Traffic Referee

Today, I went to West Jordan to go to a traffic referee. I went in to discuss the ticket I got when I had that last accident. I wasn't trying to fight the ticket, I just wanted the price of it to go down. The offense itself cost $82 (that's the cheapest traffic ticket you can get) and then if you were involved in an accident they tack on another $30.

Of course, when you get to the building you have to empty all your pockets of any metal so you can go through the metal detector. Then you go up and wait. The wait wasn't too long. I did hear a little bit from the guy who went in before me. It didn't sound too good.

My turn came and I went in to see the guy. He said he was actually ahead of where he should be. It looked like he had a bunch of no shows. He pulled my information and read it over (out loud) and asked me a few questions such as if there were any injuries. I told him I wasn't trying to get out of the ticket (I was guilty) but that I was trying to get him to discount it (as it said on the website he could). He said, that he usually doesn't do this but to take the 82 dollars and add the 30, that comes to $112. I could either pay that, or I could pay $170 and this won't go on my record at all. It would mean that I am on probation for six months, and as long as I don't get any more tickets then it would completely go away. If I did get another ticket then both of them would be on my record. I'm thinking, just another way for the city of West Jordan to get more money. I refuse that.

I tell the guy that the officer gave the primary ticket to the other guy and me a secondary contributing ticket. Because of this, I believe the $30 should not be given to me, because the other guy should be paying that. He tells me that these prices are set down by state law and that he can't change that. I inform him that the website says that he can reduce bail. He kind of hems and haws on that and then tells me that in the case of accidents he doesn't have as much lee way. In discussing this further with him, it is based on if there is litigation going on. I tell him that I am not sure of the litigation because I just heard from the other insurance agent today and they said it was looking like a 50/50 on the accident as far as insurance goes (meaning we both pay for our own vehicles - or our insurance companies). He goes off on that 50/50 ruling of the insurance, and I bring him back around and ask what the purpose of saying one is the primary source of the accident and the other the secondary source if it is truly 50/50. He kept on going off on that 50/50 thing. I ask him why two people are paying for one incident on the accident. In doing this I ask if I wasn't at fault, would I still be charged $30 for having an accident, or would the other guy be charged $60? I then remind him again of the Primary vs Secondary situation. He goes off talking about other things with this accident. Then he comes back to the point and says that I have a good point about there being one accident and two people paying $30. He dismisses the $30, but won't go any lower on the $82. He then sets me up to make two payments by the end of the next two months. I'm glad to have this all over, even though he contradicted himself by telling me he couldn't change bail amounts and then it gets changed. I'm grateful for that. He was a nice guy, and we both talked civilly through the whole process. I am just discouraged that I couldn't get the bail amount reduced even further. I did the best I could, and I shouldn't complain because that 15 minutes saved me $30.

Well, our kids have been staying at their grandparents house, and it looks like they will be spending at least another day there. I will probably be picking them up on my way home from work tomorrow evening. Tonight, I just have a nice quiet night with my wife.

Christmas Time

Christmas has now come and gone. I just thought I should write a little bit of what has happened over the past week.

Last Monday was my family Christmas party. We arrived around 7:00 in the evening and were among the first to arrive. It's a huge gathering over at my parents house. It is loud, and energetic. After a little bit of socializing with grandmas recipe for slush, we all go into the family room. I usually try to get somewhere on the sectional couch because it is a little bit more comfortable than the other hard chairs. We started with an opening prayer and then moved on and started to do talents. After the first few talents my dad realized that he had forgotten all about doing the nativity first. For the nativity my brother got out an old one that he did and we saw his now grown children as little primary aged children. Then, the talents continued.

I had talked to my kids about the talent show and they both kind of ignored what I had said. But, just before we were going to go, our daughter was trying to come up with some music to play on her flute. She had some music, but opted to get a piece for "What Child is This?" because it was easier. The problem was, the sheet music she had had it in a lower key than she wanted. So, our son took the sheet music and hooked up his keyboard to the computer he put together and put Linux on it, and played it into there and then edited that sheet music to put it in the higher key. This we printed off and gave to her. We left 5 minutes after she had gotten that sheet music.

