Eclipse

Friday our kids went to the stake youth conference. My wife and I were able to get out and went to dinner at TGI Fridays because we had a buy one entree and get one free, as well as a free appetizer. So, that wasn't too costly. Of course we were looking at the weather because we had the concert that night in an outdoor amphitheater. I didn't go with the Scouts to stay out in a park in Manti and watch the Manti pageant.

Anyway, we got to the Sandy Amphitheater, and went in. They mentioned that they may have to have some of us go back to the cars because there was a burst of bad weather coming our way with lightening and the like. They weren't wrong. The concert was to start at 8:00, and just before 8:00, all people were sent to their cars. They would notify us when the concert would start by flashing the lights. The wind blew like crazy and the rain came down hard. Lightening was all over the place. Inside a home this would be pretty, but being out there, it wasn't so great. It wasn't too bad though because we were in our vehicle. We were watching the cars next to us that had a bunch of young kids (18-20) playing around. We commented that we were too old for our windows to fog up while their windows were completely fogged over.

The storm lasted for about 20 minutes and then we were signaled to go in. We dried off our seat and sat for a bit when they announced that all people could move forward. We hurried forward to find a couple of seats (people had left early because of the weather) and were right in the middle of the front section. They weren't bad seats. But, we had to dry them off first. We did have on rain coats, and were glad to have them for the warmth if nothing else. At the end of the concert we took them off and it was slightly chilly, but not too bad.

The concert was good, and we were entertained more than we thought we would be. Eclipse is a group of guys that do all the musical instruments with their own voices. We had fun, and then headed home. We were slightly worried about the dog because she may have been scared in our home. She seemed fine though. I took her for a late night walk, as it was beautiful outside.

Saturday, my wife and I decided not to do too much. We did have to wait for the kids to come home from youth conference. They didn't come home until around 4:30. Our son had a sunburn and said it happened today. Neither he, nor my daughter thought it was that great of a youth conference, but my son said differently in church today. I'm sure he was just being the diplomat.

Early in the morning I went across the street to one of our neighbors that was holding a garage sale. I just mostly talked to them about their upcoming marriage. They are getting rid of some of the stuff that is duplicated by putting the two of them together. We then went to pick up some plate holders as my wife is changing the house decorations around again.

Later, I went to a couple of stores to get me some new pants since mine had the broken zipper this last week. I also had to get me a new belt as well as my son. He also got a couple of T-Shirts that were only $4 each. I figured you couldn't get much of a better deal than that.

We stayed up too late Saturday night, and I was tired when I got up. My wife was worse because she had a headache all night that kept her awake. She stayed home from church and I went to church with the kids. It was just a normal day there. We didn't do much else tonight.

Deaths Sad Tale

This week started out with not much to really talk about. It's not unlike most weeks, but sometimes I talk too much.

Tuesday, I was told that the Young Men (Scouts) were going to meet at 6:30 PM and that we should wear our scout shirts. We were going to go to the Bingham Copper Mines. They let Scouts in free of charge, thus the shirts (which we try to wear most weeks anyway). Well, I got there on time and some of the other boys did as well. All of these boys already had the merit badge (Citizenship in the Nation) that this visit met part of the requirements on, but they were willing to go. The others came a little bit later (they were passing off another merit badge) and they had already met this requirement. We decided that since none of the boys complained about going here for the others, and came and were ready to go, that we would go out for shakes instead. We went to a fast food place and got all those shakes. We just used it as a time to get to know the boys and for the boys to just be able to be together. We don't normally do that, so, I think it was actually good for them. I also didn't mind because I got to get home earlier.

Today, at work, we were able to go to a park for a department lunch. There were a couple of games that we played and we had a nice extended lunch. It was kind of fun.

One thing that happened today was that there were two celebrity deaths. Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. Farrah Fawcett's was expected while Michael Jackson's was not. Fawcett had cancer that took her, but they are still waiting to find out what it was that took Jackson.

