December 27, 2008

Jacob got his first hair cut.

Guests

Lexie's sister Jennifer lives in Maricopa about 3 hours east of Quartzsite. We were delighted that her family came out to visit us today. We did a sort of pot luck Christmas dinner together. Given our lack of oven space and a few miscalculations about cooking times dinner was a couple hours later than intended but that made it all the better. It is a wonderful experience to be very hungry around delicious food with the great excuse of "It's the holidays! I am supposed to eat!".

We had a great time visiting with Wade and Jen. After dinner the Becksteads didn't have a lot of time because they needed to get back home. In the little time they did have we took them out for their first geo caching. I had a lot of fun and I think they did as well. I enjoy watching the kids sort through the junky toys in the caches deciding which one to claim as their treasure. I also of course love the hiking.

Once the Becksteads left for home we continued from our last geo cache find to a place between Quartzsite and Bouse that the president of the local rock and mineral club told us we could find green laced marble. My geology skills are very weak and I am not sure how to tell marble from other rocks but we did find several rocks with very interesting patterns. There was also a small cave which appeared to be the start of a hard rock mine which the kids were able to enter. It is easy for me to see how people get excited about rock hounding. The longer we were out the more I wanted to be out. We finally wrapped things up as we saw the sun was setting.

Happy Christmas

The kids loved their presents.

Things were a bit different from our norm for Christmas this year. One of the neighbors did run Christmas lights off their generator for a couple of days before Christmas but overall the atmosphere lacked a lot of the things we typically associate with Christmas. The most notable thing missing of course was the snow. My mind shifted from thinking that we were in very non Christmas like weather to realizing we were in the most Christmas like weather we ever had been. I did a quick check of the weather at one point and was pleased to find that Israel was at 55 degrees fahrenheit and lightly raining just like the local weather here in Quartzsite Arizona. I have enjoyed looking at the local desert and mountains imagining what things might be like in Israel.

Christmas really is a strange holiday in that even though it is stated as a celebration of Christ's birthday most of the celebration that surrounds Christmas in the United States is a morph of St. Nicholas day in Europe which Europe celebrates between the 5th and 6th of December. Also the date of December 25th itself is not the understood birthday of Christ. It is my understanding that the date was selected to overlay a Roman holiday to give the Christians a way to celebrate Christ's birthday without drawing attention to themselves.

It would seem it would be possible to get things cleaned up. We could Get St. Nick's day on the 6th of December, give the 25th of December back to the Romans for their holiday if they still want it. We could then celebrate Christ's birthday on his birthday. I am not sharp enough on my history to know if there is a consensus concerning Christ's birthday or if each little church has their own date picked. Lack of exact knowledge concerning the date could be part of what is keeping things as muddled as they are.

As for our family's particular celebration this year we took further liberties with the already muddled traditions. Tyrell made our Christmas tree out of construction paper. Because of the lack of space in the trailer we did not buy a lot of presents. We skipped the stockings and instead wrapped what would otherwise have gone in a stocking. That aside I suppose it was a rather normal Christmas. At first Lexie and I were really wondering if it would be. Tyrell and Dallin woke up Christmas morning about 7:30 AM. Dallin began chattering about the dreams he had the previous night, which he usually does when he first wakes up, and Tyrell pulled the blanket over his head to try to get some more sleep, which he usually does when he first wake up. Lexie and I turned and looked at each other quietly talking back and forth about how strange it was the kids didn't seem to acknowledge Christmas. Not long after that, Ty sat bolt up in bed and asked "Hey, when do we get to open presents?" After that the morning had the electricity in the air Lexie and I had been expecting. By the time we finally got to opening the presents the kids were literally gyrating with excitement. The kids were very pleased with their presents exclaiming they were exactly what they wanted. Natalyn was particularly cute when she got her Barbie, she held it up and joyfully exclaimed "My Dream!".

Tyrell made our Christmas Tree this year.

The Barbie's dog was the hit of the morning because it could poop. The dog came with little brown tick tack shaped metal poops which doubled as dog food. A person could lift the tail to feed the dog, drop the tail for the dog to poop, and finally clean up the mess with a little magnetic pooper scooper. The mess cleaned into a trash can which attached to the dog food container from which the process could be repeated. It was my preference to simply feed the dog directly from the pooper scooper. The boys spent the morning between Transformers and Legos. By the time lunch came around the kids were so loaded up on candy and cookies that they weren't hungry so we decided not to push the issue. Skipping a meal really helped to keep the day simple. For dinner we had elk meat, which I got from my brother Dave, with rice, it was a big hit.

The pooping dog was the hit of the morning.

Tyrell bought me a glass chess set for Christmas. Unfortunately the board was broken when I opened the box. I am quite sure that we did not break the set so we will be returning it. I was touched that Ty was very obviously reaching out to get some time with me. I am looking forward to when we can get down into Mexico, we are planning to shop for a replacement chess set there. In the mean time Ty and I can still play chess on the computer. It really does surprise me how grown up Ty is getting.

Ty bought me a chess set, somehow some toilet paper got wrapped, hey, I'll take it.

I felt more vested as a dad this year than I ever have. I am sure it is because I now have two children old enough I can remeber when I was their age and also I have the same number of children as I grew up with in my family. As I was giving the lecture of the meaning of Christmas to get interrupted by "when can we open presents?" it was fun to ride my little power trip and say "You'll open your presents when Dad says you can open your presents." I'm sure I have heard that some where before.

The kids loved openning presents.

December 21, 2008

The London Bridge didn't fall down it was moved to Arizona!

David takes on the big 3.

Heavy heavy hang over thy poor head.

Whatcha gonna do with a bump on your head?

Nope!

You'll watch it!

Lexie here. I haven't written in awhile, okay, only once way back in February, so here I go again. Jacob is sleeping. Natalyn, Dallin, and Tyrell are playing with the pattern blocks, color tiles, and bears, and David is sitting next to me twirling my hair. After the way this morning went I wouldn't have imagined I would have any quiet time, let alone some free time to be able to write. This is really exciting! For those of you now wondering what happened this morning let's just say the kids lost their computer turns last night for not going to bed well and it is pouring rain outside. Your imaginations can fill in the rest!