My families turn for the talents came along and our daughter played her piece. When they asked about our son, I told them that his talent was creating the music sheet for our daughter because he really did not want to get up and do anything. I guess he was going to play Silent Night on the piano, but since two others had already done so, he just let me do the talking to get him out of it.

Santa came, and handed out the gifts. I thought about talking to Santa outside afterward because this is the first Christmas he has had without having one of his sons around. I know that he has taken that death pretty hard, and I don't know that I blame him for that. I didn't get that opportunity though because I got stopped a couple of times.

Still, there were more talents and then everybody kind of sees what toys they can break that they just got. We were the first ones to leave.

I was told by my son that the Deacons were having their weekly activity on Tuesday evening. I didn't go to that because it is a time to spend with my family who were all at home. We just spent the time together and we needed to get a few things for the Christmas Eve party that was to be held at our house for my wife's family. My wife was slaving over the stove and trying to get the chicken thawed out as well as take care of whatever she could before the next day. She stayed up until around midnight to get things ready. I went to bed about a half hour before her. She worked so hard, and it is awfully straining on her to do so. I really appreciate all that she does. I don't tell her that often enough, but I do appreciate her.

I left work a little bit early on Wednesday because I knew that she would be needing some help. Things were a bit busy. She thought that she had taken care of enough that it wouldn't be busy, but that wasn't to be. She still slaved over getting everything just right. Of course, I had set up an extra table and then we had to find all the proper plates and knives and forks and so forth for both of the tables.

Pam came over a little bit early so she could prepare some of her stuff. She did the rice for us and some fruits. Brandon came in next with my wife's parents and her sister that lives with them. We also had Nathan show up. Ben was a no show, but Chris made it over with his new wife and baby. We haven't had much time to get to know Chris' new wife, so we talked a bit with her. We had a dinner that was kind of like Chicken Cordon Bleu, but an easy version of it. There was plenty of food and it was really tasty. We played a few games, including Eye to Eye, had some dessert, played more games and opened a few gifts from each other. Everybody left, and it was just starting to snow.

Christmas morning, my wife got up at 6:00 AM. I got up about 40 minutes after her and then after showering, we got the kids up. We opened the few gifts they had. Both of them were excited for their gifts, even though our son already knew what he was getting. We didn't really give anything to each other because we had spent our Christmas budget on other gifts instead. We need to go get something after Christmas is over for each other.

It had snowed all night, and when I looked outside I saw that there was a mess. We had snow drifts up to our house that were about two feet deep. That was probably for the first 7-10 feet of our driveway. It was heavy, and it was hard work. Thank goodness for my son who did a majority of the shoveling because I am wearing out too darn fast. We cleared our two car driveway area ignoring the third car and the RV pad that we have been keeping clear. We then headed out around 9:00 AM to get to my parents house. It was white out conditions when we left home. By the time we got to my parents house we had seen everything from blizzard to snow to rain and then no rain. It started to rain at my parents and in-laws around noon.

We had breakfast at my parents house and then there was the gift exchange there. We were quite excited to give my brother and his wife a picture pained by Jay B. Ward called "The Grace of God". It is a picture of Christ as a child on the lap of his father Joseph. It is a nice picture. We gave a smaller copy to my niece and her husband. I think they will both like them. If not, that's too bad because they were personalized with Jay signing them personally to them. We also gave a marshmallow gun to a nephew there. That looked like it could be plenty of fun.

We left there and went to the in-laws. Pam didn't show up for awhile, but we had dinner while there that had been made for Chantelle and her husband. They weren't able to make it over because of the bad weather (they had stayed the night near where we live). Chantelle did come out a bit later, and that was nice. We got home around 6:00 and there was another four inches of snow that needed shoveling. We took care of that.