One thing that I find a bit disturbing is how when celebrities die like this, all the people know about it and a big deal is made, but forgotten are the other "regular" people who die. For example, today a little boy died at the age of 7 from an ATV accident. It received some attention in the news, but nothing like this. My wife pointed that out to me. Also, about last week there were three children deaths in one day. One died in a Motocross accident (age 8), one died by drowning in a friends pool (I think 2 years old), and one died of a gunshot wound accident at her birthday party (I think 5). The fact that I don't know more about these people (let alone their names) is kind of sad. I'm not saying that we should make a big deal out of their deaths, but certainly we should probably make a bigger deal out of them than we do when a celebrity dies. My wife watched a special 20/20 on both of these celebrities tonight. This will be heard around the world for the next week or so.

Fathers Day and other stuff

As usual, I need to go back and tell of a few things that have gone on in my personal life.

On Thursday, we had decided to go to the churches dry pack facility to do some dry packing of foods for our food storage. On the way there, we stopped off at Taco Bell and had a couple of things each on their under $1 menu. So, it didn't cost us too much, and we had a fairly decent meal for what we paid.

We got to the dry pack facility and made ourselves look completely silly with Aprons, hairnets (beard net for me) and gloves. We grabbed a few items that people had packed previously that we thought we could use. We then went in to start packing some things. We did Pinto Beans, Black Beans, Apple Chips and dry milk. Then with other stuff we picked up the bill came to around $250. But, it makes us feel good that we are at least trying to do something to get our years supply in. It is fairly inexpensive, and the nice part is that there are no taxes on it.

We had Sister Cheshire there with us along with Sister Ashton, and then a little later along came Brother and Sister Stein. Of course we helped them put together some sugar, hot chocolate mix and a few other things as well. I think our kids enjoyed doing this together as a family as well. I am almost wondering if we should bring our in-laws out to do some as well. Well, we got home from that, and thought it was at least some stuff done that we should be doing. It has been of particular concern to us since the economy hasn't been going so well. We will probably be doing more of the same come next month.

Friday was a day off of work for me. I got up and checked on my jobs from work because of changes that I had made changes too and I wanted to make sure they hadn't had a problem. I was OK there. I also spent some time trying to fix some issues my daughter has been having on my own PC at home. After a time I got all of that taken care of. I was glad of that, but my wife thought all the time I spent in there was doing work. I told her that it wasn't.

Anyway, our daughter went with our neighbors to a pool around noon and we took our son with us and went out to do some shopping for some groceries for Saturdays family reunion as well as Sunday and fathers day. Our son was with us to make sure we got food that is edible to a teen as in himself. We also picked up some candy and containers for our fathers day gifts. We bought them Salt Water Taffy, Peanuts (in the shell) and some kisses including a specialty kiss that had the cordial cherry flavor. We bought a gallon pitcher container that they could use and then bought a sugar free drink to go with that. We would put on a picture that said chill out on the container and hand that to them for Fathers Day.

After coming home from that, we relaxed for a little bit of time and then prepared to go to the Open house at the Oquirrh Temple. We had decided to go with the Srey family. We met up with them and headed out. Of course there is a video presentation as you start the open house. It lasted for just over ten minutes where the purpose of temples is briefly discussed. We then went on a self tour of the temple. Pon asked me a few questions about baptism for the dead and how we would baptize a spirit. I did tell him we don't dig up the bodies because that would just foul up the water. I told him that I would go in and stand in for and behalf of so and so. I think he came to an understanding of that. It was fun to go through with them and then we went to the refreshments and talked with them for awhile. Of course, there were some of our ward members who were working there and we talked with them as well. We also saw the Goff family (from our old ward). We also looked up at the Angel Moroni that had been hit with lightening and he had a black face as well as the trumpet he was holding. I don't know how they are going to get up there to do more gold leaf on him. Somebody told us that it was because he wasn't grounded enough that he became blackened from the storm the previous Saturday. Overall, it was a good time, and I think that Pon and Marie felt the spirit of the temple.

