Time keeps on getting by me

It's been over a week since I last wrote here. Not too much has happened, so I haven't written anything, but I will put a couple of things here anyway.

This last Tuesday I went out with the Young Men/Young Women of the ward (well there were two of each in the group I went with) to teach a discussion to one of the members of our Ward. As a leader, I was just to be there and really let the youth take care of what needed to be taken care of. I was with Cassie, Chris, Meghan and Dallin. We went to the Russels house and to start with they were watching American Idol. David Archuletta was singing his second song and they wanted to hear it. I told them they could watch that one since Archuletta is a Mormon. Well, when that was finished, we started.

Cassie, being the oldest, took the reins and had this discussion start with a prayer. After that, she started into her part of the discussions. Brother Russel derailed her a bit asking a couple of leading questions. The Young Men and Young Women couldn't see that they were leading type of questions, and it was a little bit difficult for them. Sister Russel told Brother Russel they were told to be nice. He hadn't gotten that memo. It wasn't too bad, but he got them off track a few times. Chris really struggled to get through his portion of it. I kind of felt bad for him, but he did a pretty good job. I thought the rest did a good job as well, although they left with a few questions. It was an interesting learning experience. We went back and there was some strawberry shortcake. I ate one little one, and it was good. It wasn't good for my heart though.

We had a concert to go to on Wednesday and Thursday. Both my son and my daughter had their own at the high school and the junior high school. They both lasted almost two hours (but who's complaining). Both my son and my daughter did well in their respective bands.

Friday, I ran a couple of errands for my son and his school. I had to go in and pay some money to the school so he can get his last report card (it was rental on his French Horn and a $35 fee just for being in the band). I also got what they had for his possible schedule next year so I could take it over to the seminary building to see if they will take him into early morning seminary. They only like to do that for the twelfth graders. In my opinion, they are making this way to hard. Since our son will be in tech school next year (he will be earning concurrent credits for high school as well as college) he is not able to fit in seminary. I told them this, and they warned me multiple times that a lot of people who take early morning seminary don't graduate seminary. I told them that his chances were better to graduate seminary if he took early morning seminary than if he didn't. If he doesn't get early morning seminary, I told them, he would not graduate at all. I would also be driving him there every morning on my way to work. They continued on with that kind of information which is kind of upsetting to me. So, if there is so much failure, why do they even offer it. I still don't know if they will let him in or not because the twelfth graders have the first choice. That was kind of a pain. The one thing I forgot to pick up was his test for driving so he can get his drivers license. I spent the rest of the day mostly with my wife.

Later on Friday evening, we went over to my in-laws house. Casey came up with his grandparents, so we went to spend time with them. It seemed everybody was there. We ended up going out to Chuck-a-Rama for dinner and had a good visit with the Magruders. We let our kids go with Aunt Pam home and we spent the weekend alone. We didn't really do anything over that weekend though, and we did go to a movie and dinner with Pam, our kids and Zack. We saw the new Indiana Jones movie. It was pretty good, but more of the same from what you would expect from an Indiana Jones movie. Even on Memorial day we didn't do too much. We had a nice dinner at Pam and Annes when we went to pick up our kids.

That's the week in a nutshell.

Fathers and Sons

Another week has come and gone. I have been busy at work trying to figure out a new process to run NCCI stuff and doing just analytical work without doing much programming gets tiring. It all has to be done, and I am the one for the job, but I have to take breaks a bit more often in order to keep my sanity. Some of the code that I have been looking at is really rugged. It gets the job done, but it has been repaired so much that there is a lot of redundancy in the code. That's really nobodies fault, it is more the fault of the way the business changes and people not taking time to find out exactly how things are done, or should be done. Hopefully, the way I come out of this will look really good and get rid of this redundancy. This last Friday, I did have a welcome reprieve in that there was a problem with getting information on the policies into RiskMaster. There have been claims that were put in areas that we weren't aware would happen, so this caused the way that we were putting policy information in to be wrong. I was able to get it all fixed on Friday, early enough to get home and get moving for a camp out.

As soon as I got home, I asked my son if he was starting to pack for the overnighter. He showed me his little gym bag with his clothes in it and told me he was ready to go. I grabbed a small backpack and got myself ready as well. I still had to get my battery and the C-pap machine. Of course, we needed a tent and then I grabbed my cot (I'm not going to rough it here). A couple of camp chairs and sleeping bags and we were ready to go.

