Day of Celebration

Well, the Day of Celebration for the Oquirrh temple finally happened. It was a long time in coming (or it seemed like a long time to those of us involved) but it was pretty good. Despite all of the issues I had with it (and I recognize they are my own) it was a pleasing thing to see.

There really isn't a lot to tell over this past weekend, but I thought I should write anyway. Friday was just another day in my life. I did get a phone call Thursday evening asking if I could go with my son and help the Olsen's with their new grass on Friday evening. That is what we did. We had a dinner of sloppy Joe's and then headed on over there. It was raining slightly when we arrived. We found out that people weren't supposed to show up until around 5:30. We were only 15 minutes early. We watched Scott take care of a couple of heads and then started to lay the sod. Others showed up, and there were a lot of people over there, so it didn't take too long to get it all done. At one point the rain along with the wind was kind of miserable, but it could've been worse if we had heat.

When we went home, I decided I had better mow our lawn. Between that, the lawn and taking the dog for a walk, I was kind of tired. I went to bed early. I am very grateful that our son is service oriented. We are able to get him to go out and help others without having to argue with him to do so. He did say that the sod seemed lighter to him now that he is growing up and gaining more muscle.

Saturday, we knew our kids would have to leave to get to the Conference Center. We took care of a couple of things, and I went with my daughter to cash some checks as well as to get some goodies for them while they were in transit to and from the Conference Center. It took forever to get out of our subdivision. The traffic on 40th West was horrendous. I then went down 9800 South and saw the reason for this. On Bangerter and 9800 there had been an accident. My daughter and I were sure that if anybody was in the back of the minivan that we saw that they could not have survived. The back seat was knocked all the way into the middle seat of the thing. The whole minivan was one crumpled mess. We did find out later (it was in the paper today) that there was only a driver in the minivan. A truck had hit them from behind and knocked them into the truck in front of them as well as an SUV to the side. There were car parts everywhere including the door to the minivan. It was an awful mess and the paper said that it took four hours to get it cleaned up.

Anyway, we got home from our shopping and then had to get a lunch together for our daughter so she wouldn't starve too badly when she went to this thing. She got dressed in what she calls her polygamy dress, and then they came and picked her up. They went and took a picture of each of them in front of the temple, and then President LaMunyon came out and asked if some of them would like a tour through the temple. They did that.

In the mean time our son headed up to the Conference Center along with the rest of the Stage Crew. My wife and I had a couple of hours alone before we too headed to the Conference Center since we had tickets to get in and see the production. We stopped at Subway to eat just before going in.

The program that was put on was done by about 7,000 youth. Probably about half of them were in the choir and the other half was dancing. Of course there were also the behind the scenes guys that we never see. All of this went quite smoothly, and it was interesting to see them switch from one group to the next with no real difficulty. On the plus side, our daughter didn't fall off the stage, throw up on an usher, nor lose her shoe as she had done in the rehearsals. She tells me that when she lost the shoe she tried to kick it out of the way of others and hit a boy who had been laughing at her about it. Justice is done. The program was about two hours and it was enjoyable. We will be looking forward to getting the DVD of the whole thing at a later date.

Our son called us on his way home asking if he could go to a party of those who were with the stage crew. We don't know any of the people he was with and besides, most of them were younger than he is. We told him OK, but only after we got a phone number from him of where he would be. He called us about a half hour later to come pick him up because he didn't want to be there as long as they were going to be there. It was 11:30 at that time.

When he got home he told us that they didn't need him on the stage crew for the night so he sat out with our ward and watched the whole show. He said he was needed at rehearsals because they had to move things around quite a bit when they had two practice runs in a row, but since it was only the one time, he wasn't needed. He did get a tour through a lot of the areas that none of us will likely see. He was impressed with quite a bit, but mostly with the hydraulics that put the temple up at the end of the production. I think both of my kids are glad they did what they did in this production even though it was a pain getting there.

Being the fifth Sunday there were combined meetings at church. My wife didn't have Allie to deal with so she went to the Relief Society/Priesthood meeting while I went with the youth to the Young Men/Young Women combined. Her meeting was about food storage (and we really have to do some of that) while ours was on missionary work. Brother Cox who is a recent convert talked to us about his conversion and particularly where it was member missionaries that brought him into the church. He has a lot different experience than most of us, and it was interesting and inspiring. Being that he has been a youth pastor, he knows how to relate to the kids and he had their attention. He also gave out dollar bills when some of the youth participated (he said he would ask forgiveness if that was wrong but it is how he did things in his old church). He is able to be humorous while getting his point across. Something that I really appreciate.

