ever make it back to the taco truck again I'll try the stomach and brain taco's. I'm sure my favorite will always be the el pastor but hey, you've got to try it right?

So that was about it. On Saturday I puttered around the house mowing lawns and what not and on Sunday I watched a ton of old Star Trek episodes. Let me share with you one of my favorite scenes. I saw this first on Nates blog but I actually saw the episode on Sunday. That Captain Kirk sure knows how to treat a woman.

Sunday Ben and Sharley came down with their friends Jose and Chardonnay. They decided to play around town today for memorial day. It actually rained a bit today so I hope that didn't mess up their day too much. It was a nice warm day in spite of the overcast.

I decided to go into work today because I'm going to be gone on Friday. Driving in to work I came across a firetruck and three cop cars at an intersection. When I got up to the intersection there was a bicycler in the middle of the road with a LOT of blood all over his head. I didn't see a car so I wonder if it was a hit and run. The guy was sitting up but very dazed looking. The paramedics were getting a back board out and a cervical collar. He looked in pretty bad shape. It makes me wonder about riding my bike on those roads. He was on the same road I take when I ride my bike. I hope he's alright.

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

CERN scientists together with NASA have demonstrated that the temperature of the earth is dominated by the electromagnetic activity of the sun. When the sun produces a strong magnetic field, cosmic radiation is deflected away from the earth, when the magnetic field is weak cosmic radiation ionizes the earths atmosphere which seeds clouds an order of magnitude faster than normal. If there are fewer clouds the earth gets hotter. Their report states that human activity is a very minor part of global warming.

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

A Middle Aged Moment

2011-08-30T22:39:00.000-07:00

I come from a family with a lot of heritage. The Leavitt's and the Lybberts go way back and have been very prominent pioneers. I have inherited much from my forefathers and I am proud to be their descendant. One thing that I have definitely inherited from my father is his eyebrows. I love it and I am proud of my eyebrows but unfortunately they drive Lisa nuts. Especially my right eye brow. If my eyebrows were ever allowed to grow naturally as they were meant to they would look just like Spock's eyebrows. They have mutant hairs on the outsides that shoot out and up and just as soon as they start looking really cool Lisa grabs a pair of scissors and cuts them off. It is really quite sad.

As I get older it seems as if my eyebrows only get more distinguished. Also as I get older my eyesight seems to get dimmer. I need reading glasses to see closely and a good light has become more and more important. Lisa used to give me all kinds of grief as I would be hunting down a pair of reading glasses but now old age as caught up with her too. Now she too needs a good light and in order to see closely she needs to take off her glasses and use her myopia to help her see close up.

Now that I've shared this bit of background information you may understand why the "Baby Blues" cartoon last Sunday was so funny to us.

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

Eyebrows evolved to keep sweat from getting into our eyes

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

Javier's Having a Baby!!

2011-08-25T23:51:00.000-07:00

I started working at Hi-Z in 1992 and the first person we hired after me was Javier. Javier and I quickly became very good friends. He has a very colorful past and I have encouraged him for a long time to start a blog and share some of his fascinating stories with the rest of us. He can go on forever. Javier is only a few years younger than I am so he is no longer a spring chicken and after being together for more than twenty years Javier and his wife still have no children and it isn't for a lack of trying. Imagine my surprise when he comes to work a few months back and tells me that he and his wife are expecting a baby. I was very excited and then I calmed down long enough to check and see if Javier was excited as well. He was and we've been talking about it ever since. Rosi comes from a very large family and she is the youngest of them all. Ever since the news her family has been coming from all over Mexico to celebrate with her. Javier finally decided to rent one of those places where you can invite all of your friends to watch an ultra sound on a big screen projector and he was kind enough to invite Lisa and I to join them. It was pretty cool. It was kind of like being in a movie theater watching the baby. I wish they did this when we had babies or even when Kira and Serene had their babies. So I would like to introduce you to Xavier de Jesus Valdez. Knowing his dad, this kid is going to be a handful.

A Wonderful Weekend With Sarah

2011-08-20T23:59:00.000-07:00

Sarah has recently finished her summer semester at UVU and so came home for a week or so. It has been wonderful to have her here. Since Lisa has once again flown the coup it has just been Sarah and I for a few days. Of course there are many people who want to see Sarah in the short time that she's home but my wonderful daughter told me that I could have her undivided attention for one whole day. What a wonderful daughter I have.

Of course, with an invitation like that I made the absolute most of it. I asked her if my day could start Friday night and when she agreed I booked a camping spot. Friday I left work at noon and packed up the van and off we went to Dos Picos park. Sarah and I have camped quite a bit together and I believe this is the first time we actually arrived at the campsite in the day light. I was quite fun. They have a few hiking trails ( more like walking paths but still quite nice) and we checked those out.

