The week moves on

I really should write a bit more in here than I do. I am kind of a slacker when it comes to doing this kind of thing. I do feel that at least I am writing about once a week.

So, what's happening this week? Not a lot to write about. Maybe I need to live a more exciting life so I can write stuff in here. But then again, be careful of what you ask for because it may come down to a type of excitement that is unwanted.

Our kids stayed over a night at Grandma Wachs home. They were there to visit with their cousin Michelle. My wife took them over and then I went there from work a little bit later. When I got there, our kids weren't there because they had all gone out swimming. We were there for a bit and Melanie had gone a little bit haywire with her bipolar problem. We were able to fend off what she said mostly by reasoning a bit with her and saying that wasn't what happened. When called on a lot of it she was in agreement that that wasn't the way it was. Thankfully, she was done with her multiple outbreaks by the time our kids and Jeff arrived. We ate some food and then went home.

Jeff took our kids home the next day. They really didn't do too much during the day, but our daughter had to get to her piano lessons and then it was Young Men and Young Women. We all went our separate ways for that.

Scouts that night was on pioneering. I also drove Tom to pick up another guy in the Order of the Arrow so we could have an election for Dallin to join their ranks. I hadn't ever really seen any of that type of thing so it was more interesting to me what they did than it was really of interesting material. Dallin seems to be happy that he was elected into the Order of the Arrow.

Our son finally finished his last merit badge on that same Tuesday evening with Brother Goodner. That is one less stress for us to have. Now, we need to get him to fill out the paper work and then move on to get this thing finished out. Actually, Travis filled out most of the paperwork for that tonight. I am proud of him for getting this all accomplished (no matter how hard it was).

I also hope our daughter doesn't get lost in all of this attention that is on our son. She deserves her time in the sun also. Sometimes, I think the kids get a little bent out of shape when it seems that the other is getting all the positive attention (nobody seems to like negative attention).

Time just kept on moving this week. We were getting ready for school and some time was also spent in trying to get material for our porch to be done by Keith. As a matter of fact that took up almost my whole evening on Wednesday night. Lowes screwed up in what they ordered for me to take home. We got most of it finally that night, but it wasn't an easy task. Keith could tell I was getting agitated with the people at Lowes, but I felt proud of myself for not blowing my stack, because I was more angry than I have felt in some time. It just is frustrating when you are finally getting somewhere (well more or less). At least we have most of the material now in the backyard of my home. We are missing the risers for the steps, and that is about it.

I also struggled with our watering system. Something went wrong with the timer box. It wasn't doing AM/PM stuff at all. So, it looks like my backyard hasn't been receiving the much needed water. A good portion of the lawn looks dead (although it looks like it may be coming back) and I thought I had fixed in Wednesday evening. I didn't completely so I had to work on it again. It seems to have gotten its memory all screwed up as far as times go. I have that corrected now, and it seem to be working now that I have messed with it a bit. It will be interesting to see if it gets jumbled up again.

Friday evening was our ward camp out. My wife and I had set it up before we were released from the Activities Chair People in the ward. We decided to only go to the night festivities. Our daughter was going to go to the Lagoon on Saturday for a friends birthday party. We had a few issues with getting up there and some stress entered our car on the way up. Before we left home, we had to get Lizzy into the vets office. On Thursday evening we had taken her into an Emergency Veterinarian because it seems that she has an infection where she was spayed. They looked at her briefly without charging us the $75 (which we are grateful for) and told us we could wait to see our vet the next day. This at least relieved us that we probably wouldn't have a problem with her for the time being. We wrapped it up in an Ace Bandage so she couldn't lick the area at all. I then stayed home on Friday from work and worked from home.

The vet was really good with our dog just before we were going up to the mountains. He gave us an anti-biotic for her and told us to try to keep her from licking the area and hopefully the stitches will heal and the infection will leave. He said that it can get so bad that it would actually blow open the work that he had done. Then you have a bit of a bigger problem. Since he was the one that had spayed the dog, this visit and the anti-biotic were free (that works for me).