We chose to eat on the way to the Fathers and Sons camp. We ended up going to Scone Cutter because my son said he liked their fry sauce (of all the things to like). He got himself a ham scone sandwich and I grabbed a pulled pork one. Mine was pretty tasty. We didn't eat it at the Scone cutter. Instead we chose to go up into the mountains hoping it would all stay warm enough (it was). Nobody seemed to know where "The Village" (that's the name of the campground at Tracy was supposed to be called) was. My son drove and we ended up on some pretty narrow dirt trails in looking for our people. In the long run, we found them, but there were only two fathers up there and they weren't sure if this was the right place or not. They had asked one of the ladies that I had asked and she went driving with them and told them that it was here. A few more people showed up and also didn't know if we were in the right spot. My son and I ate our dinner. While they were all talking about whether we were in the right place or not, my son and I grabbed our gear and set up camp. We picked our spot. Soon, others decided they would do the same. We helped a bunch of them set up as well.

There were some footballs tossed about in the parking area. I moved my vehicle as far forward as I could so it wouldn't get hit by a football (as some of them were). I wandered around the campground visiting with a few people and my son had disappeared. A little later there were some rocks coming down the mountain, so I told the boys that were up there they needed to get down from there. It ended up being my son along with Austin and Chris. They came down and I helped them get some cooking gear over to where they would make breakfast in the morning.

My son disappeared again, and I continued to visit. We had one Indian father and son who came up. They are in my neighborhood and the son will be coming into our troop in another couple of months. I have seen him with the 11 year old scouts. I asked a bit about the fact that he wasn't able to have beef for religious reasons that I saw on a permission slip, and was told that the son would be allowed to choose for himself. However, I have to be able to help him stand up for himself and his beliefs when the Scouts are deciding on dinners. We talked a little bit about their Hindu religion and I also told him that this particular camp was a yearly thing done around the time of the church relieving the Aaronic priesthood. I had to explain what Aaronic meant to him, but he seemed very pleased to hear a little bit about our church. We actually talked a little bit about the first vision of Joseph Smith as well. He told me a little bit about the four religions that have come out of India (Hindu, Buddhism, Sheikism, and Jainism). I had never heard of the last one, but it was interesting to find out about it.

We went to the campfire, and I still didn't know where my son was. There was a small campfire program put on by the 12 year old scouts, and then people just roasted marshmallows and ate smores. I think people had a pretty good time.

I had to go find my son and make sure he wasn't getting into too much mischief. The three boys had gone climbing again and my son made it down, but the other two were a little bit nervous about coming down. They tried to call their dad on his cell phone, but he didn't answer. They ended up calling home to mom and she called dad. Dad just happens to be in the army and he saw my son, and then looked up at his son and his nephew. He told them that it was easy to come down, but then had to go up there to show them the way down. He then said, "This is the future Army Rangers. Calling their mommy when they need help." Anyway, all was well with that.

I sat outside for quite awhile in the evening, just enjoying the outdoors (we were quite close to the road though) and just looked up at the moon and stars. I still had to check on my son. I found him getting into mischief, but it wasn't too bad. They had decided to scare Tom Thorne by shaking his tent and throwing some small rocks at his tent. I heard the yell when they succeeded in scaring him. It was general Tom foolery, and I saw no reason they couldn't do a bit of teasing. Austin and Christ were pretty upset at Tom for the winter camp shenanigans that had happened. Evidently, Tom had been quite mean up there. They were visiting each other quite late. I went over to brother Goodner and one of his friends who had the Jazz/Lakers game on. The Jazz lost this game and it was the end of the run for the Jazz in the playoffs. They just barely lost it though, so it was kind of rough. I went back to my tent and got into bed. About an hour after that my son finally came in.

Morning came, and I wasn't able to sleep so I started to put some of my stuff away and back in my vehicle. My son woke up and joined me. We were the first ones down and had our spot cleared. My son then went over to start the breakfast. I had to help them set up a little bit, but they got pancakes, bacon, and eggs going in pretty good time. I then helped clean up after breakfast, and as I put the camp chef into the truck, Wade Morden and his two sons came walking down the road. I asked if they were going to breakfast, and they were. I told them it was all done and all packed. Wades son had a frown on his face and couldn't believe he missed the breakfast. Wade asked what time do they eat around here. It was 8:45 at this time. People cleared out, and I helped get rid of the signs that we had been there. I was one of the last ones out of there (but there were a couple more people) and we got home by around 9:30.

The house was empty when we arrived home, as my wife and daughter had gone for a coverlook photo at Jaylynn studios so my daughter could be one of the stars at the orthodontists office. The orthodontist paid for it, but my wife tells me that we may be putting out a little bit of money in buying a photo or two (they were so darn cute!). While they were away, my son and I cleaned up all of our stuff and a little bit of the house cleaning that needed to be done. I also did a little bit of work outside in our yard.

My wife and daughter came home around 1:00 in the afternoon. We left our home around 3:00 so we could take a dresser to Pam and Annes house for Zack to stay with them. We had a nice dinner with them, and I had a nice visit with Zack while they were watching a movie. We arrived home around 10 in the evening.

