Weekend Update

Today our church was cancelled for the dedication of the Oquirrh Mountain Temple. We went to the open house last month so the kids could see the inside of it before the dedication. A couple of months ago for the Draper Temple dedication, they shortened Church to just 2 hours, and then we had an afternoon dedication. This time, they cancelled all regular Church meetings and we could either go to the 9 am or the 3 pm dedication session. I would have preferred the 9 am, to "get it over with" and have the rest of the day to ourselves, but I was overruled. Now that its here and I see the stress that Becky has had this past week and the stress Daniel will face in the coming months, I'm glad they were able to have one more morning to sleep in before school starts tomorrow morning. To celebrate, I made waffles.

But to close out the corn season, here are this year's corn bloopers. I really only got less than a dozen good ears of corn this year. I've been watching the professional farm fields and I think mine are planted too far apart. I'm going to experiment next year and plant it closer together in a row.

Even Nacho enjoys eating the corn:

Since the corn is now done growing, I don't have a reason to post very frequently, so these posts may return to being few and far between. We have had an eventful month, if not more stressful than fun:

Becky's foot continues to heal well. She's had fairly minimal pain (at least from what I can tell) in the foot that had the surgery. It hasn't been pain free, but mostly she experiences pain in her foot that still needs the surgery. It will probably be in December that she has the other foot operated on and then take the Christmas break to recover.

The 14th was Daniel's 17th birthday. It's hard to believe he will be a senior in High School this year. We are also starting the application process to all of the colleges. Right now, it seems his preference is to go to BYU, but he wants to see what kind of scholarship they give him. He's in the top 25 in his class, and he's done very well on his tests, so we'll see. His birthday was fairly low key. Our friend Andrea was visiting from back East, and so we had a pizza party, opened gifts, and then he went to work.

Here is Dan lighting his birthday candles. You'll notice a long 7' long wood pole in the background....it was one of his gifts. He wants to carve a quarterstaff.

Could any cake for Daniel be complete without a frog candle? (From the time he was a small boy, he loved frogs and would hop around the house like a frog. Even though he's outgrown that now (we hope), we will still always associate frogs and Dan.)

Here is Dan at his new job making take-and-bake pizza's. (He didn't know I was taking this shot.)

While Andrea was here, we drove her down to Salt Lake to see the two new temples. As we drove up near the Draper Temple, we turned up a cul-de-sac to see some of the big homes. We were saddened to see 5 or 6 huge homes that were in various states of construction and had been foreclosed by the bank. This is one of the homes. The view from the back would be spectacular! It makes me sad. (Both the size of the home, and the fact that the economy is such that this could happen.)

Becky and I also had our Church lessons which always get kind of stressful. I taught a lesson on the Wentworth Letter (the Articles of Faith) and kept thinking back to Primary and learning the AoF. It reminded me of my Blazer Banner and made me wonder if I still had it. I pulled my box of childhood mementos off the shelf and I FOUND IT! I used it as a visual aid in my lesson and it brought back a flood of memories. I remember that the buttons and medalions never stuck very well, and in fact, most of them had fallen off and were in the bag. I used a glue gun to hot glue them back on and found I was missing the #1 and #7 medalions. But I PROMISE, I earned them! I mean, who doesn't earn #1?? Even though I found this, I wish I still had my Targeteer Flag.

But the biggest project this month was getting Becky's classroom ready for school. She found out just a couple of weeks ago that they were moving her to a portable on the other side of the school. Since she only teaches a couple of classes a day, she doesn't really have the seniority or clout to object and is forced to move around wherever they tell her. The frustrating part of it was the fact that the school district and school staff were so slow to get things put in place. As of last weekend, none of her furniture (desks, bookcases, shelves, computers, etc.) had been moved to the new portable and Back to School Night was held last Wednesday. Since she had to have the room ready to meet the parents and students, Daniel and I loaded all of the furniture into the back of our van and moved it for her. (The custodian, who should have been very happy that we had taken a big load off his shoulders, instead became very defensive. It's a good thing I wasn't there when he came around because I would have had a few things to say to him.) So we've spent the last week getting things set up, patching and sanding walls, vacuuming, trading broken desks, etc. (I even rehung many of the posters that the gym teacher [who shares the portable with Becky and teaches health] had hung up. He did it about 5 minutes before the Back to School Night started and they were all crooked. It even bothered me more than Becky. (I think it bothered me because the guy is a typical, cocky gym teacher.) Becky spent another 4-5 hours yesterday getting the final papers filed and put away, and things ready for Monday. (She won't go in until late morning and teaches 2 ESL classes and one Honors Spanish class.) They finally got the electricity hooked up 2 days ago, so she will have air conditioning and lights. (It's supposed to remain fairly warm this next week.) For back to school night, they had to run extension cords to her portable so she could show her powerpoint.

Here is here portable...it's the one furthest to the right.

And here are our kids in her classroom:

The kids noted that the posters behind them are kind of a travelogue of our vacations the past couple of years: There is one for Cancun, Chichen Itza, the Aztec Calendar (our Mexico City trip next month) and the boy/girl restroom signs came from Cabo San Lucas two years ago when we walked through the town to find a paper shop. Becky was in heaven as she looked at all of the books and posters. The kids found it very boring and Sara reminded us of that.

Finally, we spent an evening last night at the Montgomery Pool with Becky's family. It was a nice way to end a hot day (it was 101 degrees yesterday).



Waffles are all done. 3 more hours until the dedication. This is my kind of Sunday!