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.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Ben Came to Visit
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.
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.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Who's Lonely?
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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Sunday, July 17, 2011
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.
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.
---------------------------------------------
Friday, July 08, 2011
Alycia's Here
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.
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.
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.
--------------------------------------------
Sunday, July 03, 2011
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. |
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| 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. |
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. |
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
She's Gone :(
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.
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.
----------------------------------------------
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Turtle Eggs
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. ---------------------------
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Graduations
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| Fred Leavitt graduating from the University of Alberta |
![]() |
| Fred Leavitt graduating from the University of California San Diego |
- 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 |
-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) |
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 |
| Kira Palmer (Leavitt) graduating from the University of Florida |
----------trivia----------
42% of college graduates will never read another book.
---------------------------
| 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 |
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