Friday I had taken the day off of work. One of the first things I did was to go out and shovel a couple more inches of snow. This is getting old fast. Then a little later my son and I went out and shoveled a skiff that we had had, but we needed to get the end of our driveway as the plows had come by and we needed a way out. My son and I also went in to exchange one of the gifts that we gave the family (a Lan adapter for the Wii and the Internet) and got a wireless router instead. The net cost of that was $25. We hooked up the router and my son can now get stuff for his ipod touch anywhere in the house. My palm also now connects to the Internet and I am able to directly load in files made for the palm from the church website. I did have to get a new program for my palm that zips and unzips files because that is how most of the Mobipocket stuff is done. I can also directly download ebooks from the Salt Lake County Library System.

Saturday was a day of cleaning up a few things. My wife started to clean up some of the Christmas decorations, but the tree is going to have to wait for another day. Around 4:00 in the evening we headed out to the Gateway mall to meet Pam and Anne. We just went window shopping around there and then went to dinner. After that, my kids went with Pam and Anne to their home to spend the night. My wife and I went and looked at the lights at temple square (just in our car) and then headed home.

Sunday morning I got a call from Brother Ashton. It seems that our son was supposed to give a talk today. I told him he wasn't available. Our son says that something was said about it four weeks ago, but he hasn't been given a topic or anything else. He forgot about it.

When we were on our way out, Brother Johnson had come up into our driveway asking for help to get his car out of his driveway. He hadn't shoveled away the boulders that come from the snow plows and had tried to get through. We didn't seem to be getting anywhere, but then one other person came over to help. After a little more pushing it finally came out. We were late to church. I helped my wife set up and then went to be with the Deacons. They were playing around because as far as they could tell there wasn't a leader among them. I ruined that for them. We had the lesson and then I went in to help my wife. Both of us were tired and we left church not making it to sacrament meeting (the most important meeting of them).

We fell asleep, and then while my wife was still sleeping I logged into work. I had to look over some of my jobs for the weekend. They had all worked. I was hoping so, because when I logged in Friday evening, I found that some of the jobs that ran on Christmas had broken down. I also took care of a couple of other things on the Internet.

We headed to West Bountiful to pick up our kids. I played around with Pam and Anne's computer because they couldn't remember their wireless password. I never did get it fixed, but thinking back I should've powered off the wireless hub and powered it back on. We may have had it work after all. We watched the Dark Knight. My wife didn't like it and I loved it. I guess it was just too dark for my wife. We had a nice dinner and dessert and then left there.

That's about it. It is enough though.

It is definitely the Christmas season.

Ward Party - Karen grave - Sledding

Not too much has gone on in the last few days, yet here I am saying a word or two.

It snowed some more on Friday. Soon after I arrived home, I went out to shovel the walks. My son thought I was going out too early because it was still snowing. It turned out to be the right decision as it didn't refill in what we had shoveled and actually stopped before we were finished. A light dusting of snow happened later that night.

While shoveling, I was able to talk to Randy Zerovec (my next door neighbor). I invited him over to the ward Christmas party that night, but he said his wife would be home too late for them to come over. I talked to him a little bit about our church. He asked about our long meetings over there every Sunday. I told him about the three hour block and then realized that since three wards meet in the building, it looks like we are there absolutely all day long (rather than just the three hours). Wow! That would be way too long for me. I barely can stand the three hours of meetings myself.

Randy also asked me if the LDS have something against the cross and the wearing of the cross. I told him that we aren't against the wearing of the cross, but we don't really believe in wearing them because we believe it only symbolizes the death of Jesus Christ rather than the more important aspect that Christ was resurrected and is alive. He was wondering about it because his wife is a store owner and had bought some clothes with crosses on them and those didn't sell as well as their other merchandise. They figured it had to do with the LDS that are in our state.

