Fall Concert

Weeks just keep on moving by. There isn't a whole lot going on, but I keep on hanging on.

Tuesday evening was Young Men. While my son went to a haunted house and my daughter cut out a pumpkin, I was with the Scouts doing a merit badge (Citizenship in the Community). Glen wasn't there because the church had a meeting for Young Men leaders (I can't believe they did it on a Tuesday night when we should be with our Young Men) so I was the lone leader in there for the Scouts (the 11 year old leader showed up for his one boy). The boys were kind of restless and I know that these merit badges aren't the easiest thing to sit through, but I had to actually threaten them that I would call their parents and they would have to bring one in with them if I had to kick them out for not paying attention. We have to give the counselors who take time out to come and help our boys get these merit badges. We did get through it and then they went into the gym and played a sort of dodge ball that looked more like kicking the ball at each other to me. I saw that my daughter had finished her pumpkin and after awhile I took her home. We did have to stop by the Woods house so she could pick up some leg warmers for the morning when she had to wear a dress to school because they had a competition on Wednesday night.

Well, our son said he had fun at the haunted house. He didn't talk too much about it although he did mention that one boy had to leave because he was a bit too scared. He hated having on a jacket with a hood because a boy behind him about choked him with it while he was hanging on to it.

Tonight, after having dinner, the kids went to their fall concert. My wife and I followed about 45 minutes later. We got their early and the concert was a full two hours. I though most of the groups did a pretty decent job. Our daughter had one group that she played in (3 songs) and our son had two groups that he played in (4 songs in one 3 songs in the other). Other than the fact that the program lasted too long, we enjoyed it. It was a full two hour program. One old lady behind us kept on complaining about a bunch of it and didn't like most of it. She left after her grandson played and told his parents to tell him that she liked his the best. It was pretty funny to hear somebody talking that way and speaking louder than she knew because she is hard of hearing. I hope I don't get that way, but have a feeling that I really won't have much of a choice. I already do things that I thought I didn't want to do when I got older when I was younger.

Eagle Project and Other stuff

This week went fast. Not too much to tell though.

Friday was a day off of work for me. I took the time to mow the lawn and get it winterized with a winterizing fertilizer. I was able to use up two that I had, but they were different kinds. Since I had done this (and watered it in) my wife is afraid to let our dog go out on our back lawn. This was taken care of by Saturday morning when it had rained through the night. My wife and I went to a nice lunch on Friday and just enjoyed our time together.

Saturday I did a few things around the house and then our daughter was a bit upset because she thought we had lost her friends sock that she had borrowed for a Marching Band competition. She was sure that she had thrown it into the laundry (along with 2 of her three pairs) but it was missing as are the other two pairs. We couldn't find it in the laundry room so I went with her to look for some socks for her competition. We weren't able to find anything that would work. We finally came home and she would just use some socks that our son had used. Then, my wife found the missing sock for her friend and said she would wash these. It was in our daughters closet (that's kind of what we thought).

I took care of turning the water off for our sprinkling system and cleaned out all the window wells to our house. It was good to just get some of this stuff done. My wife has wanted those window wells cleaned out for sometime. After grabbing a bite to eat, my son and I headed to the church for Brysons Eagle project. We headed to some hills behind the Draper temple to help fix up some of the bike trails that are there. We got there about 1:00 PM.

By the time we got there it was starting to drizzle outside. I thought of all the fun we were going to be having on these dirt trails in the rain. We were all given a pick and a rake/shovel thing to carry and then got to hike for about a mile to start working. It was raining off and on. By the time we stopped and were ready to start working a major hail storm hit. There was nowhere to hide. That, along with the lightening made for an interesting time. After that we just had some slight rain off an on. This made for a muddy trail and we all carried about 20 pounds of mud on our feet. We made sure the grade was good for rain to continue on down the mountain and took care of a few bumps that were along the trail. It was a good Eagle project but it was a miserable one. The weather was the worst part of the misery.

On the hike back, I had to get mad at one of the scouts who wasn't carrying his fair share of equipment. He seemed to think that the lighter he could go the better to everybody elses detriment. I made it so things were a bit more fair. Then, when we got back he took all the rest of the fiber one bars that were meant for everybody. He didn't know I'd seen him fill his pocket full of those and pretended that he only got one packet of gummies. I asked about what was in his pockets and forced him to share with the rest.