On one of the trails we passed by a hill with the strangest wooden structures built on top of them. I have no idea what they were for but you can't have a tower like those without some one climbing them. They made a pretty tower for preaching from. Sarah looks like she's singing in one of the pictures.

Since we were out of the city we decided to head out on one of the trails after dark to get a better look at the stars. You can't see them very well from in the city but they were sure nice out there. Every year around my birthday the Perseid meteor shower comes around. I know it is late but we were hoping that we'd catch a few stragglers from that and we actually did see a few cool meteors.

I also had to try out a new app I got for my android called Skeye. You hold your phone up to the sky and it shows you a star chart. It isn't much use in town but it was really cool out there. I learned that the brightest star out last night was Vega. One of my favorite stars as a kid was Betelgeuse and I used to be able to find it but I haven't for years. I checked it out but unfortunately it hadn't risen yet. It is also a very bright star and I'm told a common one used for navigating.

As we were walking in the dark we learned that a lot of animals like to come out and warm themselves on the path after the sun goes down. We came across a tiny little snake and it freaked Sarah out. It didn't have a rattle but it looked just like a rattle snake. I believe baby rattle snakes don't have rattles and I also understand that they can be more dangerous than adult snakes because they haven't learned how to control how much venom they release when they bight. If they bight you they dump everything they have into you. We navigated carefully around him.

The next sample of wildlife we came across was a humongous wolf spider in a very intricate web that spread completely across the trail. The spider was dead center in the web. I felt bad destroying the poor guys web but we did need to get by.

You can imagine that I was watching the trail pretty closely at this point in case we came across any more wildlife and I watched Sarah step right over a big old tarantula. She didn't even see it. When I shone the flashlight on him she about died again. I have to give her credit though because she was completely game to keep going.

The whole time we were hiking we kept hearing a weird screeching sound and I couldn't figure out what it was. Suddenly a huge owl flew by us. I kept the flashlight beam on him and we watched him fly from tree to tree. We finally figured out that it was him that kept making the screeching noise. I thought they only "hooted".

We finally made it back to our beds and laid on our air mattress under the stars. This is the view we had but in the dark it was even more gorgeous. I love sleeping under the stars. Just laying there with the cool breeze blowing by and admiring the stars and listening to the sounds of the night is almost intoxicating for me. I'm so glad that Sarah was willing to give me this one last adventure.

As the sun came up and shone in my eyes I laid there once again soaking in the wilderness. Somebody was cooking bacon and that made be briefly wish that I'd brought some but I didn't want to waste any time cooking and cleaning so we enjoyed our granola. As we were eating some kid was climbing in the rocks and fell and broke his leg. He leg was severely dislocated and wedged so tightly in the rocks that he couldn't get it out. An ambulance came and they had to shoot the kid full of morphine before they could get his leg out.

After the ambulance left we loaded up our gear and off we went to hike up Mt Woodsen. That is actually a rather tough hike. It is only four miles to the top but it was hot and in places pretty steep. What a beautiful view though.

The trail starts out at Poway Lake so it is beautiful right from the start. I was so sad though because I was enjoying looking at the sky so much the night before that my battery died on the hike. I got some good pictures but they have a cool rock that juts out over a cliff and I really wanted a picture of me on that rock. Just so you can see the rock I downloaded some random dude standing on it from the internet. I did stand on the rock but I have no photographic evidence that I did so.

After racing down the mountain so that Sarah could use the bathroom we changed into our swimming suits and headed for the beach. It was almost eerie but as we headed out the parking lot there was another ambulance there. A lot of people were having a really bad day.

The water felt really nice after the hike but I was so tired I was ready to go home after twenty minutes or so. On the way home we stopped at Cotija's and order a Carnita's Taco for me and a Bean and Cheese Burrito for Sarah. Of course I had to have my large Horchata. You're not going to believe it but as we left the Vons parking lot there was another ambulance. I was beginning to feel like we were leaving a path of destruction behind us. At least we were having a ball.

The original plan was to relax and watch a movie but we had to go and represent our family at Chris Birds wedding reception. It was great to meet his wife and to see Ryan who just got home off his mission on Wednesday. He looks pretty good. We get to hear him report his mission tomorrow. When we did finally get to turn on our movie we were both so tired that we fell asleep. Not much visiting at that point but what a wonderful day doing all kinds of fun stuff with my baby.

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

The spleen is the only organ in the body that scientists have no idea what it is for.

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

Weddings

2011-08-15T00:33:00.000-07:00

This has been another action packed week. I've wanted to write something several times but things are so busy I never get a chance to sit down and do it.

After having my wife home for all of a week this last Wednesday I gave her a kiss good bye and off she went again and left me for St George. Alycia's friend Jamie Havertz was getting married and Alycia was her brides maid. It worked out well because Sarah just caught a ride with one of Jamie's relatives and met up with Mom in St George. If you look at the top picture the middle boy is Jamie's little brother Brett. I had Brett in scouts and he is a good kid. I wish I could have been there.