Saturday morning came along, and we had put some of the things together that we would need for the family reunion at Mt. Aire. We finished with a few more things and then I headed up with our kids. My wife stayed home to take care of Lizzy and would be coming up later. I got through the gate by a person who was already up there, and my little brother had called up my wife to see where I was. This had her concerned because she knew that I should've been there by then. I guess I should've gone back down to give her a call to tell her I was OK, but I didn't because I was concerned about getting back in through the gate. I was in a little bit of trouble for that because she spent a couple of hours worrying and then finally decided that police or somebody would've called her by now if there was a problem.

It rained all day long Saturday. At least there is a Bowery at Uncle Bobs cabin that we were able to be under for the most part. The hikers decided not to go on the hike because of the rain. Some of the kids still played around in the mud, and parents all congregated and talked. I had various conversations with various people around there. I also finally went to look inside my Uncle Genes cabin to see how it had come out. I have never really looked at it after the construction was all finished. It is quite nice.

There was the rock competition where people find rocks and then decorate them to show what that rock looks like to them. One little girl there told Diane (when Diane asked what it looked like) that hers looked just like a rock. My brother Larry put one rock in that he said looked just like a cookie.

Speaking of Larry, I got an email from him the other day that discussed his progress with the disease he has and our fast that we had. It seems to have helped him along. He has been able to get off the oxygen and is working on getting his energy back. He is still in pain as far as his fingers and toes go with those bone spurs, but says he can deal with that. He feels that it has come about because of all the prayers that have gone toward him and his health. He did say that he still can't play the piano, but then he never could. Anyway, it was an upbeat health message coming from him. He certainly has seen his share of miracles over all of this time with this disease (scleroderma).

After lunch, we all went into the cabin (this is a bit unusual, but the weather called for it) to have the fish pond for the kids and the adults listened to an interview that Eric had done many years ago (1982) with my grandma Rose, since it was her birthday this day. It was fun hearing her voice and hearing of her life as she saw it when she was a little girl. We talked a bit about some remembrances of Grandma and the life she had led, and then broke up for awhile to do whatever we wanted. The rain had stopped for a bit. My wife had come up about this time.

Since there was no rain, I went down to play volleyball with the group. We got all of that going, and had played one full game and were in the second game when some raindrops started to come down. We continued to play, and before anybody realized anything we had a downpour. It was coming down hard. You couldn't look up and see the ball coming through very well because of all the rain in your face, but we continued to play until we were called back up to go inside the cabin. We were all drenched.

There was a brief fireside meeting in the cabin. My dad told about the various events that had happened in his family and then each of my aunts did the same. They then all had a chance to bear their testimonies along with their spouses. It did end in a spiritual manner. Of course, now the sun came out. We had decided to leave.

When we came down from there, we went to the Wachs house briefly so we could pick up Lizzy. We then went on home.

Today is Fathers Day. We had decided that we weren't going to church because of the Swine Flu epidemic that has been going on in our neighborhood. We feel that both my wife and I (mostly me) are high risk if we catch this flu. So, I got to sleep in. My wife made me a wonderful breakfast of stuffed French Toast and some turkey bacon. It was quite enjoyable. I then was just kind of lazy around the house, and read the paper.

Around 2:30 we headed out for the Wach house. We grabbed some steaks and some salad fixings and went over. My wife, along with Pam and Anne were busy putting together salads, and cheeseballs (one that she said she had forgotten the cheese on) and other things while we all visited. I helped a little bit with the grill when that time came up. The steaks were good.

We then went to my parents house briefly to give that gift to dad and then went back to the Wachs. My wife and I then took Margaret to a viewing of a niece through marriage, and it was kind of sad because she was only 27 years old. While we were there, another viewing was going on and there were a lot of people there. As I looked around, I saw ankle length dresses and sleeves covering their whole arms. They also had their hair in buns. Not surprisingly, the name of the deceased in that case was Barlow (a well known polygamous family).

We went back home and found out that Rod had come up all dressed ready to go to the viewing that we had assumed he had fallen asleep and really didn't seem like he wanted to go. We felt a bit bad that we hadn't checked on him before we went.

Anyway, that's what's going on in my life currently. Kind of a busy weekend.