Back to the ward camp out. We, of course, had our dog (with the Ace Bandage) and we also had a dog crate that we had purchased that day. Lizzy doesn't like the crate very much, but we had to put her somewhere during some of the time that we were up there. We were able to visit people and go down to the lake to watch our daughter in a canoe. There was also a zip line, but it didn't seem that it was our ward using that (though we had it all reserved). We had stayed a bit late that night (about 9:00) to visit. Of course since I hadn't filled up the car on the way up (and we got a bit lost) there was the stress to my wife that we would run out of gas. With her stress, I got a bit stressed, but we really didn't have a problem with that at all (thank goodness). We got gas in Kimball Junction. We took home Cambry and then went home ourselves.

Saturday, our daughter was at the Lagoon all day long. She didn't actually get home until 12:30 in the morning this morning. We were a bit concerned about that because that is just too late for a 14 year old girl. Anyway, my son and I ran a few errands on Saturday. It was just a bunch of odds and ends.

Sunday there was church. Soon after church we went to my moms house for her birthday (it was actually Saturday). We visited with my parents and my dad seemed more back to the way he was a few years ago. We got some good stories about his early career that I don't ever remember hearing. We also got to know my parents a bit more with dogs that they had up to just after I was born. I had in the back of my mind that we had had dogs, but I really don't remember them. It was a surprise kind of because my mom doesn't really like dogs that well anymore, and I found out that as a child and even as a young adult she did.

We then went to the in-laws house. We visited there for a time. Melanie blew her stack a bit, and it didn't help that her mother wasn't able to stay calm. I went for a walk with Melanie and we didn't come to any kind of consensus, but we at least got her calmed down enough that we could come back home. She has worries about her two boys. One she hasn't talked to for quite awhile and the other she had seen beer on his table last night when she had gone to a baby shower. The reason she is so concerned about that is because of her husbands alcoholism that finally killed him (along with the cocaine use). So, she has some valid concerns, but there are also some that were kind of invalid because her memory is a bit slanted. She was going back 17 years ago when she was taken to jail and blaming it on those of us that were at the cabin that night. That isn't exactly the way it happened, although we probably need to take some of the blame, but it is the way she remembers things. I mostly just talked to her calmly, and hope it helped.

Well, that's about it.

Who is the Master?

Work has kept me busy with a few fixes to a few different things. But, that is not what I am going to write about. Really, there isn't a lot to write about, but there are a few things that I want to say.

Lizzy is still digging her way into our hearts (as if she hadn't already). She is a fun loving dog and very playful. It is good to see her this way after having that surgery. She likes to bite toes and fingers (playfully) and runs all around people. It is dizzying, which is partially why the name Lizzy fits her. We are having a tough time getting her to go outside in order to do her business. She has had a number of accidents in our home, so we seem to have baking soda in various places on our carpet currently. We did get her some dog treats and give her those when she does her business outside, and for awhile it looked like she realized that because she would go every time she went outside. So, who really is the master here?

When we went to church on Sunday, we put her behind a gate in an enclosed area to avoid problems of where she may go. When we arrived home, we found out that she can jump the baby gate in order to take a crap on the carpet. She is just like a newborn child in a lot of ways. It is rewarding to take care of her, but she does require a lot of care (and love). She is getting plenty of that love in our house. She comes to each of us so we can pick her up and pet her and love her, and then when she is sick of us, she moves to the next (or to just lie down). Once again, who is the master here?

There really isn't anything more to say. So, I'll quit saying nothing.

New Dog - Lizzy

I'm putting more here than just about our new dog, but then a lot of it will be about this cute new addition to our family.