It has been reaffirmed in my mind why children are not the protectors in the family. As we were discussing why they need to stay somewhat close to us while they ride their bikes and we are on walks Natalyn and Davey were positive they would be able to protect themselves. David gave me his best growl that was sure to scare away any bobcat (which do frequent the area - although not so much here as in Needles - and we haven't seen any)! Natalyn was just as confident exclaiming that she would simply suck on a candy cane until the tip got sharp and then she could use it as a spear! That's an idea I certainly hadn't considered. We'll continue to leave the job of protector to the parents for now.

Speaking of being protector, included with that is also the added job of being responsible for feeding the kids and in general making responsible decisions. With that said, Dan and I have decided to stay in Quartzite, Arizona until our spelling game is finished. Our original plan was to pass through here on our way to Florida to see the shuttle launch that is scheduled for February 12. The process of decision making is very interesting as two people start talking about what they want and what is probably best for the time being. It was a little revealing for me to realize that one of my underlying fears of not going to Florida right away was pride. I was so embarrassed to think of not going after telling everybody that we were headed there that it weighed very heavily on my mind while we were taking finances into consideration and if I hadn't recognized it, I could have pushed to make a decision that would have been financially foolish. Quartzite is a place we can live virtually free of hook-up fees, save on gas money, and live extremely frugally as we boondock in the desert. Clothes are even optional we discovered! We chose against parking next to the nudist colony, however much I hate doing (and paying for) laundry. Before you all panic and think we're stranded in the desert without any money or way to feed our children (except for the occasional lizard that they catch for lizard stew), I will let you all know we are doing fine. Our decision was based on the fact that Dan cannot be doing free-lance work, and private work at the same time. We're 1 month to 2 months away from finishing our game completely and we have come too far to quit the game now to do free-lance work full-time. Our plan is to live as frugally as we can for the next 2 months while we finish the game, then we will pick up more free-lance work and market our game. When the cash starts coming in again we will continue our travels. There is another shuttle scheduled in May and hopefully we will make it to that one. I can hope!

Quartzite has filled me with all kinds of conflicting and strange emotions. In so many ways the desert is just plain ugly and bland. When we go into town it really does fit the stereo-type of trailer trash. As we come into the desert I realize how alive everything is here. The sunsets are absolutely gorgeous! The cacti are really fascinating. The sharp mountain ranges are intriguing. I'm finding that this place has a very definite beauty worth admiring. Even though the town itself looks like trailer-trash, it's not. The majority of the town consists of seniors that are snowbirds, just looking for a warm, economical place to stay in the winter and take advantage of the flea-markets and mineral shows that come into town. There is nothing trashy about the people we have met!

We have enjoyed magnificent sunsets.

David seems to be confused about who he is lately, which confuses me because I never seem to call him by the right name. After seeing transformers at his cousin's house he wanted to be called Bumblebee, after hearing the story, "Holes" with his brothers he was Zero, today he said, "Call me Scooby."

The ward we went to had a primary president, teacher, nursery leaders, and that's all. There is normally a little two year old boy in the nursery, so David doubled the attendance in nursery. Tyrell, Dallin, and Natalyn made up the entire primary! The youngest family besides us and the couple with the little boy was probably 55. Their were about 300 people in the ward! J-bird is awake now so I'm signing off!

We had fun singing christmas songs around the campfire.

David playing at the Lake Havasu park.

Dallin enjoying the gold fish perhaps a bit too much.

There is a wonderful park near the London Bridge in Lake Havasu.

A picture at Lake Havasu I (Dan) thought turned out neat.

B Y Boo Hoo

Dan here... I've had a few scattered thoughts that I thought would be fun to further scatter across the world wide web. I find the decision making process a very interesting thing. In life we are bombarded by a series of choices in such a rapid succession that we really aren't even aware of the majority of the choices we are making, we rather just flow along and try not to get bumped too hard in the process. It really is important to make good decisions because in the end one's success or failure is likely simply the arithmetic outcome of whether one makes more good decisions than they make poor decisions. With the great number of choices we have I find it interesting which choices we choose to grab on to as a part of our own definition, which choices we let float by and most of all which choices we make habitually without even realizing that we were taking a path that offered an alternate course.

So what does this have to do with our dear sweet cougars of the Provo valley? Not a lot... That's the scattered part. The center of my thinking about decisions revolved around the way I handled my choice of whether to go to their bowl game or not. When I heard they were playing in Las Vegas I was excited because we were in the area and I have never been to a live BYU football game. When I learned that bad seats were $20 dollars, reasonable seats were $50 and good seats were $100 dollars my enthusiasm was dampened. At that point I made a decision that in as much as going did not directly fill any of my current family goals, the expenditure represented too much outgo for not enough income we would not go. So that was the level 1 of the decision making process. The decision had come to my conscious mind, I had evaluated it and made a mental determination of the outcome. The thing that was interesting to me was that even though I had done this I don't believe the decision was truly made until about 5:45 on Saturday when I realized that it was impossible to drive to the game, buy a last minute ticket and view the game. Even though my mind had been made up weeks ago it wasn't until the opportunity had completely passed that my mind would fully release the decision.

I sometimes wonder how much control I really have of myself and how much I just float around in my sea of possibilities and drift from one thing to the next. Even in cases where it seems that I have taken direct control of a choice it seems that currents still push me one way and another. I guess in the end what we get, really is not the ability to control our wind but rather the ability to adjust our sails. Sometimes I think I get caught in the trap of wanting the right decisions to feel good and that very frequently does not seem to be the case.

Back to the Boo Hoo part. I was very disappointed that the Cougars lost the game. I find that emotion funny in that I only went to BYU for one semester, and I most definitely was not anywhere near their football team. Another piece of my stupid thinking is that I really have trouble with the Cougars loosing sporting events. In the scriptures it seems like a major theme is that God chooses a people and then the chosen people kick the tails of their enemies in battle. In as much as the church claims to be God's chosen people it looks wrong to see them get run weary into a defeat. I'm not as bent up about BYU losses now as I used to be, but it is always uncomfortable to see the shadows show up on the wall in the wrong order.

