Thank you Rosemary

Once we had made the decision to move reality began to set in. Lisa started packing and I started stressing about where we were going to live in San Diego. Lisa was really blessed when she learned that a family that she was close to in Edmonton had moved to San Diego. She contacted them and that really helped her to not stress so much. As moving day came closer it became more real that we were leaving our family, our friends and our country. When we told the kids, they were devastated. Well, they weren't all devastated. Kira was devastated, Brandon was upset that we were leaving the second largest country on earth, Ben was bawling but Alycia and Alex didn't seem to care. Alycia was three and Alex was only one. I didn't even dare suggest that we leave the cat behind so we made sure she had all her shots and took her too. Early in June I flew down to San Diego and lived with one of the partners in the company. I went to work in the day time and another partner drove me around in the evening looking for a car. I finally bought a Chevrolet Astro van. That was an interesting experience. I had no credit history in the States so no one would give me a loan. Finally they asked if I had ever bought a GM vehicle. Well the little Sprint that I had for two months before Lisa totaled it was a GM vehicle and fortunately I had financed it through GM. Since my Astro was a GM vehicle they were able to find my other GM loan and sold me the van based on my other GM loan. Once I had the van I drove around deciding what neighborhood we wanted to live in. The closest neighborhoods to where I worked were La Jolla, Del Mar and Mira Mesa. Houses in LaJolla cost a million dollars, Del Mar was $750K and Mira Mesa was affordable but full of gangs. I learned that the Poway school system was nationally ranked so I liked that but I didn't want to drive that far. I then learned that Penasquitos was in the Poway school system but it was west of the hills meaning that it was closer to work, closer to the beach and about 10° cooler in the summer and about 10° warmer in the winter. When I first drove around Penasquitos I immediately fell in love with it. There were plenty of green parks with kids playing little league baseball and there was the Penasquitos canyon. The schools looked nice and I decided right then that this was going to be our new home. I looked at a few houses for rent and finally picked one. At the end of the month I drove straight through back to Rosemary (a thirty hour drive) and pulled in about 3:00AM. It kind of freaked Lisa out when I knocked on our bedroom window but I was glad to see them after being gone for a month. Now it was time to pack up. We rented the absolute biggest moving van that we could find. Thanks to some very good friends we got it all packed up before July 1. I remember the Nortons helped us a lot and the Cormacks and I'm sure there were many others. I could never have done it on my own. We moved a lot of stuff. I was worried that we exceeded the maximum weight limit so John Cormack drove the truck down to the elevators and weighed it. We were about twice the maximum load. I was horrified. I had no idea what to do. I finally decided that I'd just play stupid and drive right on by all the weigh stations and make them come after me. If they did I'd just say, "huh?? You mean I have to stop at the weigh stations? I thought those were just for commercial trucks." Luckily no one stopped me but my heart would race every time we drove by one. In the end we had to rent a little trailer to pull behind the moving truck. We had a lot of stuff. We made the decision to leave the day after the July 1st celebrations. That was always a big deal in Rosemary and a lot of fun. They have a parade, fireworks, games and a ton of food. It really is an amazing celebration for a town of 317 people. The day before the July 1 holiday it rained hard all day long. The kids were all depressed because they were counting on this day to say all their good byes. I was upset as well because we were also saying goodbye. Then the most amazing thing happened. Kira had her friend Amy Forrest over and the two of them decided to pray that Heavenly Father would stop the rain. It is certainly true what they say about the faith of a child. After several days of rainy and miserable weather, July 1, 1992 dawned bright and sunny. We couldn't have asked for better weather and we couldn't have asked for a better event to be able to see as many people as possible and to say goodbye to them and to the town where we had created our family. That night some friends of ours from Edmonton arrived. Rudy and Marline Van Overmiere had to go to southern California anyway so they offered to car pool with us. That was good since we had sold my motorbike and both our cars. It would cost us more to license them in California than they were worth. July 2 we got up and pulled out of town. My heart about broke as we left our home for good. I felt like a creep for tearing my wife and children away from everything they knew and loved. This was their home and what right did I have to take them from it? I remember one day I was driving into Brooks with Brandon and out of the blue he said to me, "isn't it so beautiful?"

I said, "isn't what beautiful?"

He said "the countryside" and he gestured out the window. I looked at the prairies with their wheat fields and for the first time I saw this land in a very different way. I was from the foothills and lived most of my life in the mountains. The picture at the bottom of my blog is Waterton park and that is where I grew up. I had always pictured the prairies as rather boring and perhaps a bit ugly. But this is where Brandon was raised and it was pretty much all he knew. This was his home and looking at it again it was beautiful and I was taking him away from it.

We only drove to Cardston that day and visited with my sister for a day and then headed out the next morning. We had two freezers full of moose in the truck and I had run an extension cord out the back of the truck. Every night I plugged it in hoping that the food would stay frozen. It did. We lived off that meat for two years before we had to buy any beef.

I was a bit worried about crossing the border but I didn't need to be. Lisa had been meticulous in her packing and had every box numbered and a book listing everything that was in each box. We pulled into the Del Bonita border crossing and she showed the book to the border patrol agent. He looked at it, looked at the kids green cards and sent us on our way. We did have one minor crises at the border. The cat got out. Poor Shadow hated the carrier that she was in so they let her out once in a while. Well, the kids weren't paying attention and she got out of the car. We finally rounded her up and got her back in the car. I'm kind of glad I was driving the van, I guess that cat cried the entire trip. We stayed the next night at my sisters house in Blackfoot and the next night at Whiskey Pete's in Primm, Nevada.

By the time we pulled into San Diego the pain and misery of leaving Rosemary were a bit faded and the excitement of starting our new life was starting to build. I clearly remember the excitement as the big old van crawled up the hills leading into Escondido. It was late and I was getting very excited. We had called ahead and the men in the ward were there to meet us and help us unpack. It was brutally hot, even that late at night and those poor guys were such a blessing to us. I don't know how I would have done this move without good friends in Rosemary and the church in San Diego. We have one of those big old piano's from 1913 and if we ever move again it is staying with the house. The guys unloaded the boxes and even stayed long enough to set up the beds and then we all sat in our new house and let it all sink in. We were here and it was the beginning of a new phase of our lives.

It hurt like crazy leaving Rosemary but looking back it was the right thing to do. Our kids have all had opportunities and experiences that wouldn't have been possible in Rosemary but the years we lived in Rosemary are a part of us and it is an experience I wouldn't trade for anything. I like to think of it as the foundation that we now stand on and I wouldn't be who I am if it wasn't for Rosemary. Thank you all.

Let's Move

After Jack's joking offer of a job when I was in Wales I couldn't stop thinking about it. There were a number of reasons why this appealed to me.