We also talked a little bit about our Young Men programs and how they get prepared to serve missions through years of holding the Aaronic priesthood. He also wasn't aware that our bishop is just another man (like each of us) that serves his calling while holding down a regular job. He was amazed. I told him how we each have callings in the church and it is rare that you will find an active Mormon without a church calling. It was in interesting conversation, but my wife was wondering what was keeping me so long outside.

Our daughter had one of her friends over. Her name is Kiera, and she is a good friend to her. We took her to our ward Christmas party. Our son didn't want to go to the party because the Young men/Young Women had to sing in it and he was sure that Brother Ashton would pull him up to sing. I told him that he didn't have to go up if he didn't want too. We also talked to Brother Ashton as well as the bishop to make sure that that didn't happen. Our son has never gone up to sing in these group things. Even as a primary child he never sang in any of the primary programs. It is just something that he refuses to do.

My wife took some corn over to the Ward Party (they supplied it, she just cooked it). The dinner was ham, funeral potatoes, corn or peas, a roll and of course a dessert. There was a little bit of entertainment as well. Brother Youngblood played the saxophone (at which time I took our son home who was not enjoying himself), and then Brother Medieros played the electric guitar to "Christmas is here". My wife asked if it was legal to have that rock version played (just kidding). Then, the Young men and young women got up and sang after which the primary sang. That was the program. We all packed everything up and left.

Saturday morning, I woke up early. I couldn't sleep so I got up and started to read the paper. My kids got up a little bit later. As is custom, this is the Saturday that we go and put a Christmas tree on my sisters grave. This has been a tradition in the family for 56 years now. It's just a little tree with homemade decorations on it. My son, daughter and me got there and the only other people who were there were my parents, Larry, Paula, and Scott. My son was mortified that he may have to actually do some decorating (he only came for the doughnuts and chocolate milk). Anyway, others arrived. Glen and his family. Sharon and her family, and then Jon and his family. The tree was quickly decorated and then dad gave a short talk to us. It is actually Karen's birthday today, and she was born on a Saturday like this one. She died and they buried her on Christmas Eve in about as much snow as was at the cemetery that day.

We then went to my parents house for the promised doughnuts and chocolate milk. After that, we all went out sledding. This is something that my kids were looking forward to doing. So a lot of us crowded that little hill and had a good time. Larry came out to watch his grandchildren for a bit, but then left. I did get a voicemail from him telling me that he had my reading glasses and he hoped I wouldn't need them before Monday night. We went back to my parents house after that and had some lunch.

By the time we had arrived home, I found that my wife had wrapped all the gifts that we have for Christmas including putting together the neighbor gifts. It was my job to get them out. I got out what I could that night, but still had a couple left over. My son and I also went to the the one house we have to home teach and gave them a little gift. We just stayed a short time. I mentioned that I need to be a better home teacher and they agreed with me that I needed to be better than I have been. So, I kind of got in a bit of trouble with them. That's OK. I do need to be better.

Sunday, the Young Men all took the primary classes so the teachers of those classes could go to their regular classes. Since the Deacons were involved in that, I helped my wife as her special needs class was not included in that. We hadn't had Jenny come in a long time, but she was feeling well enough that she could come today. My wife said that she was glad I was able to be there. I had to take my wife home early from Sacrament meeting because she was turning into a Popsicle and was not feeling well because of this. Her health concerns me, but there isn't a whole lot that we can do about that. We were able to relax for the rest of the day (and our home teacher came over).

Well, that's about it for the weekend.

Just stuff

Another week has gone by. I have decided I had better write something in here.

We have had a lot of snowy days here over this past week. The first snow storm I can think of was Saturday. I shoveled about two inches off of our driveway. Our son had gone to work taking some insulation off of some metal, and it was a pretty bad storm. He wasn't dressed properly, and I am hoping that he has learned from that experience. He can go out there and work each Saturday and other days after school. He has been a bit busy this past week though. He came home cold from that, and was grateful that the snow was shoveled. Our son had to drive the car to his school for a concert in the afternoon.

