Rosalie

This last weekend Brandon blessed his little Rosalie. We haven't missed any of our grandbaby's blessings yet so we just had to be there for Rosalie. Normally we would just fly out to Texas but a significant amount of the junk clogging my garage belongs to Brandon so I figured we would take advantage of the opportunity to get rid of it and drive out there. So that is what we did, we piled all of Brandons stuff in the back of the van and as soon as Lisa was done work on Friday we headed east on I-8. Even though Brandon and Serene now live in San Antonio they've spent the last six months in Arlington (Dallas-Ft Worth area) so they chose to bless the baby there. That meant our drive would be nearly 24 hours long and since Lisa is new enough in her work that it is difficult to get time off we chose to drive straight through. The theory was that we'd switch off driving but what really happened was that when I got tired Lisa drove and gave me a couple of hours of sleep and then I'd resume driving again. That happened twice so I made the drive out there with four hours of sleep. 

It was actually a rather enjoyable drive because Lisa and I have rarely had the chance lately to see much of each other so having her stuck in the car with me for twenty four hours was rather nice. I don't know what it is about Texas but I think it doesn't like my wife. This was her third time visiting there and every single time it has been lousy weather. We drove through El Paso just as the sun was rising but since we never saw the sun even once on Saturday we could only guess it was rising. As the sky grew brighter rain started to fall and as the day went my the rain got harder and harder. 

We pulled into Arlington around one o'clock Saturday afternoon and Brandon and Serene pulled into town around three so we laid down and slept for a couple of hours. When my alarm went off it was so hard to get up but I knew my grand daughters were coming so I forced myself. About the time I got the sleep out of my eyes Brandon and his little family showed up. What a treat it was to see them and especially his girls. They wore garbage bags for rain coats and plastic bags to cover their hair. They were darling. 

The plan was to go and see the world famous Stock Yards in Fort Worth but with the rain we had to rethink the plan. After a short discussion we decided to go there anyway. In spite of the rain we enjoyed ourselves tremendously. We didn't see much but just being with Brandon and Serene made it fun and we could have been anywhere. Grandma could help herself and she just had to give Sydney and Hayley a ride on the merry go round horses and then we happened to be there just as the cattle drive made it's way down main street and in addition to that we checked out the shops and one of the museums and took a look at the stock yards. You might also be surprised to see how six months in Texas has changed Brandon. He's gone from this well dressed business man to a country bumpkin wearing a sheep skin jacket and a cowboy hat. Actually there is a pretty cool story behind the sheep skin jacket and he is just trying on the cowboy hat in a store. 

We finally decided it was time to eat and being in Texas we just had to go for a good old Texas barbecue. The barbecue place I went to on my first visit to Texas almost exactly thirty years ago I was sad to learn is now a Honky Tonk music joint and was closed when we wanted to eat so we tried out a nearby place that I think turned out to be just as good. We walked in the front door and there was all of our the meat we could choose from right there on the grill in front of us. We ordered our brisket and sausages and found a table and enjoyed our food. It was very good.

Even though the evening was still quite young both Brandon's' family and Lisa and I had traveled a long way and we were all ready to go to bed. It was still pouring rain so Brandon and I went and got the car and drove back to pick up the girls. We then headed back to Arlington and hit the hay. I slept like a baby and the alarm went off way too early. We ate breakfast, packed up our bags and then headed to church. 

Brandon gave his little girl a beautiful blessing and I expect she is going to grow to be a very bright and gifted woman who will do much to further Gods work here on the earth. After church we all headed over to the Quinn's where we enjoyed another great meal of brisket. This was perhaps even better than the brisket we enjoyed in Ft Worth. I guess brisket is big in Texas and I'm not sure why I haven't known about it until now. I think I'm going to be looking for it the next time I go shopping for a good roast. It is very delicious. We enjoyed visiting the Quinn's and then since we had another long drive ahead of us we bid them all fairwell and headed south to San Antonio. Since Brandon and I love to solve the worlds problems when we get together we convinced the women to ride together if Brandon and I took the babies with us. I think we're much better and ignoring noisy children than they are so we had such a good visit that we were in San Antonio before we knew it. 

Brandon and Serene have found themselves a very nice house in what appears to be a very lovely neighborhood. We received the grand tour of their home and then went to bed. The weather Monday morning was thankfully very nice. We had a relaxing breakfast, I helped Brandon with a few things around the house and then we went and enjoyed a nice lunch with Heidi and Trent. Heidi was one of Kira's room mates at BYU. We got to know them pretty well so when we learned that Brandon and Serene were moving to San Antonio we just had to see if they were anywhere close to Heidi and Trent. As it turns out they only live about two miles away from each other. They aren't in the same ward but they appear to be in the same stake.

