The Bear's Special Day

The long anticipated day finally came. The Bear turned 8 on January 3rd, which made him eligible to be baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Depending on the day and minute the Bear either was looking forward to it, or apprehensive about it.

DramaMama and I talked to him a lot about why we get baptized, and worked with him not to be worried or scared. He has been concerned about having to go all the way under the water.

One of the most special things about it for me is that I was able to be the one to baptize and confirm him.

When we arrived at the Kimball East Stake Center where the baptism was held, we both went and got changed into the white clothes you see us wearing in the picture. The Bear was feeling anxious, so we said a prayer together in the changing room. His feelings came and went, but when we were talking to our Bishop, The Bishop could tell that the Bear was a little stressed, so he and I went into a room in the Stake offices where we gave him a comfort blessing to help be calm.

DramaMama brought an activity book about baptism that helped keep him distracted. As this was a stake baptismal service, there were several other children being baptized today as well, several of which the Bear knew from church and school. That helped him relax a bit. For those unfamiliar with our church, I offer a few explanations: Our congregations are referred to as "wards", and several of these wards comprise a stake. So there were children from I think 8 different wards there today.

We all met in the chapel and had a short program, then the children from one ward at a time were dismissed to the Baptismal font room. Sometimes this was only one child, others a couple of them. Our ward was last, so we remained in the chapel where a video was presented about the Saviour. As it began, an elderly man in a suit was shown walking into a building, then overlooking the land of Jerusalem. As he turned around and faced the camera, I was immediately overcome with emotion, and basically lost it for several minutes. Who was the elderly gentleman? He was our former Prophet who passed away about a year ago. See my blog entry about it here.

Finally it was our turn to go into the room for the baptism. There was one other child from our ward there with us, and since she was a girl, the Bishop had them go first. The cool thing about this one was that the person baptizing her joined the church only a few years ago, and has since progressed and received the appropriate Priesthood authority to perform this sacred ordinance.

When they were finished, I took the Bear through the side door that gave us access to the font. He immediately became scared again. I stepped down into the font, but he stayed at the top and was crying. I went back up (3 steps) and gave him a long hug. The Bishop was standing right behind him offering soothing and comforting words.

Then we descended the stairs together and he was fine. We had practised several times so he knew what was going to happen. We got our hands and everything situated, and then I baptized him. He did get a little tense under the water, but he was fine after that. He kept saying things like, "I did it!", "and are you so proud of me?" Yes we were so proud of him. We knew that it was scary for him, but he did it anyway. He was a good little trooper.

He also commented that the water was a little cold. It was warm when the font was filled, but by the time it was our turn, it had cooled off a bit.

Then we went and changed back into our nice clothes. We apparently were taking too long, because a couple different people were dispatched to tell us to get a move on.

Once we were ready, we went back out, and I was able to confirm him a member of the church. This consists of a group of priesthood holders surrounding the newly baptized person, laying hands on their head (I placed my right hand on his head, then all of the others placed their right hand atop mine. Our left hands rested on the right shoulder of the person to our left), and the priesthood holder acting as voice does three things: 1) confirms them a member of the church, 2) directs them to receive the Holy Ghost, and 3) Pronounces a blessing as directed by the Spirit of the Lord.

This for me was a very sacred privilege. This was the third baptism I have performed, and the second confirmation. The first baptism was on my mission and was a young man that we taught. The second was my son James 7 years ago. I was also privileged to confirm him.

One of the most amazing things in all this is that the pronounced blessing is not planned out. Of course in the days leading up to the event, it is proper to ponder on what might be said, and sometimes inspiration comes then that will guide your blessing. As I pronounced the Bear's blessing today, I had thought about it some, but did not have any prepared text to say. I let the words come through inspiration, and many of the words I said, I hadn't even thought about. I was able to tell him some very special things, and at times was overcome with emotion. My dad stood to my right, and when I was choked up, he gently squeezed my shoulder.

By the end of the confirmation, I had tears running down my face, and as the group broke apart, I saw that many people in the room did too. I must tell you that the Bear is one special little kid, and I am privileged to be his dad.

