Xavier is 1

We knew this wasn't going to be just any old birthday party as soon as we received the invitation but there is no way we could have even imagined just what a party it was going to be. 

My good friend Javier and his wife had a baby one year ago after trying for twenty years. Needless to say everyone was very excited but no one is more excited than Rosi's family. She is the youngest of a very large family and I suppose everyone had given up any home that there would be a baby in her family. Of course we are also extremely excited. Javier is the kind of guy who will be a great Dad. He is very close to all of his nieces and nephews and now he has his own kid. 

So Saturday Xavier turned a year old and Rosi's family decided that we needed to celebrate. Since most of her family lives in Mexico that is where we went. We drove to Javiers place in Imperial Beach and rode down with him. I really don't want to drive down there. You are asking for trouble if you do. 

When we got to the place there was a guard in front of the party place. That both confirmed my concern about driving down there but it also made me feel a lot more relaxed. I doubt I would have been too worried anyway. There were a ton of people there and I can't imagine anyone causing trouble. 

They actually had three food stations. The tables here had a cheese fountain (related to the chocolate fountain) and pretty much anything you could imagine to dip into it. I mostly poured it over my nacho chips. Beside the cheese fountain was some sort of a fruit sauce.

There was also the taco bar. We were there early and watched them set up. They fired up regular old charcoal briquettes and then threw on pieces of Mesquite. It smelled delicious and my salivary glands were instantly activated. The only problem is that I wanted to try everything and there was no way I could do that. Even just a small serving of everything filled me to capacity.





The first thing I had to try was the pig skins. This was unexpectedly good.











And then there were the spiral cut potatoes. Because he left the skin on the potatoes I considered these to be health food. The deep frier and the mayonnaise may have countered that fact a bit but boy were they good. It was kind of like one huge potato chip.







And then there were the taco's. Chicken and beef. They also had a chopped up sausage that was very good as well. I have to admit the guacamole looked a bit funky but it still tasted good. What made it better was that Javier's sister in law gave him her special Salsa that he shared with us.








Do you see the cheese and fruit fountains?











Here they have the corn bar. It was exactly like Molly's Mexican corn except it wasn't on the cob. Covered with butter and mayonnaise how could it not taste good. It also had some very delicious spice on it. Some sort of spicy pepper I think. You can also see a corner of the ice cream cart to the right.








Here is the taco bar almost ready to open.

And then there was the drink bar. When I travel on planes my favorite drink is a bloody mary mix. Here they had a clamato drink that was the real thing. Clam juice and little pieces of clam in tomato juice along with a miriad of spices that I think included tobasco and Worcestershire sauce. I had mine without the beer. 

The kids then got their own little personal sized pizza's. The box was customized with Xaviers name and the pizza had little mouse ears.  I'm not sure why I couldn't have one.

In case they were still hungry the kids also had a fully loaded candy bar. I must admit that I did swipe a couple of the chocolate malted balls. 

Lisa was fascinated with her deep fried spiral potato. She chose to forgo the mayo.

You will never guess who showed up. Yup, Minni and Mickey Mouse were there.











There was even a pinata that was nearly as big as Mickey himself. They also had another pinata that was just Micky's head and it was much larger than life size.









They had several of these large stuffed animals. They were electric and you could sit on them and drive them around. I really wanted to try one out but I'm considerably larger than Javier and I was afraid the teddy bear wouldn't survive it.








And here is the guest of honor, Xavier with his mother and father.

The boy received more gifts than most weddings. Javier has this little car parked in his garage awaiting the day he can drive it.

There were well over a hundred people at this party. Javier said he didn't even know half of them.

This is our group from Hi-Z. Left to right is Pedro, Javier, Jerry, Lisa and myself.

I took a little video to give you a bit of the flavor of the place. It was a very fun day.

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Walmart sells 1.2 billion dollars of merchandise a day.

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Sarah & Sam Came to Visit

I'm so far behind in this blog that I don't even know where to begin. I guess to keep it simple and not to overwhelm you I will just talk about this last week.  

Last week Wednesday Lisa and I were sitting on the couch talking when the door bell rang. We don't often get visitors that late at night so we were curious who would be ringing and to our surprise it was Sarah and Sam. Lisa has been feeling really sorry for herself because everyone we know in Utah has met him but we haven't. I guess Sarah and Sam decided to take care of that problem. They emptied their piggy banks and gathered up all of their change (literally) and drove on down here to visit with us. It was a great weekend. They wanted to surprise us but they wanted to make sure we would be home so Sarah had conspired with Ben and Sharley. Ben and Sharley told us they would be coming down so of course we made no plans. Except for the PQ5K Fun Run. That was planned. In fact I've never missed one yet but my toe was still very sore and while I'd hoped that I'd be able to run it alas, my hopes were in vain. I was still limping so running a race just wasn't going to happen.

I was at the starting line to cheer them on and I was so sad to see them running off into the distance. :(  I then hurried on to the finish line and it wasn't all that long before I saw Ben, Sharley, Sarah  and Sam coming across the finish line. No mother was present. So they all drank a glass of water and then Ben, Sarah and Sam headed back down the course to find Mom. It was only a few minutes when they came back with their mother. 

