Northward Bound (again)

Heart Mountain sits between Cody & Powell, WY. It is in a lot of photos and artwork (below) and is the most prominent landmark near Powell.

I will be seeing a lot of Heart Mountain in about a month. The roaving Gilmores are about to uproot again and head to Wyoming. (when will the wandering stop?!). Texas has been good in many ways except for one. My boss! A complete control freak. When I first got here, I realized how difficult this guy was. I got lots of sympathy all year. People wondered how I stayed so long. It seems I have lasted longer than anyone before I quit. Seems to be a pattern that the company is not willing to do anything about. So for my sanity, I had to find a new place to hang my shingle. A job in Powell, WY opened up and we started to think.... we can be back in "God's Country" again.... we can have Sean graduate with his friends at Park in Livingston..... Lacey can be around young adults again, since Powell has a student ward and an institute program at Northwest College....so we are making the leap and are going to WY in a month. Page and Sean will set up in an apartment in Livingston and Lacey and I in Powell. Then on weekends we will either all get together in one of the two places. Lacey has already been invited to a concert by one of her friends in Livingston on Oct. 28th and she is pushing us to hurry. Slow down girl! We still have to pack the house, find a mover, find a house for us in Powell (found the apt. in Livingston already... thanks Jamie!). We have to transfer Sean's school records and go from a block program to a semester system for him. He has friends here that are not too happy he is leaving. Page fell over the dog two weeks ago and still cannot walk. She sprained her foot really bad. The doctor said it may be a couple more weeks.... so who is going to get the move ready? I am so busy at work. We open yet another clinic on Monday. Had a huge open house/ribbon cutting this week for another clinic.... I don't have a lot of time either. I just got a call at 6:30 am this morning from one of the doctors in Wyoming. She is trying to get me into the Master Choral at Northwest College. They have a performance on Nov. 4th and she wants to send me the music. So I guess I'm jumping into the community right away. I hope this is the right move for us. I really want to make this work. I'm tired of wandering.

USC wears down Arizona

Forget about "Bear Down" it was more like "Wear Down"

USC had a tough game in Tucson on Saturday night. USC pulled out the victory 20-3, but it was a hard fought game. I was really impressed with the Wildcat defense, lucky for us they didn't have much of an offense, or at least one that could do anything against our Defense. I wish we had this defense last year when we were playing Texas for the National Championship. I didn't think we were going to score 20 points, but we did, which extends our streak to 55 straight games that we have scored 20 or more points (a NCAA record). We also keep our 24 PAC-10 winning streak alive (longest ever in PAC-10) and 12th straight conference road game win... another record. Bad thing, we lost the country's #1 Wide Receiver, Dwayne Jarrett (see pic above) for at least 2 weeks due to a sprained shoulder. There was some hard hitting out there. At least he got us a touchdown and helped secure the win with his brilliant catch. FIGHT ON TROJANS!!!! We are still ranked #2 in the country, but have a long season ahead. We play up at Washington State next week.

More Tennis Shots

Saturday Sean had a double header. Had a match at Kilgore in the morning then off to Gladewater in the afternoon.  Both schools were about two  hours away, but it worked out because they were near Longview and he had a Stake Dance that night, so I dropped him off, he cleaned up and stayed for the dance, while I drove  home to see the second half of the USC-Nebraska game where we won 28-10.  Sean did really well too.  He won 3 out of his 4 matches.  He won both his singles matches and split his doubles matches.

Sean on a return

Sean serving

Sean serving like Federer

Rained Out

Sean had a tennis match today at school.  Grandpa and Grandma are here from California so we were really excited that they were going to see him play a match.  He started playing at around 4:30 p.m. and by 5 pm it started to pour.  He was tied 4-4 when they had to cancel all the matches due to rain.  The rematch will be on Thursday but the Grandparents go home tomorrow.

Here is Sean in the middle of his serve... ACE!

Sean was playing doubles and was ready for the ball.

Well, Texas really needs the rain, but couldn't it have waited until after the match?