Afterwards, I had a private moment with my dad in which both of us were teared up. He told me he was proud of me. That meant a lot. I told him that I learned from the best. And I did. My dad has been a shining example to me his whole life. I want to be like my dad. I only hope that someday the Bear will be able to say the same about me. I feel I have a long way to go to earn that.

We all went over to dad's house and had lunch. It was a very special day for all of us.

Little Shop... Little Shop of... Whores?

First off... I hate that word.

As you probably saw on DramaMama's blog, we got tickets through my work to go to Broadway Palm dinner theater to go see "The best little whorehouse in Texas". I was wary of it, but figured the free food would be worth whatever we had to endure.

Here is my review:

The food was good.

End of review.

Um... okay here's some more.

There were a couple funny moments, but most of it was distasteful, and parts (mainly due to the actors) were atrocious. We left at intermission along with many other people. The theater last night was sparsely attended to begin with, so I imagine the staff got to wish the janitor goodnight instead of the audience.

There was very little of value to the production and once again, Broadway Palm left us disappointed. We have enjoyed some fantastic productions there, but they seem to have this seedy underbelly that rears its head from time to time.

My rating of the show? LOWZEE! (Say that with a fake southern drawl).

I enjoyed the food and the company of my favorite girl. The ones on stage did not attract my attention.

Side note: Best Suns game in a long frickin' time! I recorded it and it way made up for the lack of entertainment at the theater. They whomped the Dallas Mavericks by 28 points!

The Ward Party and The Latest on My Article

Last night we held our "Country Fair" party for our ward. We were in charge of it again, but this time DramaMama delegated a lot of the responsibilities to the different auxiliaries, and it was much easier.

Toward the end of setup before the party began, we had a minor trauma... we were about to fill the two 5 gallon jugs with ice water, when the water in the building turned off. A few phone calls, and some scrambling later, and once again the water came on and we were able to finish in plenty of time. The Bishop was outside working with the water shut-off, while on the cell phone to the Elder's Quorum President in the kitchen. Bishop fiddled with it until it came on.

Once we got going, the party pretty much ran itself. There was little maintenance needed other than keeping the food stocked. DrummerBoy and some of his friends provided the music for the evening, and they sounded fantastic. By the end of the night after having set up and taken down about 20 tables, and a hundred or so chairs, I felt like an old man. As part of the fair, we had displays for crafts, quilts, art, etc. I set up several of my drawings, a couple photos I took years ago, and the sheet music to 3 songs I wrote.

At one point, I stopped the Bishop and thanked him for helping get the water back on. As we were parting, he stopped me. "Brother Hanks, I got a call from Salt Lake."

"Uh-oh," I said, not knowing for sure where he was going with this.

He continued and told me that the call came from the editing department of the Ensign. He said the conversation went something like this:

"Do you know a Brother Hanks?"

"Yes I do."

"We just wanted to verify that he was in your ward, because we are preparing to publish his article in an upcoming issue."

...

Bishop said that it should be within 2 or 3 issues. When I received the original notification that they wanted to use my article, they said that there would need to be an editing process where they would edit my article, and sent it back to me for my revisions, etc until we came to an agreement of the final text. It does need an editing pass or two. Of all the things I have ever submitted, this one had the least polishing done to it. All in all it is pretty sound, but after re-reading it, I saw a few things I would change.

So there we are... it won't be long and I will finally be able to say that I have been published.


[UPDATE]
I received an email yesterday (12/3/08) with the edited copy, and a note stating that my article is slated for publication in the August 2009 issue.

I am going through the copy and doing some editing myself. I have until mid-January to get the revised version back to them.

A One Track Mind

The other day, DramaMama told me that as part of her quest to make us self-sufficient, she would like a wheat grinder that runs both on electricity and manually.

The Bear, nearby, piped up: "A Wii grinder? What does it do?"

My Book Is Finished!

WOO HOO!

I had to force myself to write the end, which is the hardest part of any story for me. I will admit that there is a ton of room for improvement on this whole thing, but that will come in the revisions.