Last Monday, I was looking into who had dogs at the various shelters around town. I had talked to the West Jordan department and sent my wife and kids out to look at the dogs that were there. My wife really liked two particular dogs. One of them was a Springer (which didn't fit our idea of hypo-allergenic). She said that dog was so cute that tears sprung up in her eyes as she knew she had to leave him behind. He was just a pup and had those doggy eyes. She did leave him there though. I told her that I was going to drop into the Salt Lake County shelter as well as the Humane Society (if I had time) and then I would go out and look at the dogs in West Jordan. After work I went to the Salt Lake County shelter and saw three dogs that fit our criteria. There was one that I liked the best, and when I went to check up on the three of them she was the only one that didn't have an appointment for adoption. I called up my wife and had her and the kids come to the shelter. While I was waiting for them, I asked to be able to spend a little bit of time with the dog. She is a black Maltese (I know that Maltese are white, but she seems to be a black one). She is about two years old. She immediately came over to me and I picked her up and put her to my face to see if I would get allergies. They didn't seem to come. I then put her down and she went to try and get petted by the worker there. He pet her and then she came back to me and as soon as I started to pet her, she went down on her back so I could scratch her belly. When I stopped doing this she kind of wiggled toward me with a look in her eyes that said, "Why did you stop?" I did this a little bit more and then we took her back to her cage. I waited for my wife and kids.

Once they got to the shelter, we had the dog brought into the room with us again. She ran to each of the kids and to my wife and got herself into each of our hearts. When one would put her down, she would run to the next. Of particular interest to me was our son. I didn't think he would get so close to a dog. He seems to be loving this whole process though. He looks really cute with the dog. I quickly showed my wife one of the other dogs, but there wasn't enough interest to take her in and look at her. My wife told me to make an appointment to adopt this dog. We went out to dinner at Marie Calendars.

This dog was brought into the shelter on Friday. In order to adopt, you first need to wait for three business days for the owners to show up. Since it was a Friday, they had five days to get there. We set up the appointment for the earliest we could on Wednesday morning. Tuesday was a bit hard on my wife because she was waiting for a phone call with them telling her they had shown up. Our daughter kept on telling us all Tuesday evening not to forget our appointment. There wasn't much chance of that. Nothing happened on Tuesday so it was all good. I did go with the Scouts to the State Capital for a visit to meet with one of the requirements for Citizenship in the Nation.

Wednesday morning I left work to give me plenty of time to meet with the Salt Lake County shelter. We had to sign three copies of a notice saying that we would take care of the dog and then pay a $95 fee to adopt the dog. This included the spaying, some of the shots and a look over from a veterinarian. It also included a five pound bag of dog food, a squeaky toy, the leash and collar and finally a microchip to be placed in the dog. I thought it to be fairly reasonable. However, they could not get the dog into the vet before Thursday, so we had one more day of waiting in order to get her. When my family arrived home they had named our dog Lizzy. One of my coworkers asked if that was for Elizabeth and I told him that it was more because of "Dizzy Lizzy". They also went out immediately and bought a tag for her as well as a small travel case that will also second as her bed. There was some doggy treats and a brush included in what they bought. This dog is going to be spoiled.

Around 2:00 PM my wife and kids went to pick up our dog from the vets. The spay is done and we added a rabies shot as well as a check for heart worm. We were told that we couldn't get the dog wet for about two weeks while the stitches are healing. This is a bit discouraging because she is dirty from the shelter as well as from the vet. When I arrived home, my wife and kids were out on the front lawn petting and enjoying a subdued pet. You certainly could tell that she was still under the influence of drugs.

Pam came over at around 4:00. Our son went and did baptisms for the dead and Pam said she would just stay for a little while. When our son came home, we got ready to leave for the first part of the Youth Conference for the kids. It was a barbecue at the Dunsanane building. After dinner they played a few games. There was a balloon toss, where my son was trying to grab the balloon that was hucked at him without breaking it and tripped and fell into a small pool of water. He didn't break the balloon though but when he tossed it back, his partner was laughing so hard that he dropped it.

After that, there was volleyball and baseball (where they kick a ball and then run to bases which were pools and a slip and slide for home plate). That was all fun for the kids and only my son got wet. My daughter played volleyball instead.