- they have very nice weather in San Diego
- San Diego (and southern California) has many more opportunities in technological fields than does Alberta
- they have very nice weather in San Diego
- Hi-Z can teach me a lot about thermoelectric's but at Global I was self taught and the only materials guy in the company
- they have very nice weather in San Diego
- while we loved raising our children in Rosemary when they were young we were a bit worried about their teenage years in Rosemary. I imagine it can be very tough for a teenager in a small rural town. We felt our children would have more opportunities in a larger city.
- they have very nice weather in San Diego
- I had always wanted to get a graduate degree some day and that wasn't going to happen in Rosemary.
- they have very nice weather in San Diego

I weighed all the pro's and con's in my mind and I really wanted to go to San Diego but my heart was so torn. I didn't know what to do. I'm a strong believer in prayer and I knew my Heavenly Father could guide me but when I prayed about it the emotions in my mind were so overwhelming that I could not hear the still small voice of the spirit. Finally, one day as I was driving to work (I was alone, I think George had moved away by this time) and I was contemplating everything I had a thought come into my mind. I realized that I was trying to decide whether or not to move to San Diego when that wasn't the choice in front of me. I hadn't even talked to Hi-Z yet let alone received a job offer. I changed the question in my prayers from "should I go to San Diego?" to "Should I call Hi-Z?" This questions was much less controversial in my mind and when I asked that question my answer came loud and strong. Yes, call Hi-Z.

When I called Norb (the President of Hi-Z) he was a little surprised but I could tell he was very pleased. We talked regularly for several months and after about six months of going back and forth I finally received an offer. Now I had to make a decision and boy was it a difficult one. Lisa (bless her heart) was very supportive and told me that she would follow me anywhere and I knew it would kill her to leave all her friends. Together we decided to go the temple and pray about the decision there. It's not that you can't pray outside the temple but while you're in the temple it is such a peaceful place and you truly feel much closer to God while you're there. We went through a session and in my mind I had a clear answer that we belonged in San Diego. I met up with Lisa afterwards and while we were in the chapel after the session I told her that I felt we should move. She told me that she felt we should have another baby. I said WHAT??? That isn't what we came here to pray about!!! Wow, we're supposed to have another baby. Truth be told I was thrilled. I had always felt that we should have six kids but after Alex I wasn't about to even suggest it. Now came the time to prepare to move. We made the decision somewhere late in the winter (early spring) of 1992. Somewhere around March.

Torn Meniscus

Here is a picture of my knee looking from the inside. The arrow is pointing to my medial meniscus and if you're a better doctor than I am you can see a tear in the meniscus. Above the arrow the big white thing is the end of my femur and the bone below is the end of my fibula. I learned something very interesting today. Did you know that the only purpose of the knee cap is to provide mechanical advantage to the ligament that pulls up your shin bone? It pushes the ligament forward so that it pulls more forward rather than straight up. Without a knee cap you would have 25% less power in your leg. How fascinating.

The doctor is suggesting that I get a meniscectomy which simply means that he will remove the torn part of the meniscus. I told him that it doesn't hurt unless I run and if I do run the pain is bearable and my only question was that if I keep running will it get better or worse? He told me that it will get worse and if I don't fix it and I keep running on it then it will destroy the surface of the bone and then I will end up with an artificial joint. If I don't fix it he would suggest that I quit running. I told him that I need to lose weight and since I don't want to eat less I needed to keep running. He laughed and told me that he'd never had anyone say that they exercised so that they could keep eating. He even put that in his notes. I really liked this doctor. So I guess it is off to surgery I go since I do want to keep running.

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While we lived in Rosemary I had pretty much every calling in the book. I was the instructor for the Elders Quorum, primary and Sunday School. I was a stake missionary, the ward mission leader, the scout master there isn't much left. I wasn't ever in any presidencies but believe me, that doesn't hurt my feelings. One of my favorite callings was when Lisa and I team taught the blazers and merry miss class (they're the eleven year olds). That was fun. My other all time favorite church calling was when I was the traveling companion with Don Gibb. Don was on the high council and once a month they have a high council Sunday where the high council visits your ward and speaks in sacrament meeting. Down here we have two high council men come visit our ward but perhaps because the Taber stake in Rosemary was a hundred miles across they paired the high councilman with some one from their own wards. Don asked me to travel with him and I loved it. I don't know if I bored the congregations out of their minds or not but I enjoyed speaking and I enjoyed the long drives with Don. We had many good conversations. For those reading this who may not know the organization of the church let me explain. A ward is the local congregation and consists of a few hundred people. A stake is a group of five to eight wards. I guess the ward would compare to a parish and a stake would compare to a diocese. The stakes are led by a stake president and in addition to his two councilors he has a group of twelve high councilmen who assist him. All leaders in the wards and stakes are lay ministers and volunteer their time. The bishops that we had while we lived in Rosemary are Don Gibb (before he was a high councilman) and Gary Norton.

The United Kingdom

In September of 1991 there was a thermoelectric conference in Cardiff, Wales that I wanted to attend. Once again I really wanted to take my wife with me so we could take some time after the conference and travel around. The kids were older now so we decided that rather than farm them out to different people we would just hire a babysitter to come and stay with them. Conveniently, Michael Easter had met a British girl on his mission to England who had come to Rosemary and they were making plans to get married. We figured she would be interested in making a little extra money and maybe she could get a bit of insight into what she was getting into once she was married. Her first name was Tonya but I don't remember her last name. Her last name is now Easter. I will share some of Tonya's more exciting experiences at our home in a later entry, today I want to talk about my trip. It turned out be pivotal in the direction our lives would end up going. Of course we now had another new baby since Alex was only six months old but we had gone through this with Alycia and so it wasn't as hard for Lisa this time to "abandon" her baby and come with me to Europe. We landed in London and wanted to go see the Temple but it was closed for renovations. Wouldn't you know it? We spent a day or two in London seeing the usual stuff:
The Tower of London, Big Ben, Piccadilly Circus (that was a big disappointment), St Paul's cathedral, Tower Bridge and of course, perhaps the most exciting to me was the subway system. Pretty fascinating.

We then drove on down to Brighton both to see the sea but also because Tonya's mother lived there and we wanted to stop in and say hi. Brighton was a beautiful city built on the edge of a very big hill that drops down to the coast.

It was then on over to see Stone Henge. We stood there out in the middle of some farmers fields and said, "yes, that is pretty cool." I touched the stones just to be able to say that I did and then we left. I think we were there all of about half an hour. I'm glad we went and I would recommend that anyone who can go and see them but once you've seen it what more can you do?

Then it was on to Bath. Definitely my favorite place in all of Europe. It is just fascinating to me to see how the Romans with their limited technology created these places with under floor heating, the lead pipes that are still there and these pools that must have been beautiful in their day. I loved it.









These are supports that used to hold up the floor. Hot water and steam passed under the floor keeping it warm. Pretty smart for 2000 years ago.