On the way down, we slid quite a bit. My car is all muddy now and I will have to go get it cleaned at some point. My wife was a bit upset that I haven't cleaned it yet. We picked up some pizza on the way down and had that at the Walkers home.

We got home and it felt good to get in a hot shower. We just kind of vegged for the rest of the evening. We did have to wait for our daughter to get home from her competition. The paper said she would be back by 10:30 in the evening, so I got to the school by then. I sat in the parking lot reading and relaxing until about 11:30. They finally got back. It sounds like the competition didn't go as well this time. They took third place again. A lot of that was because one of the horn players lost a tuning piece on his horn twice and stopped to pick it up which caused a problem for the people marching about. Our daughter wasn't too bummed out about that. It was late when we got home.

This morning I woke up tired. It was also hard to get our daughter out of bed, but we got up and got ready for church. Priesthood meeting with the deacons was about service. I then went to Sunday School with my wife and we talked about welfare. Just before Sacrament meeting I talked to the Lambournes so we could go over and hometeach them. Since I had some thoughts coming from Deacons quorum, I decided I would give them a lesson on service. Interestingly, that was what the Sacrament meeting was on. The Mabungas gave their talks in church previous to leaving to be a Temple President in the Philippines.

Our son had a meeting and as soon as he got home we went hometeaching. That went pretty well. We just talked for a bit, I gave a quick lesson and they gave us some nice warm cookies.

Once home, we decided that we would try to see Chantelle and Mikes new home. We gave them a call and went out and spent some time with them in Lehi. That was a nice visit. Not much else is going on. I am staying up late to watch a horror movie and then will go to bed.

Missionary Experience - Marching Band

Work went as normal today. I did call to see if my daughters Marching Band would need somebody to come out and help them with the events of the night. I was informed that they had enough chaperons, so I didn't try to get off of work early in order to do it.

Our son had done all of his calling of people for the missionary experience they were to have tonight, so we just had to go to the church and then go out and do it. There were four different groups going out. I knew my son didn't want me to go with his group, so I purposefully did not go to his group. My group went to the McDonald's house. Since we have two people in the ward with the same last name, Sister Peterson asked which one we were to go too. We went to that one. It was the wrong one. They had no idea that we were coming. They were gracious though and let us in. We had Dallin and Megan Christiansen as well as Josh Medeiros and Regan Jackson. Each of them had a part to speak to the McDonald's and each of them did their parts well. You could see some nervousness, but then, who wouldn't be nervous. It's just the way it goes sometimes. From what I hear, each of the group did well in what they had done. We had to call the other McDonald family and apologize for not showing up. That was the only bad thing that happened.

Our daughter had a Marching Band competition in Davis. She got home quite late. The itinerary said that they should be home by 11:00 PM, so I made sure to get to the school by that time. I ended up getting into the back seat of the SUV and laying down and reading a book called Manhunt on my Palm Pilot. It is about the assassination of President Lincoln and the manhunt for John Wilkes Boothe. It reads as if it were a story, but it is supposed to be factual from what I am seeing. I also got a little bit of rest. The buses finally rolled in around 11:30 and I got my daughter around 11:40. We then headed home.

She was quite excited. Bingham High got second place. That was nice that they finally beat out Orem. That was the goal. Graber had mentioned that they probably would not be able to beat TimpView this season, but the scores tonight said differently. My daughter informs me that they were only .25 points away from them. Out of a thousand points, that isn't all that far. They can get there and are hoping that on Saturday they can maybe beat TimpView. That would be great.

I need to see if I can get out of going on an Eagle project in order to go to the competition on Saturday. I don't know yet if that is the best thing to do. I will talk to my wife who is more level-headed than I am at times.

Empty Nester Party

We had the Empty Nester Party tonight. I left work a little bit early to pick up a couple of last minute items and to get home because my wife had been working hard all day. People started to come over around 6:00 in the evening (that's the time we put on the invitations) and we put an actor name on the back of each of them that had to do with a Halloween type of movie or TV show. They were to ask questions to figure out who it was that was on their back. Nobody sat down. They just started to visit wherever they were standing. We also had them put on necklaces or hats just to be silly while we were in the house.