Today was church. I had a major headache and barely got ready for church on time. Nothing of note really happened at church. Tonight though, there was a fireside for the youth and the youth leaders. There were two sister missionaries who came and showed us a bit of how the discussions are done. Then each person there received a piece of paper telling what part of a discussion they will be doing this coming Tuesday. Each of them will be going out in a group of about 4 or 5 people to teach some of the members in our ward. This was done about two years ago when we were in the other ward and was pretty successful. Hopefully, this will be the same. It was an interesting fireside at least.

Well, that's about it. I guess I got pretty wordy though.

Mothers Day

Well, mothers day has come and gone. Overall, I think it all went well.

I had stopped at a few places most of the week to pick up odds and ends for my wifes mothers day. Of course, the day I picked up my wifes card for her birthday, I had also picked up cards for mothers day (my wifes and both of our mothers). That wasn't too terribly hard. The hardest part for my wife was trying to figure out something for her. I never did come up with too much though. She kept on telling me that we would take the rebate that we got back from the government ($600 for each of us + $300 for each of our kids) and purchase trees and plants around our house (finally). I didn't think that was too terribly personal, so on Thursday I went out and purchased her some lotions (because she likes these so well). From the kids, I had talked with both of them about making her a corn bag (with my daughters new sewing machine). This is a bag that you have corn in and heat up in the microwave and put it on the part of your body that needs warmth for some reason. Anyway, I had to go IFA to pick up a 50 lb bag of field corn and another day went to Walmart to pick up material. I decided to do it with towels instead of the regular way. This was probably a mistake, but it's what I did. I also had to get thread and some bobbins for the sewing machine so there would be extra bobbins to work with. Anyway, Saturday morning came and my daughter and son started to look at the project. The bobbins I had bought were the wrong kind, and my son and I had to hurry out to find the right ones. We were also cleaning the house, so it wasn't something I was happy with.

After getting everything we needed, I came on home. They sewed up the two bags and when I saw them filled with corn (and felt the weight) I knew I had made a mistake in getting the kitchen towels to do this. The one took about nine minutes to heat up and the other about six. We were all laughing about it, but didn't want to go out and get more material. We decided that we would give it to my wife anyway the next day (today).

Saturday evening our son was able to go with his Trek family (from last year) up to a cabin in Big Cottonwood Canyon. I called to check up on what all they were doing and since I was talking to the Ma said that this is Craig, the other ma (I meant pa but didn't say that). She laughed at me and said that I was just trying to get in on the mothers day gifts. Anyway, he went there and then we took our daughter to a piano recital. I had told our daughter that she took so much time getting ready that she would be the prettiest girl there. She told me that she would be that without even trying.

After the piano recital we hurried up and ate at Wingers and got her home in time to go to her first stake dance. I teased her a bit about dancing with boys. She just kept on rolling her eyes at me and my foolishness as a dad who is concerned about his daughter and going out to be around the opposite sex. It just seems so different (this world of boys with my daughter). I know my other daughter has been out in it for some time, but I wasn't around her so much during that time at all. I got tired and went to bed before they arrived home. They came home (according to my wife) at around 11:00. I heard them but didn't get up because I also heard my wife talking to them.

This morning we all got up and dragged ourselves to church. I had made a ready made turkey sausage sandwich for my wife for breakfast and that was about as good as it got since we have the early morning church services. It seems we weren't the only ones dragging. The parking lot at church was practically empty when we arrived. People just were not on time. We set up chairs and stuff for my wifes special needs class. I then went into the deacons quorum. The deacons quorum started out by filling out papers for their merit badges for summer camp rather than the lesson. That wasn't what was meant to happen, but it is what happened. We then had a 10 minute lesson. I then went into the special needs class (because it is more interesting than gospel doctrine class) and helped out in there.

Sacrament meeting came along and it was the bishopric that spoke. They mentioned that last year (the first year of our ward) they had skipped over doing any kind of mothers day gifts. Evidently a lot of people complained, because they decided not to do that again. The bishop said that he just thought each family would take care of their mothers but now realized that maybe he needs to do something as a ward. The gift they gave to each mother was a set of wildflower seeds that should do about a 5x5 area in the garden. This should go well with what my wife and I were thinking to do. We may grab a couple of pots to plant them in and put at our entry way into the house.

Anyway, after arriving home I made a quick dinner of chicken tacos and then we went in with the gifts to mom. She laughed with us at the weight of her corn bags. They really were heavy. We need to weigh them to see just how heavy they are. She got a bit upset with me for getting her the lotions that I had picked up because I wasn't supposed to do that (at least I wasn't really in trouble). I then sat down to watch the Jazz game (I know I shouldn't do this on the Sabbath, but I really don't watch any games until they are to the play offs). My wife watched some movie on another channel. We left home at 4:00, before the game was over (it only had a couple more minutes left) and I listened a bit on the radio. It went into overtime. Just before we got to my mother-in-laws house the game finished with the Jazz winning. It is now 2-2.

