Friends

It's good to have friends. In 1972 I was stationed in Korea. I was fortunate enough to be stationed in Seoul, at a U.S. Army base, Headquarters of 8th Army in Yongsan. I began to attend the LDS servicemen's branch there and met lots of wonderful people. One of which became our bishop some 20 years later in San Antonio. His name was Larry Neuberger and he was one of the few that was over there with his wife and family. But that is not what this post is about. This is a post about some other friends I met. One young lady who was so friendly and outgoing you couldn't help but be friends with her was an Army nurse. A Lieutenant at the time, I believe. Her name was Linda LaRock. Another was a young Army specialist, who happened to be a Chaplains' assistant. His name was Dean Bishop. The three of us became pretty good friends and would quite often go eat together after church and just do things together. I was married, but my wife, and baby were back in the U.S. but Linda and Dean were both young and single. Well, it wasn't long and I think Linda and Dean, I believe it was mostly Dean, at least at the beginning, started becoming more than just friends. At some point they fell in love and not too awfully long after returning to the U.S. sealed that love with an eternal marriage. I still had a few years commitment to the Army, but it wasn't long before Linda's and Dean's commitments on active duty were completed and they returned to civilian life. Linda to her nursing both in a hospital and in the Army Reserves. Dean finished his degree and then went on to Pharmacy school at U of U. While he was at school I was stationed at Ft. Douglas, Utah, which was practically, now is, part of the U of U campus. Because of this we only lived a couple miles apart and again saw each other often. Jeanne and Linda also became good friends and in the process they discovered that it was Jeanne's cousin who tracted out Linda, taught her the Gospel and baptized her. We did lots together including having Salt Water aquariums, playing games, fishing in the Uintahs and so on. Well as things go . . . children came along, careers took us further apart, life got busy and we saw less and less of each other. However, at least a couple of our children remember visits to their house in Sandy and thier big doberman (big loving doberman). We stayed in touch and invited each other to Weddings when that time in our lives came, and when we could make it we'd attend. The last time we saw Linda and Dean was at their son's wedding some 4 + years ago. We couldn't make it to thier daughter's. Two days ago, Friday, Jeanne got a call and Linda and Dean said they would be up our way Saturday morning (yesterday) and wondered if they could stop in and visit. Of course we were excited to see them. Jeanne fixed a wonderful breakfast and we spent a couple or three hours finding out what had been happening in each other's lives. They have been ordinance workers in the Jordan River Temple every Saturday for the past 3 1/2 years and are now going to be working at the new Draper Temple. It was a wonderful visit and we are so glad they came to see us.

I Love My Grandkids

February's family party was held at our house. I love it when the grandkids come over and we get to spend a little time together. I got some photos of some of the fun they were having.



Colt and Riley are at the age when just jumping down the stairs to see how much air time they can get is entertaining. I don't know which one finally ended up jumping the farthest but I stopped it before one of them broke a leg or something. It's hard to tell but in this photo Riley is flying through the air as Colt Watches.

The kids also love to play air hockey. This looks like a close game as Cody and Taydon are having fun.

Problem

I've got a problem. It seems lately that this blog has been heavily weighted towards Avery. Even though I love that little sweety pie, I love all my grandchildren just as much. Maybe the little teeny ones are the only ones that will hold still long enough to let me get good photos of them.

The rest of 2009 will be dedicated to trying to get more photos of every member of my family on this blog. Of course, with some of them living in distant locations I'll tend to get more of them when we visit them or they come and visit us, but I hope you will all cooperate when I'm around and have my camera in hand.

Avery's Blessing Day

Today was a special day for Avery. We were honored to be part of it. Here are a few of the photos I took to remember the day by. The beautiful blessing dress was made by her Grandma Law.

I love this widget . . Isn't it cool!?!?

Just click on the top photo to see the next one.

Product Review - New Printer - EPSON Artisan 700

Check out my review. Click Here to read it.

Nyah, Nyah, Nyah - Look what we got!