The original plan was for Mom and Sarah to come home on Friday but Mom ended up giving some of Alycia and Jamie's friends rides and one of them needed to be back for work on Friday so they left for San Diego after the reception on Thursday night and drove through the night. I was pretty groggy when they got home but I think it was somewhere around 2:30 AM. It was great to see Mom again but I was really thrilled to see Sarah. I've missed her.

Friday was my birthday and when I opened my bedroom door Friday morning I was rather startled to see a barrier of streamers in my face. I guess Sarah had stayed up late to decorate the house for my birthday. It was very sweet of her. At first the sign said that I was 53 years old but when I went through the streamers and looked back I was only 35. I think I like the 35 better. Lisa made a picture that contains a bunch of cool post cards that she got from Waterton for me. I love Waterton and I have so many wonderful memories from growing up there so when I look at the pictures I get all these wonderful memories coming back to me. Unfortunately we only had five post cards and the frame has six slots so I'm going to get a picture and use special effects to make it match the cards. I'm torn between a picture of Vimy mountain or a picture of our motel.

Friday after work we went for dinner at this hamburger joint that just opened in our neighborhood. It is called Smash Burger and they have some pretty good hamburgers. We then went home and had a Marie Calendars lemon cream pie. I really love their lemon cream pie. I then picked a movie to watch. It was a fun birthday and it was especially thoughtful of Lisa who only got home at 2:30 that morning.

Saturday was just a work around the house day and one of the items on my to-do list was to figure out why the downstairs bathroom keeps backing up. I figured I knew what the problem was since almost exactly one year ago today I'd pulled a mass of roots out the sewer line. To no ones surprise, this was the same problem. All I can figure is that some very aggressive tree has sent roots under my slab looking for water and somehow has found where my toilet is.
The root is coming up from under that slab, working it's way through the wax seal and then going down into the sewer line. I have no idea how I'm going to kill it. I guess I'll go to Home Depot and get some of those root killers and see if I can wash some of them down into the space where the root is coming up. It's a stretch but I've got to do something. I can't see any evidence that water is leaking through the seal but I'll make sure I have a lot of extra wax just to make sure. If there isn't any water then I can't imagine how the roots can know where to go. We'll see what happens next year. I'm getting tired of lifting up my toilet every year.

Last night we went to another wedding reception for Veronica Zanini, another friend of Alycia's. The reception was in Poway Park and was outdoors. I thought it was a very beautiful setting. Next door to the park is a hamburger place and they had the hamburger place cater the wedding. I must admit it is the first time I've had hamburgers at a wedding but I really liked it.

Today I gave a talk in church. The topic I was given was Personal Revelation. I picked a few examples from my life where I felt personal revelation had helped me to be a better father. I felt like I did a good job and I received enough complements that convinced me that I did OK. I always feel more comfortable when I can talk about my own kids. I like to talk about my kids.

Tonight they had a going away party for the Jensens who are moving out of our ward. I think I heard them say that over the last few months we have had over thirty active members of our ward move away. That makes a fairly big dent in the ward.

Ben also came down tonight for a going away party for his friend Derek Libby. Derek is going to Texas to attend a Chiropractic college. It was good to see Ben again.

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

Human life expectancy increased very slowly until it hit 30 years old. At that point much of the population was able to become grandparents at which point life expectancy surged. When grandparents were able to help pass on their knowledge to the younger generation (culture, art, health and child care) life expectancy increased dramatically.

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

Sailing

2011-08-07T16:09:00.000-07:00

My wife is home and I like it a lot. Even when I'm at work and she is home I feel better just knowing that she will be here when I come home. I also find myself leaving work a little bit early just from the anticipation. I think I'm going to like this empty nest thing. We almost never went to a movie or did anything on a school night just because we wanted to make sure the kids were in bed at a reasonable time. Wednesday night I came home from work and we went to go see Harry Potter. Ben told me that he didn't like it but I really did. Sure they change the movies a lot from the books but that is to be expected. It was a good movie in it's own right.

There is one thing that is suffering from Lisa being home. Me, Ben, Brandon and Justin are all playing this on-line World War II game. With Lisa gone I got way into it and had several games running. The four of us had one game going but when Brandon started writing his bar exam he dropped out so Justin Ben and I had another game going and then Justin went to Waterton so Ben and I got a third game going and so when Mom got home I had three games going. It took me almost an hour a day just to make my moves. Of course now I wanted to spend most of that time with Lisa so of course the War had to suffer. I think it will settle down to just one or two games and become manageable but it is a lot of fun fighting a war with my boys.