After church, I took my son over to the Lambournes for our home teaching. He thought we spent too long over there. The rest of the day was spent in rest and relaxation. I probably relaxed too much when my wife got up and prepared some dinner. Anyway, that's about it.

Concerts and Things

Last night, my wife and I were able to go to a concert with our son. He went to the University of Utah by bus and was able to play in the Libby Gardner Concert Hall. It is an acoustically sound concert hall. So, we were able to hear Bingham High Schools Choir as well as the Wind Symphony Band and then the orchestra. It was all really good. It cost us $5 each to get in there. The school said they would get the students there by bus, but then they students needed to find their own way home. My son says this was the way to get the parents to come to the event. He very well could be correct.

Tonight, my wife did a Linda's hair and Janine. But before all of that she had to get our kids over to the church so they could go to a practice for the Churches Day of Celebration for the Oquirrh and Draper temples. My son called me at work to make sure if he was supposed to be to the church at 3:00. His ride didn't come. I called Glen and he called his son to find out where they were. I guess there were some problems getting them there. They did finally get there about 3:50. It was a full dress performance tonight. Our son got fired from his job of holding a building up (with a slight dance) because he didn't show up for a practice. Instead he is on the stage crew. This is a better fit for him as he doesn't like to be seen, and he is enjoying being able to go to places in the Conference Center that the regular people don't get to go. Our kids didn't arrive home from all of that until about 11:00 tonight. This was a bit scary for us. We would prefer our kids to be home before that on a school night. But, what can you do? It is the church after all.We just absolutely hate all of this. We will be glad when this is all over this Saturday.

Mice and Men

As usual, time just keeps slipping by. There are a couple of things that I thought I should put in here.

I had my day off on Friday. My wife and I spent some time together and went to TGI Fridays for lunch. We were pleasantly surprised when the bill came out to just $10 plus some tax. They had neglected to tell us that our meals were only five dollars each. Had we known that, we may have gotten an appetizer and/or drinks. Instead we saved a little bit of money (but gave a bit bigger tip than normal). What was kind of interesting was that my wife was looking forward to some fries and was going to steal them off my plate. While she was gone from the table I ordered, and not knowing about her plans, I decided to order a bit more healthy and got a salad instead of fries. She was a bit disappointed when she heard about that. I guess, even when I try to do the right thing, it is wrong.

I did some laundry on Friday because I knew that we would be going to Pam and Anne's house sometime on Saturday, but that wasn't set. The kids had a practice in the morning, and then in the afternoon we headed out to their house. After arriving there, we gave Anne a birthday gift (that we had picked up Friday) and then decided to go to a movie. We saw the second movie of "A Night at the Museum". It was an OK movie, but I didn't feel it lived up to the first one (sequels rarely do).

When we arrived back at their house, we had some dinner. They had steaks and they were quite good. Then our part came up. We were going to make some peach ice cream with our Vita Mix. I had forgotten the tamper so I tried to use a spatula instead. I ended up putting it too far into the blades and the top of that spatula got eaten up PDQ. We threw that out, and it was decided I shouldn't try again. Instead Pam paid for us to have Marie go out and get some custard. It was actually quite tasty, but it cost Pam too much. We felt a bit bad about that.

On the way home from Pam and Anne's house, we called up my wife's parents. We told them that we were thinking of going up to the cabin for the long memorial day weekend. They were to decide if they wanted to go up with us or not. We worried about how we would fit all of us in the car along with supplies (there would be seven in our car that seats eight). We decided that if we each only took up a change of underwear and a jacket that we could fit all in. Of course there was some bedding for the four of us, with the hope that there was enough up there for Rod, Margaret and Melanie.

Sunday morning came, and we talked with them a little bit and then went on over. Everybody went minimal, and along with our roof rack, we got everything up there that we needed. When we got to the cabin, we found that it had been infested with mice. We didn't see any, but we saw all the droppings from them. There was also a leak in the pipes going to the back yard that we needed to get a handle on. Duct tape didn't work at all. We did some cleaning up and then my wife told her mom and dad to take it easy while we went shopping for supplies and food. It took awhile to get what we needed, and then we headed back.

