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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A Visit from Sarah

 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.

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They're Gone

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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Graduations

Fred Leavitt graduating from the
University of Alberta

Today if you will indulge me I'm going to take a moment to brag. Saturday we threw a party for our kids. Not only have we had five of our children graduate in the last month but now all six have graduated from High School, all six have started college, and including spouses we have three graduate degree's and eight bachelors degree's. The only remaining two include one on a mission and a freshman. I think they deserved the big party. Just to summarize:

Fred Leavitt graduating from the
University of California San Diego

Justin - Bachelors in Neuroscience
           - DDS in Dentistry
Kira   - Bachelors in Music Performance
          - Masters in Music Performance (Oboe)
Brandon - Bachelors in Bio Chemistry
                - JD Law
Serene - Bachelors in English 
          - minor in Editing
Benjamin - Bachelors in International Business
         - minor in Spanish
Sharley - Bachelors of Fine Arts in photography
Trevor - Bachelors in Political Science 
            - minor in Jazz Guitar
            - now attending BYU Law

Lisa Shaw graduating from
M E Lazerte High School

                                                               Alycia - Bachelors in Social Science Composite Teaching
  -minor History Teaching
 Alex - High School
          - now on a mission in Chili
Sarah - High School
           - now attending UVU




So the party we had wasn't much of a party and the kids had to do most of the work themselves but it is always fun to just have some friends come by, visit and eat lots of food. When my kids are at home it is always like a party.

Justin Palmer graduating from the
University of Florida (Dentistry)

Sadly the party is now over and everyone but Grandma have left. Trevor and Alycia pulled out and headed for Salt Lake at about 8:00. Brandon and Serene pulled out at about 8:30 and headed for Texas and we drove Justin and Kira to the airport at about 10:00. Right now it is very quiet around here.



We got back to the house and just plopped onto the couch and have hardly moved since. We've eaten a few left overs and I think we will be eating left overs for at least a week.

Kira Palmer (Leavitt) graduating from
Brigham Young University

Now we need to start getting ready to take Sarah up to UVU. She's going to start school the end of June and I'm really not looking forward to it. Some one once said that to have kids is to decide "... to have your heart go walking around outside your body.” That is how I feel. 

Kira Palmer (Leavitt) graduating from the
University of Florida

Just for fun I grabbed some pictures of some of the graduations. I've also got some pictures from the weekend. 

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

42% of college graduates will never read another book.

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Brandon Leavitt graduating from
Brigham Young University

Brandon Leavitt graduating from
Pepperdine School of Law

Benjamin Leavitt graduating from the
California State University Fullerton

Sharley Leavitt (Cotter) graduating from
California State University Long Beach

Trevor Crowley graduating from the
University of Utah

Alycia Crowley (Leavitt) graduating from the
University of Utah

Alex Leavitt graduating from
Westview High School

Sarah Leavitt graduating from
Westview High School

Ben found a real cool "Woody" pinata.
The thing was huge and we had a lot of fun with him.

Brandons birthday was last week so we
celebrated it while everyone was here.

Evan and Landon love Woody.
The girls were not as impressed.

The tables were all pretty.

Serene made some little cupcakes
that looked like graduation hats.

We had ping pong

The cousins are always glad to get together.

The little kids all took a turn trying to beat up Woody.

Sydney hates to see anyone get hurt and she was not happy about trying to hit Woody.
We all told her he was full of candy so she did try but it was only half hearted.

When the little kids failed the big kids took a turn.
You may notice that one of Woody's legs is about to fall off.

Justin finally managed to remove Woody from his head.

Frank is about to whack the new Pinata.

Evan brought the Pinata back to life.

I really felt left out on this one. Chandler is giving Sarah a back rub.
Sarah is giving Tyler a back rub. Mackenzie is giving Brandon a
hand rub.

back: Fred, Brandon, Hayley, Landon, Justin, Ben, Trevor
middle: Serene, Lisa, Sarah, Sharley, Alycia
front: Sydney, Kira, Evan

Landon flying high

Playing Lips after things have settled down.

Sharley's Graduation

Here's Sharley walking in and giving us all a wave.

This may look like she's doing the Hitler salute
but she's actually blowing us all a kiss. 

Sharley's graduation was perhaps the easiest of them all. Either that or I'm just getting used to  them. The graduations all seem to have a theme. Alycia's had the best commencement speaker, Brandons had the best student speaker, Ben's was the longest (but at least we had comfortable seats, comfortable weather and the front row. His commencement speaker was also very good), but Sharley had by far the best announcer. 

Sharley's commencement was for the art department which included all of the departments like art, photography, dance, music, theater etc. You get the idea. Well when it came time for the grads to walk they announced the man who was to read out the names and then they said he was from the Theater department. Ben leans over to me and says, "well if he's from theater then he should be good." The next thing we know there is a deep booming voice that is very animated and full of confidence. If he announced any names wrong we would never know it.

They had all of the graduates who had honors stand up.
I know she had excellent grades but I don't know
which of the "Cum lauds" she got. 

This morning we got up early and left the house around 6:45. We arrived at the University of California at Long Beach just after 8:00. Luckily the traffic was great. Ben had us some seats saved which is good because they were already starting to fill up. 

They then went through the program is a prompt manner and all in all it was a very nice program. They're commencement speaker was an alumnus who was an industrial designer making medical equipment. He actually was involved in the design of a heart bypass valve that was later used to save the life of his grandson. How cool would that be?

Walking up to accept her diploma

After the program was over the graduates walked and since it was only the Art Department that didn't take too long and then it was all over. 

Sharley shaking hands with all of the important people. 

Sharley then showed us all her home away from home. The CSULB campus is actually a very pretty campus. One scary thing though was when we were leaving. We were going down this escalator and Mom was carrying Hayley and Serene was carrying Sydney. Because they were carrying the girls they weren't holding onto the hand rail. Well the escalator suddenly stopped. I mean instantly, it was so sudden that we were all thrown forward. A lot of people were carrying plates of food from the reception that they had and there was food and people flying all over the place. 

As soon as the proceedings were over a whole lot of balloons
were released and a bunch of beach balls magically appeared.

I did happen to be holding the hand rail and Serene was behind me so I was ready to catch her if needed but she managed to not fall down but no one was where they could catch Mom. Luckily she didn't fall down either but others did fall and it was rather scary. You don't want to be dropping babies on those metal stairs. 

Unfortunately Ben had to go to work right away and Sharley's family took her to the beach so we took the opportunity to check out the place. Ben told us about some Japanese gardens that were on campus and since it was free we decided to take a look. They were beautiful. What a peaceful place.

For a quarter you could get some fish food to feed the fish and those guys knew exactly what was up. If anyone even stood near the edge of the pond you had fish piling on top of each other just to be the first ones fed. Sydney loved it but she wasn't about to get too close. 

After the gardens we headed back to San Diego. The rest of the day has been rather relaxed. Tomorrow Sarah is off to Disneyland with the High School seniors and I'm going to sleep in and try to have a relaxing Saturday. We'll see how that goes. 

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

In the last thirty years not only have humans grown fatter but so have the animals (everything from rats to monkeys). They think it may be toxins in the water that affect our metabolism.

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