One Down Four to Go

Some of Alycia's ESL students

 Wow, another great weekend. I wish this stuff would spread itself out a bit more because nothing happens for several days and then I have a burst of many wonderful experiences and there is no way I can share it all in a reasonably short post. Oh well, this post may be long and you can read it if you want or you can skip it.

This weekend we drove to Utah to share in Alycia's graduation ceremonies. I left work early and we went as far as St George the first night. We stayed with the Havertz's and had a good visit with Mike and MaryAnn. Thursday morning we visited for a little while and then Brett went to school, Mike went golfing, MaryAnn went to work and we went to Salt Lake City. We got there around 1:00 just in time to pick Alycia up from work and take her to lunch. We then dropped her off to write her last final exam (which she got 100% on by the way) and the Lisa and I went to check out the new Church History Library. That is a very cool facility and we could have spend hours there but Alycia called a half hour after we got there. She wrote a 3 hour exam in half an hour and got 100%. Pretty good but we didn't get to see the library.

Alycia then had a school program with the kids she's been working with and it was great to see her in action. All of her kids are refugee's and they told some pretty amazing stories. They also all told us how much they love Alycia. We then went back to Alycia's apartment and visited for a bit. We then went to our hotel room and went to bed. 

Alycia's commencement started at 8:00 the next morning. The speaker was Mitch Albom who wrote the book, "Tuesdays with Morie". I loved the movie so I really wanted to hear him speak. Boy was he good. When I try and explain what he talked about it sounds so trivial but the way he gave his message was amazing. It just made you want to be a better person. I'll try and share some of the points he made and forgive me if they sound trite.

Our world is obsessed with staying young. We go to great expense to "pretend" we're young. We subject ourselves to plastic surgery, we spend hours in the gymn working out, we by new cars and get new and younger wives and we often destroy our lives trying to hang on to our youth. Growing old is a blessing. We have within us every age we have ever been. If we need to act like a ten year old to relate to a ten year old we can do that because it is within us. If it is more appropriate to act like a fifty year old we can do that too because it is within us. An old man has the advantage over a young man because he has already been a young man but in addition he has the experiences of an older man and can offer that advice.

Mitch Albom

The other point he made was that we all know inherently that what is really important is to give. Every man on his death bed is worried about those that he loves and does what he can to make them feel better. The people on the flight that crashed during 9/11 didn't call home to complain about dying but rather they called home to tell their loved ones that they loved them and to try and comfort them. We spend our lives taking but to really live we need to be giving. 

There was a lot of other cool stuff too but you get the idea. After the commencement we went for lunch with the Crowley's (Trevors family) after which we visited until the long boring meeting where Alycia walked. I'm really quite annoyed with how the University does this. When they hand the diploma to the kids they have them facing away from the crowd. For the life of me I couldn't understand why they would do this until I decided that they don't want you to take a picture of your kid because then you have to buy the picture that they take. I just went to the far side of the stadium and was ready to take a picture from over there until they sent a security guard to come and kick me out. Oh well, I will just have to live with the pictures I got. 

After Alycia walked we took some pictures before it got too dark and then we went out for some ice cream and then bed.

Saturday we slept in a bit and then took Trevor and Alycia to this cool place for breakfast. Lisa read about the "Blue Plate Diner" in the San Diego newspaper of all places. We walked in the place and Lisa recognized the owner from the article. That woman amazes me sometimes. I had an Eggs Benedict. I've never had an eggs Benedict before. In fact, I didn't even really know what one was. I like Eggs Benedict. I'm going to have to try and make one sometime. On our way back to Alycia's apartment Lisa and Alycia just had to stop at this "British Store".    Even though Canada is a Commonwealth country I'm not much into the British thing and I'm especially not into royalty and that place was full of Royal Wedding stuff. The girls enjoyed it though and we weren't there too long.

We then dropped Trevor off for his guitar lesson and Alycia showed us some of the old houses in the neighborhood. There are some pretty nice places. Old but very elegant. We then dropped Alycia off and headed south.

Of course we had to stop in Provo for some BYU chocolate milk. That stuff is so good. While we were there I bought some cheese curds and then it was back on the road.

The trip home was very uneventful and that is just how we like to have our long road trips. Surprises on a long drive are usually not good. We got home around midnight and Sarah and Serene had flowers and cards set out for Mothers day.

After church on Sunday Lisa opened her mothers day cards that she hadn't opened the night before. She also admired the gymn bag and matching yoga mat that she'd bought for herself and then I made her spagetti for dinner.

Of course the big reason we rushed home was for our mothers day phone call from Alex. That was so good. I love that they let us use Skype to talk to our missionaries. Being able to actually see him makes all the difference and to make it all better we are able to conference in the kids who are not at home. We had Justin & Kira, Alycia and Ben on the call. Brandon was without internet so he wasn't able to join in. We tried to get him on speaker phone so he could at least participate vocally but it just didn't work. Oh well.

For a blow by blow account of  the phone call you will have to check out Lisa's account on Alex's missionary blog. Check it out here. If it isn't up yet it will be soon.

So that was about it. A good weekend. Just to give you an idea of what our future holds for the next few months, here is out schedule.





Two weekends ago - Sharley's art show
Last weekend - Alycia's graduation
Next weekend - Sarah's prom
The weekend after - Brandons graduation and Ben's graduation
The weekend after that - Sharley's graduation
The weekend after that - Father/Daughter Campout
The weekend after that - Sarah's Graduation and the big graduation party celebrating everyones achievements.
The weekend after that - Getting Sarah ready for college
The weekend after that - Take Sarah to college
The weekend after that - Lisa's birthday
The weekend after that - Our 30th wedding anniversary
The weekend after that - breathe

Quite a summer don't you think?

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

Every dollar the US government takes in taxes is spent on entitlements. The money required to actually run the government has to be borrowed.

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The Blue Plate Diner

Lisa Checking out Mothersday stuff