Arriving back at the cabin, we found that they had cleaned up. I went out to fix the pipe in the backyard (jury rigged) and while I was out there, there was some arguing going on between my wife and her mother about how they weren't supposed to do anything because of the possibility of hantavirus. Well, I was glad I was outside because it got pretty heated in there. My father-in-law was also upset that we didn't have any creamer for his coffee nor did we have pickles for the sandwiches. He had wanted to bring up food, but we really didn't have the room to bring that up.

After fixing the pipe and helping with some cleanup, we relaxed for a bit. Then, we decided to see how the bedding was on the hide-a-bed. It seems that the mice like that hide-a-bed. All of a sudden we had more mouse poop around the cabin. More cleaning, and then I headed to the store because we needed to get some ice. My mother-in-law was in the car crying because of her fight with my wife. I told her we were going for a drive. I heard her all the way down and back crying about how she didn't do anything to warrant what had happened between the two of them. I will not take a side. I told her that what was in the past should be left there, and we could start all over and get along if we didn't bring this up again. That ended up working and there was harmony in the cabin again when we returned (not that there weren't a couple of little issues).

We did have a meatloaf that Margaret had brought up. It was cooking in the oven when Nathan and Colin (his son) showed up. That was a surprise. We hadn't planned on that. Nathan didn't like the fact that we didn't have any butter for the potatoes, so he went down to buy some butter and a little bit more milk because I thought we only had enough milk for the ones that were up with us. He couldn't have dinner without having butter. I mean the butter was nice, but none of us thought it was essential. Oh well.

The meatloaf came out of the oven and it was still red. So now we were concerned about Ecoli. We microwaved it and it kept coming out more red each time. We never did figure out why. My son joked about dying of hantavirus, ecoli, or microwave... what was our choice? We also joked a bit about Rod's obituary reading that he died because of mouse poop.

Dinner went well, and nobody had any problems. We played a few games and then Nathan announced that he and Colin were going back down. Some were trying to tell them to stay, but they were set upon going down. They hadn't come prepared (which irritated me a little) nor had they contributed anything (Rod gave the money for the butter).

We set up our cots and Melanie slept on the couch (she wasn't going to get into the bed). Rod and Margaret slept in their own bed. I think we all had a pretty comfortable sleep, although we decided there was good use for earplugs because of the snoring that goes on. In the middle of the night my wife put Lizzy with me and then a bit later came and got her back to help keep her warm. I stayed warm all night.

Monday was a nice day. We slept in a bit, had breakfast, and then headed out to Cascade Springs to wander around there for a bit. My daughter and I stayed together for most of that, and we looked at a few snakes. I told her that although I knew they wouldn't hurt me, I didn't want to try to hold one. I am a bit afraid of them. Going back to the cabin, we had some lunch and then kind of relaxed for a bit. We finally packed up (I had done some packing before we headed to Cascade Springs) and came on home about 5:00. We did stop to get gas and to grab some ice cream on the way down.

My daughter texted all the way down the canyon with my phone and one of the people she was texting was right next to us. She didn't know that at first, but figured it out just before we got off the freeway (and saw them) and they stayed on the freeway. Of course she had also spent some time Sunday as well as part of Monday doing this texting. It would be interesting to know how many text messages she did.

Today, I had to go to work. There were a couple of minor problems at work, but they were taken care of in good order. I had to go to Waddell and Reed to see about the $130 we have invested there (I know, last of the big spenders). I talked with the guy for a bit, and we aren't going to do much, but will probably just take the money and run. The guy I talked with was a nice guy, and who knows, maybe one day I'll do business with him.

I picked up pizza on my way home because my wife and daughter had to go to the Dentist in order to get my daughters retainer fixed. Then, tonight, my daughter got to go to the Taylor Swift concert that we had given her for her birthday.

We picked up Kiera and then headed downtown. We dropped off the girls and then found some parking for us. We went to where the concert was to see if they had a parents room, and they said, not for this concert. My wife and I spent a couple of hours wandering around the Gateway mall. We spent about the last hour watching TV in the Will Call area of the Energy Solutions Arena.