Oran

Not a lot has happened since I last wrote here. We are being bombarded by rain, and it is driving me crazy. This is not normal Utah weather (especially in June). It has rained every day for the entire week, and some of the rainstorms have been quite big. On the plus side, I have been able to turn off my sprinklers for the week and am saving a few dollars for the watering. The air conditioning also hasn't had to happen so there is more there. But, we did have to turn on the heat for a day or two (my wife gets cold).

Tuesday was a day that some of my nieces and nephews came over and took our son and daughter to see the new temple that is practically next door to us. Oran (from North Carolina) was with them. They seem to have enjoyed going to the temple, though my accident prone daughter thought there was a door in the tent that would open automatically, and when it didn't she ran into it. I don't know what to do with my kids.

My wife left for the day to spend a day with her good friend Ann. Ann is the one who brought my wife out of her inactivity in the church and turned her life around. They were able to go to lunch and then my wife went with her to be with some of the women in her ward to bake some things. My wife really enjoyed that, and I think she had a great day.

After the kids got done with the temple thing, they dropped off my kids plus Oran. Our daughter went to her friends house, and Oran and Travis just hung around at our home. I was a bit late home from work because of a meeting that I had that went over time. I am on a committee to try to find out what programs work should and should not support on peoples PC's at work. Anyway, I got home with pizzas and my son and Oran were looking at what movie they could watch online. It turns out that my speakers are not good enough, so they really didn't do that. My wife came home after I had cooked a pizza. Our daughter said she was fine with cold pizza.

Time went on. Our daughter decided that she wanted to go to Young Women with Kiera. I told her no originally because the reason ours was cancelled was because of swine flu which is still hitting to close to home. We changed that when she informed us that she would be going to Kieras instructors house for it. We brought her home to have some pizza and took her right back. After all of that, I went to the store to pick up a few items so we could have lunch and breakfast available for Oran and the rest of the family. My wife thought it kind of humorous (and kind of not) that Oran didn't end up eating the Lucky Charms type cereal that I picked up. She hates for us to have sugar cereal for our kids, and guess which one they picked.

We watched Forever Strong on a DVD that I had ordered from Netflix. I had already watched it online, but wanted for my family to see it (our daughter watched it today). Oran said that he hadn't even heard of this movie in North Carolina, but had watched it while he was here and this was his second viewing. He said that he had wanted to watch it again, and would probably be purchasing it at home. It is based on a true story about a Rugby player for a local school (Highland High) in my area.

We set up a cot for Oran in Travis room and all went to bed. Well, my wife and I talked with Oran till about midnight that night as we don't get to see him that often.

Not a lot went on today (other than more rain). At work I was busy with some problems but that is what keeps me in a job. Anyway, that's about it.

Swine Flu (Part 2)

I didn't think I would be putting more in here on the swine flu, but I was wrong.

Saturday morning, I was going through my emails and found I had one from the Relief Society (I get my wife's Relief Society things for her). It told me that Church will be canceled on Sunday, as well as all activities of the ward for the whole week. No young men/young women or anything else. So, it looks like my sons camp has also been canceled because of this. I'm not sure if he was looking forward to that or not, but there isn't a lot we can do about it.

There isn't a lot to talk about that has happened this past couple of days. I can't think of anything out of the ordinary for Friday. Saturday was spent in cleaning the house (and my daughter got her room clean). Of course there was laundry, and I went out and mowed the lawn since we had some time that it wasn't raining outside. There are a ton of mushrooms throughout my lawn from all of this rain. It rained on Friday, Saturday, and today. It looks like we will have rain again tomorrow as well.

Around 4:00 on Saturday, we went to our daughters recital. We talked with a family that is in our ward and they said that they were one of the families that had had the swine flu. They also told us that there is another family in our neighborhood who has it (though they didn't know who that was) and there is one other family that they know of in our old ward (remember we split) who also had it. It seems there is a major outbreak in the Elk Meadows elementary school (some of our neighbors go there). It sounds like it is a good thing to cancel things for the week so this can be taken care of.

Back to the recital. Our daughter had her recital, and I thought she did a wonderful job on the piece she played. It was also interesting to hear the progress of others that have been in that class. This may be our daughters last recital. She is getting ready to be in the Bingham Marching Band. This recital they actually had recorded by the place and we will be able to get a DVD of that. We may have to show the piano teacher how to burn them though.