I started out in March with a sort of vague idea of what it was about. I started writing, and doing a lot of research on the Navajo people and traditions, and soon found a lot of stuff in the early chapters that was flat out wrong.

I checked out a pile of books and searched the internet for everything I could find on Navajo culture, and in the process my story started writing itself. I would sit down to write, and not have any ideas what I was going to write about. The story was just there waiting for me to take down like dictation. The whole thing just came out. I read about some very interesting Navajo legends, and one of them became a main thread in the story.

I discovered on the next to the last chapter, that the book with the legend in it, misguided me a little, and I will have to go back through and change the order in which things happen some because of it.

The discrepancy came in the form of the four sacred mountains of the Navajo. They are all given a color. Even within my reference book, the colors for the north mountain and the east mountain were switched. One page said North was the white mountain, but on the facing page, it said that north is the black mountain. ARRGGHHGH! The legend used white as north which is what I used. The village was supposed to be at the foot of the white mountain, so it is getting shifted from the north to the east.

I took some liberties with this and invented some extensions to some of the Navajo legends. I figure if we can make fantasy with white people in it, why not with Navajo people in it? I think it is a good story, but I know the revisions will make it much better.

I have the whole dang deal on its own blog at: http://greatfatherofeagles.blogspot.com/ On the right column click on "March", then scoot clear to the bottom. The chapters are displayed in reverse order. Kind of a pain, but there you are.


DramaMama provided the design and music for my blog.

The Bears Surgery Day

Today, the Bear finally had his surgery to lengthen the tendons at the back of his legs so he will be able to walk flat footed more easily.

We woke up about three minutes after we went to sleep. At least it felt like that. We had to get up at 4:00 to meet the 5:30 arrival time at St. Joseph's hospital.

Kayden had his Pooh Bear to keep him company.

DramaMama has more pictures and tells the story well.

I took along my "Man Bag" which contains all my writing gunk. You can see me in the pictures with my clipboard making notes for the end of my latest book writing project.

The Military Honor Night

Last night was the evening that DramaMama planned to honor servicemen from the past and present. This was inspired by a man from our ward (Brother Vincent) getting notice that he is going to be deployed to Afganistan. He will be leaving this Tuesday.

We have been gathering photos and stories from members of our ward, and I took 2 days and put together a video that showed the pictures and told their stories.

The night came off extremely well. DramaMama was stressed out of her mind worrying that it would be a failure, but as usual, she pulled off an amazing evening.

We had the old pictures set out on a table, and one of the men (Brother Boushley) brought some memorabilia from his days on a submarine. We had posters from the different branches of the military. My favorite had an aircraft carrier on it with the words "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of anyone that threatens it."

We had the Boy Scouts do a flag ceremony and the Pledge of Allegiance. Then a young girl, whose father served in the Navy, sang The Star Spangled Banner. Then we had the dinner which consisted of fried chicken, baked beans, potato salad, and rolls. After dinner, we had another musical number by three young girls. They sang God Bless the USA. Then we had a man from the ward who had served in the British armed forces speak about patriotism. THen we showed the video.

The video started out with a sign reading "The Brimhall Ward honors those who have served and are serving in the armed services."

Following that, we had this quote from Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural address:

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."


Then we went through the photos. The ending was rather poignant. Erica chose 3 songs: He's a Hero, Where Stars and Stripes and Eagles Fly, and American Soldier by Toby Keith. At the end, we had all of the pictures that Brother Vincent had given us. One of which was of him kneeling at a grave with his head bowed. It was a touching image. He also supplied a poster of a kneeling soldier with a message and a scripture. I made a transition between his picture and the poster. With the words of American Soldier over this, it was hard to hold back the emotion.

After the poster, the music faded out, and another sign appeared:

"Please join with us in a moment of silence to honor those who fought bravely and gave their lives to ensure our freedom." After that it ended with "Thank you from the members of the Brimhall Ward."