Saturday I went sailing. That is my boat that you see in the foreground. As you can see the tide was out which always makes it a bit tricky getting the boat out but we did fine. Because Dan and I are only part time sailors and because we race against some real hard core people who wax the bottom of their boats to get a little extra speed out of their boats we don't usually do all that well. Saturday however I had my hopes up. The first race we weren't well positioned at the start so we started out behind. We almost passed the people ahead of us but then they cheated and we never caught up. We could report them but hey, it's just a game. The second race however we had a good start and were way out ahead of them all. We had made two full circuits around the coarse and all we had to do was not screw up and we could have won but coming around the windward buoy we misjudged our tack and had to dodge another boat. That made us clip the buoy which meant we had to do a penalty loop and in a matter of seconds we went form a solid lead to last place. We did manage to pass one boat and came in second to last but it sure felt good looking back at all those boats for half the race. It really is a lot of fun but today I have a bit of a glow. Next time I'll try and remember the sun screen.

So this week Sarah writes her finals and then she'll be coming home for a week or so. I'm quite sure I've missed her a lot more than she's missed me. She's having a ball in school and that makes me happy. As far as I can tell she's getting good grades too and that makes me even happier.

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

Computer technology today increases more

in one hour than it did in all of the 1900's

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Peter & Maren are leaving :(

2011-08-01T21:30:00.000-07:00

It is so sad, Peter has been offered a very nice scholarship at the U of A and this week they will be moving away from San Diego. Their ward had a going away party for them this weekend and with Lisa out of town I represented our family. It was good to see them but I'm going to miss their occasional Sunday evening visits. I guess we'll just have to make a trip out to Tucson to see them. It won't be in the summer though. I think Tucson in February sounds like a good idea.

For those of you who know where Peter got his undergraduate degree you may be a little confused by the U of A. The U of A (The University of Alberta) is a very prestigious University in Edmonton, Alberta and that is where Peter (as did I) received his undergraduate degree. The U of A is also a very good University in Tucson, Arizona and that is where Peter is going for graduate school. I will miss them. Maren's mother lives just a few exits up the I-15 though so I expect we may see them once in a while.

So my wife has finally decided to come home.She fly's in tomorrow and if she ever decides to let me know what plane she's on I will go and pick her up at the airport. Maybe she's having too much fun with the grand kids and she's decided not to come home. That would not be good. I really do miss her. I suspect however that after ten days with toddlers she just might be ready to come home and get a full nights sleep.

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

The leading cause of death in America is medical error.

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Who Is That Guy?

2011-07-30T21:35:00.000-07:00

A couple of days ago I was working away in my office when I hear this giggling out in the hallway. A few moments later Jill comes into my office and shows me this picture. They'd been cleaning out some shelves and there stuffed away for all these years was a picture of me. As best as I can tell this must have been taken in the mid 90's. Look at that monitor. I'll bet it is a ten inch monochrome monitor. Both me and computers have changed a lot since then. What a scrawny little kid I was. I'm trying to lose weight but I'll never look like that again.

I feel bad because with Lisa being gone these last two weeks I can do what ever I want with my time but I come home and think I should write a blog but I can't think of anything to write about. My life isn't exactly dull but it would sure sound dull if I tried to share with you what I do all day.

Today I've been thinking about Lisa. Actually I'm always thinking about Lisa but today more than usual. As you know she's been in Canada helping Kira with her boys at an SMA camp but the camp is over and today she is at a Lybbert reunion. What a wonderful woman my wife is. The Lybberts are my mothers family and Lisa wants to be there to meet them all. She isn't doing it out of duty either but because she really wants to be there. I think that is wonderful. I can't wait to talk to her to see who all she met. She honestly knows my family better than I do. While that makes me feel a little bit guilty it mostly makes me love her all the more. I sure wish I could be there.

Ben Came to Visit

2011-07-23T00:53:00.000-07:00

Well my first week of solitude is nearing it's end. Tomorrow is Saturday and I'm excited because it is the PQ5K fun run. We do this every year to commemorate the 24th of July. We start at the stake center and run to the Del Sur building which is the building we meet in. It is exactly 5 kilometers so it works well. Tomorrow could be interesting because we normally drop a vehicle off at the Del Sur building but since I'm alone I will hope to bum a ride off of someone.

Tonight was fun because Ben came down to visit me. I love that they are so close that we get to see them more frequently. With our unexpected trip to Orange County last week this makes two weeks in a row. We watched Tron and ate Cotija's so it was a lot of fun.

I mentioned earlier that there were a couple of land mark items that I've neglected to blog about. The biggest one I definitely didn't forget about I just didn't have time to talk about it.