December 6, 2008

Week In St. George

Natalyn and David near our Sand Hollow camp site.

Well, the week was really in the Sand Hollow State Park just out of St. George. If I understand correctly Sand Hollow is Utah's newest state park. Given the Thanksgiving Holiday the park was relatively full so we were not able to get the exact site we had last February, however we were able to get a back in site right next to it. Now I am conflicted, undecided about which camp site I like better.

The desert is beautiful in a "nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there" sort of way to me. With that said, in as much as a significant part of my childhood was spent in Kayenta Arizona, the desert feels very much like home to me. Sunrises at Sand Hollow State Park are quite breath taking. It rained toward the front of the week but by the end of the week the rain cleared and we were also able to get some wonderful night skies. I have had an interest in Astronomy as long as I can remember, I just haven't yet fed that interest with what I consider any decent amount of education. When I was a freshman in college I took and Astronomy class and it stood as one of my favorite classes in school. Something I love about being out in the desert is the great view one gets of the heavens. While I don't have the time or money right now to take more collegiate level Astronomy courses I would like to think that this winter will be one in which I get a lot more familiar with the stars and planets. There have been two very prominent stars or planets next to the moon in the evening lately and it has been very frustrating to me not to know what they are.

Thanksgiving

We have some friends in Pocatello who told us that after they had their first Thanksgiving dinner in their camp trailer they didn't do it any other way. I have had a lot of wonderful Thanksgiving dinners with extended family, so I am not sure I am quite ready to say I wouldn't do a Thanksgiving any other way. I will say that we had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner in the trailer and being together as a nuclear family is a delightful way to spend the day. Lexie was able to find a turkey small enough that it would just barely fit in our oven. The bird was more chicken sized than turkey sized but it turned out to be big enough to feed the family and leave left overs.

Lexie found a Turkey small enough to fit in our oven.

On Sunday we went to the St. George temple to show the kids the grounds. I am pretty proud of this picture I took it from the car on an errand to get a diaper.

Las Vegas

We did another repeat of camping locations from February and stayed at the Arizona Charlie's RV Park in Las Vegas. The park doesn't offer much for the kids in the way of a place to play outside of the trailer, however it does have a great pool. The kids have grown a lot since February, they were able to touch the bottom of the pool in a lot more places. At most RV parks you can stay a week for the cost of 5 days. Since we wanted to stay at least three days for the wedding anyway we decided to make our Las Vegas stay an even week. Most of the week we have just been in a daily routine of work and school. I guess a little more accurately the routine has been work, school and pool. The kids have been very eager to get in the pool at every opportunity we'll give them. As I am writing this I am getting asked about the next time we'll get in the pool.

The kids love the pool here.

Jeremiah and Crista's Wedding

Jeremiah was delighted with his limo ride to his wedding.

Jeremiah and Christa just before the wedding.

With five kids and a suburban, that needs most of ten feet of clearance with the bikes on top to park, I decided that we should leave extremely early for the wedding in order to make sure we weren't late. Finding the chapel and finding a parking place proved to be simple, leaving us with two hours before the wedding started. The neighbor hood of the wedding chapel has a lot of barred windows. The commercial area is a mix of bail bond businesses, tattoo shops and wedding chapels. I didn't really feel comfortable having the kids play out side. We decided to try and visit my mom's hotel room but aborted that idea while driving toward the hotel when we realized that by the time we got to the hotel, go the kids out, found my mom's room, got the kids in and drove back we would be at risk of being late for the wedding. In the end we simply parked by the chapel and let the kids watch Magic School Bus video's in the back seat for an hour and a half while Lexie and I got the best naps we could manage sitting in the front seats of the car.

I have heard a lot of stories about Vegas weddings so I wasn't really sure what to expect. I was very pleasantly surprised with ceremony Jeremiah and Crista had chosen. For reasons I don't entirely know they chose to have a Celtic wedding ceremony. The music was very nice, the script was beautiful, and the ceremony included a lot of very interesting symbolism. Before the ceremony had started I leaned over to Lexie and as I pointed to each one of our boys told her that it was easier to picture Jeremiah at that size, that size, that size or that size, that it is to picture him at that size, as I pointed to him. It really is amazing to me that he is already married. The chapel was the first place we had ever met Christa. We are very pleased with her. I expect she and Jeremiah will be a great couple. It is nice to have her as a part of the family. For people who might want full resolution images of the wedding pictures I took, I uploaded them to a Picasa web album. You can get to it with this link. If you just want to view a larger photo you can of course just click on the photo.

This is a posed photo but probably my favorite from the wedding.

After the wedding we went to the Sahara Hotel where Jeremiah, Christa and most of the wedding guests were staying. I was concerned about parking but found a very simple solution. The hotel offers free valet parking. I have never used valet parking so I was a bit hesitant about it. Now that I have done it, I will say it is the sort of thing one can get used to in a big hurry. I really hate casinos. It infuriates me that they force you to walk through the gambling areas to get to hotels and restaurants. The kids were well behaved but walking through a casinos is like walking through a pig pen. You just don't come through clean. While I will entertain the thought that there are people who view gambling as legitimate recreation with in the bounds of moderation I think it is better to just draw a line at saying one will never do it. It has been shown that the presence of Casinos is correlated to an increase in crime. This means that the presence of a Casino means that more people are going to get robbed, raped and stabbed than they would in its absence. My vote is for their absence.

We had dinner as a group at the Casino's buffet. Tyrell and Dallin were especially excited about the food. As part of an effort to bring in our budget lately before most meals we have been adding the cost of all of the food items to get an awareness of how much different meals cost. Ty and Dallin left the wedding dinner exclaiming that was cheep! That meal should have cost one hundred dollars (meaning per plate)! We need to do a bit more work in teaching them their economics, but I was glad that they enjoyed the meal so much.

My mom and grandma had a great view from their hotel window.