From Bath we headed on into Cardiff in Wales.













The conference was held at the University of Cardiff and lasted four or five days. Everybody from the thermoelectric world goes to these conferences and I have presented many papers at them. We all know each other. Lisa and I actually stayed at the university dormitories. It was very strange. We were in this tiny little room with two single beds and a bathroom. It was cheap though and very convenient. One day I was sitting at a table with Jack Bass who worked for Hi-Z Technology in San Diego. Hi-Z specialized in Bismuth Telluride technology while Global specialized in Lead Telluride technology. The two technologies are very different and would compliment each other nicely. I made one of those comments were you are sort of joking but half serious and I said to Jack, "you need to come and work for Global, we could really use you." He laughed and said back to me, "I don't think so, you need to come and work at Hi-Z, we could really use you." I also laughed and we left it at that. The invitation stuck in my mind though and I dwelled on it for months. I eventually called Jack about it and I will shared that story later.

When we moved to Rosemary our next door neighbor was Rhetta Crapo. Her husband had built our house and then they later built a new house next door and sold the old house. She was a widow who had raised all of her kids and we became very good friends. She has a son who was a stake president in Victoria and one time she was visiting her son and she met Ralph Poleman. Ralph and his wife were from Merthyr Tydfil in Wales and he was called to be the mission president in Victoria. While on their mission Ralphs wife suddenly passed away. Ralph went home, buried his wife and then came back to finish his mission. Ralph was very good friends with Retta's son the stake president and through him he became very good friends with Retta. After Ralph was finished his mission he went back to Merthyr Tydfil and called Rhetta. Rhetta went to visit him, he came to visit her and then they got married.

Merthyr Tydfil




Rhetta packed up and moved to Merthyr Tydfil. When we learned that we were going to go to Wales Lisa contacted Rhetta to find out where in Wales she lived. That is when she learned that they lived in Merthyr Tydfil and that was a mere 30 miles north of Cardiff. Of course we stopped to visit them. What wonderful people they are. We loved Rhetta when she was a neighbor and we love Ralph just as much. He is a very enterprising man and very different than most Europeans that I know. In most European cities the houses are wall to wall, very narrow and usually two or three stories high. Ralph bought the center of a city block and the four sides of the block all have these wall to wall houses but he owns the entire center. He has a huge yard and a lovely detached brick house. The house had already been started when he bought it but apparently the guy couldn't afford to finish it. Ralph is a developer and he takes large tracts of land and plans out entire neighborhoods including the streets, sewer, drainage, parks and the works. He then builds houses on the lots and sells them. He is very successful.

They showed us around the city including the house where President David O McKay's mother was born.





They also took us to some caves that are in the area. We had a very enjoyable time with them. From Merthyr Tyfil we headed north to Scotland. By this time I was pretty used to driving on the wrong side of the road so I opened it up on those nice freeways. It was a little car and it sounded like the motor was redlining but in order to keep up with the other traffic I was going about 150 km/hr. For those of us here in the states that would be about 90 mph. I did pop it over 100 mph once in a while just to say I had done it. The weird thing is that all along the freeway they have signs clearly posting the speed limit as 100 km/hr. No one could plead ignorance. In Scotland we visited the old stomping grounds of Lisa's great grandparents. She knew them very well so it was pretty cool to see where they grew up. They lived in Kilsyth and we think we may have found the house they lived in. We spent a lot of time in the library and found that the family were weavers and they wove fabric in their house. We went to church in Glasgow and we also made an appearance in Falkirk. I think they lived in Falkirk for a while.

Just out of interest we made our way up to the Stirling Castle ruins because that was likely the Castle that ruled over Lisa's ancestors. It is also interesting to note that this whole area is the setting for the story portrayed in the movie Braveheart. It is highly likely that some of Lisa's ancestors were involved in that whole struggle. I loved the castle, it was a beautiful castle and a beautiful setting. From Kilsyth we headed into Edinburgh. You can't go to Scotland and not visit Edinburgh. The Edinburgh castle and the city were interesting but too commercialized for me. I enjoyed the small towns and the remote area's much more. From Edinburgh we headed south again to the white cliffs of Dover. We hoped on a ferry to go over to Belgium. In Belgium we visited Marleen and Robert Sassenus. Marleen was only sixteen when I found her on my mission. She eventually got baptized and then later married and had a little girl. Robert had served a mission to California. We went with them to the Beach. We got there early and Robert and I went out wind surfing. We spent most of the morning trying to figure out how to stay up on the board but never quite figured it out. When we came back to the beach I noticed that all of the women were topless. We were there early enough when I went out that there weren't many people and I didn't see anyone topless but there were plenty as we walked back. It was quite a sight and as we walked back to where Lisa and Marleen were I was quite worried that Marleen might be topless. That would be awkward. Luckily both Marleen and Lisa had their tops on so I relaxed. The next day we took a ferry back to England and headed for the airport. Our ferry back was a cool hydrofoil and was much faster than the ferry. I was hoping for the hover craft but it was just too much money. We had a wonderful time but we had been gone a long time and were anxious to return to our children. Little did we realize how much fun Tonya had been having in our absence.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death ...