We arrived home and not only was Pam still there, but Anne had shown up to see the new dog. She is endearing everybody (and she isn't even her playful self). Anne told us about a detangler that they use in the hospital which could help us out with our dog. They stayed till about 10:00 that evening at which time we put the dog in her place and went to bed ourselves.

Friday morning, the kids left for the rest of Youth Conference. They went to a ropes course in Provo and then drove up to Heber city and stayed at a cabin of one of our ward members. There was a fireside that night and then they went to Seven Peaks water park in Provo on Saturday.

My wife stayed home all day with the dog on Friday and then I was able to be with her somewhat on Saturday. Lizzy was still a bit doped up on Friday but by Saturday started to come out of it. We are still being very careful with her and trying to retrain her to go outside and go potty. She has had two accidents in our house, but seems to be holding it now until she is outside. We have been taking her outside on a regular basis. She hasn't cried for that at all. She isn't eating much food though.

Saturday morning, I went with Keith Potts and his son to Lowes. Keith is going to be doing a new TREX back deck for us (not much of a deck but I am calling it that for lack of a better term). Lowes didn't have what we needed so we need to special order all of the material. I was told that it may take up to two weeks to get in. I felt bad for wasting Keiths time. I was told that I would get a 10% discount off my order because of the confusion that was caused with this whole thing. At least that will be good. Keith and Matt played with Lizzy for a little bit when they came back to our house. The kids got home Saturday evening and then I had to get ready (with Meghan) for a dance that night.

I was the chaperone to the Regional dance at our Stake house. I was to be to the church by 7:15 for instructions when the dance started at 7:30. At 7:00, I went with our son to the park for an Elders quorum ice cream social. It was raining so volleyball and playing was out. I hurriedly ate a bowl of homemade peach ice cream that the Nielsons had made and it was delicious. I then headed to the church.

There were basically three stations that we had to take care of at the church. Two of the stations were watching some of the outer doors that nobody would be allowed in or out of and also keep track of the rooms to make sure nobody went into any of the rooms in the church besides the cultural hall. The last station was in the cultural hall just to be a presence so the kids knew we were there. Thankfully our watch of the doors happened relatively early so I was able to spend the rest of the time watching the dance. I enjoyed being there and watching the kids have some good clean entertainment.

Saturday evening, we had a harder time putting our dog to bed. She has a hilarious little whine when she is unhappy. She did finally go to sleep though and so did we.

My wife got up at 6:30 this morning (which is normal) and let Lizzy out. She isn't having any more accidents in the house for which we are grateful. She is starting to run around to various people to pet her and hold her although she will let you know she doesn't want to be held sometimes.

We went to church and none of my wifes two students showed up for primary. She went to Relief Society and I went to Deacons quorum. After that, we cleaned up and headed home to check on Lizzy. She was doing fine. While we were home, our son came home to get some bread for the sacrament (it's a good thing I bought two loaves yesterday).

We went back for Sacrament meeting and soon after coming home headed out to our in-laws home to show off Lizzy. She was quite playful. They have an old dog named Buddy. She kept on play fighting with him while he basically ignored her. What was funny was when she would just be laying there and all of a sudden pounce on Buddy. That gave us a few laughs. We decided that she was kind of like one of the dogs on Charlie Brown that pounces. We were a bit concerned for her stitches though so had to stop it a little bit. Once again, she gained the hearts of all that have seen her.

Well, that's about it. Travis promised to stay up with Lizzy tonight, but instead of her going into her own area she ended up in his bed. I think that was a mistake.

Scout Camp

I am back home now from Scout Camp, and we had a pretty good time up there (for the most part). Of course, before you go to Camp you have to go to the store and buy a bunch of treats to make it more bearable. I got all of that on Saturday and then did my packing up on Sunday. I fill a good part of the SUV up by the time I get my battery and CPAP machine. Then there is the sleeping bag, cot, chair and nice mattress pad. If I have to go to camp, I am going to get as comfortable as possible.