November 27, 2008

The Indian Museum

About 20 miles south of Richfield there is an Indian museum which my brother Rob told us about. We started the day with a stop there. Originally I had been planning on working while Lexie took the kids in but my curiosity got the better of me and I went in with the family. I was glad that I did. If I had ever heard about the Fremont Indians I had forgotten about them. The museum was small but very well organized with some great displays. There was a lot of detail explaining how current theories about the ancient people were developed. The thing I found most interesting was a model of one of the ancient inhabitants recreated from a skull. There is a technique developed by forensic investigators trying to identify murder victims which measures features in the skull to determine muscle thickness. Clay is over layed to replicate the muscle tissues to develop a face shape. Relatives of victims on whom this technique has been used say the results are eerily accurate, much like looking at a photo. We can be reasonably certain we were looking at a model of a face that was much like the face of the person that lived in the canyon about a thousand years ago. I was also very interested in the pit houses. Although the pit houses were very similar to hogans in a lot of ways, their dug in structure seemed more appealing to me. We were pleased to find that there was a model pit house outside which we could explore. I was surprised by the temperature difference between the inside and outside of the pit house.

There was a model pit house outside.

Lexie and Jacob make their way into the pit house.

Dallin notices the sun light on the wall.

Ty going up the ladder of the pit house.

Something very impressive about the museum that I failed to get in pictures was the quality of the petroglyphs around the museum. I am not sure I have ever seen as many at such a high quality so close together. It is interesting to me to think that those were their blog of the time. In a thousand years it is easy to think that this blog will be much less readable. With that said I am not quite ready to carve a picture of my trailer with an eagle over it into a cliff.

Traveling

After the museum we got off the interstate and took state highway 89 with the thought that we would take a peek at Bryce Canyon. By the time we got to the intersection with highway 20 we decided to abort the plan in order to keep the day simple and avoid being at a high elevation when the predicted rains came the next day. We resolved that we owed ourselves a couple of months in Southern Utah at some date in the future but that for now it would be better to get into warmer weather. We pulled into a Wal-Mart in Cedar City at about 4 PM. We were behind on shopping and it was 6PM by the time we finally got out. After a scan for no overnight parking signs didn't reveal any, we decided to make the Wal-Mart parking lot camp for the night and head for St. George first thing in the morning.

On our trip through St. George last February when I had just quit my job at AMIS we camped at the Sand Hollow State Park. For everywhere we have been this camp site is Dallin's favorite and ranks high on my favorites as well. We were pleased to get the camp site right next to the one we used in February. We decided that we will spend Thanksgiving and the weekend here. Next week will be split between here and going to Las Vegas for Jeremiah's wedding.

Politics

In as much as I have failed to properly sway the election and I have expressed my gripe, until further notice I will not be including a political section in the blog. Oh yeah, while I still have a headline that says politics, I will share joke I heard from my cousin. There are some now calling us the USSA.

November 25, 2008

Week in Salt Lake

It was nice to visit with Nana and Papa in Salt Lake.

We found out one of Lexie's friends from Rexburg was in Primary Children's Hospital with her new born baby. The baby, Evelyn, was having some breathing trouble that was getting treated. It turns out Evelyn has Treacher's Syndrome and a small jaw. She should be able to outgrow the breathing problem as her trachea hardens and her jaw grows. In the mean time it sounds like she will have to use oxygen until she is 5-7. I dropped Lexie off at the hospital to visit with her friend Adonia and then took the kids to a park and played with them. There was a small hill that the kids started rolling down which developed into races. I called the starts to the races and declared the winners. At the peak of participation we had eight kids in the races, four of them mine of course. A development in our game that I found amusing was that I started offering a dead leaf to the winner of each race. The area we were playing in was carpeted with fallen leaves. The thing I found amusing was how excited the kids were to win one. After each race one little boy in particular would all but bounce as he ran back to hand his prize leaf to his mom.

Lexie was able to visit with her friend Adonia. Adonia is holding Evelyn.

That evening I went to the Jazz game with my father-in-law. We were on the very top row but could still see enough of the game to make it enjoyable and of course something you don't miss no matter where you sit is how loud everyone is. Compared to other games I have been to at Energy Solutions Arena the crowd was calm for most of the game. Anything that may have resembled calm broke down in the fourth quarter as the Jazz were pulling ahead and Kirlinko solidly blocked one of Shaq's shots. After the Jazz scored on the turnover created by the blocked shot Kirlinko followed with another block of Shaq which kept the crowd in its usual frenzy for the rest of the game. The Jazz had lost to a couple of weak teams recently so I had been expecting to watch my first live Jazz loss. It was a nice surprise to see a win.

During the week Lexie was able to make it to the Planetarium with the kids. I stayed at camp to work. Lexie and the kids were able to spend some extra time with her mom and dad. They went to the church history museum, where the kids loved to play at the children's section. They toured temple square and Nana and Papa explained to the children which country each nativity set represented.

Adonia was scheduled to be in the hospital until Friday. Originally we were only planning to be in Salt Lake until Wednesday but decided to extend our stay a couple of days so Lexie could offer support to Adonia. On Friday we left for my brother Rob's house to visit and to see his girls in a junior/high school musical. It seemed a bit of a shame to leave Salt Lake one day before BYU and Utah played. I must have set a bad precedent by leaving Salt Lake early in that BYU didn't seem to stick around for the fourth quarter of their game.

Altamont

We had just finished the book "Holes". The kids were very eager to get at Rob's dirt pile.

I think it is mostly just to full fill my duty as a little brother and get jabs in at big brother, but I have trouble going to Altamont and not reminding my brother that the early saints had walked over a thousand miles by the time they got there and they kept walking. Altamont really is a pretty area. I am especially interested in the wilderness to the north of it which includes King's Peak, Utah's tallest mountain. I am hoping to find an opportunity to climb King's Peak with Robert some time. The climb isn't technical like the Grand but it is a fifty mile round trip.