All went well. My wife had made a nice roast and the rest of the people brought salads and desserts. All was good. Our son and daughter also got to come out and eat some of the food. Everybody just visited afterward and over all, I think everyone had a good time. They weren't there very long and had a good visit.

I cleaned up what I could from the party and we will get the house back to normal.

Pam Birthday

There really isn't a lot to write about. My wife and I have been working on getting the empty nesters party going that is going to be happening tomorrow evening. We went out shopping at Costco for the meat (it was too expensive there, we found it cheaper at Smiths). We got a lot of other things at Costco instead. My son showed us that the game he wants for his birthday is cheaper there than where I had already purchased it. We bought it at Costco and I took the game back to Bestbuy that we had done previously. He told us that we could give it to him today if we wanted too.

Dee Anne and I went out shopping for a couple of items at a few stores and then we got home to prepare to go to Pam's Birthday party. We met Pam and Anne at Macaroni Grille downtown. Our kids both shared a meal as did Dee Anne and I. We also got a dessert and since I had a coupon for a free appetizer we had that as well. Besides Pam and Anne, we had Kiki, Marie and Scott and Chris and Lisa (they also had their infant son Boston). It was a good dinner.

After dinner, our kids chose to go home with Pam and Anne, and my wife and I headed home as well. We didn't do much that night. We watched a movie called "The Haunting". My wife thought it was more scary than when we watched it last year on Halloween when the kids knocking on the door interrupted it repeatedly. We got to bed fairly late.

It was Stake Conference today, and we missed it. We took care of some of the things we had too for the party. When I picked up the kids at Grandmas house, I also picked up some chairs so we would have enough for those that are coming to the party. We are preparing for quite a few even though that may not happen. Our kids just call it an old folk party. My wife is concerned that we don't have enough things to do for all the people. I think we'll be fine. She prepared two roasts already for this and will be starting the next two roasts up at around 1:00 AM tonight. We did find out that the stove has an automatic turn off feature at 12 hours. At least we didn't beat the kids before finding out that they didn't turn off the stove (kidding).

Anyway, it's been a busy day and we didn't do what we should've today (resting). One thing that happened was that our son was called and told he needed to find a family the young men and young women in his group could go to to teach a missionary discussion. He came up with a family, but they will have to let him know tomorrow if that will work or not. Our son absolutely does not want to do this. We had a discussion about responsibility and I told him that if he doesn't want to do it he needs to express that to the Young Men leader. He didn't want to do that either. I understand some of his complaints, but was letting him know how things are in the church. We don't always want the responsibilities placed on us from the church, but by accepting callings (and he has) we kind of have already said yes. We can still say no, but we have to be responsible for our actions. I don't know what I got through to him or didn't, but he did go through and call those in his group that he could get hold of, and will work on some other things as a leader tomorrow. I did remind him that he is the leader of his group and could assign what he saw fit to others. It will be interesting to see how this works out (or doesn't) for him.

Young Men/Young Women

Not too much has happened since I last wrote in here. I have not been holding Family Home Evening like I should, and last Monday was no exception. My excuse (and I realize it is just that) is that our daughter had too much homework to be done because of all the time that is being spent in Marching Band. In reality, what I need to do is to hold FHE on Sunday evenings. It is just so hard to get myself to do so.

Tuesday evening, I went to the Young Mens activity. Our daughter was at BYU doing the Marching Band thing, and I was wishing I could be there. With American Fork losing one of their band leaders the previous Friday evening it was something that the news went on and on for. American Fork modified their program to honor their teacher who they believe gave her life to help spare the rest on the bus (she tried to stop the bus from rolling). Their theme was already one that was honoring those who have given up their lives for our freedoms in this land of America. I guess it was a pretty touching tribute.

Anyway, our group of boys got together with the Beehives (the group of girls their age) and kind of had a Halloween party. They tied donuts to the ceiling and had a contest of who could eat theirs the fasted without using hands (some of them came down off the ceiling). They also took some toilet paper and dressed one of their group of four as a mummy. Then there was candy put on a blanket that they all reached in and the object was to guess what somebody else had and try to steal it (it requires some memory of what people have said). That didn't go that great. The final thing they did was to select a vampire (I did that) that nobody knew who it was and then turn out all the lights and the vampire went around killing people (they then went to the center of the room). I have no idea why the vampire wasn't to be known, but in the real version there is supposed to be a guess as to who the vampire was. They played that twice. It was kind of a boring evening to me, but the kids seemed to enjoy it. Our daughter got home really late (almost midnight) and we were just hoping she would be able to get up in the morning and be successful in her activities.

