The Best Christmas Present!

You know, the present? As in, right now? That's right, this is the best Christmas happening - right now. But also this is the best present (as in gift) we could wish for - to have all our family here. So in honor of their visit, here are a few scenes from home.

;;;;;;;;;Chris getting the kids to bed.;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;Lorna, Chris and Kayla
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Ian on the "alien" horse;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;Kayla getting ready for prayer
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Just think about this. . .

So, Mom and I are visiting Deseret Book in Sacramento while we wait for David, and as we're leaving the parking lot we see a truck with "Bill's Hydraulic Jack Service" painted on the side. That started me thinking: what if a guy named John owned a business that distributed invoices for payments to all of the irrigation districts and large water users throughout the valley. Wouldn't he have a sign that read "Jack's Hydraulic Bill Service" painted on the side of his truck?

Your mother accused me of not having enough to occupy my mind, which is certainly true. But the real shame is that these kinds of things occur to me ALL of the time - even when my mind IS otherwise occupied. I have just learned not to voice them in her presence.

Home for the Holidays

We picked up David in Sacramento Saturday night. He had a couple of "white knuckle" experiences driving his ride's car through the blizzard in Idaho and over the snowy (he had to put chains on) Donner Summit in California - but they made it alright. Nevertheless, 14 hours in the car is never great fun.

We get Kim Tuesday night (late) and Chris & Lorna come in Friday night/Saturday morning. Humm. . . it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

It's Brrrrr Cold!

Now for those of you who are unfamiliar with all of the quaint sayings in the Hall family, "Brrrr Cold" is much worse than your common, everyday, ordinary cold. And it's Brrrr Cold here now. It's been below freezing three nights this week. I've actually had to scrape my windshield in the morning. To make matters worse, the heater in my car is broken - so I get no relief driving to school. And they are predicting light snow overnight this Sunday. On the other hand, when it's clear like this, it warms up real nice in the afternoon. Shirt-sleeve weather.

Must be all that global warming I hear so much about. . .

In other news, I did my Christmes Concert with both schools last night. It went real well. There's always a few minor gaffs that no one but me (and the students) know about - but over all they did great job. We played some pretty mature music for this age group: Phantom of the Opera, Pachelbel's Canon in D, and on the lighter side: Sleigh Ride and Born to Be Wild. I have to keep reminding myself that the oldest, most mature students I have are. . . Deacon and Beehive aged. Who'd a thunk they could do such things?

Mom and I look forward to seeing you all soon.

Trim Up the Tree with Christmas Stuff. . .

Mom bought the tree Monday and I set it up, got the decorations out and put the lights on. Then it sat there looking at us all week while we worked our day jobs. Tonight we finally got around to actually putting the decorations on the tree. Looks pretty good, huh? That's because Mom knows what she's doing.

At the stake center we always put on a BIG Creche display with literally hundreds of nativity scenes from all over the world. It's our gift to the community and always draws lots of visitors.

I don't have a picture of it yet, but Mom has her own mini Creche Exhibit in our living room.

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WARNING! If you have young children viewing this blog with you, it might be a good idea to preview the contents of the video without them present first. It was made with what all you kids used to call the "Scary Santa" hat.

It's Christmas-time Again!

All right. Here's the promised "brighter" photos of our homestead. I realize that it's the same thing I do every year (there's a reason for that which has to do with how busy I am at this time of year), but for those who may be missing home just a little - well, here's some comfort and cheer.

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I especially like the one on the right because it has the conjunction of Luna (the moon), Venus, and Jupiter hanging just above the west end of the roof line. Meanwhile, the one on the left displays (rather gaudily) our security light hanging just below the east end of the roof line.

Thanksgiving with a vengence

Thanksgiving day was BEAUTIFUL here! (as you see in the first photo) Must have gotten up nearly to 70. We got up late and piddled around doing the last of the food preparation. Mom cooked a turkey and I helped by making the Little Smokies wrapped in crescent dough. We ate over at Rich and Joannes. That's David's hand getting into the turkey before we're ready to eat. ("Don't you touch that turkey, it has a hour left to cook. You'll get worms!")