While we were there, I looked at a player piano that had a TV inside of it and of course the piano keys went down with the music from the piano. I was told they also have one that you can hook up your ipod, and turn it into a player piano. I never did get to see that. We went to Wendys afterwards and ordered off the dollar menu.

I went shopping at Smiths after the recital, and got some meat that was on sale. It was the roast that my wife made for us today, and of course we have a few in the freezer now as the sale was too good to pass up. After I arrived home from that, we sat down as a family and watched a DVD. It was Invisible and was pretty good (we had seen it before though).

Today we were able to sleep in because we didn't have church. It was a lazy day all day long. We put the roast in the crockpot so we could have that later, and then just kind of did nothing. I took our dog out for a walk and ran into Brother Cosper. He told me that he is our new home teacher along with Brother Bently. It started to rain so I had to head on home.

I talked for a little while with my daughter in Florida. It has been awhile since we had communicated so that was a good thing. It was Saturday, and it stormed really hard while I was talking with her. She could even hear it over the phone, and when our power flickered I lost contact with her because I was talking on a cordless phone.

Anyway, that's about it. We are just hoping to keep ourselves distanced from the swine flu that is all around us.

Swine Flu

I know it's kind of late, but there has been a new flu virus going around the world the is called the swine flu. It is the H1N1 virus, and is something that can be passed between pigs and humans, and from what I've heard even birds. It has been a bit scary because there are no vaccinations against it, and right now, though it is mild, they know it will mutate and probably get worse. It seems to have originated in Mexico City, and there have been some deaths down there, but there have also been a few deaths (not too many) in the United States. Why am I writing this down now? It is because tonight, my daughter told me that the Walker twins have the swine flu. I will have to check that out to make sure it's accurate, but, it is not good that it is in my neighborhood and these two I deal with in the Scouting program as well as in the Deacons quorum. So, I have been exposed (note: I talked with one of them on 6/12 and verified it. He told me that the tests had not been done but since theirs is the type A this late in the season the doctor said that it is a 99% chance that it is the swine flu). Well, that's just grand. One more thing to have to worry about. I usually don't fall ill even when others around me are, so I am hoping that this will be the case with this one. I also hope that nobody in my family gets this. It is a bit close to home though. We should also make sure that all the boys that are with these guys is aware of this so parents can take the appropriate precautions.

Well, our daughter has continued to go to EFY and seems to be enjoying it. Tonight she said that today was the funnest day and it was that way because of the Spirit. It was also the most spiritual day so far. Yesterday, I guess she got carried (an object lesson) by a boy that she finds to be quite attractive. Her counselor (Nannette) said that her face was just a glowing and that you should've seen her face. It scares me a bit that my daughter is so boy crazy, but that is the way it is. I just need to make sure her energies are put in the correct ways. She is a mere child of 15. I have not had to deal with this type of stuff with our son. I am glad that she is enjoying her time there though. We pick her up nightly.

My son has mostly been home. He has been working on flat tires and a few other things. He also went with my wife today and ended up helping his grandpa with his yard and made a few bucks doing so. Tonight, my wife went to a baby shower for Shannon and I stayed home. I watched Forever Strong (which was a good movie) and then picked up our daughter and Cambry. My wife made it home in the time that I was gone.

We have had a ton of rain, so I have been able to turn off the sprinkling system for a bit. We have gotten too much and there are homes that are flooding in various parts of the Salt Lake Valley. Today there was standing water on the freeway which makes for some standing traffic.

Well, that's about it.

Another week

It's been awhile since I wrote here. Life has brought more of the same, but there are a couple of things I should note.

The kids have finished their school year. They are both happy to be out of school. Our son stayed home from school on starting Wednesday the 3rd. He said there wasn't anything to do at school. Instead, he volunteered to clean the garage. This probably came about because my wife has told me time after time that I need to clean the garage. I was really grateful for him doing that. Our daughter stayed in school until Thursday. This was because her grade had the Lagoon day on that day. She skipped school on Friday.

