A week of visitors. Vedel spent the night with us Thursday evening. Friends from Kingman spent Friday night and Vicki's Aunt Ruth, Uncle Ray their son Eric, his wife and four children spent Sunday morning and afternoon.
Vedel had a conference in town Friday morning and we always love having him join us.
The friends from Kingman came to hear Katherine play her keyboard in Cats' Las Vegas. What a spectacular performance. We had a pancake breakfast Saturday morning and the friends were off by 10:30.
Sabin's come down on occasion when their grandson, Mark has a gymnastic competition in St. George. Eric works in Las Vegas in doing contracting documentation for Big D, and heads home most weekends but on these occasions, he stays here and we enjoy having them over.
Last night (Saturday) as part of my High Council duties, Vicki and I went to a appreciation dinner for a group called Friends in the Desert. Started by St. Timothy's Episcopal Church 15 years ago, volunteers from Henderson provide approximately 30,000 meals each year to homeless people or struggling families. This has become a multi-faith outreach program. Our stake participates by providing 80-100 meals on the first Tuesday of every month. What a wonderful opportunity to meet such neat people who are so kind in reaching out.
Today at church, we had the new family search program introduced to us. This will be a very cool program that takes the work of doing a family name in the temple from 16 to 5 steps. In the process, people who have a strong desire to not do repeat work will have an easier time finding duplicates and also know which names are already in the queue. The part Vicki really liked was that when you first sign on, the family search program will automatically show what your pedigree chart looks like and as you focus on one person, you can open a "google" world map that will show you all the important spots on the earth for your life or the life of the person you are researching.
The program is being rolled out one temple at a time and our temple is supposed to be live on February 26. There have been delays. The rumor is that there is so much interest in this new method that the system has been overloaded and additional servers are needed. Makes you kind of wish you lived in Las Vegas, doesn't it?
TTFN
-Ron
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Sunday, February 17, 2008
17 February 2008 (Happy Birthday Mom!)
We found out this week that we have a dog that's a digger. Vicki was upstairs working on a sewing project when she heard toasty barking downstairs. When she came downsairs, she found that the windows needed a wash job. Toasty had found his way into a flower bed when the drip system (which has turned into a full fledged shower since he has chewed all the tubes) was running. Water plus dirt plus puppy equals dirty windows.
We started planting the replacement plants this week-end and will finish up tomorrow. We have included a couple of pictures for you to review. One of the cool things is that now we have our own Brady Bunch fake grass back yard. I never thought I would see the day but with the concrete about 6 inches under the "grass" it had to happen. Should be good for the water bill.
Katherine and Ben continue practicing for the "Savior of the world presentation on April 10th 11th and 12th. They are really enjoying the time spent in preparation. We are looking forward to the presentation.
TTFN
-Ron
We started planting the replacement plants this week-end and will finish up tomorrow. We have included a couple of pictures for you to review. One of the cool things is that now we have our own Brady Bunch fake grass back yard. I never thought I would see the day but with the concrete about 6 inches under the "grass" it had to happen. Should be good for the water bill.
Katherine and Ben continue practicing for the "Savior of the world presentation on April 10th 11th and 12th. They are really enjoying the time spent in preparation. We are looking forward to the presentation.
TTFN
-Ron
Sunday, February 10, 2008
10 February 2008
This week reminds me of a talk when President Hinckley quoted Jenkins Lloyd Jones:
“Life is like an old-time rail journey—delays, sidetracks, smoke, dust, cinders and jolts, interspersed only occasionally by beautiful vistas and thrilling bursts of speed.
“The trick is to thank the Lord for letting you have the ride” (“Big Rock Candy Mountains,” Deseret News,
And though most weeks seem to be filled with delays, sidetracks, smoke, dust cinders and jolts, we have seen some of the beautiful vistas this week.