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Joanne did her usual great job of putting on wonderful table settings, which were mostly comprised of items from her Mom's dinner ware. This is a before and after shot of the "adults" table.

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Steve was there of course (and brought a pork loin roast to supplement the feast), along with James and Sabrina (who brought one of her YW from her ward who had no wehere else to go I suppose - I never did get the whole story on that) and you see the missionaries too. The photo on the right is of the "children's" table.

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We played horse shoes in the back on Rich's newly installed horseshoe pit, and ate pies. Didn't I mention the pies? Pumpkin, French Apple, Chocolate Pecan. Umm, umm. GOOD!

5K in Under 30 minutes

This morning I did the Hands of Hope Turkey Trot. It's the first race I've run in probably 15 years. The Hands of Hope organization is a group that is building a program to assist homeless families who have children attending local schools. It's headed up by some friends of mine and I was out there to support them. I was number 552. . .

. . .and I have to admit that I could have done without the "Woo Hoo!" " You're doing great!" "You're AWSOME!" they had people shouting at us before we had even gone 3/4 of a mile. The best part was that after the race there was free pancakes and sausage! My favorite way to run.

Goin' to the chapel and I'm. . .

For those who know/remember the Millers from when we lived in Sutter, this is their daughter Kersina (who got married on Halloween) and her husband at their reception. I did the music for the occasion (what, you didn't know I did DJ work on the side? Yo, my homies say I can scratch it with the best of 'em)

I'm not sure why the groom looks like he's going to hurl. Except it must have been a long day. . .

UNDER $2 A GALLON?!??

I have to admit that (in spite of my eternal optimism in many things) I never thought we'd see the day when gas was under $2/gal. Now, I understand that some of you may have had prices this low for some time - but here in California it has been a while.

I'm so pumped up (pun intended) that I might even start hoping for a return of prices under a dollar. . . [now that's just crazy talk!]

Where does the time go?

This past week was something else. I think I'm still recovering. Actually, there's more truth to that than you might guess. I caught a cold last week and struggled to get through it and the necessary obligations of work and Church duties. Fortunately, there were a couple of minimum days at one of my schools (for Parent/Teacher Conferences) so I didn't have any students those days in the afternoon.

Friday night Mom and I went down to Granite Bay to meet for dinner with all of the stake presidents in our mission. We met at Elder Trythall's place. I was a great meal. We had turkey roast, rice, a really good salad with raspberries and candied walnuts. There was also this delicious raspberry relish. Yummm! Of course it was a privilege to listen to Elder Trythall relate stories surrounding the passage of Pro. 8 - and what was yet to come.

We're excited to see David this weekend, and maybe Kim next week. Very fun.

A Return to Honker Stadium

This has to have been one of the busiest weeks of my life. Right at the end of one of the busiest months of my life, Right after one of the busiest summers of my life.

Okay. Now that I have that bit of complaining out of my system... let me tell you about going back to YCHS to help with a half-time marching band performance at a football game. It's been about 18 years since I've done those. The occasion was a kind of a recruitment opportunity to bring middle school band students there to play with the high school band.

Many things are very different now than from when I was director there. A lot of things they do now are things I would like to have done, but wasn't allowed to do at the time. I did remember how cold it can get and dressed warmly. It turned out to be a good time - and I was able to leave after half-time, which is also something I was never able to do before.

I guess the final thing to put it all in to perspective is this: the current YCHS band director is a gal by the name of Jennifer Campen. She's doing a great job there and is about Kim's age (when I asked her if she remembered Kim, she said: "I think so, but I DO remember your son Chris! she gushed). Anyway, it struck me that when I started teaching at the high school - this girl hadn't even been born yet!

I don't think too many people will disagree that I'm getting older. But I'm not sure anyone will admit that I've grown up. Below are some photos from the evening's activities.

Marching over to the field............................................In the stands
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YCHS Band on field....................................................Combined Bands on field
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One more once. . . Bwuhaahaahaahaa!

Okay. I promise this is the last Halloween photo. Friday night was pretty wet, but not nearly so much as Saturday. We had 3 inches fall that day. So when things finally started to clear on Sunday I happened to see our jack-o-lantern had sprouted a new feature. No that's not a tongue sticking out it's mouth - yes, it's a snail (a slug-in-a-shell). I just couldn't resist posting the photo. See ya in the funny papers!