Once the lights came up, we could see that several people were wiping tears. Everyone stood up and applauded. Not for the video, but for those present who were in it. It was all very touching. Many people came up to me later, with looks on their faces that I had never seen before. They were truly grateful to be honored like that. They thanked me over and over for doing the video. Many people asked for a copy. I discovered that I made a couple errors, so I need to patch it up, then I will make copies for everyone. I will try to put up a link to it once we get it fixed up a bit. After it was over, several people in attendance let us know that they also had served. We didn't know. So after we get them in, fluff up some of the stories, add more pictures, etc.

It was rather sobering making the video, and seeing all of the people who served, some of whom died. We heard some neat stories. Brother Boushley told us that his sub had the distinction of firing the first guided missle launched from a sub. Another one was of a linguist who listened in on Russian conversations in Cuba, who accidentally pushed a wrong button and shutdown a major operation. It went clear back up to the Joint Chiefs. One man served in Patton's 3rd Army, another served as a personal aide to the Joint Chief of Staff of the Army.

My favorite of the stories though was of a group of 6 brothers that all served in World War 2. Before each of them left, their father laid his hands on their head and gave them a father's blessing. All 6 of the brothers returned home unharmed. I will admit that when DramaMama told me that one over the phone that it choked me up good.

It was a fantastic evening, and DramaMama did herself proud. Today at church, several people mentioned it. Good job honey.

My Niece's Wedding, Golf and Goofiness

Yesterday, my niece got married. In the morning all the men went on a golf outing at the Royal Palms golf course here in Mesa. Each hole had its own competition, and we all had to toss $1 into the pot for each of them.

The first hole had a small pond or a really big puddle, whichever... so the first competition was biggest splash in the pond. The golf course donated the golf balls for that one. Now picture this... I stand atop the tee box (on a hill mind you) and take a mighty swing with my pitching wedge. The ball didn't so much fly as roll. It went down the hill and out of sight near the water's edge. It is questionable if it even got wet. I didn't win the competition.

After that we played the hole. If you recall my golf post for last year, I am no Bobcat Woods or whatever they call him. :) I teed off and.... holy crap! it was a good hit! My brother Ken who has always been a good golfer teed off and it was of course a good hit, right in the middle of the fairway. It turned out that even though mine was out in the rough, that it went farther. I then proceeded to make a nice chip shot followed by a good approach putt and a little shorty putt to par the hole. Astounding!

Then the second hole. Closest to the pin. I think mine landed in Australia.

Third hole was the longest tee shot. I figured that I had used up my good tee shot on the first hole, but I got up there, recalled my lessons at the hand of a pro, and swung. It felt good... and it looked good. In the distance, we could see the litlle white bag that held the $1 pot contributions. My ball was close to it. As we approached, it turned out that my ball had beat it by about a yard. Disbelief washed over me, as I claimed the prize for the longest drive.

Other competitions included shortest drive (won by my son James aka the Bug... about 5 feet.), longest putt, fewest strokes (my dad won that one), most strokes (James almost won that, but was beat out at the last minute). The last hole was designated as "Nick Wins". Nick was the groom. The rule was that the winner of the last hole takes all of the pots from the previous holes. The idea being that we gave Nick and Aubrey some money to play with on their honeymoon.

It was pretty hot even though we started a bit after 8:00 am. We had a good time though. My brother Mike and his family were here from Florida. I didn't know they were coming, so I was pleasantly surprised when he walked up and said hello at the golf course.

After golf, we went home and picked up the Bear, and the golf group went to IHOP and were treated to breakfast by my brother Ken, who is the bride's father. The Bear ordered the big huge pancake that has two strawberries for eyes, and banana slices that form a smile. James "cut it up" for him, but sort of massacred it. It looked like Freddy Krueger did it. :)

The wedding began at 6:30pm at a place called the Wright House. The wedding was outside, but in the shade and covered by big fans. The wedding commenced with the traditional walks up the aisle. Over the speakers came the song "Butterfly Kisses". As it got to the part about losing his baby tonight or whatever it says, that was when Ken was walking Aubrey. It got him, and his face crinkled up and went red. That of course got everyone else too.

The ceremony was very nice, and once photos were taken, the reception got underway. They had fabulous shake that was french vanilla flavored... auughhghhghgh french vanilla (Homer Simpson style). The wedding cake was not so traditional. It had a couple tiers as usual, then a few tiers of cupcakes.

