What I Did on My Summer Vacation - (end of the saga)

This is a reprise performance for James of the now world famous "Fork in the Garbage Disposer" dance by the Los Simpson Boys. The joy and innocence in his admiration and laughter are reasons to celebrate connections between generations and the impacts of those connections.

It is hard for us to determine who had more fun during our visit, James, or the rest of our family. His interactions with Jacob, Joseph, and Samuel were totally joyous. Will he remember them next time we get together? I think so. I think there is a bond in families that transcends time and space, allowing us to capture and treasure moments. I remember some really great times spent with grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins at family events even when we only got together sporadically due to lives and livelihoods in distant locations.

I hope he will be able to receive similar blessings and forge similar memories.

What I Did On My Summer Vacation - another part deaux (the last, almost)

The culmination of the holiday trip was the visit with Ashley and her family in Salt Lake City, to meet our newest grandson, Oliver. We were also there for his blessing in Sacrament meeting.

See how calm Oliver is? He is so sweet and cuddly.


He is so sweet and cuddly when big uncle Joe steals his favorite new hat.

He is so sweet and cuddly when uncle Sam holds him.

He is so sweet and cuddly when... Hey, Wait a minute here! (this seems to be a normal reaction whenever I hold a baby. I think they are allergic to me.)

We attended the open house of the Oquirrah Mountain Temple in South Jordan, Utah. It is a beautiful Temple, and we all enjoyed the opportunity to walk through and see the Temple before it is dedicated.

The weather was good, but a small breeze did kick-up in the early afternoon.

"Gig 'Em, Aggies!"

James loves his cars and trucks, and I was the hero of the day with new ones for him, until Amy showed up with cars from the movie.

The little brothers

Joseph and James played with all sorts of cars and trucks, and helicopters. they also played in the park, and fed the birds when we went to a local drive in for dinner. Did you know pigeons love chicken? Me neither.

I love this face. I can only guess that he meant it for the camera, not poor Samuel.

Look, Oliver is even sweet and cuddly for Amy!

The three musketeers - All for one and one for all!

While James and I feed chicken nuggets to the birds, Ashley prepares another fry in her best OCD mode.

A priest, a rabbi and Barak Obama walk into a bar... (no, it was funnier than that.)

We enjoyed the company of the Cabrera family at a picnic in Liberty Park. It was really good to see them all again.

The company was good, the drinks were good, hippies behaved themselves for the most part, It was a good day.

James and Joseph playing again.

The end, except for a video or two to be added later.

What I Did On My Summer Vacation - another part deaux

For Independence Day, we drove to Albuquerque for a visit with family there. Here is Karen with one of her quilts.
Here is a close up of the free form quilting with variegated thread, and detail of the large cat in the middle of the quilt. Double click the picture to zoom for additional details.

James found a great spot from which to watch the fireworks display. As soon as we got there, a rain squall came through and drenched everyone. We huddled in the cars for a few minutes, and then emerged for a beautiful sunset, great picnic supper, and the show. All the boy cousins - Joseph, Samuel, "Uncle Ben", Austin, and Andrew - had those little poppers that you throw on the ground and they POP like a miniature firecracker. after throwing them at anything and everything, anyone and everyone, they came up with a plan.

If one is good, let's open up a bunch of them, and make a big one. They started with 10. Bigger POP. Ok, that was good, now let's try 100. Holy smokes, Batman!

One afternoon, James got out the bicycles for a little ride. Andrew had just learned how to ride, but still needs help on the finer points of stopping - like put your feet down before you stop moving. The tandem was by far the most entertaining ride of the day. Joseph and I rode it. from my point of view (the front seat) it was what I imagine peddling around with an elephant would be like. Me: "Just sit still and pedal!" Him: (giggling) "I am." Me: "No you're not!" Him: (laughing maniacally) "Yes, I am."

This is Christine, my great aunt. She is truly amazing and has great stories to tell.

Secretly, Samuel envied his cousins balloon communicator with built-in microphone.

to be continued...

What I Did On My Summer Vacation - part deaux

El Paso is lovely in the summer. The weather was pretty good, temps right around 95. Not too hot. So, the whole family flys in on the same day, and we all agree to meet for dinner, but nothing too fancy. Where do you suppose we chose? Costco. That's right decent food for a great price. Pizza for the chamacos, salads for the fogies (as in old), and everything in between for the rest of the crowd.

Curley and Nettie looking at pics of the trip.

One for the family GQ edition.

A few of Grandfather's grandchildren - Joseph, Samuel, Angelina, and Carlos. (the second generation)

The first generation.

Amy, after having been lost in the store for what seemed like days, is happily reunited with the rest of the tribe.

Daddy's Nose. (remind anyone of Saturday's Warrior?)

With Grammy at her bed side

Another shot of a beautiful lady.

As much as it was good to see family, we all remarked about the food. Aside from Costco, we spent the rest of the week eating, or looking for another good place to eat. It is hard to decide which was the best place, the little family run store front in El Paso called Delicious, the historical outpost/cantina/restaurant in Las Cruces,NM called La Posta, the iconic spot in Mesilla, NM called Chopes, or the snacks from Stahmann's Pecan Farms.

Gorditas at Delicious.

The real reason for the trip to El Paso - to celebrate a birthday with Grandfather Abe.

Snacks from Stahmann's

Enchiladas at La Posta

or a burger and fries for the small frys at La Posta.

to be continued...

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

For my summer vacation this year, I ...

Do you remember those essays? We thought they were dreadful, and boring, and dull, etc. Not that the vacation time was, but I guess it was the fact that we had lived the experience, and that, in and of itself, was infinitely better than a writing assignment. I remember it being loads of fun to fish in a stock pond, or swim with all our buddies, or play in the baseball game that had no time limits or number of required innings. We figured that if they could play cricket for days in India, then we could play for days too!