Halloween LII

That's right, 52 (LII) versions of Halloween for me. Below is what I did for our place this year. The skeleton I bought last year is still great. I bought a hooded cape for the Jack-O-Lantern, and the flashing eyeballs are another purchase from last year.

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I took a couple of "ensemble" pictures to try to give you the whole effect. But best of all is the video clip that shows the fog machine going.

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We've got people who come by our place just to see what I"ve done this year. In fact, one couple said they had to come back this year because last year their kids were too afraid to go up to our door. Yes!
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Another Week, More Old Photos

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Okay, this will probably be the last of the photos from the Pumpkin Farm. I just have had time to work on the video.

Things are pretty busy at work. We have a public appearance at City Hall this Thursday to play for the welcoming ceremony for students coming from Toride, Japan. Yuba City has this 'sister city' agreement with Toride and every year they send some students here then we send some students there. My band kids get asked to play for the welcoming ('cause they do such a good job). It takes about an hour total and I give them treats afterward to make it enjoyable for them.

The Protect Marriage discussion is heating up. Several of my students have said their parents wnat yard signs if I can get them. I delivered. The polls are very close, and we still believe we'll win!

Stake Conference

Yesterday and the day before was stake conference for us. For those who may remember, this is somewhat of a change from how it has been - or how it is scheduled for the future. Usually we have this conference in December, but many of the stake conferences around us were also changed to this month for some reason. My speculation is that being just prior to the November election it gave those speaking a chance to address, in a stake setting, important moral issues facing members in California this year.

The major theme turned out to be faith and hope. Very inspirational and uplifting. For further insight, read Numbers 13-14 and 1 Nephi 3-4. We had a wonderful spirit at the conference. I thoroughly enjoyed every speaker. Elder William F. Reynolds of the Seventy was our visiting authority and it was a pleasure to have him in our home. He was very down-to-earth and easy going.

The really fun part was when it came to his attention that two missionaries whom he had served with in the New England States Mission 40 years ago were living here in the stake - and married to each other. Sister Morgan and Elder Reid. (That's right, our very own Reids from down the street) It was fun to hear Elder Reynolds say: "I see Elder Reid had the good sense to come home and marry the beautiful red-headed Sister Morgan." We ate lunch together with them and Elder Reynolds before I took him to the airport. What fun!

All in all it was a great time. Just this in closing: I hope that none of my children or grandchildren will ever look at stake conference as a week off that they can go and do soenmthing else. There is far too much good to be had at ANY stake conference to ever miss even one. We love you.

More photos from BPF

Here are some more pictures from our trip to the Bishop's Pumpkin Farm with Grant and Lucy. Oh yeah, Pam was there too. Also a few from around home just prior to my birthday celebration. Grant on the truck; sticking his head through the picture frame; and smiling over grandpa's half completed birthday cake. Yummm! Lucy is shown enjoying her portion of the cake later that day.

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The Great Pumpkin Farm!

Pam and Grant and Lucy went with us to the Bishop's Pumpkin Farm this afternoon. Grant was just beside himself with so many things to play on. But you know what his favorite thing was? The big mound of dirt! He ran up and down that thing over and over again. Lucy's favorite things were the slides. Curly, straight or bumpy, she didn't care. (Sorry, no pictures of the slides. I'll try to post a video later this week.

Anyway, here are a few shorts to give you a flavor of the experience

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Okay, this last one is not from the Pumpkin farm, but from my birthday. Mom made my favorite orange, orange cake with candy corn. We had Rich and Joanne and Grandma over for eggs, pancakes. sausages and. . . CAKE! (Grant made the face and put the candles on for hair)

Tagged

No, I'm not turning this into a gang site (Westside Mormons? no - not that kind of 'tagged') but since I enjoyed Lorna's tag, and Michelle's tag, I may as well weigh in:

1. I was a round little kid when I was young. My parents kindly called me "stocky." It wasn't till the 7th grade before I began to thin out.

2. The reason for thinning out was that I grew 10.5 inches in height in two years. (5'0" at the end of 6th grade - 5'10.5" at the end of 8th grade).