911 plus 5

It's been 5 years since the attacks on this country by Al Qaeda. Like most Americans, I know where I was when I heard the news. I was in Louisiana, at home, about to leave for work when I saw a report about a plane hitting the World Trade Center in New York. I thought it was terrible, but had no idea what was about to unfold the rest of the morning. I was glued to the TV about the report, when I saw a second plane hit the other tower. At that moment, I knew it was not an accident but an attack. I stayed home as long as I could but had to leave for work. I was driving down to Logansport, and I was in Keachi when I heard on the radio that one of the towers collapsed. I felt sick. I began to tear up thinking about all the people in the building. When I arrived in Logansport, I continued to watch the news and saw the 2nd tower fall. Page was substitute teaching that morning and didn't know anything that was going on, but she was just told to keep the kids inside all day. She didn't hear about this until much later in the afternoon when she got out of school. While at work, we started getting phone calls from friends that they could see Air Force One flying over Shreveport with two fighter jets by its side. They landed at Barksdale Air Force Base. The news was reporting that the President was flying to Oklahoma, but we knew he was here in Louisiana. It was a very surreal day. The worse blow came a little later the next day, while I was at work, Page was home watching the news and a picture of my friend, Chris Newton, came on the TV as one of the victims that crashed into the Pentagon. She was in shock and called me. I couldn't beleive it. It was one of my closest friends in High School. He had just moved from California to Virginia for his job and he was flying back to California to tie up some loose ends and pick up the family's golden retriever. He was married and had two small children. He was only 38 when he died in that crash. 911 was terrible, but now it became even more personal. A few weeks later I went back to California to attend and sing at his memorial service in Long Beach. I remember flying from Shreveport to Dallas on the first leg of my trip, and seeing all the military uniformed soldiers with machine guns roaming the Dallas airport. Wow! But I did feel safer. It's been 5 years and our country has really changed. Unfortunately it is very divided on our War against Terror. Today I was listening to the radio and hearing recordings from reporters and people being interviewed 5 years ago and all those feelings came flooding back.

Remember how you felt that day?

My friend, Chris Newton, a victim of 9-11

Wyoming

Page and I got to get away for an early weekend and ended up in Cody and Powell, Wyoming on Thursday through Saturday. The Big Horn Basin is an interesting place. It was settled by Mormon pioneers and it still has a large Mormon population. We saw a few LDS churches and a Visitors Center.

Here is Heart Mountain, a popular landmark near Powell, WY. The air was hazy due to the big wildfires in Montana.

Here was a cool sculpture of Buffalo Bill Cody in Cody, WY

We were suprised to see Nephi's bookstore in Cody, WY. It had lot of scrapbooking supplies, and upstairs LDS books.

Here is a historic hotel in Cody, The Irma. Irma was Buffalo Bill's daughter.

We flew in and out of the Cody/Yellowstone Airport. I was expecting it to be the size of Bozeman, but it was only a quarter of the size. Very small, but the TSA employees were very diligent. They went through every bag and inspected ever piece of undergarment in people's suitcases. There were a few embarassed passengers.

this is a picture of the saloon in The Irma. Original bar that Buffalo Bill installed. Now it is a cafe, and we had a nice lunch before we headed back to Texas.

Longhorns Lose

I hate to talk about the Texas Longhorns, but this time I will make an exception since they lost to Ohio State yesterday in Austin. So the Longhorns winning streak comes to an end, after they ended ours (USC) in the Rose Bowl last January. That takes a little wind out of their sails. USC didn't play this week, but we have a big game against Nebraska next Saturday. I heard about the loss while in the air between Denver and Houston yesterday. Page and I were in Wyoming for the weekend. The pilot kept us all updated on the score. Not a lot of happy Longhorn fans on the plane.

Sean Speaks

Sean did an awesome job speaking in Sacrament Meeting this morning. The Bishop is implementing the "7 Simple Things" that the Bozeman Stake introduced to the members there over a year ago. Sean was telling him about the 7 simple things on the way to a Temple Trip and the Bishop was impressed how Sean knew them off the top of his head. The Bishop also thought it was an answer to prayer since he was concerned about many families in our Ward here in Texas. The Bishop introduced the 7 simple things to the Ward Council last month, and many of them started it with their families. Today the whole sacrament meeting was on the "7 Simple Habits" (Bishop changed the title a little). Sean was really funny. He told everyone that his parents told him not to air any "family dirty laundry" so he said he wasn't going to talk about our family but another family called the "Fillmores" Everyone started laughing, and we were called the Fillmores the rest of the day at Church. Sean spoke for 20 minutes. Sean was very confident and delivered his message very well. He got a lot of compliments. Somebody told Page that she told her daughter to dump her current non-member boyfriend and go for Sean. Sean always impresses all the Mothers. It was nice that Page's parents were here this weekend to hear Sean speak. They will be here until Wednesday then go back home to California.

