Renaissance Fair

Thursday, May 28, 2026

Sunday was a relaxed day. We went to church with Brandon and his kids and then we hung out and enjoyed each other’s company. If I remember correctly, Sydney hung with us for a bit and then disappeared to another graduation party.

We played games and I set up a water jet “T” ball sprinkler thing that was quite fun. It was also fun just hanging out with the grandkids.

Monday was our last day in Texas. Sydney and Hayley were YCL’s for their girl’s camp and headed to camp Monday morning. Lisa and I drove them to their drop off point and hugged them both goodbye. We then packed up the rest of the kids and headed to a Renaissance Fair that was going on.

The Fair was pretty much a twin to the ones they have in Phoenix but perhaps a little bigger with a few more attractions.

It was also hot just like the one in Phoenix. We had a lot of fun. Brandon slaughtered anyone who would accept his challenge in sword fighting... 

and the girls got their hair braided.

As we were walking to our car to go home, we saw a huge thunderhead coming our way. Our car wasn’t close, so we kept gauging the distance. Luckily, we were unlocking the car when the rain started coming down. It was a fun day but as soon as we got home, we loaded up the car, kissed the kids goodbye and then Brandon and Ally took us to the airport. For some reason it feels like we’ve been gone for a month. I guess that’s what happens when you’re having fun.

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While Mt Everest is the tallest mountain when measured from sea level. Mt Chimborazo in Ecaudor is the mountain that is closest to space. Because the earth bulges at the equator, sea level in Equador is higher than sea level in Tibet.

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Mammoths

Thursday, May 28, 2026

Saturday, we headed to Waco. Lisa had given us three options, 1) go to a craft show at a Christian compound, 2) go to a Mammoth museum and 3) go to a Texas Rangers museum. We made it to the compound and the Mammoth museum but ran out of time before we could go see the Rangers.

The compound was fascinating. A religious group in New York wanted to live simple lives, bought some property near Waco and moved there.

They built houses on the property, and they do their best to live simple lives and make what they need themselves.

They were selling things like leather goods, blacksmithing, candle making, wood working and home-made clothing. It is the kind of life that I think I would enjoy. The most interesting thing to me is that they have the only water driven mill in Texas that is in operation and milling flour. It was working while we were there.

The mill was built in 1760 in New Jersey and fed the American army led by George Washington during the revolutionary war when they were starving during the winter of 1780-81. In 2001 the mill was moved to Texas and restored.

We then headed to the Mammoth museum; it was also fascinating. The first mammoth was found in 1978 and since that time around 30 mammoths have been found all in a very small area.

They figure that a herd of mammoths, including several babies, were watering at the creek and were caught in a flash flood. They refer to the herd as a nursery heard. The owner of the property wanted to support the discovery, so he donated this portion of his land to the city of Waco in 1996 and in 2009 they built a shelter over the site and opened it up to visitors. It was a genius decision because they now have an income from the visitors, they have an air-conditioned shelter where they can work, and the bones are protected from the weather. We all enjoyed the air conditioning immensely. It is an active archeological site.

They told us that they are looking at everything around the bones including what spores are in the soil so I knew it must take a long time to remove all the dirt. I asked how long it took to dig out the bones, and the guide told me that she was there for eight hours when I guy was working on it and after an eight-hour day he had removed a half inch of soil in the small area where he was digging.

On our way home I got to visit my first Bucc-ee’s store. It really is quite amazing. They have everything you could want at a gas station. They must have had fifty islands with gas pumps, and the store was more like a Wal Mart than a gas station. They have everything from clothes to some rather amazing food. Once we got home Sydney headed off to a couple of graduation parties she wanted to attend and we played in the yard and ate some of Brandons amazing brisket.

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Birth rates in the 1980's was about 70 births per 1,000 women. Today it is 11. Teen births have dropped by 70% and the age group most likely to have a child are women in their 30's.

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Sydney’s Graduation

Tuesday, May 26, 2026

Last Friday was Sydney’s graduation from High School and we wanted to be there for her. Thursday evening Jeff & Tiffany drove us to the airport and we had an uneventful trip to the Dallas–Love airport. Brandon picked us up and it was after 1:00 am when we climbed into bed.

Friday morning was a nice, relaxed morning and then we headed out to Sydney’s graduation somewhere around 2:00. Other than the fact that Sydney was there, the best thing about the graduation is that it was in an air-conditioned auditorium. We were quite a way back so the pictures aren’t great, but we could see her clearly enough.

Funny story about Sydney, a couple of weeks ago she was told she was getting an award, but she wasn’t told what the award was. Her and Brandon went to the award ceremony and they kept announcing awards, but her name was still not called.

They always save the most distinguished awards until the end of the ceremony and finally she is awarded the Magna Cum Laude award. The funny part is that she had no idea what a Magna Cum Laude award is and no idea that she was getting one. She is a very smart girl.

For those who may not know, the Magna Cum Laude (Latin for “with Great Praise”) award is given to those who are the smartest in the school. Suma Cum Laude is for the kids with the highest GPA (kind of like a gold medal), Magna Cum Laude is the next highest (like a silver medal) and Cum Laude is lowest of the smartest (like a bronze medal).

Each school does it differently, some schools base it on percentage of the students (Magna Cum Laude would typically be the top 5 to 15% of students) and other schools base it on the GPA (Magna Cum Laude would be those with GPA’s ranging from 3.7 to 3.89).