3. I've been to 37 of the 50 states and at least 10 foreign countries.

4. My first gig as a professional musician was at age 16. At Konocti Harbor and Inn on Clearlake. Playing in a jazz group on a big two story stern-wheeled riverboat out on the lake. 4th of July 1973.

5. I was paid $8,000 for my first year of teaching. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. That year I went from working two jobs and going to school full time, making about $3,000 a year - to working only one job, not going to school (as a student) and making over twice that much.

6. Every Sunday when I was little I would do my best to get dressed properly for Church, then ask my Dad how I looked. He would always say: you're a good looking dog. And I thought he was giving me a compliment.

7. I would probably enjoy hiking, by myself, in a remote back-country area for two weeks, more than almost anything else in the world.

Conference Weekend

This was a pretty good week, without too many meetings or other commitments. Mom took advantage of the time she had to get some big projects started and completed (or nearly so). First, she re-coated the upstairs bathtub. We kind of felt that with a visiting authority coming for stake conference in two weeks, we ought to at least have a decent bathroom for him to use. (Okay, now she tells me she did it for Pam and her kids as well. Who knew...)

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Then yesterday she painted the downstairs bedroom. For those who have seen Michelle's "Andes Mint" colored room - it's very much the same green, only our chocolate color is in the carpet not on the walls.

Another project she completed this past week was a new wall hanging for downstairs that reminisces about the houses we and our children have lived in over the years. Not every home is shown, but many are.

As for me, I had Church business to do most of the week, and didn't really do much yesterday except watch conference. Rich and James and I went out to eat after Priesthood meeting to Hometown Buffet, which is always good for me. It also always brings back fond memories of the time when Pam used worked there. I liked helping her count out the tips she had earned (and which she stuffed in her socks while she was at work). Best of all, I like the fact that I can always get fish and seafood there, along with everything else. Good eats!

You'll notice that I have done a little 'sprucing up' of our blog, too. Check out the added links in the right-hand column to Church related sites and other family blogs. Rich's newly posted blog is among them.

This next week will be very busy for me with bishops interviews every night, along with a special fireside regarding Prop 8 one night, and speaking to the stake R.S. leaders another night, not to mention GATE testing of all 3rd graders a school (which I direct). But the end of the week will bring Pam and Grant and Lucy. YEA! That means more photos. See ya in the funny papers!

Your Mom sings in the choir...

I'm sitting here waiting for Mom to come home from stake choir practice. Actually, I've been typing up some letters that need to go out this week. But we had a big week. Chris was here and that was loads of fun. Mom and I got to do a few of her family's sealings in the temple, plus all of the usual work of the week. Mom has started to "winterize" the back yard, but I still mow lawns every weekend.

School is going well for both of us. I have huge groups at Tierra Buena and puny ones at Barry. Mom hands out ice-packs to every kids who wants one - but it's against the law to 'kiss it better.'

We hope that all of you will watch and/or listen to all appropriate sessions of General Conference next week. There really is nothing more important for you to do with your time. Mom and I went to the Relief Society General Broadcast last night. I highly recommend listening to the talks. Pres. Uchtdorf's will probably be a classic. Don't miss out!

Rode My Mountain bike to the Levee but the Levee was Dry

I finally had time to finish this montage of video clips from a ride along the levee I made last summer. I used my action cam fixed on my helmet (you'll see it in my shadow part-way through the video) and since the ambient sound is less that tolerable, I added an audio clip from a popular movie, which I sure you'll all recognize. (name that tune Michelle)

It begins with my ride down Teesdale past Rich and Joanne's house (on the left), continues around the corner onto Railroad, shots of the ride down that street, and eventually turning onto Garden Hwy just north of the road over to Boyd Pump boat ramp 5 miles south of town. You'll watch as I peddle up the levee access road, then south along the levee to Starr Bend 8 mi. south of our house. There's a little footage of the trip back with a brief shot of the buttes in the distance, then back down of the levee, ashot of East Owald, and the return to Creswell Dr. and our home.

Camping at Zion

Wish I had some photos to share, because MAN we had a good time last Friday. But before I get to that - Mom and I went to the temple Tuesday and had a good trip. On Wed. I participated in a conference call with Elder Clayton where he described our future efforts with the coalition to protect marriage. It's exciting work. Thursday evening was meetings.