Andy Shows Brilliance

OK- Federer beat Roddick at the US Open today, but I don't really care for Federer, so don't have much to say about him except it is a great feat to win 3 straight US Opens and 3 Straight Wimbledons. Ok enuf of that! Andy is back in the hunt. I'm so glad to see that. First set he looked like he was going to go down in flames big time. Somehow he settled down and start getting some mojo at the end of the first set and WON the second set. Third set was tight too, and he had his chance to break Federer's serve and take command of the set, but unfortunately Federer also started putting on the burners and took back the 3rd set, then coasted throught the 4th set to win. I hope Roddick can continue to improve his game so we can see more of him in finals. Hate to say it but Federer is just a cut above any other player out there right now.

Roddick's On Fire

Andy Roddick played some brilliant tennis in the US Open quarterfinals last night.  He beat Layton Hewitt in straight sets.  Now he goes onto the Semi-Finals agains Youzhny from Russia.  Youzhny had the biggest upset of the tournament beating Rafael Nadal yesterday.  Nadal is ranked #2 and Youzhny is unranked.  I was in shock. I actually thought Nadal and Roddick would meet in the semis. I think Roddick has a great chance in getting back to the finals.... where he will have to play Federrer.  Just has to beat Youzhny now, nobody else has been able to.

I have a terrible Summer cold.  Started getting it on Tuesday.  I have been miserable.  I hate being sick.  I can't stop sneezing.  I wonder if it is really allergies?

8 Minutes for Agassi

Andre ended his career on Sunday at the US Open

He made it into the 3rd round of the tournament and played some hard fought matches. His body couldn't do it a third time and lost to German, B. Becker. After his match, the people in the stands stood up and gave him an eight minute standing ovation. Unheard of! He was emotional and in tears, heck even I got chocked up watching it. Enjoy your life Andre.

My boy, Andy Roddick won his match in 5 sets yesterday and had to play Becker today. He almost had to play Agassi, which I would have loved to have seen. Instead Andy played Becker today and killed him in three straight sets. Way to go Andy! My second favorite, Nadal, won his game today too. If all goes well, Andy will play Rafael in the semi-finals before Andy goes onto the finals and beats Federrer! I can dream can't I?

USC 50 Arkansas 14

Well college football season is finally here.  USC had a big game against Arkansas on Saturday night.  We beat Arkansas 70-17 last year and they wanted revenge.  The first half Arkansas hung tuff and the crowd was loud and wild.  However,  our great Trojan team proved that they are contenders for the National Championship again this year.  Sean and I wanted to go to the game this year since we are only about 7 hours from the Arkansas campus, but couldn't make it.  John David Booty, our new QB looked real good too.  Our Defense was really impressive.  I think we are going to have a good season this year.   Other games of interest:  BYU lost to Arizona by 3 points last night and Montana State had the biggest upset of the day, beating Colorado. 

John David Booty- QB

$2.43

I was in Livingston on Friday and found a gas station with gas for only $2.43 a gallon.  My tank was 3/4 full, but i filled up anyway.  Keep going down!  Keep going down!

Fundamentalist Mormons?

Since the capture of Warren Jeffs, the prophet/leader of the Foundamentalist LDS faith, they keep talking about fundamentalist mormons on the news. What? It really bugs me they are using the name Fundamentalist Mormons. It makes the LDS church seem like it has some part in the kooky group. I hope those poor women in Colorado City can get some help.

You know what else bugs me? I'm not condoning polygamy. The LDS church has stopped that practice for awhile. BUT, interesting how the world is disgusted with these polygamists. OK, maybe they have a right to be, BUT (again) I wonder how many of these condemers have extra-marital affairs, or have fathered children with multiple women out of wedlock, or women have children by different men. So many people think having multiple sex partners is just fine.... I guess, ... as long as you don't marry all of them, at least at the same time. Is that perfectly ok? Now attack that lifestyle and see how people react.

I learned something the other day. I was talking to a Shia Muslim from the middle east the other day and he said they still practice polygamy. I didn't know that. Interesting. Anyway, this is just a rant since I keep hearing "Fundamentalist Mormons" all the time now, and I don't like it. I don't want anyone thinking that this group in Colorado City, AZ is affiliated anyway with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.