At the end of the concert, my daughter found us (through the use of the cell phone) and we headed home. She and Kiera had a great time and said it was a good concert. We were glad for that.

One other thing that I want to mention is that there was a Supreme Court ruling today in California on Proposition 8 (defined marriage as between a man and a woman), and it came down saying that the voters did do it right in amending the state constitution so that marriage is between a man and a woman. They also decided that the 18,000 who had been married in same sex unions while that was legal would also stand. So, of course there were some protests today about that.

Well, that's about it.

Relatives

Work has been busy with some changes. I have had jobs that haven't worked because of the changes made to the system and with the system not being quite stable. It seems like those problems have now been fixed and I had a good run this morning.

We have had some weather that is quite nice. We have been able to get out and enjoy some time in the sun. I have nothing to complain about there.

Yesterday, I arrived home to find that my wife and kids weren't home. When I called my wife she told me that they were all at the dentist. I was able to take a little bit of time and walk our dog and then came home and tried to attach my computer to my work computer. This didn't work. I don't quite know what is going on there, but I need to get that fixed in the case of an emergency.

When everybody else came home, our daughter was a bit upset because we weren't going out to Pam's house to see Casey who came into town yesterday. My wife assumed we would be going out to see them sometime in the next day or two, just before they leave to go home. Well, we were sitting at home and my wife got a phone call from her sister and all of a sudden realized that our daughter has a concert tomorrow (tonight) night. We all piled into the car and headed out. It was around 8:00 in the evening and the drive was nice since not many people were on the road. We got there and found that they had all gone out to grab some pizza. They left Anne home. They came home and we were able to have a nice visit for a couple of hours. Our daughter thinks we left too early to get back home because they still have school in the morning, but that's the way it goes. It was good to see Casey, and it looks like we probably will not be seeing him or Zach again for awhile. They'll be heading back to Vegas soon and then Casey is going to China for 15 months. Zach will be going to Germany for the summer and then maybe he will be going to Johns Hopkins when he gets back (they have to figure out the 100K compared to nothing at the UofU). Anyway, it was a good visit.

Today, I got a call from my dad. He was updating me on my brother (Larry) who has scleroderma. He has beat all the odds that they have given him as far as time lines go, but it looks like he may be in some trouble now. My dad had been called by Paula and told about some of the problems that he is having. He is having problems breathing and now has an oxygen mask that he has to wear at night. He can't sleep at all, he has a cough (which is possibly pneumonia). He is still going in and having surgery on bone spurs on his hands about weekly. His feet hurt terribly, and his jawbone is having problems again that they may need to do some surgery for. He has some antibiotics, but they don't seem to be helping him out at all. Paula says that his family is having a fast this Sunday and they are inviting all of us to join with them in this. It doesn't sound good, and it makes me wonder if his time is coming. He has done well, and no matter what happens, I will be grateful for the extra time that we have had with him being around longer than they thought. Who knows, maybe he can last a really long time, but I wonder if that is really what we want if he is in terrible pain.

Fathers and Sons

Well, almost a week has gone by since I last wrote. For most of the week, not too much has happened. I should still write here because by the time this long has gone by, I forget the mundane things of my life. Such is the life.

Of course, for now, I don't have young men and young women, and it has been nice to be able to sit with my wife on those Tuesday evenings.

The first thing that I can think of that happened was Wednesday evening when my family went out to Pam and Anne's house because Anne had asked for a priesthood blessing. For some unknown reason she doesn't want to ask her father or brothers for this priesthood blessing. I suspect that it has something to do with her being gay, and some of the feelings that have been expressed about that in times gone past. I suspect that she is afraid of what her father may say in the blessing, regardless, she is a child of God and deserving of every respect because of that alone. Add to that, she is just a good woman doing what she believes to be right and true to herself and to others.

Anyway, we showed up at their house and they had a pizza from Costco that we all shared in. It was after that that I gave her the promised blessing. She was concerned because of the surgery that would be taking place on Thursday on her back to take care of some of the problems there. I hope my blessing was a comfort to her. We stayed for awhile and visited. We were also able to get some pictures off of their computer that I have been waiting for. They are pictures of our daughter and son that she took for my fathers day almost a year ago now. Some of them are quite nice, though I need to look at them for some detail. Mom will probably want some of them as well. We promised her one of our son quite awhile ago.

