Thanksgiving Is Over - Here Comes Christmas!

Chris helped me, and I spent several hours today getting the Christmas lights up on the house. It really doesn't take more than an hour and a half or so - if all the lights are working. But that rarely happens, so most of my time is spent fixing light strands and going to the store to replace irreparable ones. And this is not quite complete. I still need to get the white icicles up across the bottom of the bedroom windows, and for the first time ever, I'd like to put a strand around the front room window. 

Of course, some other things have to take place before before the fun starts. I have the annual Christmas Concert with the Barry & Tierra Buena Bands on the 5th. I have HUGE groups this year totaling nearly 200 students between the two schools. And they are doing pretty well.

Then there's Stake Conference on the 7th and 8th. Things are looking good for that too. Though my comments for the leadership and adult sessions are set, I'm not sure just what I'll say in the general session yet. I'm sure the right thing will come.

I've started playing my Christmas play lists in my car and I'll probably be able to do some Christmas shopping before too long. This is the SOP for this time of year.

It's In His Genes

I was watching a video of this orchestral group in Europe who used a kind of "flash mob" approach to performing in public. They did the 4th movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony - with a flash mob chorus and everything. There was a great crowd of people gathered to listen, mostly families. What was really funny though was that part way through the event the camera panned over to street lamp which had a little girl shinnying up it. She stayed there the entire time.

That made me think of Pam's kids, who climb anything, at any time, without provocation. So it's no surprise that Henry follows the family traits. Here he is at the top of a ladder. He stayed there for some time, and was not happy about being lifted down. He wasn't trying to find a way down. He was happy to be up there.

It's in his genes.

Odds and Ends

Just a few pictures that I have on my phone and thought might be worth sharing. These two grand kids are no cuter than the other 9 (in my humble opinion). But then I think ALL of my grand kids are WAY cuter than anyone else's! My standard response when viewing pictures of other people's kids/grand kids is: "wow, he/she is almost a cute as my grand kids."

And to show you where our grand kids get it, here's a photo of their grandma's family circa 1958. I had never really seen too much of Melody in any of our grand kids - until I saw this. Then man.! Several of them were blessed with her good looks.

Cherry (her husband and child), Dorothy, Emmett, Colleen

Ed, Melody

And finally, this is just a fun little video of grant being Grant. What more can I say? It's so just typical of him.

Scenes from a Celebration

2013 marks the 100th year of the partnership between the LDS Church and the Boy Scouts of America. In October the Church produced an extravaganza honoring that long relationship. The event was broadcast and is an hour and a half long. Lots of music and a little acting, mostly from boy actors. Click here to watch it. You won't be disappointed.

To commemorate the anniversary in our stake, we decided to have an old-time Scout-O-Rama. The troops in the stake came together Friday night on our ball fields for a low-key campfire and dutch oven desert contest. The next morning the stake presidency cooked and served pancakes & sausage for everyone for breakfast. Then we all watched the broadcast before delving into scouting activities for the rest of the time.

I loaded up my backpack and spent the night out on the lawn. (I figured, why not? I've spent plenty of nights inside the building.) It was fun, and something I rarely get to do anymore. Below are some photos.

My own set up was spartan, just the way I like it. Oh, I have all the necessities and amenities, but I like to have everything condensed and easily packed up for moving on to the next evening's stopping place, because backpacking in infinitely more appealing to me than camping. So I got this little backpacker's tent after seeing one of our high councilors with one. And that's my big 85L backpack lying next to it. I was snug with my headlamp and Reader's Digest to help me doze off.

Of course, I had planned on waking up early anyway to help with breakfast, but when the trash truck (that reference especially for Atticus and Emmett) came at 4:30 am, it was more than I bargained for. And really, the biggest reason you never want to camp in town is all the noise - All. Night. Long.

Since it was forecast to be cold that night (and it was a lot chillier than most people expected), I decided to make a rare appearance dressed in my buffalo robe and head dress. My good friend Cliff Johnson gave it to me when he moved to Utah. The thing weighs about 25 pounds, but man is it warm! I'm going to have to do some fixin' on the head dress, because it's starting to fall apart. But it was fun to walk around in it.

50 Years

Over 50 years ago my Dad was Assistant Resident Engineer on the I-80 project that cut a new path and laid concrete over the summit past Lake Tahoe. He stayed in a cabin in Blue Canyon. I remember it was very small (even to a small boy). Two rooms, and a toilet in a closet. He would drive up early Monday morning, come home Wed. evening, drive back up early Thursday morning, then home for he weekend Friday night.