Monday morning came early. I got up early enough to go fill the SUV up, and then headed to the church. We were to meet at 7:00. We ended up leaving around 7:30 in the morning. The camp we were going to was Camp Tomahawk which is at an elevation of about 9000 feet. We went through Evanston Wyoming to get there.

Arriving at camp, we were told that there would be no fires (unless it is a propane fire) and that nobody could have any kind of food or treats in their tents because of the bears that are around. We drilled this into the boys and thought they understood, but evidently they didn't quite get it. Camp didn't take very long to set up. We had eight boys in two tents and then there was Glen and I in a tent and Ken Wood in another tent. Glen and I used my tent. I made sure to spray it with some waterproofing stuff just to make sure it would be OK. Our troop paid the extra $70 so the meals would be taken care of up there at Tomahawk. For the most part, the meals were pretty good.

There were a couple of classes that the boys went to starting with Monday afternoon. Ken, Glen and I just hung around camp and kind of lazed the day away. It was nice up there. After we had dinner, we messed around at camp and then at around 8:30 we went up to the main flag for a flag ceremony and then to the fire bowl for a campfire program put on by the staff. It was pretty good, but those seats got awful hard after awhile.

I put a memory foam pad on my cot, and this made my cot the most comfortable I had ever had it be. I slept pretty well all week for being at camp.

Tuesday morning, we got up, had breakfast and then went to the flag ceremony. After flag ceremony we do our troop yell and the boys that were up there were kind of soft. They didn't belt out their yell. The troop that is determined to be the best gets the spirit stick to decorate. At the end of the week, this spirit stick is given to the best overall troop. Well, we didn't win it.

Along with announcements, they reminded us about the bears and to keep food out of tents and this time we were told that some random checks could be done by the forest service and if any food was found in a tent that is grounds for that troop to go home. When we got back to camp, the boys went to their tents and pulled out all kinds of food. I was a bit upset at this, and we talked to them about it and told about the boy a couple of fathers days ago that was taken out of his tent. One of the boys told me that this didn't make any sense because how do bears know how to unzip your tent. I held back my laugh at this point and we told them that bears would make their own zipper. It was an awful funny comment though.

Tuesday after lunch (and we had KP duty) there was the Jim Thorpe relay. Our boys participated in it but didn't do all that well. But, they did it, and they finished it.

Tuesday evening they had what was called Vision Quest, which was also called the Honor Trail. We had our boys go on this. It was done at night in the dark and we went from point to point to learn different things from the Scout Law which says:

A Scout is Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, and Reverent.

That was good for the scouts.

During the night of Tuesday we had a storm go through the area. There was a lot of wind and some rain. The tent survived it all quite well, and no water came in the tent. However, we had a quick shade put up outside the tent and it was thrown and one of the legs bent and was unfixable. We were able to stand it back up but we will have to see if we can get a new leg for that one for future use. It is a new canopy that the ward had bought, so we felt a little bit bad about it. Not much use in fretting over it now. By the time we woke up Wednesday morning everything was dry like it had not rained at all the previous night. The wind was strong though and we were surprised that there was no other damage done to anything.

Our troop yell for Wednesday was:
Salmonella, Ecoli, Staffs the best,
Troop 1212 is better than the rest.

Once again, this wasn't yelled out at all, so no spirit stick.

Glen had brought up some scrap leather as well as some leather working tools, and all week long he made knife sheaths for each of the boys that they stamped themselves and they were molded to their knives specifically. He learned by doing it and did a great job with making those.

Wednesday evening we went on the Bear Eye hike. This was where some reflectors were put around camp and you took your flashlight with you and got the reflection back and it would tell you what direction to go in. The final destination was the shower, but some smart Alec took the last reflector so boys were looking for a reflector and instead saw flashes of skin of the men in the showers (which weren't too happy about the whole thing). We went back to camp and had a bunch of camp stories for the rest of the evening.