The next snow happened that night, but I didn't shovel it up until Sunday morning. There was only about an inch, so it wasn't too bad. We all got in our car and drove out to Highland where Reese was having his farewell. We got to the church early, and enjoyed having a quiet Sacrament meeting (we have a ton of kids in our ward). Reese also did a good job on his part of the program. We did go to my sisters house afterward and had some refreshments. My wife had made some brownies for that. The first batch that she made though were messed up. She had put in two sticks of butter when the recipe called for two half sticks. Anyway, those ones got thrown out and she made the other batch up.

I was able to talk to one of Kevin's in laws who has her husband (Kevin's brother) in prison. She told me that he is getting out in March (it was supposed to be April but it got moved up) and then he will be in a halfway house. She is looking forward to that. She also said it was nice that he was able to get out on a furlough (for good behavior) for a week at one time and was able to spend that time with her. She was hoping Kevin could get the same thing now that he is getting closer to getting out. Well, we got home early and just watched a couple of Christmas movies into the evening.

Monday, there was more snow. I arrived home from work and went out to shovel it. My son came out and helped me do that. We then had a quick dinner and then headed out to my sons candlelight concert. We had asked Pam if she wanted to come and she invited her mom, dad and Melanie to come. It was a good concert to have them too and as it was good last year, it was a good production again this year. Our son looked nice in his Tux and everybody did a good job. The favorite part of the concert was when the men's choirs were all around the auditorium and sang a Capella. It was wonderful.

Tuesday, there was a little more snow. Our son was sleeping because he came home from school tired. I went out and shoveled it away again. There wasn't much, but this is becoming my routine exercise program. We went with our daughter to her Christmas concert while our son went to his last candlelight concert for his school. Once again, Pam came with Melanie and her parents. It was also a great concert. We enjoyed it.

So, today, there was no snow. I was glad for that. I picked up our daughter from her piano lessons and then we had to go pick up some stuff for dinner. After dinner, I went with the kids over to the church. We all had to meet so we could go to a nursing home to sing carols and give out some ornaments. We broke up into four separate groups and went around. People in my group actually had great voices, but I made it so we were average since my singing voice isn't all that great. There was one lady who kind of started to chase us down the hall in her wheel chair. We stopped, gave her an ornament and sang to her because she wanted us too. I was later told why my daughter was making faces at us and that was because they had already sang to her although she refused the ornament. My son had one lady who when they told her she would be sung too said, "No, No, No," and then, while they were singing to her she was upset because they were blocking the TV, and they weren't that good. By the end she was singing with them, and clapped for them before they left and told them that it was good. It was kind of sad to see these older people stuck in beds and such. It was good for the kids to get out and do this service project with the Young Men/Young Women organization of the church.

Well, that's the week. It looks like we're going to get a bit more snow tomorrow and then again on Friday, so I guess my exercise program will be back on.

Accident

Well, it's only been a couple of days since I last wrote here, but I better write it out now.

The Walmart fiasco is over (I hope). I looked on my account and they charged me for what they needed too. They then sent me a receipt, and along with the receipt, they sent me a gift card for $20. That was nice of Kenna to do for me, and I really appreciated it.

I went to Young Men on Tuesday evening and we had Brother Walker teach the boys about Engineering for their Engineering Merit Badge. Part of it was boring, but at least the boys got to have some fun putting together a speaker and then explaining it. They also put together a train track and talked a little bit about what engineering things it had on it.

Tonight, on my way home, I got into an accident. Nobody was hurt, and I am grateful for that. I was traveling West on 90th South and was not in a proper lane. I was to the side of the road. A car decided to turn left across traffic and the two lanes had stopped for him. I didn't. I did hit my brakes but it was too late. The other car was a Scion Xb, mine was the Mitsubishi Gallant. When I walked up to the other car to find out if they were OK, the woman in the passenger seat was yelling at me. She got on her phone and I asked the driver (who had gotten out of the car) if she was calling the police. He opened her door as far as it would open (not very far) and asked her. She screamed, "Who do you think I'm talking too, the Pope?". She was one angry woman. Their car had the passenger wheel that was starting to fold under it. It was not drivable. My car ruined the license plate holder and the bumper under it. I'll probably need a new bumper.

