Author: midder

It wasn’t a “scratch” or something like that. Julie likes to make light of the intense pain and suffering I endure. Alas, this too shall pass. As proof, I offer these pathetic pictures — that I had to take all by myself, by the way. Try taking a picture of your right pinkie with an SLR camera. Not you, Catherine. You’re left-handed.

I know, it’s amazing I’m able to keep it together as well as I do. Tough as nails, this one. You would have been scared as well. The doctor brought out what can only be described as a machete to cut the “growth” out of my finger to try and stem the infection that was sure to race up my arm to my brain, likely ending my life. She brought a few extra nurses in to witness the complicated procedure. Either that or they just wanted to make sure that I didn’t pass out while they stuck a needle as thick as a ball point pen into my finger. I wasn’t sure which hurt more — being gouged with that blunt object (the needle) or having the doctor take the machete and nearly amputate my right pinkie at the top knuckle. Hopefully I’ll keep my nail. My hand model career might be over either way, though, so maybe it’s OK if it goes. I’ll just look tougher, something I’ve been working on for a few months now. In any event, crisis averted. I am alive. And it no longer hurts to put my right hand in my pocket to get my cell phone for all those calls I get.

Some of you know that I spent about 10 days in Phoenix, most of which (as per usual with me) were spent wallowing in self-pity. I think I stopped breathing for about 15 seconds when I first went into our house down there. But a few days of cleaning it up made me realize what a drama queen I am. Though it was a surprisingly emotional thing. If I can only get someone to take a baseball bat and go find the tenants . . . maybe not a good idea. So we decided to put the house on the market, along with 55,000 others. Hopefully ours will shine through and all will be well. I think all will be well no matter what happens. Lessons learned have been valuable. Thank you, all, for your help. Mom & Dad, Julie thinks I get too spoiled down there. I think it’s OK.

We won our softball game last night, 22-2. I hit a home run, if you can believe it. Not an over-the-fence home run. It was more like one of those hit it to the idiot in right center field and watch them miss the ball while I round the bases kind of thing. But a home run nonetheless. I don’t think that the other team was that bad. We just had one of those nights where we were channeling a higher power. The other team was channeling . . . well . . . a team like ours. It was fun. Afterward our neighbors got out their projector and showed The Three Amigos on the lawn up on the side of their house. Amigos were falling from the sky, Lucy ate at least a pound of skittles, and we were all very tired by the time we went to bed past midnight. Who am I kidding? It’s 12:18 right now. I’m rarely in bed before midnight.

It was a good day of football for the Pac-10. I’ll just leave it at that, in hopes of avoiding another flame war.

Julie really dislikes these blocky themes I always put up. We have pretty different tastes, apparently. I needed something a little more basic. And boring. And without Comic Sans, which, as it turns out, is the stupidest font in the history of fonts. People think that if they use Comic Sans that they’re suddenly a scrapbooking genius with their original lettering. Uh. Wrong. So you’ll have to bear with my plain themes. Until the next time Julie logs in and changes it, that is.

Always something exciting going on. Yes, we do other things besides take pictures of our beautiful babies. Go on, gag, I don’t care.

We started a softball league a few weeks ago. It’s a co-ed league. Julie has bruises to prove it. Somehow I got labeled as a pitcher during one of our practices, so I’ve had the good fortune of pitching a few games. Friday night I was out on the “mound” as it were, when all of the sudden it starts raining, hailing, and blowing like Hurricane Dean. After I walked one guy on straight pitches, the last one almost hitting the guy in the head, the umpire finally called it. Luckily it only took about 10 minutes to blow over. We haven’t won yet . . .

This week Anthony Jenkins (David and Marilyn’s 2nd son) got home from his mission in Seattle. There was a big party over at their house last night. Their yard has turned out great — with the pool, spa, etc. There were lots of 21 year olds there. It’s interesting, because I don’t feel like I’m 12 years older than them, but they clearly think that I am. You know how when kids kind of talk like they could care less who hears them? They just talk, are loud, etc., and they don’t care if you hear them, because you’re just . . . old? That’s what it was. Awesome.

Julie’s sister Lisa came up from St George to stay with us and go to the festivities. She brought Taylor with her. It was good to have them here. Today (Sunday), we went to Jenkins’ church to hear Anthony speak. It was a double-header, because Julie’s dad spoke as well. Not to mention Leslie’s amazing singing. “She’s still got it,” as Anthony said.

The girls start school on Tuesday. They’re really excited. They started digging through their backpacks and found the papers that said they need to read X number of books for the summer to get a free one in Barnes & Noble. So they’re suddenly all into it. They’be been reading all summer, but now they’re excited to write down what they’ve been reading so that they can get a new one.

More later. Here’s more pictures http://www.flickr.com/photos/midder/

It’s been quite an eventful week for us. Thursday, the 24th, was a big day in Utah. And nowhere else. Michael called me and said that he had a lady who was trying to close a loan up here and she couldn’t get a hold of anyone — broker, realtor, title, etc. She was apparently ranting on and on about how Utah thought it needed its own holiday in the middle of July. He said it was all he and the other Mormon folk could do to keep from laughing at her.