Thursday morning, I wasn't feeling the best. When I burped it was that nasty taste of one who is coming down as sick. I wasn't feeling terrible either though so I stayed silent about it. By noon, I was starting to feel a bit worse, and I stayed away from people so they wouldn't catch anything. After lunch, I started to feel terrible with my stomach churning, and I developed diarrhea in the early afternoon. I finally told Glen and Ken about it and told them that for me this type of thing doesn't usually last too long. I thought I would be over it by Friday. They were wondering if I needed to go home. I had to run to the Kybo (I learned the KYBO stands for Keep Your Bowels Open) every few minutes to expel stuff. I skipped dinner and skipped out on most of the evening activities. I heard a troop yell being created by the scouts in the evening for the next day but wasn't able to be out there with them. I was feeling like death warmed over. I was quite out of it. The troop yell was based on "Who let the Dogs out", but they changed it to Scouts, staff and Troop 1212. That's all I really know about it.

By the way, our troop yell for Thursday morning was one I made up.

It was:
Give me a T -- T
Give me an R -- R
Give me an O -- O
Give me another O -- O
Give me a P -- (silence)
Who's got the P?
Troop 1212! (while bent over as if we have to go).

This didn't win the spirit stick either, but the boys did a lot better.

By Friday morning, I was feeling better. I didn't have to go to the restroom so often, but I still had diarrhea. I was able to eat breakfast and Glen and Ken decided I must be better because my sarcastic sense of humor was back as sharp as ever (it was dulled a bit the previous night).

Friday morning the boys had their merit badges to take care of. Friday afternoon was a time for the boys to play. They had a second Jim Thorpe relay (we still didn't do great but did improve) and then we went to swamp wars. All of the boys (except Dallin) participated in this. Dallin didn't participate because he didn't get his swimmer or beginner tag. That was a lot of fun for the boys. We then had the rest of the afternoon to do whatever we chose too. Brother Bean came up and brought up Tom (Glens son). Ken went home at this time. There was a closing campfire tonight (the campfires were all propane fires) with the boys doing various skits. We got back to camp kind of late, and Tom had had too much caffeine during the day so he was quite talkative. We finally had to tell him to be quiet so the camp could sleep.

Saturday morning we packed up camp and then we left. Glen stayed up there so he could get his son over to camp Travis where his son was going to spend the next week. Glen told me he had difficulty getting home because the clip on the trailer that clips to the ball broke and he had to drive slowly to Evanston, and then only got it done a little better so he had to stay flat and went up toward Ogden in order to get home. I'm glad we didn't have that happen to us. All the boys got home safely and we did too. We are grateful there were no accidents.

I washed the car and then we went out to Bountiful where my wife had let our kids stay the night. Not much else happened with this.

Sunday, I helped my wife with her handicapped class. We had both Jenny and Allie. Things went well there and then Sister Gustavos came in to help out when she was done with responsibilities in Relief Society.

Today, I had to go into work. There were enough problems that happened during the day that I was busy all day just fixing those. I even found some that nobody else really knew about. I also started to call around seeing who might have a dog for us to pick up. There are quite a few shelters in the Salt Lake Valley. I came up with a few places to look and tried to get another person to call about a Shih Tzu that she is fostering. I never heard from her. My wife went to West Jordan's shelter and I went to the Salt Lake County main shelter. My wife saw a couple of dogs that she was interested in, and then I called her to the SL County shelter to look at a black Maltese (I guess Maltese are usually white). I thought she was real cute, and enjoyed playing with her, and so did my family when they came. There were two other dogs that my wife wasn't really that interested in (actually I only showed her one of them and she seemed scared). Now we have to wait until Wednesday morning in case an owner shows up for this Maltese, but we are first in line to be able to get her. Is it OK to pray that her owners don't show up? Well, we are really hoping we can't be the adoptive parents of this new dog. Tomorrows going to be a long day waiting for a phone call that we hope is not going to happen.

That's the week!