While I was in Burger King (they were turning into it when I hit them), calling my wife, the police arrived. I just told her that I had been in an accident and I would be late home. We had the forms to fill out and the police were training an officer on what to look for and do in an accident such as this. We got each others information and then the citations came. I got a citation for passing on the right. He got a citation for not looking out properly on a left hand turn. I was told that his was the primary fault, and mine was secondary. Our insurances will have to work out who pays for what. I was relieved that I wasn't the sole one at fault, and the selfish part of me hopes that it is taken care of by his insurance and not mine, but I doubt that will happen. What I think will happen is that we will both pay for our own vehicles. They had to have theirs towed, and I left before the tow truck came.

When I was asking if they were OK, the woman just yelled at me every time. I suspect that she is bipolar. She just yelled at everybody and at everything. I understood anger at me, but this is hard to take. The guy that was with her (I suspect he was her brother) just said that she was always this way. I felt bad for them, but then, I wasn't feeling to good about things about myself.

Of course, I looked to see how much the ticket will be and it is $82 + $30 for the accident. I think I will go in to see if they can reduce the bail. The site says that a mediator (that's not the term it used) had authority to reduce bail. I'm not going to try to fight this ticket because I am indeed guilty as charged. I am also worried about how much I am going to have to pay for this accident (deductibles) and how much my insurance may go up. I guess I have to wait for my agent to call me sometime tomorrow with more information.

More Wal mart stuff

I had to deal with Walmart again today. When I looked on my VISA card at the Bank I saw that some more money got put in from Walmart. It is that same gift for my son that is the problem. Now, on the Visa Card, I have bought it twice and returned it three times. I called Kenna at Walmart and told her of the problem. She hemmed and hawed and then told me that I needed to come in now to pay them some money. I asked her why they couldn't do it on the card itself, since that is where the problem was.

She did say that she would try to get it fixed. I had to give her the last four digits of the card. Then, just like the last time, she called and asked for the other twelve digits. When I was giving her all of these numbers she would mangle them and we had to redo it. This was quite frustrating to me, but we finally got all of that done. She then asked for the security digits on the back of the card. I gave her those as well. Then, it took a long time before she called me back. She told me that there was such and such a message (I don't remember exactly) and when I asked what that meant, she told me that it meant there wasn't room on my card to put the amount on. I told her that was impossible. She said she would try again.

While Kenna was trying, I gave my credit union a call. I asked if there was anything they had done to stop something like this. The woman I talked too told me that the CU hadn't done anything, but then went to look at VISA. She told me that she saw the VISA trying to go through, but they had a bad security code. She told me what they were doing, and once again (just like when I gave the other numbers) there was some transposing going on. That was maddening. I hung up from her, and immediately had another call coming in from Kenna. They, of course, were still failing what they were doing. I told her the problem. She told me she would call me back again. When she called back she blamed the transposing on the person doing the register, and she caught her doing it again. Anyway, I was told that it was all taken care of. This exchange to save $25 was hardly worth all the pains I have gone through. It should've been simple, but it wasn't. I guess this is what I get for trying to be honest about the whole thing.

When I got home, I read a story that my wife had told me about. It is about a couple of friends who have started their own business as a country grocery store. When my wife asked me a question about something I had said, I used some of the paper to quote what it had said. My wife didn't like this, and absolutely hates it when I read things to her. She got mad at me. Anyway, I went to play Mario Kart as I was frustrated. That didn't help things. I didn't know that she had left the house to go do some shopping. I asked the kids if there was a game they wanted to play as a family. When I went to our room to get my wife I found that she was gone. I called her and she didn't want to come home yet. The rest of us played Clue together for awhile tonight. We had fun with that too.