As part of the reception, there was music playing, so we took advantage of it. Here are a couple shot of me and DramaMama cutting a rug:

"Will You Still Call Me Superman?"

And here are several other candid shots from the evening:

Me playing the part of Samson and bringing down the wedding place

Our part of the wedding cake.

Jamesie G

YEAH BAYBEE!

After the wedding, we went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner. We had an "un-birthday" for James. Here he is on the saddle while the whole place gave a big YEEHAW for him.

Tootin' Me Own Horn

DramaMama and I are the chairpeople for our ward activities committee. In August we are going to have an evening to honor people in our ward that have served in the military. DramaMama asked me to design an invitation that we can hand out before our Sacrament Meeting. I grabbed a few photos dealing with the military and put together the invite. I think it turned out pretty good, so I thought I'd put it on here so all three of my readers could see it.

Beware the Soul-Sucking Fiends

Over the past few weeks, there has been very little of a smile upon my face. I haven't felt happy inside. I'm not sure what the deal is, but I don't really feel like smiling much. DramaMama says she feels a lot the same way.

I have a 9-day vacation coming up toward the end of July, and am very much looking forward to it. My son from Utah will be arriving here on Tuesday, and will be here for the entire month. The last week of his stay I am scheduling off from work to spend mostly with him.

I think a nice long break from work will do a lot for me. I don't think what I am feeling is so much burnout as lack of time for me. DramaMama is going through a bout with everyone sucking the life out of her, and not getting anything back from them. She has neighbors, family, children, and a husband that always turn to her, because she is the go to girl. It isn't fair in any way, shape or form, because she turns into a puddle of goo and feels horrible, yet people still are trying to boost their own energy with whatever she has left.

I think both of us are at a point where we need a break from everyone and everything just to have alone time, together and by ourselves to recharge our batteries. I have a similar problem as she does, but it comes from work mostly. Most days are comprised of people coming to me to do things. Usually they are things that nobody else knows how to do, so I get them. A lot of days are filled with interruptions which gets frustrating. Sometimes I just want to stand on my desk and yell "SHUT UP AND LEAVE ME ALONE!"

The Bear comes with soul-sucking vacuum attachments and knows how to use them. He is very high maintenance, and is a constant drain. He is a great kid, and we love him very much, but there are times when he is almost too much for us to deal with.

After a day of being soul-sucked at work, the last thing I want to hear is "Daddy, I want to go to the big park" or "Daddy come play Wii with me." I want to come home, crawl in a hole, and hide.
On the days where I feel like that, if I get about 45 minutes to an hour of me-time, I seem to do better. I know that sounds a bit heartless, but a lot of times it is true.

Oh... and I hurt my back again yesterday. GRRRRR.

Old Softy... I Mean Yeller

The other day I saw that Old Yeller was coming on, so I recorded it so I could watch it with the Bear.

After work today, I had to drop by my dad's house to help move a TV into the house. It was in the back seat of his car, and was big, bulky, and heavy. I managed to wrestle it out, and get it on a little wheeled gizmo. We rolled it inside, and got it in place and hooked up. I knew I had done the deed though. My back was already hurting.

Once I got home and had dinner, I fired up Old Yeller. DramaMama had never seen it, but knew what happens. She noticed that as the movie started, I was a little misty eyed. Dern my hide! :) I think it is a great movie, but I knew what was going to happen, so it got me before my butt groove in the couch was even warm!.

At the moment it happens I choked it back. The Bear wasn't sad at all. His take on it? "I bet that makes him dead!"

As you can see on the bottom part of the picture, Arliss is riding on Old Yeller's back. The Bear said, "That was cool! he was riding the dog!"

Next week: Where the Red Fern Grows... *whimper*

Uh.... Come Again?

There are things in life that just don't make sense to my brain. We came across one of those this past week.

A couple months ago DramaMama had an alarm system installed in our house. We got the system free on a promotion, and all we pay is the monthly fee. Last week Drummer Boy accidently pushed the panic button on the remote to the alarm system. Soon the police were at our house checking it out to make sure that there really werent intruders.