Saturday morning was a bit rough for some of us because we were up late the night before. We all went to see the Avengers. Patrick and his girlfriend met up with us at the theater. It was a great movie. 

Saturday we went to the beach but the water was a bit cold so Sharley and I sat and watched Ben, Sam and Sarah play in the waves. After the beach we all went out and celebrated Cinco de Mayo in style at Rodrigo's. I do love Mexican food. 

Of course the best activity of all was when we resurrected the potato cannon. When Ben was a kid he really wanted a potato cannon and that sounded like a lot of fun to me so we built one. The ignitor has long since corroded away so I bought a new one and voila. We fired a half dozen potato's into the canyon. About the time we decided to call it quits our neighbor from down the street knocks on the door. He was quite worried and asked if we had been lighting of fire crackers. I could see how that could concern someone since our canyon could go up in flames rather quickly so I assured him it wasn't fire crackers (his kids thought we were shooting guns) and I explained my potato cannon to him. 

He looked like an all around fun guy so I asked him if he wanted to shoot it. You should have seen his face light up. I figured that the best way to keep him from getting me in trouble would be to involve him. He is now going to make one for himself. 

After a very tiring few days we wrapped it up with a nice roast beast dinner after church and then we bade Ben and Sharley farewell. Monday morning I said goodbye to Sam and Sharley and off to work I went. They were supposed to be leaving right behind me but I've heard they never got out of here until noon on Monday. 

So that was my week. How exciting eh? I do have some rather scary news to share with you. I put my name in for the St George Marathon. It is a lottery so there is no guarantee. I figured I've got a good head start so why not go for it. I want to run one before I die and I'm not getting any younger. When I decided to enter Alycia, Ben, Sarah and Sam decided to enter with me so we've submitted our names as a team. Justin and some friends have entered also as did my friend Phil so it would sure be a blast if we could all get in. It is a rather strange situation for me though. I will be happy if I get picked but I think I will be happy if I don't get picked. Weird. Now I've just got to get my toe better so I can run again. Today was the first day I could walk without a limp. I'm hoping to go for a short run next week. 

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

80% of the cost of a fish is the cost of the fuel for the fishing boat.

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Ouch

I know it is nearly Wednesday but I'm only now getting enough time to tell you about my Saturday. The morning started out great as Lisa and I went and volunteered with the Stake in the canyon. We had several jobs to choose from so we volunteered to pull non-indigenous weeds. I learned a few new plants such as Fennel, Mustard and my favorite, Curly Dock. Some of those Fennels (smells like licorice) were huge. The early Padres actually planted the fennel mark the El Camino Real trail because they grow so tall and they're quite hardy

After the volunteering Lisa had a baby shower so I decided to head out for a run in the canyon. I hadn't run since the race last week so I was just itching to go. It was a beautiful day and I was loving life but as I headed into the trees at the bridge I guess I was just too excited about getting to my favorite spot that I got a bit careless. My foot didn't quite clear a tree root and the toe of my shoe got caught underneath a tree root. Down I went but with my toe stuck in the root it bent my toe completely back. It hurt really bad. I hobbled on to the bridge and sat there letting the pain calm down a bit and then I realized the predicament I was in. I was three miles into the canyon meaning that I had three miles to get back out. I could scarcely put any weight on my foot at all but Lisa couldn't very well come and carry me out.. At first I thought I'd be a man and bear the pain and run my way out. That didn't even last a quarter mile. I was hobbling pretty bad and the pain just got worse and worse. I finally stopped and walked. If you look at my mile times you can see my first mile was ten minutes, my second mile was eleven minutes my third mile was eleven minutes and then I fell and slowed down a lot. My fourth mile was fifteen minutes (when I tried to run), my fifth mile was nineteen minutes and the last mile was more than twenty minutes. I was nearly crawling at that point. 

So when I got home I took my shoes off and tried to do some errands around the house. I actually got the lawns mowed but my to-do list didn't quite get all checked off. Finally before I went to bed I took my socks off and was a bit surprised to see that my big toe was all black and blue. I knew it would be swollen but I never bruise. I really think I may have broken it but there was no way I was going to spend five hours in emergency to have them tell me to spend $100 on an x-ray and then another $100 on a boot. It looks pretty straight so I will just tape it and try not to hurt it any more. 

Today when I looked at my toes every single toe but my pinky is black and blue. It still really hurts. What bugs me more than anything though is that this Saturday is the PQ5K fun run. That is a community 5K run. We run from the stake center to our church and it is exactly 5K. I've done it every year but I really don't see how I'm going to manage it this year. I'm so upset. 

To make up for it though I've decided that I am going to put in for the St George Marathon. I think I've also got Alycia, Ben, Sarah and Sam talked into doing it with me. Justin has already applied. I'm a little bit scared but if I win the draw (or would that be lose?) I will be committed and then it is the big leagues for me. Oh well, I want to do it once before I die and it isn't going to get any easier. 

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

Melanoma has increased 800% in women under forty. No more tanning booths Kira.

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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.