With the kids out of school, we met up with Pam and Anne on Thursday evening (after picking up our daughter) over at the Wachs house. They of course took them home to spend some time with them. I think I kind of ticked off Margaret when I didn't leave the dog outside with her. I didn't want the dog to run away and that could've easily happened.

Friday, I got up and mowed the lawn. The grass has been growing pretty darn fast and it all had to be done. I then went to pick up our sons yearbook (he wasn't able to get it because they had that we owed them $30). I had to get his band teacher there because the $30 was paid through his arts account that he sold cookie dough for. I got that all taken care of. I also had to go to one more teacher while I was there to change his attendance. By so doing, his grade was raised from and A- to an A. This gave him a perfect 4.0 average for the quarter.

We had received in the mail the drive shaft for our Vita-mix that I broke when I stuck a spatula into the machine. I found out that this is meant to break rather than screw up the motor when somebody like me does something stupid like sticking a spatula into it. Anyway, I put that all together. It will be good having the machine so we can make some of the things we have been making with it. That cost me about $13 by the time you added taxes.

Our vacuum cleaner had broken down, so we decided we had better get a new one (we have to clean the house after all). We decided on a Dyson. The Hoover that we have really sucks (and not in a good way). I called Costco, and then Sears. There was a DC17 animal (meaning that it is made for families with animals) that we decided to get. It was $550 at Sears, and $430 at Costco. Sears told me they would match the price plus give me 10% of the difference (which was another $12 off). We went ahead with the purchase. It has a whole 5 year parts and labor warranty as well. And, since we bought it from Sears, we can simply take it to their service department for convenience. We are completely happy with the purchase. We were amazed at the dirt that it picked up. I thought we had somewhat of a clean house, but there was more dirt in the carpets than I would've imagined. We'll probably have to empty the cylinder a few times for our daughters room.

Friday evening, my wife and I went to a nice dinner at TGI Fridays and then went to the Sandy Amphitheater for Ryan Shupe and the Rubber band. The guys that opened that, were OK, but certainly not good. Ryan Shupe, on the other hand, was excellent. He is kind of a folk singer that does a lot of playing around on stage, and the people in his band also do so. It was quite an enjoyable evening. The wind let up just enough for the concert and we were grateful for that. It was a little colder than we would've liked it to have been, but it didn't rain.

Saturday was a day of chores and stuff. We also watched a DVD that we had hanging around the house. At around 4:00 we went to pick up our kids in West Bountiful at Pam and Anne's. They had a salad dinner that they put together for us. While we were eating dinner they said that they were going to go hear Paula Poundstone at the gay pride celebration in Salt Lake. The thing I found to be a bit humorous, was that Pam said that she used the 'F' word all the time. She said that she wasn't crude or anything, but just used the 'F' word every other word. I laughed inside to think that somebody would talk about somebody not being crude but using that kind of language. It kind of goes to show what our society has become. We are too used to certain things in this society where we would actually make a comment like that.

Sunday was spent at church as usual. I did finally get Brother Pena to come over to my next door neighbors house to talk with him about not working. I needed somebody that speaks Spanish, and it was good to get this done. I felt like a third wheel understanding almost nothing of what they spoke. I did ask what they had talked about and he said that they mostly just said hello. He didn't think he is seriously looking for a job because he told him that some jobs he doesn't have a high school diploma for nor a GED. He also said that some jobs would pay him less than what he is getting in unemployment. Anyway, I have finally handed off that issue and will need to only check on it once in awhile now.

Today and yesterday I came into work and just did that. We had a nice rainstorm tonight, so I will be able to turn off my sprinkling system for a bit. From what I am hearing we are going to have rain for most of the week.

I went to Young Men tonight where the Scouts were doing the Dentistry Merit Badge. I left a bit early because we needed to pick up our daughter and Cambry from EFY (Especially for Youth). It is a program that is run through BYU and is good for the kids to go to. Meghan was only able to get in because another girl dropped out. We just have to pay the money to the other girls mother soon. My wife says that she has made that money in doing a few peoples hair.

Well, that's about it.