A little bit after that we were notified that we weren't licensed to have a security system in our home.

HUH?

You have to have a LICENSE to protect your home and family with an alarm system? I don't know about you, but that is completely ludicrous to me.

So anyway, we have to fill out a form and send in $10 to become licensed to not die in a home invasion.

When Life Slaps You in the Face

This morning I wasn't feeling too good, so at about 5:45am I camped out in the bathroom for awhile. After that I went upstairs with the intention of doing a little work before heading to my job. I got into my email and found one from my brother Ken which changed all that.

Last night Ken and his wife Jean were driving down from Show Low to have dinner with their two daughters. Somewhere between there and Payson the roads were slushy. They had rain and sleet and snow and sleet off and on, in one spot they hit some ice and lost control, and ended up rolling twice.

My brother came out of it rather battered, but able to get out. They had to use the jaws of life to get Jean out. She didn't fare so well. They rolled in her direction, so she took the worst of it. We figure her right arm must have gotten pinned between her and the arm rest. She ended up with a compound fracture and inch or so below the elbow, both bones broken above the wrist with another piece broken off, and several cracks in her wrist and hand. On her left arm, the lobes of on of the humurous bone were sheared off. She had a chip broken out of her hip, and she smacked the back of her head pretty hard. She says she remembers the first roll, but that is all.

She had surgery this afternoon to put her right arm back together. The doctor said he wasn't even sure how they were going to do it because there were 7 sections of bone to put back together. There was a possibility that they would work on the other arm, but they said they would probably schedule a second surgery for that. We haven't heard how the surgery went yet.

DramaMama and I went over to the hospital around 10:30 and stayed for a couple hours. Ken was in pretty good spirits, and Jean was awake and talking to us.

Jean does stained glass with their own business, and had several pieces in the back of the Yukon. They got obliterated, and all of the windows in the vehicle were gone. You would think with all of that glass that they would have been sliced up, but neither of them got cut.

Apparently, they had just gotten car insurance re-instated. In fact, Ken said that about 20 minutes before the accident, their agent called and said they were covered again. Where they were, they had very limited cell service, so he called the agent and was able to say they rolled, Jean was hurt, and the call dropped. Once Ken got into Payson, after they life flighted Jean to Scottsdale, he was able to talk to the agent and get it all squared away.

THEN... Ken had to rent a car and drive for an hour and a half to get to the hospital where they took Jean. I personally think that would have sucked big time.

So all in all, they came out of it fairly well considering. The Yukon was destroyed, but it held is shape and protected them.

Oh... and it was Ken's birthday.

Honey-Dids

Its feels good to finally get some of those lagging projects done. The kind that your wife assigned you 6 months ago and never got around to.

Today I made a list of things to do, and have scratched off all but 2. I even did them before I scratched them off.

One of them made DramaMama both happy and annoyed at the same time. For a very long time we have had a network cable strung from my office, down the hall, down the stairs, behind a bookcase, turned right to hide under the couch sort of, then under DramaMama's desk where it plugged unto her computer. Easily seen it is, how this attractive solution to connectivity might not suit.

So anyway, for Mother's Day I planned to fix the original cable. I was going to put new connectors on it and remove the old cable then just let her discover that the cable was gone. I weren't feeling good, so instead I gave her the package of new connectors as one of her presents. The old cable used to work, then with a new configuration, it didn't, so I strung the one through the house and got it working. The part that annoyed DramaMama was that before I tried putting new connectors on the old one, I plugged it in, and... it worked. I could have switched it out several months ago with not much effort. *sheepish grin*

I also drained the fish tank of oh-so-wholesome-looking fishy poop water, cleaned the things from inside, dumped the highly poopified blue rocks from the bottom, and when the level of water was low enough, I took on the task of capturing Frick, the rogue algae eater, killer of goldfish. It took me 10 minutes to finally trap him in a net made for little goldfish. He is about 9 or 10 inches long.

So Frick was in the bucket finally. The Bear and I drove him to Pets, Inc. which seemed approriate as a subsidiary of Monsters, Inc... where we donated Frick. The annoying part about that was, that the guy that helped us reached right in the bucket, picked Frick up, and dropped him in the nearest tank. Frick didn't even flinch!