Yesterday we got to spend the day with a very special young lady. Melissa had to go to some CE (read - get away with some friends for a few hours) and she trusted us with here very own sweet baby.

















At first, I don't think she thought it was such a
great idea (Avery that is). Melissa may have agreed.








But we finally bored her into submission.




After a while she kind of thought that her grandma wasn't so bad.

Thanks for trusting us with this special cargo Melissa and Jeff. Oh, and thanks for the sandwich Jeff.

The Most Important Day of My Life

I won't keep you in suspense. . . The most important day of my life was February 18th 19__. It was the day Jean Burton was born. I wasn't even a year old yet and of course I didn't know it was the most important day of my life. I didn't know that only a few miles away a new little baby girl was being born that would become the most important person in my life. I didn't know that one day I would fall in love with this beautiful girl and that her and I would be sealed together for time and all eternity and that she would be the true joy of my life. We grew up only a mile or so away from each other until I was about nine, when we moved to another part of town, but as far as either of us know, we never met. It wasn't until I'd pretty well made a mess of my life that we finally met. After doing it all wrong I had finally figured out what I wanted and I made a list of the qualifications of the woman I would marry. It was a pretty precise list. After dating a few girls I was hounded into asking a total stranger out. I don't know what made her accept my invitation, and even more I can't figure out what convinced her to accept a second date. I look back at what I looked like then and all I can say is it's a good thing for me that she wasn't seeing the outer me. Fortunately for me she saw the person I was trying to become and not the one I was. I soon figured out that she met every single criteria on my list. And then, to top it off, I really enjoyed being around her. After a few months and lots of begging on my part she accepted my invitation to marry me.

Jeanne has been the light of my life since 1973. She has loved and raised our children, she has let me do some really stupid things and hung in there even when she thought she was crazy for doing so. But, she has also helped me grow up and become a much better person than I ever would have been otherwise.

I'm truly grateful for that special February 18th when my darling little Jeanne was brought into the world. I'm grateful for her parents for bringing her into the world and for the way they raised her. I'm grateful to Heavenly Father for blinding her for a period of time until she had married me and it was too late.

I'm grateful for Jeanne and the love and happiness she has brought into my life.

HAPPY BITHDAY SWEETHEART!!!

Happy Birthday Wade

February 10th is a special day in our family as we celebrate the birth of Wade. It has always been a blessing to have him in our family. When he grew up and got married he added even more to our family with a wife and wonderful children who we also love. Wade is one of the most honest people you will every have the pleasure to know. You may not agree with him but you will never doubt that you know where he stands and what he believes. He gives his employer more than an honest day's work every day. You can count on him no matter what as his word is his bond. If he tells you he'll do something or be somewhere or whatever he might tell you, you can count on it. It will be done, it will be done right and it will be done when he says it will be done, and probably a little better and a little sooner. Wade tries very hard to come across as a tough old curmudgeon, but if you give him a chance you'll see he's a teddy bear in disguise. He will do everything he can for whoever needs it, especially if he calls you his friend or a member of his family. Wade is a wonderful father. He loves his children as deeply and completely as any man can. There is nothing more important to him than his precious children. They always come first. Wade, we wish you the very best of Happy Birthdays and hope you always know of our love for you and how proud we are of the fine man you are.

Happy Birthday Dustin

As far as I am concerned nobody deserves a happy birthday, or even a happy life more than Dustin. Dustin has been said to be marching to the beat of a different drummer and I am so proud of him for not only marching to that beat but doing it with passion and conviction. Certainly one of the things I admire most about Dustin, and there are many things, is his passion. Dustin is like a bull dog with his jaw locked on the ring of those "bulls" that are important to him. Dustin is a giving person, almost to a fault, if that is possible. Money may be very tight, there may be no time left over, his strength may be spent, but if there is a need he will find a way to do whatever he can to fill that need. Dustin genuinely cares about people, all people, and that is one of his great passions. His first passion is his family. He loves and cherishes his family and cares for them with all the tender feelings a great husband and father can offer. Dustin, if you read this I hope you know how much your mother and I love you and how happy we are to call you son. As a side note, I included Tamra in the photo because I think that even as good as you are, Tamra adds to you. We hope you have a wonderful day on your birthday and every day.