But what I remember most about those bygone days are family and friends. So with this in mind we had planned a trip to visit family and friends in California, Texas, New Mexico, and Utah. We had a great time, shared some great memories, and made some great new ones too.

We got to meet Ethan, Amy's friend. He is a great guy, a good story teller, and a pretty good urban farmer too. Some people in this family wonder if he will be a good son-in-law, but that is a question for another day, and another blog entry.

We saw Karen again, and she is still happy for all the work the Scouts of Troop 168 did to make the gardens at DVC handicapped accessible. The Adaptive Horticulture Program is still strong and it is gratifying to see the difference a few scouts made in the world for folks that need a little help.

We had dinner with Donny again too. It is always good to catch up on what is going on, and Donny is good at doing new things. He does not let his disabilities overwhelm his abilities.

The boys got to meet up with friends to ride bikes, rock climb, go to movies, picnic, swim, and hang out.

Kyle, Robert, Joseph and Samuel at mutual one night.

Landon, Joseph and Samuel being still long enough to snap a quick pic, then they were off again for a new adventure.

We went to the City for a tourist day, but missed lunch service at the finest restaurant in the city. We consoled ourselves with ice cream sundaes from Ghiradelli's.

We started at Union Square, and took a sight seeing tour of the City, including Chinatown, North Beach, the Wharf, Ghiradelli Square, the Presidio, City Hall, the concert halls, and a few other attractions. We bought jewelry, tee-shirts, post cards, and other memorabilia.

Part of the tour was from the top of a double decker bus.

"Here we are, walking down the street, blah blah blah, to everyone we meet. Hey Hey we're the Monkey's, ..." (I just wanted to call them monkeys)

to be continued...

Just for Fun

This will be a bit more entertaining after you read the post below it - School Days.

School Days

"Back to School" seems to be the theme every where one goes these days. So we will combine a little history, biology, and physics into today's lesson. We left California for a new opportunity in the Great White North, and the house we moved into looked a lot like this:

Then, as happens every year, the snows melted in the spring to reveal a typical tract home front yard, landscaped by the builder, which means you get grass and, still unknown to us at this point in time, a landscape feature, consisting of 2 large rocks near the tree and the tree:

We interrupt this little story to bring you a commercial endorsement for the Snow Boogie Blade Runner from Costco (the red sled), seen here in it's primary use, entertainment for youth. Keep an eye out for the real reason we like this sled so much. It is a very talented sled.

So, in the summer, the landscape feature turned out to be a bit underwhelming. We were able to rescue the grass, but the curb appeal simply was not there. What we needed was a dose of medicine that Michelle has been able to share with so many people over the years. We started with the area around the tree.

All it needed was a border, and a loosening of the belt, an expansion and some relief (small mounds in which to plant flowers and other flora. The real plans involved a new planter at the front of the house, another "landscape feature," but not in the tract home sense.

While at the store one night, we saw and purchased a sod knife, known to the rest of the world as a linoleum knife. Left to my own devices, I let the knife get away from me, and before I knew what was going on, we had removed about 200 square feet of sod for the low low price of $6.95 and 47 mosquito bites.

Last summer we had discovered a rock in the back yard when we were installing the raised bed planters for the garden. We never did get it out of the hole, but we did get to buy 2 new shovels and a pry bar. This summer we found out how large the rock really was - about 350 lbs! After a brief introduction to the science and physics of a lever, a fulcrum, and a sling, we had extracted the rock for transportation to the new planter area.

Unfortunately, we have been unable to eliminate or significantly reduce either gravity or friction, which is really a pretty good thing in the big scheme of things. The blanket dragging method worked for approximately 2.5 feet.

"Boys, we need to modify our approach to this problem. We need to reduce friction more, or hire a bunch of slaves to move this rock." A quick inventory of the garage revealed another dual purpose device - the motorcycle loading ramp/litter.

This method was significantly improving our efforts by a factor of 2. Now we were 9 feet from the hole in the back yard and only needed another 70 to 80 feet to call our efforts successful, installing the rock in its new home in the new planter bed. Back to the garage, I mean drawing board.

Here is where we nearly laughed our selves silly - the red sled. You see, the top is a medium density polyethylene mould, but the bottom is a high density poly ethylene sheet. They make sewage pipe out of this stuff because nothing sticks to it, therefore, it has a very low coefficient of friction. Both boys thought the old man had finally lost the few remaining marbles rolling around loose in his greying noggin. In fact, it worked so well, we made the next 60 feet in about 8 seconds. Not quite as fast as Hussein Bolt, but fast enough for us.

Crossing the concrete driveway was the next little challenge, back to the moving blanket - better, but still too hard. What we needed were wheels. What we had were a few steel stakes for concrete forms left over from the garden box construction project from last year.

The task went from hard to "zing" in 2 seconds flat. Samuel placed the stakes under the red sled and Joseph pulled it across the driveway as easy as the ancient Egyptians.

Then, all that was left was to turn loose a little testosterone to roll the stone into place and then use the lever and fulcrum again to install small wedges under it so it would not roll away from where we wanted it.

After a quick wash job to remove the mud, and an afternoon planting, we now have this at our front door:

You may recognize the wagon from Concord. The wheel set was a gift from our loving neighbors, Larry and Helen Crump. The wheels are from an old cart used by the original landowners where our house was. The area used to be a walnut orchard, and the wheels were from a cart they used to collect walnuts at harvest time from the orchard. The rest is a planter box made from scraps of lumber.


Class dismissed. See ya'll later.