To do our part to celebrate, Julie asked me if I could stop by one of those places where you can buy fireworks. I was telling Michael about it. He was having a hard time comprehending the ability to go into some grocery store parking lot where they’ve got some big tent setup filled with nothing but fireworks. And I can relate. In Arizona, you’re feeling special if you hear of someone who has a sparkler. You just don’t do it down there. Here I could buy enough fireworks to blow up the local Wal-Mart. In any event, I guess I got a little carried away.

We’ve been toying with the idea all summer of going camping somewhere. Julie’s brother, Jim, had reservations up at Bear Lake at one of the campgrounds there. Somehow we got invited to go along, though I’m wondering if we sort of invited ourselves. A few days before we were to leave, they called us and said that they weren’t going to be able to make it. Then they called again the morning of and said that their friends that were also going weren’t going to make it either. So, with some reservation, wondering what they knew about the place that we didn’t, we headed north on Thursday night.

I decided that we were going to go the “back” way, since I figured that I15 going north was probably pretty busy. So we took a route that went up through Heber, over to Evanston, WY, through little towns in Utah called Randolph and Hyrum, to the south end of Bear Lake. It was beautiful country. The lake itself was a beautiful emerald blue. The landscape surrounding it, though, was a bit barren. Not many trees to be found. In any event, we didn’t have much time to take it all in that first night because there was a storm a-brewin’ and I needed to set up a new tent that I had never set up before. After only small amounts of panic, I managed to get the thing up and good. I admired my handywork the next day, noting that the thing was going absolutely nowhere.

Our first night went pretty well. For me, at least. Julie was tossing and turning all night, worrying that the girls were too cold or that we were all going to be eaten by bears or something. Somehow we made it through. After a gourmet breakfast of french toast and other goodies, we headed over to the lake. We had this 6 foot trampoline blow up thing that we were trying to balance our other stuff (including Gwenyth) on for the 1/4 mile or so trek to the beach. We must have looked like quite the circus, because 4 boy scouts came over and helped us carry all the stuff down to the beach. Once on the beach, I attempted to put together the shade canopy that I’ve probably put together 10 times before. It must have been downright comical to watch me do seemingly the same thing over and over again. I finally figured it out, after far too many 4 letter words.

After a little too much sun and plenty of fun, we decided to go get washed up (as much as possible while camping — though there were showers) and drive into town. “Town” is a small place called Garden City, right on the west edge of the lake. We stopped at one of the many shakes/burgers joints and had some great raspberry shakes. Apparently Raspberry Days is this coming week there. And it’s quite the big deal. So we missed out on the crowds, but still got the berries.

That night we built a campfire, cooked some tinfoil dinners and hot dogs, had some good grub, and then sat around the campfire and talked. The girls were reminiscing about their many memories from their long lives. It was a good time and I think the girls really enjoyed it.

The next day (Saturday) we decided that we were going to rent some Waverunners. It was going to be a little tricky, though, as we had to be checked out of our campsite by 2pm, I had to attempt to setup that canopy again, and we had to get down to the beach again. We found a way to get down to a different part of the beach — by car! So no drama getting our stuff down there. I went down to get a waverunner and we got the only one left, which ended up to be the best one they had. 180 some horsepower, goes 75 mph, etc. It was pretty fun. The girls were a little hesitant, especially Grace, but they all ended up enjoying it, especially Gwenyth :).

Somehow we made it back to the campsite, were able to scrounge together all of our stuff before the next people came through.

We decided to head back through Logan. Mostly because we didn’t want to come back yet. So we took our time heading back through the high country to Logan. Logan Canyon was beautiful. It wasn’t as far from Bear Lake to Logan as I was imagining. I think that the sign said 38 miles or something similar. Once we got there (and I woke everyone up), Julie decided that we should try and find the home she grew up in for a few years. Her brothers and sisters, especially, speak very fondly of their time in Logan. I think that a few of them will forever hold it against her parents that they moved.

We had to make a few calls back home to find out where we needed to go. I got a hold of Dave (Julie’s brother) and he was able to guide us there within a few minutes. Julie reminisced about her time there. She figured that she was probably just a bit older than Lucy when she left, but she has very vivid memories of it. We drove around and saw the old home, the old skating rink, the Bluebird restaurant, the tabernacle, the temple, parks, and other kinds of fun. It was a neat town.

We settled for the night in a very upscale Best Western, where we all had a very good night’s sleep. The next day we found this small zoo that the girls loved. The literature in the hotel said that it was free, but when we went there, we found that it was 50 cents per person. Well worth it.

On the way home, I15 North was completely closed around Ogden. The traffic must have been backed up for 6 miles. We were lucky that it was a straight shot home. All in all it was a good time.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/midder/