Alex was our last child to be born in Canada. Being our fifth child you would think we'd know what was going on. Actually, every one thought this was going to be a breeze but as always, Alex knows how to mix things up. The first problem was that Lisa went into labor while her doctor Dr. Oberg was out of town. The back up doctor was a friend of ours Doctor Jack Regehr. Doctor Oberg was a good friend of ours as well by this time. I actually went deer hunting with Doctor Oberg once. When we came into the hospital the nurses took one look at Lisa and said, "This should be an easy night, Lisa is an expert at this." They were quite happy because the two nurses hadn't worked together for a while and were looking forward to an easy night where they could visit and catch up on things. Little did they know what they were in for. It was late evening when we went into the hospital and as soon as Lisa's contractions get serious we could tell that things weren't quite right. We didn't know what was wrong but Lisa assured me that her contractions were "different". Of course the nurses didn't know what to think of that and they weren't about to call the doctor because things were, "different". To complicate things even more, all of the doctors were at a going away party for one of their co-workers who was moving or retiring or something. Since Alex was my fifth child I was now very familiar with the equipment they use. They would strap this sensor around Lisa's belly and a machine about the size of a suitcase would monitor her contractions. It displayed a graph and every time a contraction would come the line would form a peak, the higher the peak the stronger the contractions. As the night progressed Lisa's contractions got stronger and stronger and more and more frequent. This was exactly what one would expect but around midnight something very strange started to happen. The contractions kept getting stronger but they became less frequent. That is when I started to worry, I could tell that the nurses were starting to worry as well but they tried to stay positive. They weren't fooling anyone. This is also about the time Lisa started to go delirious. So told me later that she was sure she was going to die. I never thought she would die but I was very concerned about her well being and I was a bit fearful for the baby. They had a device hooked up the Alex's head that measured his heart rate and every time Lisa had one of those monster contractions his heart rate would start to slow down. As the contractions continued to get further and further apart they did finally decide to call the doctor. This was now about five in the morning and of course at that hour it took the doctor the better part of an hour to get to the hospital. I don't think they communicated the seriousness of the situation to him and I'm not even sure they recognized the danger either. I was starting to get real worried because at this the point the contractions were very strong but only about ten minutes apart. As soon as Doctor Regehr walked into the delivery room things happened very fast. He looked at me and saw that I was glued to the machine anticipating every contraction and he told the nurse to disconnect the machine and get it out of there. He then checked out Lisa and asked why they didn't call him sooner. He then told the nurses that they had to get that baby out of there. He was already in the birth canal so I guess that meant a cesarean section was no longer an option so they started pushing on Lisa's belly. I really felt sorry for her because they would wait for a contraction and then push very hard on her belly. It was agonizing for her. At this point she was so delirious that she didn't know what was going on but when they rammed on her belly that brought her around. Finally they maneuvered Alex to the point that the doctor could pull him through. What a relief that was. It was such a joy to see this boy enter into the world. Any concerns I might have had about his health were quickly alleviated when I saw Alex's little hand grab onto the sheet that was covering Lisa. Alex was still mostly inside his mother when he grabbed onto the sheet and held so tightly that the doctor had to peel his little fingers open so he could finish delivering him. It was very funny. I'm sure most of you are familiar with the Apgar score. That is a very quick test that the doctors do one minute after birth and then again five minutes after to quickly establish the health of the baby. The baby gets a zero, one or two in each of five categories. For a perfectly healthy baby that adds up to a ten. The five categories are: heart rate; breathing; grimace (reflex's); activity and appearance. It is almost unheard of for a baby to get a ten on the one minute test. Alex got an 8 at one minute and a ten at five minutes. I think with him grabbing the sheets he scored full marks for activity, appearance and grimace.

After the birth of Alex, Lisa's recovery was almost immediate. Within minutes she was loving her baby boy. No one really said anything about the scary few hours before Alex's birth but within a few short weeks it all became clear to us. Kira and Brandon were at school and Lisa was sitting on the couch nursing Alex while Ben and Alycia were watching Sesame Street. She suddenly felt impressed to put Alex in his crib. She thought that was a strange impression and ignored it. She felt the impression again and again she ignored it. Finally after three times she went and put Alex in his crib and no sooner had she done so when she had a stabbing pain in her side and collapsed onto the floor. The pain was so debilitating that she couldn't even crawl. She managed to get to the phone but there was work going on in town and the lines were dead so she called Ben (who was only four) to run to the neighbors across the street and tell her that Lisa was in trouble and needed her help. The neighbor across the street said her baby was asleep and she couldn't come. She then sent him to the next door neighbors but they weren't home. After a second try the first neighbor finally came over and was able to get a hold of Lynette Huber who came and stayed with Lisa until she eventually worked her way through the pain. I came home and we got her in to see the doctor. The final analysis is that Lisa had a large cyst on her uterus that had burst. The cyst is what was causing the problems during her delivery. The way I under stand it is that the uterus is essentially one massive muscle and during labor the muscle contracts from one end to other pushing the baby out. What was happening to Lisa is that as this contraction progressed down her uterus it would hit the cyst causing a stabbing pain that made the muscle flinch and thereby messing up the push. These messed up contractions were ineffective at moving the baby through the birth canal so all they were doing were wearing out Lisa and tiring out the muscle. By the time Dr Regehr got to the hospital Lisa's body was shutting down. After Alex was born we decided that perhaps we were pushing our luck and we would only have five kids.

------------------------------------------Sixth Grade Olympics
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Alex riding a horse and LeRon and Patsey Litchfields farm in Taber
------------------------------Hawaii
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Grandma's House - Cochrane, Alberta

Arte y Pico & Opposits attract

Wow, I just received an award. It is the "Arte y Pico" award. I'm not exactly sure what that means but its Spanish for something and you can read more about it by following the link below. Someone who speaks Spanish will have to tell me what the blog says. Lynn Crapo awarded this to me and I consider that a real honor. As far as I'm concerned she is the Master Blogger and any blogging award from her is very meaningful to me. By accepting this award I am agreeing to follow the five rules below.

1) Choose 5 blogs that you consider deserving of this award based on creativity, design, interesting material, and overall contribution to the blogger community, regardless of the language.

2) Post the name of the author and a link to his or her blog so everyone can view it.

3) Each award-winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award.

4) The award-winner and the presenter should post the link of the "Arte y pico.blogspot.com" , so everyone will know the origin of this award.

5) Please post these rules.

So I will tell everyone that Lynn sent me the award but I can't post a link to her blog since it is a private one. If anyone wants to follow her blog just let me know and I'm sure she will love to have you join. If I'm supposed to pick five people to pass this award onto I conveniently have five links to my children's blogs (Peter is like a kid). Some of them aren't terribly faithful with their blogs (hint, hint) but since I don't really follow any other blogs they get to receive this award anyway. Thank you Lynn for thinking of me. So here are my award recipients:

1) Kira gets to go first. She is very faithful and always shares fascinating stuff. She is also very good with the pictures. She is a wonderful little mother and I love to see her raise her son and support her husband.

2) Brandon's blog is a joy to me because it gives me a window into his mind. I know that may not be as fascinating to some as it is to me but I love it. He too makes me proud by balancing his duties as a husband, a father and a provider (right now interpreted as "student") for his family. He has bonded tightly to his daughter and I love to see that. Too many fathers are content to let the mothers raise their children but I can tell that Brandon will be a major influence in raising his children.

3) Sharley must come next because she is the one who actually inspired me to start my own blog. I had wanted to do it before but when she started her blog I jumped on the bandwagon. I'm glad though because Ben is not our best communicator and hopefully with Sharley's blog I might get to see more of what is going on in Ben's life. I shouldn't be too hard on Ben though, he's called me quite a few times since they moved to Arizona. I hope that keeps up.

4) If you want to see into an interesting mind you should go read Peters blog. Peter is my brothers son and you can tell he was a psychology major. He see's something and he will read more into it than anyone I know. I love his views on just about everything and I find them quite insightful.

5) And then there is Alycia. She started her blog with a single entry that stayed there for several months and then in a flurry of activity we got to enjoy her trip to Europe. As much as I love looking down her swimming suit top I keep waiting for a new entry. I've checked her blog so often looking for an update that just today I realized that the sun bather in the back ground is topless. That's those European beaches for you. She is now in school so her number one priority should be her classes and I don't expect real frequent updates. She still gets this award though because it was fun traveling through Europe with her.