Not too much went on Thursday. We didn't hear anything about the surgery so it was assumed that all went well (which it did) and we just had an evening at home. Our daughter had some dance practice that night, and that was it.

Originally, I wasn't going to be going to Fathers and Sons on Friday evening, but the Magruders all of a sudden were not coming into town. So, I went with my son out past Grantsville for Fathers and Sons. I had a pretty good time too. It was a bit cold though (I wasn't really prepared for it being as cold as it got).

On our way out to the campsite, we decided to stop in a fast food place before we got there. It seems that about the only fast food place on main street Grantsville was A&W that was in conjunction with a gas station. My son really liked that because he was looking forward to A&W root beer. We get inside the place and are greeted with a whole list of things they are out of including the root beer. I asked if they had cheese for the cheeseburger and they did. It seems that about all they had to eat was corn dogs and hamburgers. We both got a cheeseburger and I asked for onion rings. Oh, by the way, we are out of those too. We didn't see any other place to go, so we ordered and grabbed our stuff and headed on up. We were the second family to arrive at the campsite but a lot came up after us.

We set up camp and then ate. We also helped some others set up their campsites. There were quite a few people who were there, and it was good to see (although not a lot of deacons came up). A little while into it, I was asked by Andrew if I would like some of his pork stew. I had a bowl, and it was delicious. I was real appreciative of it. By now they had the fire going and some of the people were roasting marshmallows. I talked with James (a new convert to the church) and heard his story of his conversation. It was quite interesting. Unfortunately, I believe it was because he was getting close to the church that his wife filed for divorce. We had a good time talking, and then I headed to bed. Like I say, it was cold. I put on long johns and left on my sweatshirt and slept pretty warm with that.

In the morning, my son helped to make the breakfast with the other young men. It was a pretty good breakfast. People pretty much packed up after that and left.

On the way down from the camp, we called Tyler and Shannon. We asked if we could come and see their place. Tyler was going to help a couple move who had had some medical problems and couldn't afford their house anymore. We told them we would help and spent about an hour doing so. Then we went to Tyler's place and saw it and ate a small lunch that his wife (Shannon) had made for us. It was a good small visit. They also seemed glad that somebody (an uncle or aunt) had finally stopped in to see their place. We left, and headed on home.

Our daughter had another practice for dance. We picked her up about a half hour before that ended to head to Pam and Anne's house so we could have dinner and congratulate Zach on his acceptance to Johns Hopkins University. It was a good spaghetti dinner that Pam had made (Anne can't do it now because she is recovering from her operation) and a good visit. My son wanted to stay over because he didn't want to go to church today. He didn't get that opportunity.

This morning was church. Allie wasn't in church, so my wife got to go to Relief Society and then I sat with her in Sunday School. That was a nice change. This evening, I took my son and daughter and went to an Eagle Court of Honor. Craig (my sons best friend) got his Eagle and we were able to visit with a couple of people there. It was good to see the accomplishments of him.

Over the past couple of days my son has been playing with my Netflix account. He can watch any of their instant movies on his PC and he is exploring to see what movies to watch. I have moved all the "R" rated movies so they don't show up on the list, and he just wishes that some movies like Harry Potter were on the list. Overall, I think he will enjoy that part of this package, though I am seeing reasons that I probably should be on the two DVD's at a time list. For now, I will stick with the one at a time, because we really shouldn't be watching a ton of DVD's.

Well, that's the week (minus one day).

50th Birthday, Mothers Day, and other stuff

Thursday was my wife's 50th birthday. It is hard to believe that she is that old. She doesn't look it, but has the wisdom of a 50 year old woman. I just hope that I will be so wise when I reach my 50th in two more birthdays.

Anyway, I went to work that day because I had a users group meeting with IBI. I was able to get in a couple of hours of work and then went with Paul to the meeting at Associated Foods. One of the scheduled presentations did not take place because somebody didn't show up. Other than that, we were able to learn of some of the features of the product coming from IBI. There was a lunch and then I headed out to pick up the cake and the balloons for my wife. I drove those over to my in-laws home so we could have a party there later.