Wednesday evening I had to go over to Nelsons house for a meeting about the Young Men. He is the new Young Men leader and wants to know each of them individually. That lasted over an hour and there really wasn't much else going on.

Tonight, I spent some time on the computer coming up with some stickers to put on peoples backs so they can guess which famous person they are. This will be done on Monday night when we have the empty-Nester's over for a dinner and a couple of games. It took longer than I cared for it to take. I also got a testosterone shot today and it is really bothering me today. It has been quite painful, and I'm not sure I'll sleep well tonight.

Scout Camp - Little Sahara

Not a lot has happened over the past couple of days. Friday, I was off from work and my wife and I were able to go to Mark Antonys (an Italian Restaurant) to have some lunch. I had also prepared a list of things that I needed for a campout and then grabbed some other things that were good deals at the store. After lunch, I headed to the store to pick up all those items. It took a little time.

Once home, I finally decided I had better get packed for the Scout trip. This was the closest I ever came to not having everything prepared for a Scout Camp, but I did get everything together and got my tin foil dinner ready just in time. I have to admit, it was the best one I have ever made.

The drive out to the Little Sahara is about 2 hours away from where we live. We got out there in good time, and it was getting a little crowded. We were just glad that we got there when we did so we could get a decent spot for our campground. We got all set up and then made our dinners. One boy didn't bring a foil dinner because he misunderstood about the "hobo dinners". He is new to our troop and thought we were making them together. We need to tell the new people about this. Glen had a can of soup in his truck which we were able to give him. He then wandered around the table grabbing bits and pieces out of a few of the boys dinners.

I took some marshmallows to this campout and the boys seemed to enjoy that. They also talked around the campfire after they were gone. This was a first. They usually don't do that retreating to their tent instead. We're going to have to do the marshmallows more often. Another troop came over and invited our boys to come over to look in the skies and play a few games with them. They did that, while Glen, Scott and I just stayed at camp and talked around the fire. We got to bed fairly late.

Somebody at that camp was up and riding their four wheelers around 1:00 in the morning. I was grateful that I had taken earplugs. I took them out a few hours later. Three of our boys got up early so they could head home. They had games. They left by 7:00. I heard them around the camp, and got up about 6:30. I took some walks and just enjoyed the cold, crisp morning. The rest of the scouts finally got up and made breakfast. After that, they went out and played for about an hour. It took them quite awhile to take their tents down, and then we got home by 1:00 PM. It was a nice trip. It got a bit cold in the night, and I was grateful I had my long johns. I slept quite warm with those and the blanket I had (of course I am also on a cot with some memory foam).

I did a little bit around the house when I got home, but not too much. This bothered my wife quite a bit. I didn't really know what else I could've done other than what I had done. But, that's the way it goes.

Today, I went to church. The same things happened at church as normal. This evening, my kids and I had a fireside to go to that was to teach them what the missionaries do (two missionaries came to the fireside to teach), and then to put them into groups who could go out and do that in about two weeks. Of course, my daughter won't be there because she has Marching Band. Our son will be there and was given the group that wasn't at the meeting. I guess they figure he can handle that.

The Young Men presidency changed (actually we just got a new president). Bill Ashton was taken out and Greg Nielson was put in his place.

One other thing I want to mention was that on Saturday evening (while our daughter was at a stake dance) we heard on the news about the American Fork marching band who had a bus get into an accident. A teacher was killed who had tried to take the wheel of the bus after the bus driver passed out. It is sad, and there are a lot of sad people. The bus was on its side. It's amazing that there weren't any more deaths than that, though there were quite a few minor injuries. This scares us as parents, especially when our daughter will be going to California in about a month.

Well, that's about it.

Birthday Party

Today was Dee Annes' fathers birthday. I got home from work and then my wife and son left home to go over there. I stayed home so I could go pick up our daughter at school (hopefully early). It was looking pretty good. I got to the school in time to see part of the work they were doing in the Marching Band. I made sure I was seen and then watched for a bit. They are getting better. Hopefully, it will be good enough for them to win Orem high in the next competition.