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I've always wondered if a boy and a girl are more compatible if they are very similar to each other or if they are opposites. Since Lisa and I are opposites I like to think that we complete each other. I can compensate for her weaknesses and she can compensate for my weaknesses. I am a bit of a loner and Lisa is very much a people person. I am good at the sciences, Lisa is good at the social sciences. I have zero people skills but Lisa is very good with people. I love vanilla, Lisa loves chocolate. I love the dark meat on chicken, she loves the white meat. It goes on and on but you get the idea. I should qualify this however, by making it clear that we have, for the most part, always had very similar goals for our selves and for our family. Anyone who knows me knows that I have never been much into sports. I was always tall and athletic but I just don't have the personality to be good at sports. I was never good at any sport. Lisa on the other hand played on a boys hockey team until they kicked her off, she was on the high school volleyball team and the ski team. I'm sure she was on several other teams too. Some time after we moved to Rosemary we learned that there was a women's basketball team in the community so it was only natural that Lisa joined up. I don't remember who was on the team but I believe Harold Unruh was the coach. I don't really remember if they were any good or not but I seem to remember that they won more games than they lost. I also don't remember how long they played but I think it was several years. They always used to practice at the school but then the gym floor was resurfaced and that put the team in a real pickle. The team was trying to weigh all of their options when Lisa suggested that they practice at the church. Lisa was the only Mormon on the team and the rest of the team was quite skeptical that the Bishop would ever let them in the church. Lisa talked to Gary Norton, who was the Bishop at the time and he said sure but he was skeptical if some members of the team would ever step foot in the church. Of course it all worked out and the team practiced at the church until the school was ready. I believe they even practiced at the church after that when there were conflicts with the school gym.

Rosemary School

The school in Rosemary was an amazing thing. They went all the way from Kindergarten to Grade 12. The amazing thing is that in those thirteen classes there were only about eighty kids. In fact, when we moved I believe Kira's class the largest class in the school with around 12 kids or so. The school wasn't able to offer a lot of different electives but the classes they did have were top notch, winning all kinds of awards. The schools were divided into two different buildings. The elementary school and the high school. If I remember right, the high school included grades 7 to 12. I'm scared to mention any of the school teachers because I don't remember them all but I will name a few, Noel Crapo was the principal, Leland Crapo, David Blumell, Richard Hall and Sue Chomistek were some of the teachers. When we moved to San Diego we went to register the kids for school and the school had at least a thousand kids. Kira's eyes were wide and she was very nervous. The last year we were in Rosemary Kira just finished fourth grade, Brandon finished second grade and Ben just finished kindergarten.

Having small classes had some big advantages when it came to teacher/pupil ratios. The kids got a lot of one on one attention. It was also a lot easier to make the basketball team. It did have its down side though. I remember when Loni Norton was going to her graduation dinner. I don't know if she just liked our kids (she was their baby sitter) or if there were few choices but she asked Brandon to go with her. I believe at the time Brandon was about three years old. We dressed him up in a fancy suit and they had a great time. From what I hear all of the other girls thought Loni had a great date as well.

Gravel Roads & Football

Back in the beginning of August while I was at scout camp Alex started double days, AKA "Hell Week". It is so named because they begin very intensive football practice twice a day. Actually, Alex claims that the practices are so long that it isn't really two practices but they run together and it is just one very long practice. I believe it was his first day of double days that Alex made a good solid tackle when someone took his feet out from beneath him. Alex came down hard on his shoulder tearing his acromioclavicular joint more commonly called the AC joint. Apparently his AC joint looked very much like the one shown above. X-rays confirmed that his joint was 50% torn. Any more and it would have meant surgery. He was told that he would be out for at least 6 weeks and that was quite devastating this being his senior year and all. After an afternoon of self pity Alex decided to give it his all and this week only four weeks later he was given the go ahead to begin practicing again. His physiotherapy has dropped from three days a week to two. His shoulder now has this funny little bump on it that I guess he will have for the rest of his life but it works and that is what counts. I guess there is a good chance that once he is my age it will probably start bugging him again but when you're only 17, 50 seems a long way off. Today was the beginning of football season. It seems so odd to me that I'm actually looking forward to it. Anyone who knows me is probably just as amazed. I've never been into sports of any kind and the very first football game I ever watched was when Ben started playing football in his freshman year. I've watched quite a few since then and I'm just now actually beginning to understand the little intricacies of the game. I'm a long way from being an expert of any sort but I do know what is going on now. Alex actually played most of the game and what a great game he had. I took my video camera but wouldn't you know it, his best play of the game and I was distracted and missed it. I'm getting no end of grief about that too but I did get a lot of other good plays. The best was when he recovered a fumble on the 21 yard line with 3 minutes left in the game. He set his team up for a field goal that took them ahead to win the game.

He made many kids on his team quite upset because they figured they had his spot but I think he proved himself. We won 27 to 24. Nine more games to go.

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I've discussed many things about Rosemary that I love and miss but there are a couple things that I don't miss. Cold was one but the other would be gravel roads. The town had gravel roads (except for the main street) and when it rained or snowed it was pretty gross. The main highways were paved but all of the other roads were gravel and everything was covered with dust. The farmers would often oil the stretch of road in front of their houses but it didn't make a whole lot of difference. There was a short cut from Rosemary to Highway 1 that we used to take to cut a few minutes off the trip. In the map above it is the road marked with the "X". Of course, it is a gravel road. Because of the scarcity of supplies and services in Rosemary you can imagine we made the trip to Brooks quite frequently. Up to this point in our marriage Lisa and I had never owned a new car. I finally decided that I had worked long enough that it was time to buy a new car. Because of our location in Rosemary and my daily trips into Bassano I also decided to buy a car that got good gas mileage. I then became the proud owner of a brand new Geo Metro. That baby got 50 miles to the gallon. It was supposed to be my car but Lisa ended driving it most of the time. One day Lisa was taking Kira into her dance class and I was home with the other kids. I then received a phone call from some stranger telling me that my wife had been in an accident. He assured me that she and my daughter were OK but that the accident was pretty bad. It was pretty lucky that this guy had come across them and that he had a cell phone. This was sometime around 1990 and cell phones were still fairly rare. I don't remember what I did with the other kids but I jumped into the other car and headed out to find them. As you can guess, Lisa had taken the gravelled short cut and if anyone knows Lisa it would be a pretty good guess that she was going quite fast. As she was booking it down the road her left tire got caught in the loose gravel on the side of the road. The road had been fairly recently graded so the gravel was quite loose and quite deep. The gravel pulled her into the left ditch but she was skilled enough to pull the car back up out of the ditch but as she came onto the road the small little Geo didn't have enough clearance and the car bottomed out and that flipped the car. I'm not a forensic scientist but by analyzing the damage to the car and from Lisa's eye witness account, the car apparently flipped end for end (not side to side) twice and they ended up in the opposite ditch on their wheels. Every single window in the car was completely shattered and gone, there was not a single panel on the car that didn't have damage to it either. Lisa's coat sleeve was torn and filled with gravel because apparently her shoulder had been dragged on the gravel road. When she came to a stop Lisa noticed her glasses were gone but out of instinct she reached down and picked her glasses up out of her lap. After all of that her glasses were sitting in her lap. Weird. The car doors didn't work so they climbed out of the windows. They were completely un-hurt except for a few cuts from flying glass. It was a real blessing that I have my wife and daughter here today and it is all due to the fact that they were wearing their seat belts. To this day Kira is a fanatic about wearing seat belts. They saved her life. The accident happened pretty close to where the "X" is located on the map. I got there and the police had already been called but hadn't arrived. I didn't want to wait for them so I loaded up Kira and Lisa and I picked my rear view mirror up off the road for a souvenir, found Kira's gym bag in the ditch somewhere and then I took them into the hospital to be checked out. It didn't look like anything was wrong with them but after looking at the car I couldn't help but believe that something had to be wrong and maybe they were not feeling it because of the shock. It turned out that they were fine. I'm blessed to have my wife and daughter and I do not like gravel roads.