When I returned home I finished cleaning out the remaining cloud-o-poop water and rocks and disposed of those. It was all most gross and disgusting, but hey.... it was my job to keep the tank clean, so there you are.

We are also dejunking... where'd we get all this crap???? (other than fish poop I mean) We have a mountain of stuff for a garage sale now. In my younger years, I used to collect mugs from different places I visited. For a VERY long time they have been in boxes in a closet. So I think I am going to throw them into the garage sale.

All of proceeds from the garage sale will go to help finance Drummer Boy's Europe trip next summer. Hmmmm.... I clean out fish poop... he goes to Europe...

So anyway, a few of those honeydews became honeydids today. WOO HOO!

A Bit of a Sobering Day

Last Wednesday, we saw on the news that 4 teens were involved in a very serious accident in which one was killed. He was 15, and his 16-year-old brother was driving. The one boy that wasn't ejected was the only one wearing a seat belt.

The next day, I found out that they are the sons of one of my co-workers.

http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/video/?bcpid=1155316042&bclid=1155212903&bctid=1509297819

The video is labelled Fatal Crash in Gilbert.

Today I attended the memorial with several people from work. Very sad.

------

There is another video on that page labeled Mesa Standoff. THis happened just down the street from us. It mentions Leisure World. This is a retirement community where my dad lives.

That day, they locked down the Bear's school. Somehow the kids learned that a bad guy with a gun was loose in the area. So naturally the Bear had a thrilling tale. According to him, the man with the gun shot him right in the back. He took the bullet out of his back and threw it at the bad guy. :) Later he came back to DramaMama and said he wasn't telling the truth... Oh REALLY?

Of what can I speak?

I am a crappy poster!

We have had several noteworthy events go unblogged by the Weezil. DramaMama has covered them all beautifully though.

Bon Jovi was great. Mostly seeing the big grin on DramaMama's face. Knowing that we had "bad" seats behind the stage, I bought her some fancy opera glasses with which she could nonchalantly peruse Jon Bon Jovi's butt. After we were on the freeway on the way to the concert she realized that she left them home. Turns out we were so close to the real butt that we didn't need them anyway.

We saw Disney on Ice - Finding Nemo. I fell asleep while he was getting lost. The Bear loved it. The treats and doo-dads are so frickin' expensive that we decided to forego them this round, expecially seeing as the Bear already has the Finding Nemo crap from an earlier show.

I did feel bad for him though, because it seemed that all of the other kids were getting treats and got to wear the fish hats. He seemed to come away with no ill-will towards us.

The Suns won tonight. WOO HOO!

8th Anniversary and Time Off

Ahhhhhh..... I have a big old cheezer on my face because... well... I'M NOT AT WORK! But more especially because this has been wonderful to spend time alone with DramaMama and no kids or bosses.

We started out Thursday by going to breakfast at Village Inn. I don't think I stopped grinning the whole time we were there. We took a jaunt through the dollar store where we got such exotic things as hand sanitizer and Bit-o-honey.

We then went to a movie. We saw "Vantage Point" which was very interesting and intense. We have been taking pictures of us doing whatever throughout the day.

From there we came home and had a nap. I thought I only slept for about 10 minutes, but when I looked at the clock more than an hour had passed.

I drove to work... WHAT??? Um.. it was pay day and I needed to get my check. In and out in less than 5 minutes. I took it to the bank then returned home to my cutie wife.

We have pretty much been playing this by ear, so what ever floats our boat is what we do. We decided to stay in for the evening.

We use the NetFlix service, and we had the last 2 "Bourne" movies waiting in our mailbox. We had watched the first movie Wednesday evening, so we watched the second one and ordered pizza.

From there we pretty much did our own thing. DramaMama was tired out, so she went and laid down. I watched the end ofthe Lakers and Jazz game hoping the the Jazz would beat the Lakers so the Suns could pull ahead of them in the rankings, but alas the Lakers won. PPLPPLLLTTTT!!!!!