My wife came home, and things were all right, but she still needed her space. I needed mine as well.

One thing that I didn't mention yesterday, but meant too was something that happened in Fast and Testimony meeting. The meeting was moving along just like they normally do, when a man got up to speak that I didn't recognize. I think he said his name was Jack (I could be wrong). Anyway, he was visiting one of the families in our ward who are his friends. Evidently he has come to our ward a few times. He has now decided that he is an investigator. He kind of joked around a little bit about that while bearing his testimony. It was actually quite strong. He mentioned that he probably asks too many questions in Gospel Doctrine, and then told us that he had bought "Preach My Gospel" from Deseret Industries (I think he meant the distribution center). He wants to know what the missionaries will be teaching him before they do. He also asked us to pray for him as he comes from an Evangelical perspective and was a minister at one time. His wife and daughters don't like the direction his life is taking right now. So, say your prayers for me. In closing he said that he knew that Thomas Monson is a prophet and he has come to believe that Joseph Smith did indeed have a vision. He didn't close his remarks in the usual LDS way, but said Thank You instead. It was one of the best testimonies of the entire meeting. I don't know if he realizes how great his testimony is.

The last testimony was a young girl in the ward. She didn't bear a testimony as much as she thanked some of the Young Women who had stood by her despite her despondency. She has been struggling through her parents divorce, and though she didn't say it, I believe she has also struggled through her mothers remarriage (how could she not?). Anyway, I appreciated what she said to the congregation as well.

Walmart - Company Party - Birthday

On Wednesday, I looked at my VISA card online. I found that Wal-Mart had taken the money off for the return of my sons gift, but they had also added it back on. I talked to the Credit Union as well as to Wal-Mart and after some explaining got them to actually get it done right and credit my account to the way it should be. It was a relief to have done. It did take some doing though.

Wednesday was also my company party. They call it the Employee Holiday Lunch because they can't call it a Christmas party. Rules sometimes get to be stupid. We went to "The Gathering Place" in Gardner Village. It was a great lunch and then they gave out prizes. There were some great prizes, but none of them came my way. We then get to go home early. That was nice.

One of the first things I checked on Thursday was the Visa Card. It had all been taken care of which relieved some stress for me. Heaven knows, the Holidays add on enough stress as it is. Not too much happened for the rest of the day Thursday.

Friday, I was home from work. While I was spending time with my wife, we got a call from our daughter at school. She had been trying to catch a pencil as it dropped from her desk and hit down on it with the lead point up (actually graphite). It stuck in her hand and she screamed. She tried to get the boy sitting next to her to take it out, but he didn't. When the teacher took it out, she says she screamed again so loud that the teacher in the next room came running in to see what was going on. I don't know what it is about her, but my daughter is one of the most accident prone people I know.

I went into the school and pulled her out of class to take home for a minute and see about getting a Dr's appointment. None were available till later, so I took her back to school telling her we would be picking her up just before school was out. I had also done a pre-checkout for her.

My wife and I took her in to see Dr Daynes. He looked over her hand and gave her the option that he could dig deeper but it all looked fine. He said if a piece is in there it is small and will either come out or stay in and slowly the body would absorb it. My daughter just said, see I told you I didn't have to go in to the doctor. We also had him check into my wife's asthma so she could get a prescription for Singular. She was hoping she could get a flu shot as well, but he was completely out of flu shots with no more coming in for him. Anyway, just a way to pass the day.

That night, our daughter babysat. She was only supposed to be till about 10:30 but ended up coming home from the job around 11:45. My wife was pacing the floor for her to get home.

Saturday morning, my daughter and I had to go over to the church for some youth training on their callings as presidencies of the various Young Women/Young Men programs. They served a simple breakfast and then had a brief class. After that class, they all met together again and came up with what to do for the monthly combined activities. It will be interesting to see if that all goes as planned. Of course, their were a couple of chores to do around the house and then we had to head out to Cedar Hills for my nephews baptism.