Sarah & Christmas

I thought I would give everyone an update on Sarah and the mysterious belly ache. I believe I mentioned earlier that Sarah has been having stomach aches since June. They come and go and they range from a nuisance to excruciating pain. Unfortunately, her worst day by far was while we were in Utah dropping Alycia off. We promptly came home and Lisa went about getting more tests done. They've tested for infections, parasites, gastritis and a slew of other things that I'm not sure about. So far everything has come back negative. Poor Sarah is beginning to wonder if this isn't all in her head but then when she gets a real bad case of it she is convinced that it is real. The saddest part of the whole thing is her X Country. She has been working very hard this summer (she's run over 330 miles) and one of her goals was to go to the Stanford tournament. Only the best runners get to go there. Unfortunately the coaches chose the competitors right after Sarah's bad weekend. Even though Sarah qualified in every way they picked two runners who aren't as fast as Sarah because they didn't want her to have one of her attacks while on the trip. To make it even worse, the head coach told Sarah that he didn't want her running anymore until we've figured out what is going on. Instead he wants her swimming and biking during their work outs. Sarah came home devastated and completely broke down in her mothers arms. Lisa was so ticked that she called the doctor to get written permission that if Sarah is feeling up to it she could run with the team but alas, the doctor agreed with the coach. So as it is today we know a lot of things that it isn't but we don't know just what it is. As I write this Sarah is having an ultra sound done on her pelvis area and they're looking for cysts. Please pray for Sarah and the doctors that treat her that we can get this resolved in a satisfactory and timely manner.

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One of my favorite times of the year is Christmas time. I really wish it was not so commercialized so that we didn't have to stress presents and finances so much but I still love Christmas time. I love the music, I love the decorations (it is my goal to some day decorate my house and set the lights to music like this guy did; check out the link) , I love the Christmas tree, I really love the food but best of all I just love the excuse to take time off of work and getting the family all together. For two weeks we don't have to worry about school, schedules and as much as Lisa will let us, we don't worry about cleaning up. There is a lot of cooking to do but we all try and pitch in a little bit.Global always had a company party with lots of food and visiting. I also think that it was around Christmas time when the fire department had their party. In our church we would have a ward party on a weekend in December with food and a program and we would have a special sacrament meeting the week before Christmas and the choir sings a lot of songs. Lisa and I have always been in the ward choir and Christmas was my favorite time to sing as well. I also couldn't help but wonder what the Mennonites did in their program. It was obvious that they were planning a big event also. That is why when JoAnne Dyck invited us to go to their program we jumped at the opportunity. JoAnne was the choir director and she was working on a special program as well. It was a bit different going to another church's Christmas program but I felt right at home. We had many friends there and when it comes to Christmas, at least, we believe pretty much the exact same things. We enjoyed a wonderful program, visited with good friends and we feasted on wonderful food.

Kira & Tree House

Today is a special day. Twenty six years ago on this day at roughly 2:26 in the afternoon my first child was born. I was just beginning my fourth year in college at the University of Alberta. Lisa was actually admitted the day before and the plan was to induce her the following morning. She was two weeks overdue and she was constantly having those "Bracksten Hicks" contractions (or whatever it is they call them) so they gave her some sleeping pills to help her sleep. She was in a room with three other people and one of her room mates was having triplets. Boy was she one huge woman, not fat, she looked like she was going to pop. I went home alone and it was pretty tough but I was very excited about the following day. In the middle of the night (around 2:00 AM) I got a call from Lisa, she was in labor. It was very difficult for her to stay alert since she had the sleeping pills but Kira was finally coming. The contractions went on for a very long time and Lisa was almost comatose. She was also talking deleriously. I remember they gave her some nitrous oxide to help take the edge off the pain because it was too late to give her a shot. Lisa grabbed the mask out of the nurses hands and shoved it on her face and took a long deep breath. The doctor calmly mentioned to the nurse that perhaps she should take that away from her. When Kira came it was such a wonderful feeling. I thought she was the most beautiful girl in the world. I still do. One minute I was dead tired and could hardly keep my eyes open and the next minute I was floating above the ground. On my way back to my car I had to walk through these underground walkways in the basement of the Royal Alexandria hospital and I just floated, I was so happy I thought I would burst. I spent every spare minute at the hospital and I showed everyone who came which one was my daughter. She was the one with the long sexy legs. She still is. She was long too, 22 1/4 inches. The picture is of Kira's second birthday. The picture of Lisa and Kira is just before Brandon was born in the spring of 1984. So today we celebrate my daughters birthday and she is 1,500 miles away. I guess I can just be grateful that we have telephones. I love you Kira.

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Before my shed burned and killed half of our tree I decided to help my boys build a tree house. I always wanted a tree house when I was a kid so it didn't take much to convince me to build one. Brandon and Ben had just received new tool boxes for Christmas so they were ready to proceed. I never liked the idea of getting them toy tools, I figured we might as well get them real tools so they could learn to use them. The tree wasn't a very large tree so the tree house was only about ten feet in the air. One day we were out there working on it and Brandon was up in the tree house and I was down on the ground. I don't remember exactly what Brandon was doing but he dropped his hammer and it landed on my head. Thank goodness that 1) the hammer was a relatively small hammer and 2) my head was only a few feet below the tree house. Even still, it hurt like the dickens and maybe worse was it scared me to death. I guess that was nothing to how Brandon felt. According to him it was one of those out of body experiences where everything goes in slow motion. He could see the hammer falling and he thought sure I was going to die. This picture shows several of the things I've talked about. To the right is the old white shed and in front of it is the infamous burning barrel. Left of the shed is the big tree that we built a tree house in. In the foreground is the garden that briefly had a skating rink on it.