Dee Anne arrived home before I did (she was taken to lunch by Sister Lambourne). Soon after I arrived home, I handed her her present. It was tickets to the Sandy Amphitheater. The shows we will be going to are: Ryan Shupe and the Rubber Bands, West Side Story, Eclipse, Arrival: The Music of Abba (I may not make this one), Clint Black (this one was the mothers day surprise), the Bellamy brothers, Charlie Jenkins, and Jason Hewlett. I told her that this would be my birthday present as well as Fathers Day too, since I will be going with her. She said that she is going to take me up on that offer. She seemed to like this as a gift, and I thought it was a great gift. Anyway, I think we'll have some fun this summer going to these events.

After the kids arrived home from school, we headed over to the Wachs house. Of course the balloons and the cakes were there. We had dinner there instead of going out because Anne has a bad back and wouldn't be able to sit through anything. The food was good, and the company was good. Well, at least mostly.

My father-in-law got in on the Word of Wisdom and started to knock the Mormons saying that caffeine from any source is against the Word of Wisdom. I said that it was not. In the long run he pulled out a Doctrine and Covenants that was published in the 1960's that had a commentary included that I had never seen. He started reading from the commentary stating that this was scripture. I told him it was not, just the scripture was scripture and the other was opinion. He said that this was written by Joseph Smith and he was the mouthpiece of God. I finally showed him that the commentary was written by Hyrum M. Smith and another guy. He said that Hyrum was the father of Joseph, and I told him that he was the brother. He then said that he was close to him (which I agreed with). Looking closer at some dates I finally concluded that this wasn't the Hyrum Smith I was thinking (I hadn't noticed the M initial at first). I pointed this out to him after the fact. The problem was, this got quite argumentative. Zach and Meghan left at one point and we got things toned down and then Zach came back and said a comment that started it all up again. Melanie also got in on it, and that wasn't good for her mental health. Sometimes I just have to learn to shut my mouth up. It is just so frustrating to me when Rod takes things that are important to me and messes with them. My wife was a bit upset at me for not giving it up. I kind of screwed up her birthday and for that I was (and am) truly sorry.

Oh, Dee Anne got a warmer with some scents that replaces the idea of candles in the house. She'll get some good use out of that.

Friday was just another day. We didn't do too much but I was home with my wife. We did a little bit of shopping and then got home in time for the kids to come home. It was just a lazy day. Our son ended up going to the conference Center with some of the other young men and he is finally going to do the props in the Day of Celebration.

I received an email from work that said it was from Ray and Nina. Being that it was a memo from the president of my company, I decided I had better get on my computer to read it. I was able to VPN into work, but couldn't attach to my PC at work. I ended up calling Paul instead. He told me the basics of the memo, and then I was able to sign in and get it. It basically said that some people had been laid off from work and that Ray would answer questions on Monday and Tuesday about their actions. They also said that for now they are hoping there will be no more. So, it looks like I pulled through that all OK. It's always scary when you know of things like this going on.

I was to go on Saturday and take a few boys. I was called the morning of the thing and told not to pick up the Walker boys. My daughter was texted telling me not to pick up another, so now I was down to taking two boys. One of those was not home. I picked up Tom and we went to the Conference Center. I only stayed for a little while because they had enough vehicles without me there. I came home so I could do things at home rather than sitting up at the Conference Center. Of course, my daughter informed us that our son was supposed to be there as well.

A little later in the day on Saturday, Pam showed up with Zach (Anne was already at our place) so they could drop off some of his stuff while he is going to Germany for the summer. We had cleaned out our den so we could put his futon in there. I made some peach ice cream with our Vita Mix machine, and they all enjoyed eating that. It is a refreshing healthful dish of ice cream. The only reason I made it was because my wife was busy doing hair. She works so hard. I don't know how she does it because she is always tired with her fibromyalgia.

Sunday was Mothers day. Since I had already given my wife her mothers day gift, I only had to give her a card. However, I had decided to make her breakfast in bed. I had taken the dog out for a walk first because we had poison on the lawn to kill the weeds. We would water that in later in the evening. Anyway, I put together the Egg McMuffins. I made two types, sausage and Canadian Bacon. I went and woke my wife up with hers and then was on my way out of the bedroom when the smoke detectors went off. I stopped that and told my wife that at least I had woken her up pleasantly rather than with the smoke detectors which was how the kids woke up. They went off a second time. The only thing I can think of that set them off would be that I forced some English Muffins into the toaster for the fourth time when the toaster was too hot. I really didn't see nor smell any smoke, but it did add excitement to the morning, and it makes for a good story to tell.