After enjoying same good old Little Caesars pizza it was time for me to head back west. Lisa couldn't bear to leave her little grand babies so soon so I left her behind while I headed back to work. San Antonio is a few hours closer to San Diego than Arlington is but I still had a good twenty hour drive ahead of me and nearly 1,300 miles of highway. I was a little intimidated by the drive ahead of me but I kissed everyone good bye and had Martha show me how to get out of town. Since I wasn't too anxious to die yet I promised myself that as soon as I got tired I would find a place to park and climb in the back of my now empty van and have a nap. I found numerous to keep myself occupied. I had some great phone calls with Sarah, Alycia, Ben, Evan, Landon and Kira and then I played with some cool apps on my phone including some cool speedometers and altimeters and then I decided to check out some of the songs I've been collecting.

As you may know, I'm not much of a music person. I will much rather listen to talk radio than to music and I prefer a nice quiet house to one with music disrupting my tranquility. Even still there are a few songs that I really do enjoy. Since they are so rare however when I do find one that I like I download it into Martha. I never listen to them but my collection has grown somewhat over the years. Since there is a lot of empty space between San Antonio and San Diego there are hundreds of miles where my radio could not pick up a single station.

Normally I use those quiet moments to try and invent things in my mind but after a while even that tends to succumb to weariness. That is when I decided to plug Martha into the Vans sound system and check out those songs I've collected. Believe it or not I've got at least two hours of songs on there. I actually went through the list twice.

Finally I began nodding off and decided it was time to find a place to take a nap. It was two o'clock and I was quite surprised to see that I actually made it to Tucson. I parked in the parking lot of a little diner and crawled into the back of the van and told Martha to wake me at four. I had a peaceful two hour nap and then climbed in behind the wheel and carried on.

Every Wednesday morning I have a conference call with one of our customers and since I'd promised to have some information ready for them I decided to go straight into work. I got there just before noon. I'm sure after my long trip I smelled pretty badly so I tried not to get too close to anyone but I finished up the work that I'd promised and then headed home.

I thought I'd relax and watch a show on TV but I didn't even make it five minutes. I woke up and rewound the show and tried again but I didn't make it any further than I did before. After a third failed attempt I gave up and went to bed. It was a long but wonderful weekend.



Hayley still loves her Grandpa

Sydney normally doesn't pay much attention to me but on this visit she was very different. She actually acted like she likes me. She is a beautiful little girl and getting so big.













Heidi and Trent and her family.

Me saying goodbye to my Grand daughters.

Twenty hours and 1,300 miles.

Induction Ceremony

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

I’ve always prided myself on being able to get around well and not get lost and so when the GPS devices were first invented I sort of poo poo’d the whole concept and figured they were for people who couldn’t read a map. 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 just list a few of the many things I use my phone for daily.

-       making phone calls

-       taking pictures and videos

-       calendar and meeting reminder

-       sending and receiving text messages

-       transferring files from one place to another

-       address list (including the stake directory)

-       reading books (including the Bible etc.)

-       identifying stars in the sky

-       looking up material properties on the periodic table

-       watching movies and tv shows and listening to the radio

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

-       checking my altitude

-       a compass

-       paying my bills and transferring money in my bank accounts

-       music player

-       tape recorder

-       reading bar codes

-       checking the temperature

-       dictionary

-       checking the tide

-       measuring the calories burned and how far I run

-       translating Alex’s Spanish words

-       making trades on my fantasy football team

-       and then 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 all over Austin and San Antonio and we didn’t have a single missed turn or anything. It was great. Brandons ceremony took place in the Frank Erwin Center and we were the first people to walk into the place. We could have sat on the very front row but we didn’t because we weren’t sure when Brandon would get there and if we wasn’t right in front of us then we would have a good view of him. Instead we chose to sit on the front row of the next level up. As it turns out we would have been able to have Brandon right in front of us but hey, how can you know? We still had a clear view of him.

The ceremonies were pretty cool because they had the Texas Supreme Court judges sitting up on the stand and the Stake Court of Appeals judges. Some how I though they were the same but apparently not. Some dude stood 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 very interesting. They then spent the next half hour introducing each of them giving their 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 then came the swearing in ceremony. They did their best to make it a solemn occasion and they did a pretty good job. Serene and her girls along with Serene’s mother and sister also sat with us so we pretty much took up the entire row. The girls were really good through out the whole thing which really didn’t take too long. 

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

Sydney may love her Grandma but Hailey loves her Grandpa. She would sit on my lap for hours and cuddle with me. I loved it. One time she was upset about something and Brandon asked her if she wanted to go to her mother or to Grandma. She reached out her arms for me. I think that alone made the trip worth it. I really miss those girls. Brandon needs to get a really good paying job so he can bring his family to visit us often.

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 we go to Stubbs Barbecue. It was good but not as good as the place we went to after his graduation ceremony. I think it was called Blues Barbecue. It was still very good but what was really interesting was the building it was in. 

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

After lunch we kissed our little granddaughters goodbye and then we hugged and kissed Brandon and Serene goodbye and we headed south to San Antonio. It was so good to see Brandon and his beautiful family again. In case you don’t know, Serene is expecting a baby on Christmas day and for being just a few weeks away from delivering she looks really 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.

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Off to Austen

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.

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Empty Nesters

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.