Artists

Yesterday, almost on the spur of the moment we decided to go and visit Brandon and Serene. We had a few items left to take up to them but that was just an excuse. Alex had a birthday party he wanted to go to so we left him behind and Mom, Sarah and I headed to Malibu. I never thought I would have a kid living in Malibu. It was really good to see them again. It seems that all of Brandon's hard work is beginning to pay off. He has always had hard classes and has always been in difficult programs so he has always struggled with his classes. He's always done well but he's never been the star. He's still being cautious but as far as he can tell he isn't working nearly as hard as he did in Biochemistry and he is understanding everything. The problem is that his entire grade is the final exam so he has no feedback on his performance until after the final. That is just a little too late to make any changes so he'd better get it right now. He is still putting in long days but nothing compared to last year. Serene also has their little home looking like a little home. At the Y they lived in a closet. I'm serious, that is about all it was. Their living room was a small bedroom, their kitchen was in the hallway and their bedroom was in the basement and was so small that they had about a foot of space on either side of the bed. This is a real treat for them to have a real apartment and it is actually a good sized apartment by any standard. The best part is that Sydney has her own bedroom. We visited with Brandon and Serene for a while and then we went for dinner. We decide to go for a pizza but I guess being Malibu we should have known better. They didn't have a "Pizza Hut" or a "Domino's" or anything like that so we stopped at what looked like a nice little pizza joint. I started getting nervous when we stopped and saw a couple of the waiters on their break. They were decked out in their white shirts and black pants with their aprons and little white towel over their arms. We go inside and this place is a suit and tie place with the fancy little table clothes and the works. It turned out to be a very swanky restaurant and we were just a little under dressed with out denim shorts etc. For such a classy restaurant it was actually still reasonably priced so we had a very nice meal with out too much of hit in the pocket book. I really enjoyed it. We stayed as long as we dared and Brandon and I had solved most of the worlds problems so we decided we'd better head for home. We got home much earlier than the last time we were in Malibu. It was a good weekend. Tomorrow is a holiday so I guess I will be making up for all the work I didn't do yesterday.

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Rosemary is blessed with a surprisingly large number of talented artists for such a small town. I'm sure there is a lot of talent that I'm not aware of but we did leave Rosemary with some items that are precious to us. This painting was done by Dan Crapo. We made the decision to buy one of his paintings and we finally decided on this one for a number of reasons. The first reason is because this little stream is a place that Kira played quite often. It is on the Martins farm but after the Martins moved some friends of ours from Brooks moved to the farm. They were the Kaufmans and they had a daughter Kira's age and they used to play out there quite often. In the distance you can see Leonard Dressel's farm. The final reason we chose this picture is because of the snow. We really wanted a winter scene. This painting still hangs on our wall and the snow scene is even more appreciated right now. This is how I like my snow, in a picture. One interesting footnote about the Martin's farm. After the Kaufmans moved out, the house was rented to some people who grew marijuana in the basement. It would have been bad enough if they'd just grown the stuff hydroponically but they actually hauled a bunch of dirt into the basement to grow it in. They were eventually caught but they had destroyed the house. I understand it cost a lot of money to fix it up. This vase was made by Susan Lindved Jensen. It has a very unusual glaze on it. I don't know what it is called but it is made by removing the vase from the glazing oven while the glaze is still molten and then sitting it in some combustible material like straw and then it is sealed so air can't get to it. The straw is a reducing agent and reduces the glaze to the metal. The little flecks of metal give it a very unusual look. I think it is quite beautiful. I'm not sure who made this other vase. I know that one of these was given to Lisa by a friend and the other one she bought. I guess you'll have to ask Lisa for the details. All I know it is that I love to have a piece of Rosemary with us.

Ice Storm

I guess I need to give instructions on how to post comments. I'm a bit surprised how many people don't know. First I'll explain how I have my blog set up. If you follow my link or if you just go to my blog you'll see my most recent seven entries displayed. If you click on the title of the post then it will show only that particular entry and at the bottom you'll see a link for the previous or following post. If you are looking at a single entry then you will also see any comments that have been made. You will also see the words "post a comment". Just click on those words and it will take you to a window where you can write a comment. If you are looking at the most recent seven entries then you won't see the comments but you will see a link in tiny little letters that says, "3 comments" or whatever number of comments there are. Click on that and it will take you to the same place. In the comment area you can read whatever comments have already been left and there is a place you can write your own comments. Just write your comments and then you have to copy the code into the space labeled "word verification". If I don't use that then I get all kinds of unwanted solicitations. Below the "word verification" there is a header that says, "choose an identity". You have four choices, each choice has a radio button and you need to select one of them. 1) google/blogger, use this if you have a gmail account or if you have your own blog on blogger; 2) open ID, use this choice if you have an account on another popular internet group like AIM or WordPress; 3) name/URL, use this if you want to simply write your name in but you don't want to sign up for anything (like a gmail account); 4) anonymous, use this if you don't want anyone to know who you are. Personally, I'd really like it if you used your name but if you want to stay anonymous that is better than nothing.Once you've typed in the code and selected one of the four radio buttons just hit the button that says, "publish your comment" and you're done. Easy eh? Now you have no excuses, leave me lots of comments.