Church went as normal, and then after church we went to the in-laws. I was warned not to argue with my father-in-law, but nothing ever came up there so it was easy. We had pizza over there and handed a couple of gifts around. We then went to the cemetery so Zach could put some flowers on his mothers grave. After all of this, we went to my moms house and just chatted with Glen and Shelly as well as my parents. The kids let us know that they were ready for some ice cream.

After arriving home, I set up our hose so my wife could plant some flowers on Monday outside. In doing so, I talked to my next door neighbor. I felt impressed to ask him about his job. He told me that he has been out of work since January. He doesn't speak English very well (as if I do) and it was a bit hard to talk to him. But, I was able to tell him of the LDS employment services and at first he was stand-offish because he doesn't want to be converted. I think I got through to him that it would not be for conversion, but to get him a job. I told him I would find out more about it. I still am waiting for a call back from one of the guys in my ward about this. He also asked me for some DVD's that he saw advertised on the TV. I have seen those advertisements and they tell them to call the 800 number or to ask your Mormon neighbor. With the language gap as well as he couldn't remember the name of the DVD, I was left to figure that one out. I did give him a DVD that we had called "The Testaments". I hope it had Spanish on it rather than just the subtitles, but I'm sure I'll hear of that at some time. Anyway, it was a good conversation that I had with him (even though communication is difficult).

Today, I went to the meeting that Ray had to answer questions. He was straight forward with the questions that were asked and told us what had led up to this (the economy being a key factor). He told us that he couldn't promise any more lay offs, but that we were at least taking a break (those were his words) from it. Of course, he is hoping it is a forever break.

I went to the LDS Distribution Center to see if I could get those free DVD's. They didn't have them there, but gave me the phone numbers that I needed to contact. I did call those numbers. In the long run, I am going to have the missionaries drop some off. I am still waiting for their phone calls too. It will be good if I can get this guy over to the church for the Employment Services. I hope I can help him in my own little way.

Stress Relief

I have had an issue hanging over my head for about two weeks. I finally got rid of part of the stress today. There will still be stress but not for all of the same reasons.

My job, like many other jobs is being looked at more closely by management because of what the economy is doing these days. The president of the company has told management that dead wood needs to be cleaned up. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't see myself as dead wood, but, we need to make sure that we don't even look that way to those in management. Now, for the issue.

Tickets to the Taylor Swift concert were made available to me as an employee. I had to pay for them, but it was a pretty good deal for me to be able to get tickets in the company suite for this event. I jumped on it because we thought it would be a good gift for our daughter on her birthday (it was). When I went up to pick up those tickets I talked with the Presidents secretary for a little bit. The conversation started out with her telling me to enjoy. I told her I was too old, that these were for my daughter. She then said I'm not that old. I said I was old enough to have a heart attack. She started asking me questions about that and about the other two in my department that had the heart attacks. I was up there for about 15 minutes.

At two points the president came out of his office. I asked him about a break I had heard he had in his water line on the first one. On the second one he asked his secretary to come into his office when she got a minute. We were done with our conversation anyway and I left.

A couple of days after this, we were all sat down in smaller groups and told that the President (without naming names) told my boss that an IT person had spent two hours talking with his secretary. My first thought was that this wasn't me because I knew I hadn't been there for two hours, but everything seemed to be that it was me. I went to my boss and told him that I had talked to her for about 15 minutes, and I may be the culprit, which I hate to think the president would think that was two hours because it doesn't put me in a good light at all. Well, from that point I had the extra worry. Would I be seen as the dead wood because of something like this? I didn't tell my wife about it because one of us worrying was plenty. I didn't want her to worry, especially as she is approaching her 50th birthday (tomorrow).