Our daughter did get off early. She told me that Graber would allow her to take a music test tomorrow night instead of tonight. He had seen me there and was sure that she wasn't just making up an excuse. She did some of her homework in the car on the way over to my in-laws home.

When we arrived, most of the party was finishing dinner. We grabbed us a plate and ate as well. It was a good meal. We then enjoyed just visiting with the family. Anne had told me that facebook is supposed to be fun (she was making fun of me for putting political articles in there). I told her that I enjoyed that, and that is who I am. It was all done in fun. She had put it on my page but taken it off because she wasn't sure how I would take it. I told her that I had seen it, and that I was OK with it. I actually answered her, but I took that off as well as it didn't make sense to be there when her comment wasn't there.

We left around 8:15 so we could get our kids home so they could take showers and wind down before bed time. Of course they are up until around 10 or so.

The only other thing that happened was that I went to Young Mens last night. We ended up over at Glens house where we went over the camping merit badge (since some are about to get it). We also discussed our camping that will take place this weekend. This will be at the sand dunes which is kind of fun. Well, that's about it.

Family Phone Calls

Tonight was a night of family phone calls. When I arrived home, I made a couple of phone calls to check on automobiles for a trip we are taking. It was just discouraging. I did finally get some things accomplished with it although an Enterprise was closed and we couldn't finalize it.

While our son went out to pick up our daughter from school, I got a phone call from my little sister. She is all excited because she finally got a date that her husband would be coming to a halfway house from the prison in Texas. The date is set for January 7th. She said that she didn't want to get too excited before she got an actual date because of the way things change. She was getting indications for February, so this was a nice surprise to her. After a week or so there he will get a pass to come out for about 4 hours. She was talking about being able to get him to church. He can gradually work up time to be able to spend 6 hours, 12 hours and then possibly 24 hours out of the halfway house. The halfway house is about at redwood road and I believe she said 2100 south. It will be good for her to not have him so far away. She is looking forward to that date. His final come home date is set for June 30th.

Well, that was one call. I then got a call from my brother. He called to ask me about my heart attack and said that he was going in to have some calcium deposits looked into in his arteries. He said that there isn't anything to worry about, but he wanted to call and see what it was that I had so he can give some kind of family history to the doctor.

The final call I got was from my mom. She was making sure we wouldn't be to the Christmas party because it is our turn to do the Nativity. I guess we get out of that one. That is the night our kids are doing a Christmas program at Bingham High School.

Oh, wait. One more phone call. My wife got called by her mother and chit chatted for a bit.

Not much else going on.

Bored

It's been a week since I last wrote. There has been a lot of the same old stuff that has gone on, so there isn't a lot to write about. The very first thing to write about probably is that I took two days off of work this past week. I took of Thursday and Friday since the kids were out for UEA weekend. We really didn't do too much with that, but it was an excuse for me to take the time off. I did have to take our daughter to the school for some Marching Band stuff on Thursday, which we thought wasn't a very good thing. I don't know who came up with that, but that's what we did. We spent some time together as a family on these two days, and I was able to get out and mow the lawn. It is getting to the end of the mowing season. I am hoping I only need to mow the lawn a few more times.

Saturday was General Conference. I woke up and watched a good portion of it. Pam came over at noon and took our kids away from us for the day. I got a text message showing my son eating too big of a hamburger which was kind of funny. They then went to my in-laws and asked if they could stay the night. We, of course, let them. I skipped Priesthood meeting that night and went out to dinner with my wife instead. We ate at Mark Anthony's, which is a pretty good Italian restaurant.

Sunday, I watched more General Conference in the morning and I prepared some Lil Smokies for taking to my parents house for the pot luck that they hold every General Conference between sessions. My wife was a bit too sick to go over. I picked up the kids at their grandparents house and went to the other grandparents house. While there, I was even able to talk to my daughter (on the phone) which hasn't happened for about three weeks now. After conference, we went back to my in-laws and stayed for a bit and then came on home.

Tonight, my wife and I went over some Halloween type of movies to come up with some actors that we can use for the Empty Nesters Family Night at our home this month. We came up with a few, and know that there may be others that we can come up with.

There really isn't anything else to say. I won't bore you.