The musical was a lot of fun. The title was "All Shook Up" a play which featured a lot of Elvis music. Rob's wife Becca played supporting piano, my nieces Rachael and Emily had major parts. They all did wonderfully. There was a lot of effort put into the sets including one scene in which they brought a classic Corvette onto the stage. I found it ironic that just that day on our drive over I had been telling Lexie that I believed I was finally mature enough that no matter how much money I ever had I would not spend it on a Corvette because it didn't really represent any of my life's values. Seeing the car on stage caused a definite lapse in my resolve. I'd like to think I'll stay strong but the truth is it seems apparent that I am living a virtue supported more by my current financial circumstance ( lack of $50,000 disposable dollars) than by inner strength. If I ever do buy a Corvette I'll need to think of some wonderful reason to support the decision. Get to the grand kids little league games faster? Bolster the American auto industry? Save metal? Well I don't have to think of it now. I really would like to think that an extra $50K of mine would be feeding people in Haiti and not just roaring around on the road but as my feelings during the play revealed my character may not be as strong as I would like to think it is.

I'm not really sure what happened to Saturday. It doesn't seem like the activities reconcile to a full day but somehow the day went by. I did have some nice time visiting with Robert as we hung a rain gutter on the garage he is building. I am really impressed with Robert's garage. He has done a great job on it. I know he has been wanting the garage for a long time. I think every visit to him and many of the phone calls to him over the last ten years have included conversation about the garage. It is fun to see him as close as he is to getting it. I am really happy for him.

The kids had a lot of fun with their cousins. (photos by Becca)

On Sunday after church I was pleased to see that my brother Dave, his wife Lisa and their little girl Anna had come over from Vernal to visit. We called my brother Jeremiah and were able to talk him into coming over without his fiance Krista who had to work. Jeremiah is getting married in Las Vegas in a couple of weeks. When we asked Jeremiah why he had decided on Las Vegas he told us that the original plan had been to elope. They had scheduled their service and then decided to invite people. My favorite part of the visit was when we started tossing the smaller kids back and forth. Tyrell got thrown once but he was quickly disqualified as a candidate projectile in as much as he would lead his flight with his knee, not a nice thing for the receiver considering where his knee lines up when he is caught. Jeremiah even threw me a very short way to Dave once. I was impressed both that Jer could throw me and that Dave could catch me. Anymore it is very much tongue in cheek that I call them my little brothers. My little boy David probably got most of the air time and wouldn't stop asking for more.

We had a lot of fun tossing kids. (photo by Becca)

Super Nate! (photo by Becca)

The Party is at Rob's House! (photo by Becca)

Brother Picture (photo by Becca)

On the road again

Monday morning we continued our migration south toward warmer weather. There are some options in route getting from Altamont to St. George. We decided to go through Indian Canyon to Price. I was very pleased with the decision. I had forgotten what a pretty drive it is. We stopped for lunch at a pullout with a vista that reminded me of some of the places we had been on the Alaska highway for its remoteness. It is something wonderful to be able to fill one's eyes with a landscape that does not reveal a man made structure.

I really appreciate a vista that lacks man made development.

In an event of good bad luck we had a blowout sometime as we were coming into Price. I really don't know when the blowout happened. We were at half a tank of gas so I decided to be conservative and stop for fuel. While we were fueling a car pulled up and asked if we were aware we had a blown tire. We were not. The lady explained to us where it had happened so we assume she saw the tire go. The gas station happened to be two doors down from a tire shop so it was reasonably simple to get the problem resolved. The tire was in the same position as the tire we had blown in California last February. The tire is under our fresh and waste water tanks so my current theory is that the problem is one of load. We put a tire with a heavier load rating on. I hope that solves the issue.

Our run of good bad luck. We were only two doors down from a tire shop when we discovered this.

We arrived at Richfield at 5 PM and pulled into a Flying J. Flying J's often allow free overnight parking so it seemed a nice place to have Family Home Evening and sleep. We were pleased to find that we were indeed allowed to park overnight.

Random Tidbit

My kids now out weigh me. When we were in Salt Lake we all weighed ourselves on my in-law's scale. If I remember correctly I weigh 188 pounds and my kid's weights sum to 191 pounds. So now I am not only out numbered by my kids I am also out weighed by them.

Family Portrait.

I made this one link to the full size image because some people have been asking for a family portrait from us. After clicking the link, right click and select 'save picture as ...' to grab the photo. (photo by Becca's sister-in-law Jenica)

November 16, 2008

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Our journey of however many thousand miles this will be, started with a trip to the Blackfoot rest area. By the time we got everything ready to leave, had a nice visit with Lexie's grandmother and then her sister Katie's family it was pretty much time for bed. We had been planning on driving to my mom's house to park for the night. After leaving Katies house we discovered it was raining really hard. Between the rain and the darkness we both concluded we'd just as soon not be driving, so we kept things simple and slept at the Blackfoot rest area.

In the morning my mom invited us over for breakfast. We had a great visit with her and a wonderful breakfast. It was a little odd saying good bye to grandma because I am not sure when we'll be back and hence didn't really know how final the good bye was. I really doubt it was the last good bye but you never know with things like that.

After visiting with my mom we drove over to the Dredge's house so Lexie could visit and see Melinda's new baby. Based on previous displays of more energy than control by the children I stayed with them in the car for the visit.

We had a short day of driving with a final destination of Antelope Island State Park just west of Layton Utah. I am sure I have been there before but I haven't ever appreciated it as much as I did on this visit. Something that made our visit extra special was that we got the entire camp ground to ourselves. In the evening we tried to get down to the water to collect a sample of the water. I have been wanting for quite a while to do an experiment with the kids where we boil out sea water and find out how much salt is left. I had been disappointed that I had failed to think of it at an appropriate time when we were by the ocean. The Salt Lake of course was all the more promising because it has about five times the salt concentration of the ocean. Walking at David's two year old pace we did not make it to the water but did have a nice time on our way toward it. As part of their Junior Ranger activity the kids were collecting litter. Among the litter Tyrell found a working laser pointer which he had a lot of fun with on the walk home in the dark. I couldn't resist begging a turn from him to try and hit the reflector of our trailer as we were approaching it.