Yesterday I went to a meeting that all employees were requested to go to on how to handle irate people. It was a safety meeting. The secretary was in that meeting. As we were walking out, she approached me and said, "Sorry if I got you in trouble". I told her that she hadn't, but I had worried about it. She told me that she had gone to the VP over us and told her that I hadn't talked to her for two hours, that it was 20 minutes tops, and that she felt she had initiated it. Well, now I knew it was me. That didn't make me feel a whole lot better. Since I knew it was me, I felt I could go talk to Debi (the VP). She wasn't available that day, but this morning she contacted me as soon as she got in. I went and talked to her about it all.

Debi did a lot to belay my fears. She said that the Presidents secretary had talked to her and basically what she had told me she told Debi. This would not be a factor in any decisions about me staying or going if it comes down to that. Debi is trying to help us all keep our jobs by telling the truth about our jobs. If they get rid of one of us in IT, then the departments all suffer because somebody else has to add to their already overloaded workload. There is also some training that would have to go into that. While claims and policy holders are down, that doesn't effect the work of the IT department, and indeed more just keeps on coming at us. If they dump any one of us (we all have specialized areas of work), timelines will not be able to be met that have been given on the roadmap. Anyway, I certainly hope nobody in my department is laid off. Being laid off is a terrible thing. I wouldn't wish that on anybody. I am also hoping that the economy has bottomed out now (as they are suggesting it may have) so it has nowhere to go but up.

Anyway, we'll see what happens. I had some relief tonight from that extra stress and it felt sweet.

Birthday - Phase II

My last posting was about the family birthday party for our daughter. We got that part over and done and it was a success. On Friday, was phase II of this whole process. This was where we allowed two girls to come over and spend time with our daughter. It was a sleepover.

The two girls that came over were Melina and Kiera. My wife had gone to the store and gotten a bunch of snacks for this phase. She made some homemade salsa to go with some chips in that new VitaMix machine. That was quite tasty. She also made up some fruit dip for the fruit that she bought and then there was some vegetable dip for the vegetables that she bought. She also bought some pretzels and chocolate that she would make it so they could dip into the chocolate if they so chose. They didn't so she didn't.

At the start of the party, they all went to Meghan's room. Then, they came out and some gifts were opened. They then snacked on the stuff that my wife had taken the time to get. She worked hard, so I was glad when there were left overs. I also ate some of it while they were there.

I took the girls to watch "17 Again". The girls seemed to like that movie. Just before they got home from that, I had run to get a pepperoni pizza. My wife had it cooked pretty close to the time that I arrived home with them. When they got in the car they were all laughing. I guess with the tinted windows they weren't sure it was me, so my daughter said something about if the ape man were in there, it was the right vehicle. It's always nice to know what your daughter really thinks of you, huh?

Our son spent most of the night in Provo at a college (not BYU) with his band. He got home around 9:00 that evening which was nice for the girls. They watched a DVD for the night and then got to bed around 10:00 in the evening because my daughter and Kiera had to be to a dance practice in the morning. We stayed in our room for most of the night to stay out of their way.

Saturday morning, we got up. My wife made some buttermilk pancakes and some eggs for the girls while I did the easier task of cooking up the bacon. We made enough for all of us. I thought it was interesting that our son came out in his gym shorts (what he wears to bed) and then realizing that other girls were there he went and changed into his regular clothes. We sent Melina home, and I took the other two girls to the church so they could go to the Jordan campus of Salt Lake Community College Seminary building for their dance practice. There weren't quite enough drivers there so I drove a few people over. Sister Christiansen told me she would call me up when they were done. I went home until just before noon when I was called.

Not too much else went on in our household for the rest of the day. I ran a couple of errands and some laundry was done. The house was already somewhat clean because it was cleaned before all this birthday stuff. It was raining most of the day so I really couldn't get out and mow the lawn. I'm not looking forward to that because we have had quite a bit of rain and the grass is growing too good.

Today was church. I had to run home to get some pretzels because Allie wanted some for a snack in my wife's class. I then had to run home to get some anti-bacterial stuff because Allie was a bit sick and my wife really didn't want to catch whatever it is that she had. Our daughter claimed to be sick just before Sacrament meeting so my wife took her home. We are wondering if she was sick or if this was a form of avoidance because of some other issues between her and my wife concerning makeup. We have had to take a step and tell our daughter that she won't be putting on makeup for a week as a punishment for the things that are going on. I am not going to go into that here, but it seems to be an appropriate punishment.

Anyway, today was mostly spent relaxing around the house.