On July 11, 2011 Lisa and celebrated our thirtieth wedding anniversary. I don't even feel like I'm thirty years old how can I have been married for thirty years. I then look at my kids and I realize that they're getting pretty big so I guess something must have happened. I had all kinds of grand plans for our thirtieth but with all the graduations this spring I think Lisa and I both decided we'd rather just have something quiet and peaceful. July 11 also happens to be Abram Jone's birthday. He is Ben's friend who died a few years back and every year on his birthday they have a barbecue at La Jolla shores so that is where we go every year for our wedding anniversary. The good thing this year was that Alycia was down so we thought we'd just have a quiet dinner at the house with Alycia and Ben and Sharley (they come down every year for the barbecue too) but Ben and Sharley had double booked themselves so Alycia and Mom and I celebrated just the three of us. As it turned out we all came home from the beach totally wiped and full so we didn't have any meal or any celebration. I think we just turned on the TV and watch some show.

Lisa did give me a very nice card and I honestly had very admirable intentions but every single day something came up and I never made it to a store. I know it is no excuse but I didt promise a card even if it is late. Lisa is quite forgiving with gifts but she feels quite strongly about cards. Maybe I can get to a store before she gets home.

I'm sure I've shared most of these pictures before but since it was our thirtieth you get to see them again.

Who's Lonely?

2011-07-19T22:30:00.000-07:00

I thought that with Lisa being gone for two weeks and me home alone that I would be bored and lonely and have all kinds of free time. I guess I was just kidding myself. I've set up a routine. The first thing I do when I get home is pick up the mail and go through it and some of the extra mail that I've let build up. I then put in a batch of laundry. I then make myself something to eat. I then Go through some emails and then I watch an episode of Star Trek and then, believe it or not, it is time to go to bed. Crazy. I don't even have time to be lonely but I really am. It is very quiet around this place with just me and the cat and the snake and the fish and turtles and their eggs.

I feel real bad because I've missed some very important milestones in my blogging and in my life. The first one was Lisa birthday. On July 5th we celebrated the nineteenth anniversary of Lisa's twenty ninth birthday. I wanted to do something real special for her but she is a very difficult person to surprise. The last three presents I've bought for her have been a total bust so rather than waste our money on something that she doesn't want or won't use I insisted that we go shopping together for something. Well in the end none of it happened. We actually had a wonderful relaxing evening. I came home from work early and we went out to Pannera Bread for a light meal. Most of our meals lately are just light meals. After a quiet and relaxing meal we went to a movie. She even gave up the movie that she wanted to go to so we could watch one that she knew I would like. We went to Transformers.

So even though it is now two weeks late I wanted to just let everyone know that Lisa is now twenty nine for the nineteenth time. I love her with all my heart and I hope to celebrate her twenty ninth birthday for another twenty nine times.

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

A giraffe can go a week without sleep

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They're Gone

2011-07-17T23:09:00.000-07:00

Another crazy week and I just realized that there are some very important items that I have neglected to discuss. I will have to address those in another post however because this has been quite the eventful day and it will take me a while just to share it.

Today Lisa and Alycia left for Canada. Kira and her boys are attending an SMA camp and any single mother with two little boys would need some help camping but with Evan she just needs a little bit more help. Justin has to work so Kira flew both Alycia and Kira up there to go camping with her and the boys.

Last night and this morning were spent packing and getting ready for the trip so when we came home from church we had a couple of hours we could use to take care of some last minute things and then it would be off to Lindbergh Airport. Well no sooner had we walked into the house when Lisa got a phone call from Delta telling her that her flight from San Diego to Salt Lake City was delayed and so she would miss her connecting flight to Calgary. She had been rebooked on a flight that would leave tomorrow morning getting her into Calgary in the early after noon.

That wasn't going to work because Kira was planning on leaving Calgary tomorrow morning so Lisa called Delta to see if other arrangements could be made. After an hour on the phone we had made no progress at all. I asked if we could fly out on other airlines but no luck. I asked if we could connect through other cities like Vancouver or Seattle or Portland but no luck. I asked if there were any flights from airports in the LA area like LAX, Long Beach, John Wayne or Ontario but no luck. Finally the stupid woman on the phone says. "Oh, I just found seats on an American flight, can you get to the airport by 1:30?" It was already after 1:00 and we don't live that close to the airport. Why couldn't she have found that flight an hour earlier?

We finally realized that we were dealing with a moron so we piled into the van and headed down to the airport hoping for some better luck. We also figured that if a last minute flight did open up we wanted to at the airport so we could take advantage of it. Unfortunately there were just no more flight going out so Lisa and Alycia resolved themselves to the fact that they would be spending the night in SLC and getting late start from Calgary tomorrow. When they went to issue the tickets however we learned that the fool on the phone had confirmed Lisa on the flight tomorrow but not Alycia. That was especially frustrating because Lisa told her specifically on the phone that they were travelling together and she gave her Alycia's confirmation number and the woman had even asked how old Alycia was. Frustrating.