I was very surprised to learn that there are bobcats on Antelope Island. I would like to go back sometime on an extended stay and try and find one. Even without that I would simply like to go back to Antelope Island, it was so much fun.

Antelope Island was great.

This was the view from our camp site.

We had a nice walk as a family in the evening.

Wednesday Morning we drove into Salt Lake where Lexie's parents are serving a Mission in the translation department in church headquarters. There is a KOA campground on North Temple about 2 miles from her parent's apartment that is a very comfortable place to stay. I was happy to finally have a chance to get back to work. The transition of the move had been pulling a lot of time from work. It was nice to see Lexie's parents. On Thursday Lexie and her mom took the kids to a candy factory, then on Friday we all went to the Disney on Ice show at the Energy Solutions Arena. While we were in the arena I took the opportunity to pick up a couple of nose bleed seats to the Jazz vs. Suns game for this coming Monday. I have heard psychologists say that people first make a decision and then do thinking to justify the decision. With that in mind I have decided not to waste my energy trying to justify why I bought the game tickets but just accept that I have made the decision.

The Disney on Ice production was great. I was bit of a wet blanket when first presented with the idea of going to watch ice skating but consented to the idea knowing it was something Lexie would really like and it promised to be a great experience for the kids. Lexie told me by the end of the performance I would be wishing I was ice skating. She was right, although I would like to skate without wearing a duck suit.

Saturday morning we did a little geo caching. It really is a shame how little of it we have been doing. Not having been geo caching in a while made it difficult to get started and I forgot how helpful it was to print out the clues before looking for caches. As it was we had time to find one and fail to find another.

The Disney on Ice production was fantastic.

We did a little geo caching.

Dead guy duty

Those of you who have seen the movie Nacho Libre will likely recognize the reference in my heading. Those of you who don't are invited to pollute your cleaner thinking through exposure to one of my favorite movies. In addition to the obvious point that the movie is pee your pants funny, I think the thing that carries the movie for me is the plot line that passion and desire will eventually win. I like that idea that a person feeling an inner burn will succeed if they are willing to follow their feelings. Oh yeah, back to the dead guys...

Lexie has always had a fascination with human anatomy. There is a museum display which shows plastisized cadavers in various positions to display the inner connections of the body. We first learned about the display last year when it was in Phoenix. We were standing in line for the exhibit and then left the line because the kids were misbehaving. The result of the decision to leave the museum line has been a bit spooky to me, in that it is easy to think that had we not left the line, we would not have been where we were when that dizzy lady in Flagstaff ran us off the road. I am not being quite as facetious as I might sound when I call her dizzy. At the accident scene she claimed to have partially passed out as a result of cold medications. The next opportunity we had to see the exhibit was this summer in Edmonton. When we tried to get a camp site we found that they were all filled because it was the Canada Day weekend. Up to that point we didn't realize Canada even had a day. There were some camping accommodations which would have been possible but expensive and inconvenient. After giving it a lot of thought we decided again to miss the museum with the thought we would be able to see the display in Salt Lake, which we finally did.

Speaking as a person with a strong belief that a person's insides are better left inside, I was delighted with the display. I would even venture to say that I have gained a real interest in human anatomy through my experience in the display. The human body is absolutely incredible. I was pleased to see several graphic displays of what an iliotibial band looks like. I have been having ITBS (Iliotibial Band Syndrome) issues causing trouble with my running. It was interesting to get a better view of what was causing the trouble. I was surprised at how much I learned in such a short time. If we were not running so short on space in the trailer I am sure I would have bought one of the anatomy books they were selling at the end of the display. I fully intend to buy one later after we have a bigger trailer or have jettisoned some of our other books. I was pleased to gain a new understanding of the heart as it relates to physical performance. I always knew the heart was a muscle but I didn't really ever think of it as behaving like one. There were several hearts displayed. I was impressed with the variance in size. Like other muscles as the heart gets stronger it gets bigger. Athletes develop larger hearts than non athletes. A display claimed that Lance Armstrong has a resting heart rate of 30 beats per minute, less than half the heart rate of an average man, because his heart is so large and so strong. Another interesting tidbit I picked up was about the nervous system. I think I had learned this before but had forgotten it. In routing signals for items that need a quick response such as a reaction to touching a hot stove the signal response sequence bypasses the brain with the action response getting routed from the spinal cord. I would guess that people acting without engaging their brains extends well beyond hot stoves.

I think this is a legal picture, it is a picture of a picture. We weren't allowed to take photos inside.

Circles

I imagine I have put in some similar conversation to the following somewhere else in my blog. The topic lends itself to repetition so well I am sure I will put it in again sometime in the future. I am facinated with the circles we make in life. In today's case I am thinking mostly about travel. We are back in the KOA where we were last November. It was our trip here last November that accelerated our decision to take to the road full time. I remember last November how badly I wanted to go south after our stay here rather than north. It feels really good to be heading south this time. Something I find geometrically interesting about getting back to a place where one has been before is that in mathematical terms ignoring orbital position (which is another circle in itself) continental drift, and erosion the sum of all of your displacement (motion) is zero. You have gone exactly the same distance up as down, exactly the same distance north as south, exactly the same distance east as west. Returning to a place puts you at a point of balance in your life. It also lends a great opportunity to reflect on the significance of the zero sum journey. How are you different for your travel? What has transpired on the journey?

In this case for me it seems quite a bit has transpired. If nothing else we need to count to five instead of four before getting in the car. I also know that I feel a lot different. I have solidified some view points that were just beginning to sprout last year. Last year I know I was feeling a lot of need for change where as this year I am feeling a lot of intensity for persistence on my course. Last year I felt like my limits were externally imposed where as this year my limits are all internally imposed. It is a day to stand and find out who I am.

All Hail Obama!

I don't think it is mandatory to have a political section but lately I've been in the mood to do so as I have had a small sprinkling of an increase of political awareness. This is the kind of writing that is almost guaranteed to leave me embarrassed, fined or imprisoned at some point in the future but all the same it's fun, I'm young and why not? I don't have enough knowledge to actually know or do anything useful, but I feel like I am getting to the point where I can almost tell what is going on, sort of like when I was six years old and hearing grown ups talk about relatives over dinner.