His office was in Emigrant Gap and was the coolest cabin I had ever seen. It was an A-Frame style, and during the winter they dug a tunnel through the snow from the outside door upstairs to the front door downstairs. It made a neat slide.

My good friend Stan Richins works for CalTrans, as Dad did. Stan is in charge of highway maintenance in northern California, including I-80 over the summit. He's kind of a big-wig. He bears the main responsibility for keeping the road open during winter storms, and making the decision to close it needs be.

He was at a ceremony the other day where they were handing out these commemorative medallions honoring the upcoming 50th anniversary of the highway's opening. He brought me one. Like I said, he's a good friend.

More Boat Stuff

There's a lot about this catamaran that I'm trying to figure out. I had hoped to figure out how to raise the mast, but ran out of time and daylight.

I did untangle most of the cables today, and threw away nearly all of the ropes. Then I opened the gear box and sifted through the contents.

What was left after more throwing away of junk (including, but not limited to: thrashed life jackets, dozens of thrashed yellow jackets [yes, dead insects], several wasp nests, a broken paddle, and assorted other trash) is what you see below. Actually, there are also two rudders that go on each of the hulls and the tiller, which are not pictured.

The two life jackets look like they might be good ones, and the seat harness looks like what you use to hang of the side of the catamaran in stiff winds in order to keep the boat from flipping. The anchor was attached to a relatively short piece of cotton rope. Not sure why they thought cotton was a good material for that.

These are the sails, and they appear to be in pretty good shape, except that each of them has one fiberglass slat that is missing it's end connector. I'm not sure how important it is to have all of the slats, or how hard it will be to fix/replace the connectors.

Overall, I'd say it will be a long time before I get it "sea-worthy", and will no doubt need some good counsel on how to go about that. But I did download the Assembly manual for this model of Hobie Catamaran, and it looks like it has much of what I need. Perhaps someday next summer.

A Visit to San Jose

Kayla turned 9 yesterday, and we were able to drive down to San Jose to spend some time with Chris and Lorna and the kids. It's probably hard to tell, but that's me with the orange hair. . .

Chris and Lorna have a great tradition of letting their children decide where the family eats out on their birthdays. This is especially good because their children have such good taste in food (I like it at least). Kayla decided we should all go to Red Lobster. Yumm! When the meal was over the wait staff brought her a bowl of ice cream with chocolate sauce. She was thrilled!

After lunch we hung out at home and watched as Kayla opened presents. Chris and I tried to get naps as we sat on the sofas. But for some reason we weren't allowed to be ignorant. We were asked to be sociable instead. What's up with that?!?

A very young looking grandma with one of our very cute grand daughters.

Ian and Kayla get to pet the lobster before we eat him.

Ian and Emmett playing in the fog of some left over dry ice, place in a pan of water. great fun.

We had a great time, and the trip down wasn't too bad. 2 1/4 hours down, and a bit more than 2 1/2 hours back. It was beautiful weather that day too. But mostly it was good to see everyone.

Halloween 2013

My free-hand attempt at a "Nightmare Before Christmas" type face.

My efforts for the ward Trunk-O-Treat activity. It frightened a few, but not too many, young ones. I actually won second prize in the decorating contest. Shoot, if I had known there was going to be a contest, I would have really done it right.

Note the fog, the laughing skeletons, Pam's snake, the caution tape, and the glowing skull lantern. Oh, and the bowl of candy!

From my Instagram postings - the day and night time view of one of my spooky doorstep tricks.

The lighted skeleton heads are one of my favorites. And the door design worked out well. One girl (she must have been at least 10 or 11) was pretty frightened by the moving ghost on the left. Yes!

Arsenic and Old Lace

I'm sure you all recognize scenes from our favorite Halloween movie below. Some of my favorite lines:

"Oo, now I got him Johnny!" Dr. Einstein to Johnny Brewster

" I don't think he and I would go to the same place." Dr. Einstein to Mortimer Brewster

"Oh Elaine." " Oh Mortimer." Mortimer to Elaine and vice verse

"I'm not a Brewster! I'm a son of a sea cook!!" Mortimer to Elaine.

"But across the river (from Brooklyn) in the United States proper. . ."

It was a fun evening.