P.S. If any of this looks familiar it is because I used some of the same stuff I wrote in The World's Best Blog when I was writing about my family a couple years ago. I felt strongly about these things then as I do now.

Project of the Month

Okay, so it's not all that pretty, but like a lot of things, it ain't pretty but it's mine. A week or so before Christmas I told Jeanne that I probably needed to upgrade the computer I do all my video work on. Even the simple video I was putting together for the family for last years fun was slow and difficult. I have some money left in my old Signature Video account and I'll use that. I'll be doing some more video for the quilter down in St. George soon and she will pay me some for that, so I should be okay.

Jeanne, being the very clever girl that she is, figured that was perfect - that could be my Christmas. So when she told people what we had got for Christmas she told about her new HD LCD television for her sewing room and her new MP3 player from me, and oh by the way, Scott is updating his computer for Christmas. Yesterday was a day off from work and so I went and visited a few little computer stores around the area. The kind who have computer parts, not the ones that sell the factory made like HP and Dell. After talking to a few people, I decided to go with the Intel chip this time. so I selected a new motherboard, and processor, a new graphics card and RAM. Oh, by the way, the power supply in my old case is not powerful enough to handle all the new stuff so I have to have a new power supply. Oh. . . with the new motherboards and faster ram we have to use a new type of hard drive, now the connections have to be Serial ATA (SATA), so guess what, even though I have about 300 Gigabytes worth of Hard Drives in the old system, none of those are any good anymore and I have to get new ones. The good news is that all this stuff is lots cheaper than it used to be. Well at least cheaper per byte. So the nice young feller hands me a bid, including tax of only $652.92. That's only about $200 to $250 more than I was hoping for. It's sure a good thing I am planning on using my ugly old case and the current DVD ROM and DVD burner in it. Oh, and I found out I can use the firewire card that's in it too. Good news, though they only run about $20.

In 1995 I bought my first "PC". PC meaning it was one of the Intel based or Windows operating system computers. Before that I had had Comodore brand which was a totally different system. Fortunately I wrote about it in my journal so I went back and looked at it today. For just the computer itself - no monitor, no printer - I paid around $2000 and I got a computer that operated at a speed of 100 Mhz or about 1/50th of the speed of what I'll be upgrading to. (If that doesn't sound like much think of this - If you had a car that could travel at 100 MPH in 1995 and it increased by 50 times it would now be able to go in a straight line from Los Angeles to New York City and back to Las Vegas in one hour) The first one had 16 Megabyte of RAM this one will have 3 Gigabyte or about about 62.5 times the RAM. My original had a hard drive that stored 1 Gigabyte of data. This one will have about 800 times the storage (If your 1995 100 MPH car originally had a 20 gal tank it would now hold enough gas to make that same trip 3 times, even at 1 mile per gallon, without stopping). I guess I shouldn't complain about the cost.

I'm so glad that I also wrote the cost of memory at the time. As I said I had 16 Mb of RAM and it would have cost me about $45 per MB for additional RAM. At that price 1 GB of RAM would have been $45,000. Yesterday they wanted to charge me $29.99 per stick of 1GB which is $.03 per Megabyte. Not bad huh.

I came home after my shopping trip and spent a few hours on the internet (a strange new phenomenon in 1995) and got the price down (including shipping) to just barely over $400. AND OBTW - I'm getting better, faster RAM for $.01 per MB. - I'm sure glad I didn't invest in RAM waiting for the price to go up to sell.

Keeping my same case, DVD/CD ROMs and Burners and firewire card is also going to save me around $175 to $200. Well it's ugly but it's mine. We'll see how it goes on getting it installed and up and working.