Category: Family

Another Road Trip

It seems like we can’t get enough of the road trips that are just a tad bit too long, distance-wise, and just a tad too short, time-wise. We spent most of Friday and today on the road so that we could be in St George for Curtis Dunkley’s wedding. The drive to and from was horrendous, but we’re all alive and well. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.

On the way up, we stopped at Mr. D’z, a cool greasy diner on the old historic Route 66 in Kingman. Come to find out that it was the stainless steel get-up that Julie’s Grandpa originally brought from Kansas City to Holbrook, AZ. Apparently he sold it in 1946, and it ended up in Kingman. Small world. The food was decent there. Gwenyth had her first french fry and enjoyed it greatly.

St George was nice. The wedding was nice. It was at a golf club up North of St George. Pretty swank. Rumor has it that Robin Williams is building a small mansion across the way. Curtis seemed to get a great girl. They sure seem happy together. Abigail and Grace were flower girls at the wedding. Grace said she was “so embarrassed” but they both loved it.

Lots of pictures are up there. The last few I took while driving over the Hoover Dam. It only took an hour or so, so I thought I’d get some keepsakes. Notice the bent cranes. Apparently those are the ones that fell a few weeks back? Ooops.

I can’t believe it’s October.

Start of Fall

We’re well into September now, which in Phoenix means that the temperature is no longer above 100 degrees every day. We’ve had some really nice nights lately. Nice for us means about mid 60s at night. Sure beats 90 or whatever it is during the height of summer. Of course it also means that the swimming season is coming to a close. With our thinned-out blood, anything below 75 degrees is too cool. Really. And it’s amazing how quickly the blood thins.

I received some news last week that literally took my breath away. The man who interviewed and hired me at Mercer, Art Wright, passed away last week. He had liver cancer. He’s been out since April, but this was certainly not expected. My last conversation with him in April was interesting. I asked him how he was doing, and he said he was doing OK. He then said that if I believed that, he had a bridge to sell me. I had no idea how sick he was then. I had no idea how this would affect me. Art took a chance on me back in the day, and I’ll always appreciate that. Who knows where/what I’d be without him doing that.

We celebrated my mom’s 60th birthday last week with a surprise party at Catherine’s. My mom was genuinely surprised. My birthday is next week. I’m a year older. Woot! The girls are doing well. I’ll have some more pictures in the next week or so.

Lake Pleasant

We spent a good amount of time yesterday at the lake. My dad has been trying to get us to go for a while, and we’ve always had one lame excuse or another. Actually, it was always something legitimate, but we wanted to make sure that we really got out this time. It was a nice morning, surprisingly uncrowded for a Labor Day weekend. Gwenyth didn’t really dig the life jacket too much, but she ended up managing.

Abigail tried to ski for the first time, and got up on her first try. My dad has these nifty skis that basically lift you out of the water, so she was able to use those. Grace, Lucy, Julie, Abby, and I all got on the tube at one time or another. We all had a really good time. Abigail and I are a bit sunburned, Gwen got a little bit too much wind and now has a  cold, but we’ll survive. The potty situation was something else, which I won’t publish. If you really want details, email me privately. Let’s just say that it invovled a trash can, wipes, paper towels, and a big black garbage bag. Fun!

I need to teach my Sunday School class today on very short notice, so I must be going. The lesson is on Job, a good message. I’ll be spending much of tomorrow fixing up the rental house. We’ll see how I am at doing recessed lighting and installing a microwave. The guy at Home Depot insisted it was no problem. More later. Oh yeah, new pictures to the right.