The woman at the airport was far more competent that the one on the phone so grasping at straws I decided to ask her same questions that I'd asked on the phone. When I suggested that I could drive them up to the LA area she said, "Oh, we fly into John Wayne. In fact there is a flight leaving at 2:30. It was now 2:00. I could have screamed. If the fool on the phone could have seen that when I asked her we could have driven straight to Santa Ana and made the flight. As it turned out there were seats on a plane leaving at 4:37 that would get them to SLC in time to catch their original flight to Calgary. The problem was that it was already well after 2:00 and it was an hour and a half drive. I checked my trusty Android and it showed that the freeways were good and that it would take one hour and thirty nine minutes. We decided to risk it and off we were. Luckily the highways were good and we were at the gate about 5 minutes before they started boarding the flight.

"Whew"

Every cloud has a silver lining and Ben and Sharley live in Orange County and so I called Ben to see if they were going to be home. Ben told me that dinner should be ready about the time I got there so off I went. Finally some good luck. It was good to see them and after some delicious enchilada's I gave them both a hug and came home.

I'm starting to miss Lisa already and she hasn't been gone for more than six hours. This is going to be a long two weeks.

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

1 pound of thorium has the equivalent energy as 300 pounds of uranium or 3,500,000 pounds of coal. In addition, a thorium molten salt reactor is much safer than any uranium reactor and would never have melted down like the Fukishima reactor in Japan. The United States has enough thorium to supply our energy needs for centuries.

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Alycia's Here

2011-07-08T18:19:00.000-07:00

Wow, this week sure went by fast. Let's see if I can summarize everything that happened in a blog that doesn't go on forever. Last weekend was a very patriotic weekend for our family. Friday we celebrated Canada's independence on July 1 and then Monday we celebrated the independence of the United States. On Sunday they even recognized us Canadians when they sang God Save the Queen in church. No one seemed to know the words however because they were all singing "Our Country is of Thee". The thought was nice though.

In our community we always have fireworks on July 3 because they are so much cheaper. This year we went to the local fireworks on Saturday and then on Monday we went with the Knowltons down to Coronado Island and watched the fireworks there. Those are always so nice because we get to sit on the golf course and watch the fireworks launched from a barge in the bay. I took a short video of the big finally with my phone.

This week we had the Germans in town all week and we had some good visits. We all went out for dinner on Wednesday night. I had "butter fish" which I've never had before. I think I have a new favorite fish. It was very good.

Thursday of course was the temple. Not much to say there and then today I was sitting in my chair talking to Pedro when I saw him looking over my shoulder out my window. He told me that there was a very pretty girl out front so of course I had to check her out and there right in my window was Alycia. I knew that Lisa had gone to pick her up but I was still quite surprised. She is in town for a bridal shower and a bachelorette party. Alycia is throwing a shower for Jamie tomorrow and tonight she is at Katy's bachelorette party.

With missing two days last week, the holiday Monday and Germans in town this week I'm way behind in my work so I've been putting in some pretty late nights. That means I just get home in time to go to bed so all this extra time with my wife I thought I'd have hasn't really materialized yet. Now Alycia's here and Trevor is showing up with some friends next week so not much has changed. That's good. I like to have lots of things happening around me.

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

Alberta has the third largest oil reserves in the world after Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. Unfortunately it looks like Obama won't buy it and Alberta will end up selling it to China instead.

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Empty Nesters

2011-07-03T12:55:00.000-07:00

It is so weird to have no children at home. Sometimes it just feels like Sarah is gone to girls camp or something and that she'll be home at the end of the week but then other times reality sets in that this is it. We've moved on to a new phase of our lives. From now on all we get is visits. I've always tucked the kids in before I go to bed. With some of them I've done that right up until they left home. Last night I went to tuck Sarah in and then I remembered that the bedrooms are all empty. How sad. I guess the bedrooms aren't exactly empty, one has turtles in it and the other one has a snake but they aren't all that fun to tuck in at night. The other problem I'm facing is that we've got to leave the door open for Sheba or she sits outside the door and cries all night.

In spite of missing the kids I do have to admit that there is a certain freedom in being empty nesters. I come home in the evening and I have no commitment to do anything. I don't have to go to any football games, no band concerts, no scouts, no mutual, no homework, no awards banquets no nothing. The only person I have to keep happy right now is my wife and she's pretty low maintenance.

As a tribute to this new phase of my life I thought I'd take you all on a trip down memory lane.

Here we are on our wedding day. July 11, 1981. That will be thirty years ago this week. We have no children.

1982 - Just a little over a year later and here we are with one child. We couldn't have been happier to have sweet little Kira in our lives.

1984 - Two years later and our family has doubled in size.We now have two children. Since Brandon joined our family life has always been exciting. He loves life. It was pointed out to us that some consider a family with one boy and one girl to be the perfect family. We figured that we needed more excitement in our lives than that.

1986 - My family is growing and my hairline is receding.

Ben just has to be the happiest baby I've ever seen. As long as you keep food in his belly he is content. Not much has changed.

1989 - It was another three years before Alycia joined us.