As I watch the american dream and our fundamental freedoms give way to institutionalism, laziness and fear I am discouraged. The tax payer funded economic stimulus packages are an outrage. They are a shift of power from the populous to the elite. The elite will continue to grab power until the populous is finally beaten and starved enough to pick up their pitch forks and revolt. The shame of it is the pain, suffering and loss of life that will happen in the transition. It isn't time to pick up pitch forks now but it is time to at least question a system that is accelerating our movement in that direction.

I have found a couple of things to like about our next wanna be king. First he is in favor of a college football playoff. He suggested an 8 team playoff whereas I would like to see at least a 16 team playoff if not a 32, or 64 team playoff. That aside the man is thinking correctly. In fact I think it would solve a lot of problems if he would leave the economy and abortion policies alone and focus on college football. I find the BCS commissioner's statement that a college football playoff would not best serve the needs of the colleges, the players, and their constituents laughable. The statement is so transparently translated as, I have power as the BCS commissioner and if you change the system, I and my cronies loose that power, therefore it is a bad idea. Power maintaining its power for the virtue of it having the power and not for the merit of its position is one of the fundamental problems we have in the country now. Another thing I like about Obama is that he is increasing the use of technology in his political interaction with the populous. I understand he has a database with e-mail addresses of his supporters. He uses the database to send messages directly to supporters without having the message first filtered by the main stream media. He also claims he will take input collected through his website in evaluating political policy. I believe technology offers some very interesting options in bringing us closer to becoming a true democracy. While I am not sure a full democracy really is a great answer, I think a few large steps in that exact direction are great.

Here in Salt Lake people are having more fun than they realize with the reactions to the results of the H8 definition of marriage proposition that passed in California. I understand the proposition passed with 52% voting in favor of it. I think it is really interesting to think about the many factors that put a person on one side of the issue or the other. Whether people realize it or not I think they like having an issue as exciting as sex to argue and think about. The down side is that people are people and they don't always discuss their disagreements nicely. There are a lot of feelings getting hurt and people feeling a lot of extra internal anger. I find it interesting how each side of this disagreement seems to feel the same emotion of moral self righteousness over their position. I know I do, I am right after all! :-)

November 9, 2008

As excited as I have been to get on the road again now that the time to leave has actually arrived I am surprised at how much stress the move has been causing me. I felt that we had figured out how to travel with four children pretty well. It seems logical that traveling with five shouldn't be too much different. In a lot of ways it is possible that it will work out a lot better in that Lexie will have more mobility.

It seems that at any time a person seems to feel like they are doing everything that they can be doing. At least that is the way I feel most of the time. So with the feeling that I am now doing everything that I could possibly be doing, the prospect of adding school and travel planning seems a bit daunting

So now that I have done my whining it is time to flip the coin and look at the shiny side. I am really excited to get moving again in that I believe we have a lot of great adventures ahead of us.

A thought that kept coming to me today is that it is really easy to fall into the trap of living a life in a way that would suggest one would get a second chance at it. While it is true that each sunrise brings a new day. It is my understanding that life is a one pass experience. The opportunities that we want to take advantage of and the things we want to accomplish much be pursue or we will lose our opportunity to pursue them. It seems that there is never a convenient time for change and that the unknown is always scary. However it is through facing the unknown and embracing change that we make our progress toward our goals.

Something I find interesting about the human experience is that even though we all float around on the same rock, we all have widely varied experiences depending on our circumstances. Even within the same family at the same event the experience is different according to an individuals experience and perception.

November 3, 2008

Carving the pumpkin

The kids each got to choose one feature to shape on the pumpkin.

Boo at the Zoo

The Idaho Falls Zoo hosts an event which they call "Boo at the Zoo" on Halloween. The zoo gets decorated for Halloween, local businesses set up booths and games, and the kids get to go around the zoo trick or treating.

My favorite part of the zoo was the tiger exhibit. It seemed that the tigers were much more active than usual. Also, I got a small glimpse of the snow leopard which I had never seen at the zoo before.

David refused to wear any part of his fireman costume that he picked out. Despite that, his cute little smile and "tik ol teet" wound up getting him a him a huge hall of candy. Something kind of funny about Idaho Halloweens is that they are generally so cold that kids need to wear large coats over their costumes. I'm not sure many people noticed he was out of costume. Ty and Dallin were really excited about the martial arts booth. The people were dressed up in karate cloths and had little plastic "boards" for the kids to "break." Given the choice, I think Ty and Dallin would have spent the entire evening there breaking the little plastic board. Natalyn liked a little inflated haunted castle they had there. Jacob slept through most of our visit to the zoo. When he woke it was amusing to watch his face. He was very obviously bedazzled by the lights.

Natalyn loves Jacob.

A couple of Lexie's friends came over for an impromptu surprise Halloween party. The tiger cub is ours.

The kids had a lot of fun playing together.

David was a fireman but he refused to wear his costume.

Natalyn was Dora the Explorer, don't miss the backpack!

Dallin was a Ninja.

Ty was a pirate, he didn't get my hooker jokes and Lexie didn't like them. Naughty me.

Crafts at "Boo at the Zoo".

More crafts at "Boo at the Zoo".

Natalyn Dictation:

We had fun at Boo at the Zoo together. Mom also had fun with us. We got lots of candy, but dad didn't want a bag. All of us had fun at the zoo. What about me? Did I have fun?

Chasing Dreams

On Saturday (Oct. 25) the kids had a rehearsal for their upcoming primary program. I took the opportunity to go for a long run straight east. Running east here is my favorite because I get a view of the Grand Teton. I was disappointed that my knee started hurting as soon as it did because without the knee pain I am sure I could have run a lot farther. I don't want to exacerbate any problems I have in the knee so I am careful to walk after too many consecutive steps of pain. When considering my current venture one of my large motivators was that I wanted to get myself in shape. As I was running, I was mixed with feelings of excitement and frustration. I am sure I am a better runner than I was a year ago. I also know that I am not that much better. The feeling, I suppose, is like seeing something you really, really want in the store and then seeing the price tag you realize how much it is going to take to get it.