As soon as we were in the chapel, Jeffry came over and gave me a big hug. He usually hasn't done that, but he did this time. It was nice that he would acknowledge us as such. We went over to their house after the baptism and confirmation and had some refreshments. We didn't stay too long and headed home. There were still things to do.

Sunday morning seemed to come too early for me. My wife felt the same way I did. I don't know what it was, but I was kind of tired all day. We went to the church meetings, then went to tithing settlement, and then after I took a nap, we went to my Fathers house for his birthday. He is 82 years old, and we told mom that she would be eighty too next year (I know, its a stupid joke). There was a lot of reminiscing at my parents house with a few things that we remembered with grandparents and even great grandparents. I stunned people when I remembered that great grandma Peterson died in 1968. They asked how I remembered that, and I said that I remembered that she died when I was eight. I looked it up in one of moms books. At first I came across a newspaper article that I assumed was her obituary, and it was dated Feb 1968. My brother told me I was faulty in my remembrance because I wasn't yet 8 years old. Looking closer the article was about her 90th birthday. Looking a few pages after that I found her obit. It was August of '68 and I was born in July. Therefore, I had remembered correctly. My brother told my daughter that she had to tell her mom that I was found to be right for once. I made sure she told her that.

It was kind of fun reminiscing over things, but we had to get on home.

I hate Christmas Shopping

My wife called me at work today. Her mother is looking for some folding chairs for Pam. She enlisted my wife's help, and that comes over to me a little bit. She wanted me to look online. I also called a few places. Shopko seemed to have a pretty good deal on them although at most of them I was only able to find three matching ones. I finally found a store that had 6 and they had a table and chairs set that was actually less money. All on sale. I asked the girl to hold them and I would have my wife come in. She hemmed and hawed a bit and then told me she would. I called and told my wife that she may or may not hold them. She didn't.

I had actually asked her to go out on the floor rather than look on the computer for the chairs and the table and chair set. She left the phone for a short time and then came back and told me that they were there. She was right on the table/chair set, but not on the chairs. They only had three of those. My wife thought the chairs were ugly, but the set was a good set. She ended up getting that. Now, we have a table and chair set in our home and don't know where Margaret wants it to be for Christmas (we have been informed that the Christmas Eve party will be at our house again this year).

I finished my day at work, and went home. Once home, I called Best Buy for my daughters gift. The phone rung off the wall. I finally saw another phone number to call and was told that it had been delivered. Since Wal-mart was in the same area, I took my sons gift back there (I bought a different one at Target because they offered a $25 gift certificate that I was able to buy their service plan with - it was a savings). When I walked into Wal-mart the greeter tried to scan in the bar code on the thing, but it wouldn't take. I then took it to Customer Service. Customer Service called electronics to come and take a look at it to make sure I was returning a valid product. He looked at a few things and everything was a go to exchange the thing. Then they tried to exchange it. They scanned my receipt and then they tried to scan the device. It wouldn't scan in. When they tried to put in the number they were seeing on the device it was showing up as an invalid number. They couldn't get the serial numbers to match up. After a manager came, they called back to the electronics department and he had to mess around with it. They asked me if I had brought the wrong one in. I knew I hadn't because I kept them in their respective bags. I did call my son and had him read the serial number on the other one. Anyway, about a half hour later, I had it all taken care of. But, it was a pain.

I next went to BestBuy for the next thing. I told them that I had called in and they told me it was there. They couldn't find it. They finally called over a sales associate who found it after about 10 minutes of looking. It had gotten to the wrong place. Anyway, I was quite a bit longer than I thought I would be.

Tonight was a Court of Honor. I got there at 7:01 and they had just started. The whole thing was over in 15 minutes. It took longer to set up and take down than the actual Court of Honor took. I went home and my wife and I watched "Polar Express".