From the time she was born Alycia has been the life of the party. Everyone has more fun if Alycia is around. Again it was pointed out to us that four children is a large family now days. We had two boys and two girls and we should just count our blessings and enjoy our family. Well we figured there were more blessings waiting for us.

1991 - Two years later one of those blessings arrived.Alex always had to be going somewhere or doing something. Can't you tell just by looking at him on his mothers lap that he wants to be going some place? He hasn't changed much, even today Alex is always doing something. You can especially see it in the kind of missionary he is.

1993 - With the arrival of Sarah our family was complete.
Alex's delivery was a very difficult one and we decided that perhaps it was time to quit. It wasn't long however before we just knew that there was one more little spirit out there wanting to come and be a part of our family. We decided to put our faith in the Lord and have one more child. The Lord rewarded our faith with the perfect pregnancy, perfect delivery, perfect child.

2000 - Once Kira was a senior in High School we knew that the complete family we had enjoyed for seven years was about to change. We made the decision to invest in a family portrait in an attempt to freeze that moment in time. Anyone who has been to our home will recognize this picture as a copy of the life size portrait we have on our wall.

2001 - The one thing that is certain is that everything in this life must eventually come to an end. Kira graduated from High School and went off to college. From now on, anytime she came home she was more of a visitor than a regular part of our family. It was very difficult for me to let her go but I knew that is how it is supposed to be. I know she wasn't really gone but it still hurt a lot.

2002 - Once Kira left home it was like domino's falling. Before I knew it Brandon was leaving. Maybe it was because I'd already gone through this with Kira or maybe because it is different with a boy but it wasn't nearly as painful for me to let Brandon go. It was also partly because Brandon was so ready to go. He's always been a very independent child and it was a lot of fun to see him go out and tackle life with all of that enthusiasm that he has. It was however very difficult when he left on his mission.

2004 - Ben was the first of our children who really didn't want to leave home. He would have been quite content to just stay at home. As with everything he does though, once he's made up his mind to do something he gives it everything he's got. I think he was quite surprised (but I wasn't) to head off to college and get the best grades of his life. I felt a significant absence in my life when both Brandon and Ben were on their missions at the same time.

2007 - When Alycia left home things were very different around here.
Mostly they were much more quiet. We really missed her enthusiasm for life. With only two kids at home we were blessed with the opportunity to get to know Alex and Sarah very well.

2009 - And then Sarah was an only child.
She hated it. While she thoroughly enjoy our almost excessive one-on-one attention, she really missed the noise and commotion that she'd grown up with. She also missed Alex. With just Alex and Sarah home she'd grown very close to him. Alex had made a point of including her in everything he did at seminary, school, church and at home and it made a huge impact on her. Alex on the other hand faced life in the outside world with the same enthusiasm that he faced life at home. He kept himself constantly busy and I think it really shows in the kind of missionary he is.

2011 - And then we were alone.
Dropping Sarah off to college was very difficult. I scarcely remember not having children at home and it is going to take a while to get used to it. I do however enjoy this new found freedom. When I come home in the evening I have no commitments. I look forward to doing a lot more things with Lisa.

Now that I've spent all this time complaining and moping about my children all leaving home and becoming "visitors" I have to share just how much fun it is when they do come home for a "visit". It is my firm belief that this is what life is all about. Perhaps my greatest joy in life is knowing that my children like to be with each other. When we're all together we have so much fun together and I'm rarely in bed before 2:00AM. The house is full of noise, commotion, fighting (especially during specific games) and activity. I realize that as more grandchildren are born and families move further away it will be more difficult to all get together but I live for those times.

She's Gone :(

2011-06-29T22:13:00.000-07:00

This has been a difficult weekend. We took Sarah up to college and dropped her off. We left Saturday morning with Lisa and Sarah going in the van and I followed in the old Camry that we bought for Sarah. After checking with the Toyota dealer and our favorite mechanic (Midland Auto) we decided that $1,000 might fix the more serious problems with our existing Camry or it might not. For $1,500 we could buy another old (1993) Camry where we know that the A/C and the windows work. Unfortunately there were a couple of other issues that we couldn't see.

Somewhere around San Bernardino we stopped for a potty break and Sarah hopped in the Camry with me. No sooner were we back on the road when we started up the long climb up the mountain. With Lisa going 80mph, the A/C fighting the 90° heat and the steep climb I noticed the temperature on the gauge starting to climb. That was only the beginning of a long hot trip to Utah. I stopped once and saw that the overflow tank was still full so I just assumed that I needed to lighten the load on the engine but even driving 40mph with the A/C off and the heater on full blast it still overheated. I had Lisa stop and wait for me and I send Sarah on ahead with her mother and I suffered alone.