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Living in San Diego there are many things that I miss about living in Canada but there is one thing that I definitely do not miss. Snow!!! Actually, if I were to be more precise it is cold that I don't miss. If snow were warm then I'm sure I would enjoy snow perfectly fine. There is nothing good about cold. It is very wrong but here in San Diego I have a nice two car attached garage, in Rosemary I didn't have a garage. What do I need a garage here for? I needed it in Rosemary. Actually, the purpose of a garage in San Diego is to replace the basements that they don't have. It is where people keep all their junk. A few people park cars in their garage but most just store junk. Let me share with you my typical routine on a cold winter morning in Rosemary. First I wake up and eat breakfast, next I wipe the frost off the window and try to see what it is like outside, I really don't want to shovel the snow. I then take the next ten minutes and put on my down jacket, my toque, my gloves, my thick wool socks, my Sorel boots with the thick liners and head outside. If there's snow I shovel the my walk and our neighbor Retta Crapo's walk. I also make sure there wasn't too much snow behind my car. I then get out the window scraper and chisel the snow and ice off the windows. Because it was bitterly cold I usually just make a hole big enough to see through and let the defroster take over once I get on the road. I then open the door which is often a difficult feat because it is frozen shut. Once the door is open I sit in the car but the seat is so cold that the foam rubber in the seats feels like a block of rock hard ice. I then turn the ignition and hear the motor slowly turn over once and die. Trying not to use foul language I go out and check the plug on the block heater and find that it has some how come loose and isn't making a good connection. This has allowed the engine block to get too cold and the motor oil probably looks something like molasses. I also have a battery blanket on that keeps the battery warm but without the power the battery has something like 5% of it's original energy. All of the ice and filth from the road messes up the plugs pretty bad so a bad connection is not too unusual. I wiggle the plug around until I can hear the block heater bubbling and then I go back in the house for another half hour. My glasses immediately fog over and because I'm so bundled up I soon get way too hot and I have to remove all of my outer clothing. A half hour later I repeat the whole process but this time, after some pretty scary noises the engine fires to life and I let the car warm up. After a few minutes I unplug the block heater. You don't want to forget that step or you will be replacing the plug which may not be a bad thing because it will fix that loose connection. I then get back in the car and put the car in reverse. The engine bogs down and you feel the car try to move backwards but it doesn't go anywhere. I rev the engine up a little higher but it still won't move. I now realize that because there was a Chinook yesterday the snow has melted a little bit and I had parked in a water puddle. The water puddle was now a solid block of ice that holds my car fast to the ground. After rocking the car back and forth I finally get it to break loose from the grip of the ice and I back out of the drive way and start for work. As I slowly (you don't do anything quickly when it is that cold) drive down the street the car is going clunk, clunk clunk because the tires are not round. It is so cold that they are retaining the flat spot from where the tire was on the ground. As the tires slowly regain their natural round shape my breath is condensing on the cold window making it difficult for me to see through the small opening I have chiseled through the ice. I desperately check the defroster in the vain hope that there might be a higher heat setting but in the end I use the scrapper to keep my small opening clear until the engine finally warms up enough that the defroster can keep ahead of my breathing. After a few miles I am elated to see that my small view port is gradually growing bigger. I get real joy out of watching this hole grow over the next five miles until my entire window (except for the very edges) is clear. It always seems like a miracle. I also enjoy watching the view in the back window where the fine wires embedded in the glass cause horizontal lines to form in the frost on the rear window. At this point I can actually feel warmth come from the heater and just about the time I get to work the interior of the car is actually comfortable. I now try and decide if I want to park by an outlet so I can plug my car in or will the mass of the engine block keep the heat through my eight hour day (pray that I can leave on time). I finally can't bear the thought of pulling out the extension cord and fiddling with the plug when it is so cold so I take a chance and I don't plug the car in.

I remember one morning when I woke up we had no power. This wasn't too unusual for Rosemary so I didn't give it much thought. I had a breakfast of cold cereal and went through a process similar to the one I just described and headed over to Georges house. It was his turn to drive that week. In spite of it being below the freezing point this was a very beautiful day. We had experienced an ice storm during the night and there was ice everywhere. It had rained sleet (a freezing rain) and there were huge ice cycles on everything. The trees were covered with ice cycles, the road was covered with ice (glad George was driving) and the power lines were covered with an inch of ice and long dangling ice cycles. Even the cars had a thick layer of ice on them. It was beautiful but treacherous. We get out on the highway and we were carefully progressing to Bassano when all of the sudden we notice that there is a power line dangling across the highway about a foot above the pavement. With the ice it was impossible to stop in time so we just hit the power line and slowly came to a stop. We didn't see any sparks flying so we were quite confident that the power line was dead but we were still very nervous getting out of the truck. We confirmed that there was no damage so we got back in and even more carefully continued on into work. Once in Bassano we learned that there was no power there either and without power we weren't going to be able to accomplish much so we headed home. Listening to the radio we learned that the major transmission lines were down and that most of the southeast corner of Alberta was with out power and some rural areas probably would be for several days. We then covered the food in our freezer with blankets to help them stay frozen longer and went to visit mom and dad in Edmonton. It was a week before all of the power was restored. That was some ice storm.

I often wonder why it took me 35 years before I figured out that there are warmer places to live than Alberta.

Bum Pie

Today we are in Utah getting Alycia all settled into college at the U of U. That is a story in itself. I'll abbreviate it. Alycia had planned to room with a good friend of hers. They looked around for an apartment but finally they had decided that they would live in her friends house because it was empty while her parents were in Brazil. About two weeks before school starts the friend decides that she's going to go stay in Brazil with her parents. Alycia now has no room. Lisa was on the phone daily but it is difficult arranging an apartment from San Diego because people want to meet Alycia plus the best source of available rooms is the board in the institute. We finally were able to get a good deal and this morning as we check up on it we learn that it won't be ready until the end of the week. We have several options and I'll let you know how it works out. I've noticed they have some nice parks here and I think I could enjoy camping out. It shouldn't hurt Alycia any. The institute and the campus here are beautiful.

This morning Sarah called us from school and she's feeling sick. She's had stomach aches for a couple of months now. They've gotten worse and she's been to see the doctor. They took blood tests (freaked Sarah out big time) and took stool samples (grossed Sarah out big time) and they all came back negative. When the doctor learned that she was getting worse and she's lost 9 pounds he got quite concerned and wanted to do more tests. Because we were heading to Utah we scheduled that for next week. So today things got worse than they've been before. She didn't want to miss her English class so we told her to hang out at the nurses office until her class. To make a long story short, Sarah called at least twenty times and right now as I write this she is in the hospital with Desiree Heaton passed out with an IV in her arm. Lisa is near hysteria but they think they've narrowed the problem down to "gastritis". This may actually be a blessing in disguise because if we were home we would have taken her to urgent care where they can't do the tests that they need to do. Ben Heaton is an ER doctor and took her straight to the hospital. I'll keep you up to date on Sarah's progress and Alycia's home in the park.

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Once we became good friends with the Huber's we learned that they celebrated both Canadian Thanksgiving and US Thanksgiving. That is a tradition we have carried with us to San Diego. One year we made a bunch of food and put it in the back of the van and prepared to head out to the Hubers for our feast. Brandon and Ben were being very rambunctious and we did our best to settle them down. We finally got everybody into the van and off we went to a wonderful meal. At the Hubers we were unloading the food from the back of the van and Lisa was walking out to the van and Warren calls out to her saying, "Lisa, I don't think you'd better come out here". This of course got Lisa very concerned and she insisted on finding out what was going on. Finally Warren relented and let her see the back of the van. There was Lisa's beautiful pumpkin pie with the perfect print of the pocket from a pair of Levi's jeans. Apparently Ben and Brandon had been hiding from each other and Ben had hopped into the back of the van after we had put the food in the car. Ben had sat in the pie and the bum print was so perfect that you could see the stitching in the pocket and the word "Levi". I think Ben was worried that he was going to be in big trouble but we all laughed pretty hard. From that time until now we always call pumpkin pie "bum pie". Also from that time until now it seems like Lisa's bum pie is destined for some type of tragedy. Some examples; one year a bottle of spice fell out of the cupboard and landed in the pie, another year the cat walked through the pie, another year Brandon and Kira celebrated Thanksgiving at BYU and Brandon sat in their pie. Every year we can't wait to see what is going to happen to our bum pie.