Katherine is playing the piano in her high school's (LVA) Broadway version of Cats. The royalty company has encouraged different locations to use indigenous settings. The setting LVA chose was the Las Vegas neon sign graveyard. (If you haven't seen it, it really is something.) They have done further adaptations with the different cats taking on Las Vegas personalities including Sigfield and Roy, Liberace, The Rat pack and current Mayor Oscar Goodman. Vicki and I have our tickets for the 22nd of February. Katherine told us it took three nights to finally get good. I have seen these kids production. If Katherine says it finally is good, it's great. These kids live for the arts. The newspaper said that production costs are close to $100,000 (a good portion for royalties) but that is what the theater department puts into it to make a great production.
Ben turned in a biology project that included a DNA Model with a select portion that was supposed to represent a protein within the DNA. He found a way to build the model using items we had in the house including a coat hanger, clothes pins, corks, small spools, wire, paint and hot glue. It is amazing what he did.
Spencer celebrated his eleventh birthday. Although he loved the gifts from his Grandparents and siblings, he we crazy for the "electronics learning lab" circuit board from his parents. He is now learning of transistors, resistors, capacitors, wires, diodes, batteries and STUFF. He has spent every last minute moving wires and pieces around to learn how they interact. He even found that different family members generate a different pitch when the complete a circuit di to the amount of water in each system. (Spencer has the highest pitch.)
Vicki and I continue to facilitate the learning. Its great to have a family.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
03 February 2008 "Y" my Daughter
Well now we know why Nana always makes Swedish Pancakes when we come to visit. With a full 60% of the votes, our favorite dish that Nana makes is Swedish Pancakes!
"Y" my daughter? That was the conversation Vicki and I were having this past Friday. Since Katherine was accepted into BYU, she now had to find a way to pay for her college. That included writing three 300 word essays. Once those were completed, we had about 20 minutes before the deadline to look for additional money's that were available in the BYU comprehensive scholarship fund. It was reminiscent of when she completed the early admission filing deadline by 15 minutes and she remarked, "I was 15 minute early." Well for scholarship applications, she was four minutes early.
Spencer "crossed over" from cub scouts to boy scouts on Tuesday
night. Wouldn't you know that on his final night they had a pine wood derby race. That was Spencer's fourth pine wood derby race in cub scouts and one too many as far as I am concerned. This year, he did the majority of the work so the car was much more his than Dad's or Mom's. His average speed
of 4 races was 61.7 mph and he took fourth overall. The grand prize winner was 62.8 MPH. To give an idea of how close the race was, the close up picture shows Spencer's car in the 2nd from right lane and the winner in the 4th lane. The other second and third place cars were clocked at 62.8 and 62.7 MPH respectively. Spencer's car was second fastest in the ward and he got a very nice 2nd place trophy.
The video shows Spencer's Car in lane one and the grand champion in lane 3.
TTFN
-Ron
"Y" my daughter? That was the conversation Vicki and I were having this past Friday. Since Katherine was accepted into BYU, she now had to find a way to pay for her college. That included writing three 300 word essays. Once those were completed, we had about 20 minutes before the deadline to look for additional money's that were available in the BYU comprehensive scholarship fund. It was reminiscent of when she completed the early admission filing deadline by 15 minutes and she remarked, "I was 15 minute early." Well for scholarship applications, she was four minutes early.
Spencer "crossed over" from cub scouts to boy scouts on Tuesday
night. Wouldn't you know that on his final night they had a pine wood derby race. That was Spencer's fourth pine wood derby race in cub scouts and one too many as far as I am concerned. This year, he did the majority of the work so the car was much more his than Dad's or Mom's. His average speed
of 4 races was 61.7 mph and he took fourth overall. The grand prize winner was 62.8 MPH. To give an idea of how close the race was, the close up picture shows Spencer's car in the 2nd from right lane and the winner in the 4th lane. The other second and third place cars were clocked at 62.8 and 62.7 MPH respectively. Spencer's car was second fastest in the ward and he got a very nice 2nd place trophy.The video shows Spencer's Car in lane one and the grand champion in lane 3.
TTFN
-Ron
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