I don’t know what Sydney’s school does but in either case, she is a smart girl.

We then went to a graduation party for Sydney at Serenes house. She had a lot of friends there. We gave her some BYU Idaho paraphernalia and then Lisa gave her a bracelet with a glass bead that contains some of her mother’s (GG’s) ashes. It was rather special.

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

It is estimated that 25% of the people who are in a vegetative state

are fully concious and aware of their surroundings.

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Yorba Linda Temple

Monday, May 18, 2026

On Saturday, May 9, we took the youth to the new Yorba Linda temple open house. Many of the leaders took their entire families and Lisa came with me. A few other couples came along as well. The temple was beautiful and our tour guide was amazing. For many of the youth it was the first time they have seen more than just the baptistry of a temple. There are so many open houses now that it takes little effort for a family to go to a temple open house.

I’m getting very excited about our temple open house. Lisa and I have already been set apart as temple workers, and we have volunteered to serve three different shifts during the open house.

As soon as the temple made tickets for the open house available, Lisa sent messages to all her friends letting them know and sent them links to the site where they can get tickets. She also volunteered to go with them to the open house. Between Lisa’s friends, our neighbors and our kids, I think we already have tickets to go to more than five different open houses. I’m getting excited.

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

A 1,600 year old mummy was found near the Nile river about 120 miles south of Cairo. Part of the linnen used to wrap the mummy had a passage from Homers Iliad written on it. I guess even back then they "reduced, reused and recycled".

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The Stucco is done (mostly)

Thursday, May 14, 2026

I first talked about the hole in my wall back on Feb 8 and last weekend I finally finished the stucco. When I say “I” finally finished the stucco I mean with the help of the Bishop, Scott Hilton, about twenty different missionaries and Jeff and Zander, I finally finished the stucco.

The job wasn’t terribly hard but during that time between the hole and the final coat we have been visited by Ben & family, Sarah & family, Alycia & family, and we have been to Arizona a couple of times. Don’t think I’m complaining, if my kids come to visit me then the house can wait. All that is left is a couple of touch ups and then paint. Now we can get back to the flower bed and then to the side yard like we had planned.

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The earliest archaeological evidence of stucco dates back 

over 9,000 years to the ancient Middle East. 

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The Digital World is Against Me

Tuesday, May 12, 2026

I need to do a follow up to last week’s post about my bank accounts getting hacked. Here is a quick summary.

1) Someone maxed out my credit card which scared me witless and started a long road to recovery.

2) Someone emptied out all my bank accounts which added to my stress.

3) My online access to my accounts was cut off so now I was running blind and couldn't even see what the damage was.

4) After losing a day of work we got everything figured out and resolved (so I thought). The next morning, I got another call from Wells Fargo and was told that my computer was compromised. Apparently, my computer was in New Jersey, and someone was in my online account as we spoke. I now had to take my computer in and have it scrubbed for malware. I didn’t have my computer for three days. There went another day of my life.

5) Thank goodness for Justins old computer because I was able to get it up and running most of my software, but I lost most of Friday getting it up and running.

6) After I got Justin's computer up and running, I switched every account I could think of to two tier authentication, because that seemed like the only sure-fire way to prevent people from getting into my accounts. Once that was done, my phone up and died. Now I am blocked out of many of my most critical accounts because they send a code to my phone which I can't use.

You don't realize how much you depend on your phone. Perhaps the thing that bugs me the most is that I have been running all over the place taking care of all this stuff and I can't even listen to my audible books and I can't call anyone. I had to print out a map yesterday to get to the phone repair place. I haven't done that for twenty years.

I got my laptop back so now I can use WhatsApp on my computer. I couldn't install WhatsApp on Justin's computer because it requires two tier authentication and doesn't give you the option to use email. For two days the house phone and email were the only ways I could communicate. I now have my phone and my laptop back. I don’t want to jinx it by saying this, but I think things are back to normal.

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

Firehawks! Birds of prey in Australia will intentionally start fires to scare up more prey. They will pick up a burning stick from one fire and fly it to another location to start a new fire.

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Feeding San Diego

Monday, May 11, 2026

Last Wednesday for our mutual activity Sterling signed us up to volunteer at “Feeding San Diego”. Like most service activities, I wasn’t too excited about going, but like ALL service activities, when we were done, I felt good about the evening. I enjoyed it. We had five adults and eight youth show up. Let me see if I can get all their names right. From left to right in the picture we have; Sean Watson, Chris Sexton, Sterling Smith, Antoinette Ransom (kneeling), Sam McComb, Mark Phillips (behind the heart shaped potato), Brigham Jardin (behind Mark), Zaelin Andrew, Andrew Jack, Peter Hilton, Devon Blankenbiller, Fred Leavitt, Ben Cano.

Our first job was to sort bananas. They had several crates with tons of bananas. We had to go through each of them and throw out the bad ones. I don’t think they expected us to finish the bananas but we were fast.

They then had us move on to pears. We put the pears into four-pound bags. We almost finished those as well.

In the end, we sorted over 7,000 pounds of bananas and over 3,000 pounds of pears. We worked from 7:00 to 9:00. It was a good activity, I think the boys enjoyed it.

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In 2015 a group of Chimpanzee's in Ugande lived in harmony and cohesiveness but they gradually formed into two groups. The central group eventually chased the western group away. By 2018 the two groups were at all out war making targeted attacks against each other. This war is still ongoing and nothing like this has ever been seen before. They are only killing adult males and babies.

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