I finally gave up and stopped on the side of the freeway to let the engine cool down and that is when I noticed that I had no coolant. I had flushed the radiator, replaced the hoses and put new coolant in the engine just before I left so I knew that stuff was all good but here I was in the middle of nowhere with an overheated engine. I dumped my drinking water in the engine and looking around I noticed that there was a small dump of a store on the other side of the freeway. I'd parked under an overpass and this must have been the only store for 50 miles.

I climbed up onto the over pass, crossed the freeway and walked the quarter mile to the store hoping to fill my water bottles but the jerk in the store wouldn't let me into the bathroom unless I bought something. Boy was I mad but he had me over a barrel (which he knew) so I bought a gallon jug of water and off I went. So that is how it went for the next seventeen hours. Sometimes I could drive ten miles before I had to refill my radiator and sometimes I could drive further. My record was 200 miles. At no time was I able to drive faster than 60 and usually I had to have my heater on full blast. Can you imagine driving though Nevada with the temperature over a hundred and the car heater on full blast? I drank nearly as much water as my car did. At one point I actually stopped at a mechanic on the side of the freeway to have himm look at the car. He was rather rude, was going to charge $100 just to look at it and I had to wait half an hour before he would even look at it. I decided to take my chances and I headed on out.

You'd think it would get better as the sun went down but the problem actually seemed to get worse as time went on. Thankfully Lisa and Sarah got there at a reasonable time and got most of the stuff out of the van loaded into her apartment.

Sunday Alycia and Trevor drove down to Provo to show us their new apartment. They think they've died and gone to heaven. The apartment they live in now is not much bigger than a closet and they just signed a lease on an apartment for a two bedroom apartment with a huge kitchen and nice large living room. I think they're going to really enjoy it. Sunday Sarah went to her new ward and we went with the Sanchez's.

Naively I thought that Monday morning we could unload everything into Sarah’s apartment, send her off to class and then head back home. By the time we fixed the Camry, got it registered in Utah, bought Sarah a year’s supply worth of groceries and everything else it was way too late to leave. The mechanic we took the Camry to couldn't make it overheat but they put a new radiator cap on it, checked out the thermostat and put new coolant in it. Wouldn't it be hilarious if all those problems were caused by a $10 radiator cap?

We spent another night at the Sanchez’s and then headed back to Sarah’s Tuesday morning to help her with a few last minute things and then hopefully be on the road by noon. We left at eight o’clock that night. Lisa wanted to spend another night but I just couldn’t miss another day of work. I’m way behind as it is and I’d told everyone that I’d be back on Tuesday.

It made for a very long night and I had to let Lisa drive for a few hours but at 7:30 this morning we pulled into the driveway. I slept for a two or three hours then it was off to work.

From what I can tell Sarah is loving her new home. She thinks it’s weird to attend a student ward and say’s she prefers a family ward but she loves her classes and her professors. I’m thinking it’s going to be a great year for her.

It was sure tough saying goodbye to her. I know she’s going to be back her in a couple of months but still. I miss her already.

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

Mushrooms are the only vegetable that produces vitamin D.

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Turtle Eggs

2011-06-18T23:34:00.000-07:00

When Kira moved to Canada one of her biggest concerns was what to do with her turtles. It was going to be very expensive to import them but being the animal lover that she is she couldn't give them to just anyone. She finally decided to ship them to us until she could arrange to bring them across the border by car. If you do it in person it isn't so expensive. I figured, "what the heck" and agreed to turtle sit for her. After all we had Sarah at home who would love them and she could be responsible for them.

Well it has now been three years and the two turtles she sent me (did you know you could ship turtles by UPS?) are at least twice as big as they were and the two turtles are now three because one of Sarah's friends moved and gave her turtle to us. I made it clear to both Kira and Sarah that once Sarah left the house the turtles would leave as well. They were either going to join Kira in Canada, go to a friend or go back to the pet store. Sarah thought that was very unfair since we didn't make Alex get rid of his snake or Ben get rid of his tortoise but I told Sarah that if she wanted me to feed the turtle once a week and clean their cage once a year then I would keep them. As for the tortoise, he just ate grass in the back yard. I never fed him.

Earlier this week Sarah called me up at work to tell me she thought her turtles had laid some eggs. Martin was apparently a girl. I assured her that turtles don't lay eggs in captivity so she texted me this picture. It sure looks like eggs to me. When I got home I checked them out and sure enough, we're the proud owner of six new turtle eggs.

I quickly looked up "turtle eggs" on the internet and as best as I could tell, turtle eggs are not supposed to be laid in water. My guess is that the turtle climbed up on the rocks and laid the eggs and they rolled into the water. Hopefully being in the water for a day or two until Sarah noticed them didn't hurt them any. According to what I read, if we keep them nice and warm we could have babies as early as August 25th.

So now what do I do? I swore I'd have no turtles when Sarah went to college and now I could have nine.

Turtle soup anyone?

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

One out of every three new jobs in America is created in Texas.

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