We had a very nice day together. We never have had a lot of alone time like this. Over the past few years, we've had a few days here and there. When we were married we already had a family, so we didn't get the alone time then. This has been very nice. Have I ever mentioned that I love my cutie wife?? I do.

What has become of Cheez?

Good question.

I know that I have lost all 3 of my readers due to lack of diligence here in blogland, but I thought it time to write something anyway.

I started a new book recently, and am into the 8th chapter already. I am receiving good reviews so far from my writing group. They have said that of all my stuff they have read, they like this best.

So this makes 1 book with 2 revisions completed, another book about 2/3 way through first draft, the NanoWriMo book that never got far that is morphing into still another book I started, then this one.

Work has been nightmarish the last few days. Bad stuff followed by more bad stuff. We are still cleaning up the mess, and hopefully will get it wrapped up tomorrow.

We are enjoying American Idol. So far most of the ones I wanted to go away have done so.

I am also enjoying the Celebrity Apprentice.

GO SUNS!

Next week is our 8th anniversary. We already got our "present". Our 4 year old TV did a croaker, so DramaMama went on Craigs list and found a nice tv for us. We got a smoking deal on it. The Bear came down the stairs and notified DramaMama that "this TV is HUMOUNGOUS".

I am taking a couple days off at the end of our anniversary week, not the day of unfortunately. But that will give us 4 days.

If anyone reads this, please leave a comment. I don't get many anymore.

My good news

You may recall a year ago my post about my long lost Bible: (http://cheezweezil.blogspot.com/2007_02_01_archive.html titled "A Long Lost Treasure")

Back then I got a couple comments, one from a member of my writing group, and another from my wifes' brother's wife. Both mentioned the possibility of a story, and one suggested a submission to a church periodical.

I let that stew for awhile, then I wrote it up in articvle form and submited it to The Ensign via their online submission process.

A few months passed and I figured thay passed it over.

Last Saturday we watched President Hinckley's funeral, then got aa nice surprise right after it.

Here is the email I sent out to family and friends about that experience:

***
Today was rather emotional mainly due to the funeral of President Hinckley. (For those of you who don't know who he his, see my blog: http://cheezweezil.blogspot.com).

Shortly after the funeral was over, I thumbed through today's mail and saw a letter from the Church's Magazine Department. I thought it was probably an invoice to renew our subscriptions, so I casually set it aside. Erica made the comment that maybe it was something to do with the article I submitted several months ago. So I opened it and read the following opening line:"Dear Author: We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been accepted for possible publication in the Ensign."

Thats as far as I got before I was overcome again. It was very welcome news, and it means a lot to me. I have put a lot of energy into writing over last few years, and it is great to see something coming of it.

I thought you all might like to share in my little bit of happy today.
***

They indicated that there will be an editing process that we will go through until we agree upon the final text. Then actual publication could be months or years depending on their editorial needs.

I am very excited about this, but the biggest reason may not be the one you think. The publishing credit will be very nice, but what I am most excited about is that people all over the world will have the chance to read my neat little story. People high up in our church will read it, my family will read it, my friends and people in our local church will read it.

This is all very cool.

DramaMama's Surgery

I just wanted to update you on Erica after her surgery this morning. For those of you who didn't know, she had a hysterectomy.

She has been in a bad way for a couple of months now, and the doctor thought that this would be the way to solve the problems.

She went in to surgery at 9am on Friday. The doc came and talked to us at 10:30am and said everything went great, no complications or problems.

While we (me and Erica's mom) were waiting, the hospital had two different Code Red alerts. That is always a confidence builder, when you aren't sure if the hospital is going to burn down before they finish the operation.

After meeting with the doc, we waited another two hours with no more news about recovery, or whether she had been moved to a room yet. We asked the desk, and they sent us up to room 704. She was still asleep when we got there, but began to stir and groan periodically soon after that. She has one of those pain button deals, so she was slamming on that.

Around 6:00pm they got her up and walking, and although she was understandably a bit shaky, she did fine. She is in good spirits.Thank you all for your prayers and concern for her through all of this, it is very much appreciated.