But Friday! Mom and I took grandma and left about 4:00 for Zion's Camp. We got there and set up, built a fire, cooked foil packs (which I had made the day before) and pigged out. The weather was beautiful and NO MOSQUITOES.

It was actually a ward camp out, so later on everybody gathered around our fire (nobody else wanted to build one) and played games then sang songs. There was a good turn out of about 35-40 people. It was late when we finally got to bed. Which didn't really matter because at 11:00 pm the gun fire started. Some whacko neighbors of the camp were shooting high powered semi-automatic guns until midnight. : (

Anyway, we did get a good night's sleep, got up the next morning and packed up. By the time we were done with that the cooks had breakfast ready. Pancakes, sausages, hot chocolate, juice - and piles and piles of scrambled eggs! Yes, I ate my fill.

Later that night we picked up Chris from Sacramento (he's in NorCal doing a conference). We have him here till Tuesday. Fun, fun, fun.

See ya in the funny papers!

This week in review

The big news this week comes from Michelle, but then you all know that already. We have prayed for her and Trevor, and will continue to do so.

This was a big week for me with interviews every night, but we had a great part for Aunt Joanne and James Friday night. Becca and Sara were here too. (Oh, and Tyler) I ate a hamburger that had more meat on it than I have ever seen before in my life! And of course, there was the obligatory brownies, pie and ice cream. Yumm!

Yesterday was a pretty good, relaxing day. I finally got around to buying some new shirts for school (now that we're four weeks into it), mowed the lawns, rode my bike 10 miles, and watched some good college football. Yes, BYU whupped UCLA 59-0, but the game that interested me most was Notre Dame. Both of the big religious schools won big. Maybe it's a sign.

See you next week, when maybe I'll have another video from my action cam ready to post.

One of the best things we did at the fair this year was watch the Peiking Acrobats. It was Mom's favorite. We saw it twice, once with Kim too. There were so many good acts, but this was one I got a good video of. These girls were gorgeous and the guys were tremendous.

Dad at the Jurassic Park exhibit

I thought Grant and some of the other grandkids would like this video of me petting the dinosaurs at the fair.

The Train, The Train!

When Mom and I went to the fair a couple weeks ago we stayed overnight in Sacramento and took a (very) short train ride. This video is of the engine switching from the front to the back of the train to pull us back to Old Sacramento. Unfortunately, this was the most exciting part of the ride.

Photos from Hollywood

The theme for the state fair this year was Hollywood and they had a "back lot" set up with scenery from different movies and TV sets. Here are a few examples.

Kim having brunch (not breakfast) at Tiffany's.

Mom with Sponge Bob at Bikini Bottoms.

Me, with my big green friend.

Kim and Mom putting their best face forward.

Kayaking Down the Yuba

Kim and I kayaked down the Yuba River Saturday. We put in at Parks Bar (where Hwy 20 crosses the river) and paddled down to Hallwood, about 9-10 miles. The weather was great, the water was cool, and there was no on else on the river. We portaged around the Deguerra Point Dam and ate our snacks there: white cheddar Cheese-its, beef sticks, alsorts licorice, and frosted oatmeal cookies. Ymmm! We've got to do that with Pam & Rob and Chris and Lorna and Trevor and Michelle sometime. Heck, we may as well get David to go too!

Below are two photos taken before we got in the river. I'm afraid we were having so much fun that we forgot to take any more when we got out.

Yuba River Gothic


At this point neither of us had both oars in the water.

Bear-ly there

One of my favorite things to do at the fair. Ride the bear!

Things are still very busy here with the start of school and the whole Proposition 8 (Protect Marriage) effort going on. It 's amazing how much time I spend on that issue. It reminds me of some of the battles we read about in Alma and Heleman, but more on that later.

I know I haven't posted much lately. But Kim is coming to town and we'll get lots of good photos and fun things to post. Of course, then I'll need time to do it. . .

Wouldn't I have made a great pirate?

The theme for the state fair his year is Hollywood. They have all these cool cardboard cutouts you can have your picture taken with. I think I fit right in. Johnny Depp aint got nothin' on me.