My game development has mirrored my running in that even though I have made great progress I am left feeling a little empty when I look at how far forward there is to go. In the end the choice becomes whether one is going to pursue something, or they aren't. Even though the price is higher than I had hoped it might be, I still believe the value of the reward exceeds the cost.

Work

I did some hiring for my game development off guru.com. We got the CD cover for the spelling game back from the artist, Micheal Graham. I think it looks really good. If you are curious you can get a peek at http://www.mindjump.net . Mike is now working on some clean up items for the interior art. We also hired a voice actor Ted Gray and his daughter to do voices. We gave them the first installment of the script yesterday. I am really excited to get their work back I really liked their auditions.

I blew most of my week on a guru.com project I took on. I developed the picture upload, shopping cart and pay pal interface for http://www.wallblazers.com a custom vinyl business. The project wound up stretching out a bit more than I would have liked, in that I was much more rusty with my javascript programming than I realized. It had also been a long time since I had worked with style sheets. In the end I was glad I did it. It was nice to get the cob webs brushed out and I am very excited to learn how the PayPal interface works so that I can write shopping carts now. I am not sure when my work will go live on the site.

Beds are for sleeping, roads are for driving, right dad?

Wednesday (Oct. 29) we got a call from my dad while we were in our marriage and family relations class. The caller ID showed a Wyoming number. When we asked my dad why he wasn't using his phone he wouldn't answer and just said "at least I am able to call you back". Lexie correctly surmised that he had been in a car accident. Details were much slower coming than we would have liked. Little by little things sounded better as EKG, and CAT scan test were coming back without indicating serious problems. I was much to tired to drive to Jackson that night. I was willing to leave at 3 in the morning, but an experiment in seeing how long I could stay awake driving to pick up a person in an accident from falling asleep driving really didn't resonate in my mind as a sound idea.

In the morning there was a lot of confusion about whether or not we should bring a trailer to bring home the wrecked vehicle. When I first heard that my dad wanted to bring home the wrecked truck I was aghast thinking "Are 7 junked vehicles not enough for the Thornton property, why does he need to bring home another souvenir?". My second thought was one of relief thinking, "Really, if dad hadn't wanted to bring home the junk vehicle we would have to worry about a personality altering concussion, its good he's the same old dad."

My client for the vinyl website needed his things ASAP so I spent the morning pulling some critical bugs out of my code while Mom gathered things to load the truck onto the trailer. After I had the most critical parts of my project delivered, I helped as well. It was almost two o'clock in the afternoon before we were ready to go. At two o'clock mom and dad finally called their insurance adjuster to find that, unlike what they had thought, the truck was covered with comprehensive insurance. The news brought some pause to the plan of the idea of picking up the truck. It just so happened that I was able to slip into parent teacher conference while I waited for my dad to make a decision as to whether or not to bring the trailer.

Ty and Dallin both got similar reports, they are both doing really well in school.

It was past three o'clock in the afternoon before we finally got going. I was relieved that the decision developed into not bringing the trailer. The ride to Jackson was quite nice. It seemed a waste to be in Jackson and not at least get to Jenny Lake. The sun was almost setting by the time we met up with Dad. He was very anxious because at the time of the accident, he had an envelope with $1500 in the truck with which he was planning to buy a tractor, which had not shown up in his things after the accident. We packed stuff as quickly as we could, making a very though investigation of the wrecked truck, pulling all of the inner panels and covers that we could. We still did not have any luck recovering the envelope. Returning to the crash seen, we were able to recover several other items, but had been looking through things for quite a while without finding the envelope. Every little piece of paper was a rise in hope followed by a fall in disappointment. Finally, I ventured up a very steep part of the hill and by flash light found the envelope in an unexpected place, as the other contents of the jockey box were much lower. It was definitely a personal record for most money ever found laying on the ground.

We gathered as much stuff as we could in the dark, dad was glad to see a lot of it still in useable condition. We were home by 9:30 PM, but I was still very exhausted. Dad's accident, of course, brought back some memories of my own accident last March. It is hard to say in a situation like that whether one is lucky or unlucky. For the circumstance Dad was extremely lucky in that he missed several trees, the river, and in general didn't get killed or paralyzed. The statistics are not good for people who take a dive down canyon ravines. He was also lucky in that his financial loss was minimized by the presence of full coverage insurance and finding his cash that had been laying outside all day. Of course, the overriding question is, "was he unlucky to be in the accident at all?" I have concluded that he was a lucky, unlucky person. Results were much better than they could have been.

That's the ravine where dad tanked it, Left of the guard rail the hill makes a 30-50 foot drop into a very steep slope. Dad was lucky not to become a permanent part of one of the trees.

Not everyone gets to walk out of these. Dad was truly lucky.

You voted for the wrong person for president!

I am officially cynical this year. I haven't voted yet, but I think I am going to vote for Ralph Nader, knowing that I too am voting for the wrong person for president. I am not sure I agree with Nader's position regarding unions, and I know I strongly disagree with his opposition to nuclear development. With that said, this year the hot issue with me is the economy and the balance of power. Of the major candidates, Ralph Nader seemed to express the most intelligence on this issue.

Next election I will be old enough to run for president. You can calm down, I am not planning on it. I too would be the wrong person to vote for president. People are so diverse that I don't think it really makes sense to vote for a person anyway. Issues are what concern people. I think it would make a lot more sense to let people choose their top 2 or 2000 issues and then vote on those instead of pigeon holing people into voting for a candidate who shares a position on a leading issue but then has all kinds of garbage behind that in other issues. An election does not give us a spectral reflection of the will of the populous. Honestly, I am not sure the populous knows the will of the populous. I am reasonably certain I don't know my own will and I am very frustrated this year not being more able to get a better reflection of what I think it is through the choice of candidates. I am not quite ready to accept virtual senators and presidents but it really is where I think the answer lies. If there were a way to make an honest computer... Anyway one more shot in the dark, Nader 08! "Fair Tax for America!"