We visited with my mother-in-law for awhile and had some pizza. She opened up her gifts (we gave her a small ottoman and she was also given a digital picture frame). I tried to stay for a bit to load the picture frame with some pictures I had put onto a flash drive. It didn't go as smoothly as I hoped. We had to get to my parents house as well. We hurried to my parents house and visited there for awhile with just my little brother and his family. Two of my older brothers had already been there and gave her some flowers. My little brother also gave her some flowers. We gave her candy. We then headed back to the in-laws to finish loading the picture frame and came on home.

Tonight, while we were sitting at home the wind kicked up. It was a wild wind. There was dust kicked up all around and the winds were a damaging type of wind. It looks like our house survived the quick storm, but it is going to be raining most of the night I think.

My wife went to bed with one of the over sized corn bags, and it was a good mothers day.

Birthdays and such

Today was my wifes birthday and, of course last week was our daughters birthday. I'll start at last Wednesday evening. We really didn't do much of anything on her birthday. Well, that is to say that I didn't do much. My wife did the cooking of my daughters favorite meal which is chicken and spinach in a croissant. There wasn't even the opening of gifts on this night because our daughter said that she would wait until Saturday when we had the family party since Pam and Anne had gone in with us on the main gift. The only thing she got that was different was now she could wear the shoes that our son bought her for her birthday.

Since my sister-in-law came into town from North Carolina, we went to my parents house to meet up with her for a couple of hours on Thursday. The whole family met there, minus Keith (who rarely shows up to family things). There was the regular joking about that goes on in my family and then it was done. Overall, it was a good visit and it was good to see Eilene and to keep up with her and her life. She had made a quilt out of a bunch of Randy's old shirts so she could have a keepsake of him. Larry and Paula were busy telling us about their newest addition as a grandchild. They have had two in as many weeks. They were bursting at the seams in pride.

Friday, I left work a little early. I had gotten a call from my wife and realized that she was having a bad day. Things weren't going as well as she had hoped. I left work and helped a little bit around the house cleaning up for the party that would be taking place in a few hours. This helped to relieve the stress from her, and she was grateful for that help.

I picked up all the girls at school and brought them to our house. They played around at our house for awhile and had some snacks. The WII was a hit and so was the PS2 that they played guitar hero on. At 5:00 we were in the theater (that is me with seven girls) and watching Nim's Island. It was a pretty enjoyable film. We went back home to have a dinner of barbecue beef sandwiches which my wife had made the day before. Those were really great sandwiches. There was gift opening and general hilarity, and then some game playing. The girls then went for a late night walk to the lake in daybreak. They got home from that about 10:15 in the evening. All the girls went home, and we had the rest of the night for relaxation.

Of course, another big day was Saturday. We had to take care of a few last minute items for the family (my wifes side) to show up at 2:00. My wife had looked up a recipe for some barbecue chicken and had marinated it during the day. I went out and cooked it up when they all came over. We had a great dinner and then our daughter got to open up her gift. We gave her a sewing machine. It was a hit and we played with it for awhile after she opened it up. We visited for quite awhile with Pam, Zach, Melanie, Rod and Margaret. It was a good visit. There was a point in time that Melanie started to escalate, and I had to watch out a bit to keep her away from doing that. It was on the situation of the FLDS and their children being taken away from them that has been going on in Texas over this last month. It's a real mess, but Melanie knows what it is like to have your children taken from you as hers were taken from her because of her mental illness and her husbands cocaine use. Anyway, that got toned down (thankfully) and then everything went smooth going forward.

Last night there was a court of honor that I needed to go to. Our son was able to MC it so that he could get that part of his communications merit badge taken care of. He did a really good job. Then, the time was turned over to the Bean family so they could hold their Eagle Court of Honor on the same evening. It was a good night.

That was about it for that time. Now, we had my wifes birthday coming up. Like I said, that happened today. I called my wife from work and it was then that I realized that she had hoped I would take the day off today to be with her. It was too late and there was no way to make that one up. I picked up a cake and some Roses on the way home, but she had already purchased her gift which has something to do with makeup. She did not have a good birthday. She was upset at me because I don't think about making her day special. I had asked her previously what she wanted for her birthday dinner and was told that we would be going out for dinner, but tonight she didn't want to go out. All we did was sing her happy birthday and blew out the candle. She stayed in our room all night, and I was at a loss as to what to do. My kids and I sat in the living room and watched "Alvin and the chipmunks". That was an enjoyable movie. My wife did thank me for the Roses and the cake later tonight, so that was at least good. I just felt bad that I hadn't done anything like what she expected me to do.

Now, I just have to figure out mothers day.